Tech Trading turned off

[T-hawk]

Sirian wrote in Sulla's Epic Six report thread:

One item not going on to the [exploits] list is tech trading stuff. I'll leave that alone, but I intend to turn tech trading off for an increasing ratio of games.

I'd like to ledger an opinion to the contrary.

I really dislike having tech trading turned off. I feel it cuts too much out of the game, and there's at least two important pieces of collateral damage from that. One is military alliances. Without the ability to offer techs for alliances, that option is almost off the table, as paying out sufficient cash for one would be suicide when you have to keep pushing your own economy. This goes for peacetime deals like asking for a religious or civic conversion as well.

Second is getting proper war concessions upon signing peace. The AIs value cities very highly, probably rightfully so if they're losing a war, and so really war concessions only ever amount to spare change without techs. But if _you_ happen to be the one losing the war, you need to cough up a ton more real economy to extricate yourself. This difference in player/AI behavior regarding winning concessions happens because the player knows to stop when he's reached his objectives (and must stop sooner due to WW) while the AI always presses on until paid off.

Besides the reduction in strategic options, I don't think the gameplay is as good with tech trading turned off. It actually worsens the idea of Tech Uber Alles. Trading adds another layer of strategy, in that there's more than one way to leverage yourself around and climb out of a hole. With it off, there's only one way to get ahead. You build the economy strong enough fast enough and then you just win, either by space or by beelining the nearest military advantage. Trading helps the weaker AIs as much as it helps the human player, by letting them trade for the military techs they need to avoid getting run over.

Trading smooths out economic differences and makes for a more competitive, varied game. No trading magnifies economic differences and rewards the strongest economic beelines.

Of course if a particular scenario specifically calls for no tech trading, turn it off, like in Always War or one-on-one. But I think that tech trading should be on unless there's a really good specific reason not to have it. Without spoiling, I don't understand what the option adds to the variant of Adventures Eleven and Thirteen. I'm aware of wanting to fix the Brokering Uber Alles phenomenon of Civ 3, but I think the implemented solutions to that ("we're not ready", "we don't like you", "WFYATBA") are in fact just about right, and certainly do less wrong than just nuking the whole option entirely.

Have at it, folks...

[Qwack]

I think tech trading help's the AI more than the human, if only the AI prioritized alphabet a bit more...

[Sullla]

I don't really care whether tech trading is on or off. HOWEVER, I strongly concur with Qwack that turning tech trading off enormously benefits the human. Without the ability to trade techs back and forth to one another, the AIs play much more poorly. Epic Five and Epic Six, both played much easier than their stated difficulty level, and I identify that very much with the fact that there was no tech trading for either game.

As I said at the end of my Epic Six report:

So if it wasn't accumulated war weariness, what happened to the AIs here? This is by far the worst AI performance in an Always War game I've seen since... well, since we were much, MUCH earlier in development! I have to believe it was the lack of AI tech trading. That's looking more and more like a crippling handicap for the AIs whenever it's turned on. The AI teching in Epic Five, even on Emperor, was pathetically below their usual speed by at least one difficulty level - maybe more than one. In this game, I expected the AIs to reach Feudalism around 1000AD at the very latest - but they never got there. Some of the AIs were doing decently - for example, Roosevelt had Machinery and I think Spain had Drama - but without being able to TRADE these techs to one another and share research, the result was... well, archers still defending in 1500AD. Yowzers.

I don't really care if we turn off tech trading, but it does make the game easier.

[Iustus]

One alternative is to leave tech trading on, but set a rule that the human player is not allowed to trade techs except to either start/end wars or demand/capitulate to tribute. Perhaps not even allow the player to ask for a tech in tribute, only to give in to an AI demand.

This would be a pretty huge handicap to the human player.

Whereas just turning tech trading off may actually hurt the AIs more than the human player, as argued above.

-Iustus

[T-hawk]

I strongly concur with Qwack that turning tech trading off enormously benefits the human.

I'd say it's more general, that disabling tech trading helps those in the lead and hurts those behind, since those behind can't work together to catch up. The exception to your statement is if it's the human in the tech hole. That doesn't happen often for experienced players, since the human can leverage the overlapping economic math better than the AIs (Bureaucracy + Academy + Great Library, or Shrine + Missionaries + Wall Street.) But consider Adventure Nine. How would the player have gotten out of that hole without trading?

