Trading

[General Hawkwing]

Has anyone noticed that trying to trade with AI empires is near impossible in demo 0.56?
I have given them even trades (Gas Col. for Rock Col.) and sweet trades (Gas Col.& cargo2 & propul. for Rock Col.) to no avail. I had one empire I had a treaty with refuse to trade an attack ship for a good developed planet!
I know demo 0.51 was to willing to trade but now it seems to be just the opposite.
In my current game, I tried to GIVE propul. tech to a empire who had gone to war with another empire at my request as a token of thanks and it refused! I know my propul. level was at least 4 levels higher and would have been of value to the empire.
Is there a good trading AI out there? Anywhere?

[Noble713]

The only trades I've been successful with is resource trades, usually 1 or 1.5 organics and radioactives (each) for 1 mineral.

Colony tech trades haven't worked for me either.

[Cyrien]

I have had many successful trades with the comp... generally to get any usefull tech you need to bribe them so massively that it isn't worth it. For Resource trades I just give them about 5k or 10k more of resources overall then I am trading for. Important since I tend towards races with poor mining skills and farming skills but decent refining. Trade the extra refining amounts for all the minerals and organics I need.


Havn't tried gift giving.

[Mark Dey]

Actually, I've found that trading ships seems to work well in .56. For the longest time I tried to do an even exchange of colonization tech, and then I thought 'Well, if I can get his ship, I can reverse engineer it.' It depends on the relative strength of the empires, but I managed to trade 3 ES scouts for 1 Gas Colony ship in the beginning part of the game. Well worth it!

[General Hawkwing]

A question: was the colony ship filled with population? That would be a tremendous boost if they breathed a different atmosphere. Would need to transfer them to a planet or other ship before you demantled the ship

One other quirk I noticed was during the middle game I had a partnership treaty with an empire who had been on the short end of a war with another AI empire. My score clearly indicated a superior advantage of my partner. I tried an even trade for colony tech and was rejected. The next turn I demanded the tech in tribute and received it?!

[Mark Dey]

Yes, there was population on it, but it was only 4M, and they breathed the same atmosphere as me. Oh well.

As for demanding tribute, I've found that AI empires will consistently give away tons of stuff if you are more powerful than them. There's been many times where the AI gave me everything that they had (planets, ships, etc.) but wouldn't surrender to me. In one game I just finished, near the end I met a race that had been hidden from me most of the game. Since I was in 2nd and had nothing to lose, I demanded 20 (any) planets and 60 (any) ships. They gave me all of what I asked for, putting me into first place!