Secrets to trading with AI?

[Saxon]

Some great ideas here, I especially like the ship stealing to keep up in the technology race. Doing the trade for old worthless ships for new ones does seem pretty cheap, but capturing them in battle seems fair.

However, if I want to be a peaceful trading race, making deals with everyone and coming out ahead of all of them, how do I do it? I can’t see what the other guy has unless we are fighting, so I don’t know what to deal for. On top of that, I never get to see what he is offering me, so I don’t know what I am agreeing to trade. I suspect I am missing something pretty basic, please don’t be shy to hit me over the head with it!

Thanks!

[Taqwus]

Saxon, you've hit upon what's possibly a weakness -- it's tricky to find out what tech an ally has. You can use espionage to steal ship designs or more directly get a technology report, IIRC, but doing so risks irritating them... If you're lucky, a mutual enemy captured one of their ships, and you can use crew insurrection to take THAT back, and examine it.

AFAICT, AI allies generally keep mum about their tech, and whether or not they could help (or, conversely, whether they badly need assistance).


------------------
-- The thing that goes bump in the night

[Krakenup]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Saxon:
However, if I want to be a peaceful trading race, making deals with everyone and coming out ahead of all of them, how do I do it? I can?t see what the other guy has unless we are fighting, so I don?t know what to deal for. On top of that, I never get to see what he is offering me, so I don?t know what I am agreeing to trade. I suspect I am missing something pretty basic, please don?t be shy to hit me over the head with it!

---

Trading with the AI is simple except that you don't know what you'll get. When you set up the 'give' part, just click on everything except what you don't want to give him - such as anything you've actually researched. What you end up giving him is basically the starting techs, but you give him a lot of them. What you 'want' is his colony tech and a few others. It's always safe to ask for starting techs since if he hasn't made any progress he'll at least give you something. Also, the AI usually researches Construction, Intelligence, Chemistry and Industry fairly early. If he doesn't have something, he will reject the trade, but you can try again next time - with the same 'give' list, over and over. It's like 'Go Fish' - you just ask for what you need or what you think he has. Once you have established that he has something (e.g., starting techs), you can ask for that every time, and he'll give you any upgrades.

[dogscoff]

QUOTE:
tricky to find out what tech an ally has
/QUOTE

Research long rang scanners. They're fairly cheap and can get you loads of ship designs, especially from your allies. Either that or just trade ships at random to to find out what tech he has.

If you trade 2 or 3 cheap, useless ships for a larger ship then you won't feel ripped off even if the components gained aren't too special. This is especially true if you build "hollow" ships specifically for trade purposes. You can always scrap the ship you just got if it has no research value.

------------------
"Pinky, are you pondering what I'm pondering?"
"I think so Brain but, if you replace the P with an O, my name would be Oinky, wouldn't it?"

[Suicide Junkie]

quote:

---

However, if I want to be a peaceful trading race, making deals with everyone and coming out ahead of all of them, how do I do it?

---

I've been there, and life as a merchant can be quite rewarding.
The first thing to do is build lots of Escorts (be sure to include at least one weapon).
Then when you meet your first Alien race, try to establish a peace treaty. I always give a gift or tribute on the first turn in order to make a good impression.
When you have a trade alliance or better, start offering trades. Three escorts will get you anything up to about cruiser size.
Always choose the lowest ship in the list of AI ships to trade with, but avoid transports and colony ships (once you have their colonization tech).
Take your new ships home to analyse, and continue to pump out your ships. Be sure to keep enough ships in stock to beat back attacks on your homeworld, and let the sold ships clear out of the area before you sell a second batch to the same empire.
This way, you get the best technology from each of the other empires, and by combining it, you get a wide base of tech areas and are second place in each specific tech.

I always put the best technology on the ships I sell to the AIs, since I know they won't analyse them, but for a human, I would install the only buyer-known regular techs with lots of racial techs added on.

------------------
The latest info on Pirates & Nomads (forum thread).
-<Download V2.1>- (Now with extra scenario support!)
-<Download V1.7>- (With default AIs patched)
-<Download compatible EMPs for P&N v1.2 through v1.7>-
-<Download SJs latest AI Patcher>-
Visit My Homepage

Other Links:
-<Play By Web>-
-<Schlock Mercenary>- (great space-based webcartoon)
-<8-bit Theater>- (fun comic with the pixellated FF1 characters)

[This message has been edited by suicide_junkie (edited 27 July 2001).]

[zeep]

Ive had alot of luck getting Ice and gas col tech by offering empty systems that I dont even own. I have yet to be turned down if I include 5000 minerals.
-zeep

[Dragonlord]

Oooh Zeep, that's diabolical and somewhat cheap I never understood what the "trading systems" thing did anyway.

If I play in a game with both humans and AI though, I would not use that trick. I would give the AI my colonisation tech in return for his. That way the next player with my native colon. tech who meets the AI can't get anymore good tech from them

[Saxon]

Again, some very helpful information. Let me summarize and see if I am missing anything.

1. The games isn’t really set up to handle trading. After all, it is 4X, not 4X and 1T.
2. You need to be on good terms with other races, trade alliances as a minimum level of relations.
3. That is ok, if you are trying to be a peaceful trader, you want this sort of thing anyway.
4. Trading ships for other ships, then analyzing them seems more effective than just trading technology.
5. If you go for tech trades, you need to keep track of what you are doing. More of those bits of paper next to the computer that my girlfriend hate…
6. The computer will give you the lowest tech they have in a Category, you then have to keep trading to get their better stuff in that Category.
7. Thus, if you are going to be a trader, do it early, otherwise you will spend many turns getting to something useful.
8. AI researches Construction, Intelligence, Chemistry and Industry pretty early, you should research other things and trade for those.
9. You can cheat like a very evil person, offering things like systems you don’t own. This clearly suggests a Ferengi shipset.
10. An allegiance subverter or ship insurrection could be quite useful, as you get more ships to trade, often ships that you don’t really want anyway. As they still look the same as the enemy, I have a nasty habit of looking past them and letting them get wiped out in unfriendly systems.
11. The more races you are on good terms with, the more trading you can do and the more trade alliances you gain from. This is a more viable strategy in large galaxies with lots of races.

A couple of things stand out in this. One is that the income I get from trade always seems pretty low, you need a pretty big economy on the side to do this. No Hong Kong’s with zero resources but lots of trade. Maybe some of the mods allow this, but not in the regular game. Another is that it is a neat role playing opportunity, though not one the game is too inclined towards. I can see doing it for a while in some galaxies, where a long period of relative peace is occurring and you are building up your infrastructure. In a violent galaxy, you are less likely to get the ships home to analyze and you are likely to be on bad terms with several of the empires you need to trade with.

[Taqwus]

Zeep --

Did you ever try offering a system claimed by a third party? Might be interesting, if it works...

------------------
-- The thing that goes bump in the night