I have found a truly wonderful marvelous amazing humdinger of a bug in the AI tech trade. I will not send an email to Malafador because they did not reply to my previous emails on other subjects. I will not post it here because I want to see how long it takes you AI hotshots to figure it out. I will give some hints.
0) It is NOT a cheat.
1) It is NOT the package with resources 200/200/200 wanted (and recieved) that I mentioned in my turn 45 report on thread TDM-Modpack politics in really big games.
2) I do NOT look at the AI tech tree file to see what they research.
3) I do NOT change the player select from computer control and examine their research report - that would be cheating.
4) I do NOT request tech "any area" for the trade because it does not work. Presumably that is to prevent fishing expeditions. Frankly I see no purpose to the option because it simply never has resulted in a trade when I first tried to use it.
5) I do NOT use a laundry list of tech areas on the wanted list because that also does not work.
6) I DO examine the race report to see what techs have been researched in the past, they provide an indication of what may be regularly scheduled.
7) I DO keep careful notes of what traded and when.
8) I DO offer more than one tech on the initial few passes.
9) If he says he cannot afford it, then I make note that something may be there.
10) If he says there is nothing of interest, then I move on to the next group.
11) If a trade goes through I make note of what was exchanged.
12) When I have a list of potential trades, I examine my list of past trades to determine what is worth the least.
13) I generally trade something of about equal value.
14) I usually trade with my Brotherly partners.
15) I trade every few turns to avoid giving too high a tech level on trades.
16) I offered a totally unreasonable tech to avoid trading him what he wanted. It Worked!

It takes a dozen passes or so to get a successful trade. Since one pass is now taking about ten minutes in my game, I am about to stop trading tech. So I do not care if the bug is fixed in the next patch. Besides my map has so many ruins on it that I can get all the remaining tech off them. Since it is such a unfair exploit you may just want to email Malafador and when a week or so has passed they can post a list of who really found the bug. You can brag here immediately of course in a race to see who finds it first. It is such an awful piece of nonsense that I cannot imagine a patch being released without fixing it if it was known......

Edit :
OOPS, I did not mention the trade on the TDM politics post! I mentioned it on the scenario post of the game at turn 45. Oh well, those who look in there for the download found it.....

[This message has been edited by LCC (edited 10 June 2001).]