Disabling tech trading enhances the snowball effect of economy. Civ 4 doesn't snowball in terms of land area and city count, but it most certainly snowballs in economic terms. Get to Bureaucracy sooner, and that gets you to universities sooner, which gets you to Printing Press and Free Speech sooner (for a larger, less capital-centric map), and that all gets you your better choice of economic wonders, and so on. Allowing the trailing parties to share tech provides the leverage they need to stay competitive.

[Sirian]

I don't really care whether tech trading is on or off. HOWEVER, I strongly concur with Qwack that turning tech trading off enormously benefits the human.

How can you cite Epics Five and Six as evidence?


Epic Six, duh.

Epic Five, the warring was in place before Alphabet comes on the scene. The AI's tech trading behavior is weakest with fewer civs involved, so it's naturally weak on any Tiny map. With at most two tech trading partners, -and- with the AIs never willing to part with a monopoly tech, the only possible situations for tech trading not involving the human are when two of the three AIs know Tech A, and two of the three know Tech B, and the perfect storm includes that A and B are roughly equivalent. For the human to be able to trade tech in that situation, all they need is any monopoly tech, giving them about a jillion more situations in which a trade is possible.


The idea that No Tech Trading helps the human is bordering on preposterous, except in rare cases where the human is shut out of tech trading by rule or by circumstance, while a group of AIs are in contact and at peace. The higher the difficulty level, the more preposterous that notion becomes.

The no-trading-monopoly-techs limitation is not one I would have chosen. The AIs are not trading very much at all, since the ones in the tech lead won't "double up" by researching different paths and then sharing, like they did in Civ2 and Civ3. If they research different paths, nothing at all happens. The only way tech trading for the AI occurs at all is if a pack of four or five AIs (or more) are out there at roughly the same economic level, with a few going this way and a few going that way. That's bloody rare. On standard size, they have to all be in contact and at peace AND also Pleased with one another -- and that only occurs in the early game (pre-astronomy) on pangaea-like settings, which tend to be the ones most conducive to warring. Most often, a couple of AIs (Financials mostly, but sometimes others) leap out in front, and none of their progress is aided by tech trading, except with the human. Backward AIs can't trade with the forward AIs because they are generally following in footsteps, rather than breaking out to grab a monopoly tech (which they then would not end up being willing to trade anyway!)

I really dislike having tech trading turned off. I feel it cuts too much out of the game, and there's at least two important pieces of collateral damage from that. One is military alliances. ... Second is getting proper war concessions upon signing peace.

War concessions ala Civ3-style are stupidly broken. The harder you beat on the AI, the more cash falls out of its pockets. Stupid stupid stupid. That is not how real life and real wars work, nor is it effective for game balance, nor something the AI can do to the human.

I believe in smarter war concessions: concessions that are granted the way they were in real life, when the army is at the gate, not after they have burned down the town. ... I didn't get that for Civ4. Cest la vie.

Military alliances that are primarily bought with techs are stupid, too. I'm not one to throw the word "stupid" around lightly here. I know exactly how hard it is to design and code strong AI. I was there. This bribery is a leftover whoring element from Civ3. It -is- informed by the AIs refusing to betray civs with whom they have positive attitudes, so it's a big step up, but now instead of unlimited whoring, it's selective whoring. The AIs have no sense of their interests, of trying to win, of trying to protect themselves or identify those of like mind.


Since both of these "side effects" are broken in their behavior, I view it as gains, not losses, to be rid of them. War concessions in particular are off the charts. Good riddance.


Just a reminder: they were those people who argued that ruling out RoP Rape cut out too much of the game. What you see depends on where you sit.

I haven't ruled out tech trading completely. On the contrary, I want it to be part of our milieu. However, I also want other things to be part of our milieu as well -- things that are wiped off the competitive map whenever tech trading is involved.


- Sirian

[sooooo]

Tech trading is fun, but it helps the human IMO. I played a SG with no-tech-trading recently where Lizzy got Redcoats in about 1000 AD. That's not slow. I don't think you can give epics 5 and 6 as examples of human outracing the AI, because they were not normal games. Epic 6 for example was always war (AIs don't build libraries) and noble level. Epic 5 finished before alphabet. We'll have to see how people view adventure 11.

My preference is to play with tech trading on, because as T-Hawk states it's a fun (and strategic!) part of the game. But it's good to mix it up a little.

[Qwack]

I can agree with you is that tech trading benefits the human more and more the higher the difficulty level, the reason is because AI has enough bonuses on those higher levels to outresearch the human by themselves (and beat the human to practically every tech). This is simply NOT the case at emperor or below, where the smart human player can combine different elements to completely blow away the AI in terms of research.

The basic thing is that tech-trading keeps parity in the game, you wont have 1 runaway civ, this can work in favour of the human or AI. I would say it works in favour of the human only on immortal and deity, while it works in favour of the AI on every other level. So if you want to have no tech-0trading in deity events, go ahead , but I hope atleast 90% of events on the middle level will have tech-trading enabled, otherwise the game will just be way too easy.

It may be the case that human with tech-trading will research faster and win faster, but in my opinion, a no-tech trading game will create a larger gap between AI and human(in favour of human) than a tech-trading game, even if the human gets to liberalism 200 years sooner, the AI will be closer at that time than they would be in no-tech trading...

The real problems with tech-trading are the great person ligthbulbs to tech's which AI does not prioritize, along with alphabet in the early game. If the AI's would simply research alphabet sooner, or atleast before tech's like currency and calender, I can bet they would be way better. Alphabet in the early game, Philosophy in the mid-game, and printing press in the mid->late game are all overpowered trade material techs. This also has to do with the AI being way too predictable in terms of its tech-path's. How many times will a human research feudalism to trade for other tech's.. compared with philosophy, the ratio is probably something like .1%.

[Sirian]

Alphabet in the early game, Philosophy in the mid-game, and printing press in the mid->late game are all overpowered trade material techs. This also has to do with the AI being way too predictable in terms of its tech-path's. How many times will a human research feudalism to trade for other tech's.. compared with philosophy, the ratio is probably something like .1%.

That's a big reason why tech trading is such a dud.

You say that trading favors the AI on Emperor, because the human can leverage all the multiplicative math. I say regulate both the multiplicative math and the tech trading to enable the game at its best and most fun, as it is meant to be played.


- Sirian

[T-hawk]

The AI's tech trading behavior is weakest with fewer civs involved

Ah, I get it. Makes sense for Adventure 11 now, since with the team setup there's only a few entities which probably wouldn't be trading much with each other anyway.

The idea that No Tech Trading helps the human is bordering on preposterous

I disagree. No Tech Trading helps the human whenever he runs out to an economic lead large enough that he wouldn't stand to gain by whoring out a trade-bait tech. Yes, the human loses the ability to parley the economic advantage into controlling the alliance landscape. But the AIs also lose whatever chance they had to keep pace and catch up. With No Tech Trading, once an AI falls behind the human economically, it's toast. The human's already won: he can wipe out the AI at leisure when he hits an appropriate military tech window, or just go on to win by space instead.

Backward AIs can't trade with the forward AIs because they are generally following in footsteps

I think the tech tree is broad enough that "backward" AIs have common ground with "forward" AIs more often than that. But anyway, backwards AIs following in footsteps is when they can follow different paths and trade with each other, and the result is a pair of AIs that have taken a step towards remaining competitive in the game instead of rolling over to the first rival to get a military advantage window. And in situations where the human isn't ahead, he can and should strategically be doing the same thing. IMO, this is the chief gameplay loss with No Tech Trading. An economic lead snowballs into a runaway because the trailers don't have any leverage to catch up. This particular argument has nothing to do with humans or AIs; it can work in the human's favor if he's the one with the economic lead, or against him if he's the one scrambling to catch up.

Also remember that most of the military advances in the game come precisely by researching two separate lines of tech. Macemen require CS and Machinery; riflemen require Gunpowder and Replaceable Parts; tanks require Industrialism and Combustion (oil). Backwards AIs that have access to trading are much more likely to manage their way up multiple tech lines and thus stay competitive.

Military alliances that are primarily bought with techs are stupid, too.

This one is a problem of game scope. Real-life military alliances can be bought with any number of things, from food aid to infrastructure construction to ideological promises to personal favors for the military leader. In the abstracted game world, such types of tradable wealth don't exist, especially without the Civ 3 mechanism of buying on credit. So with what else besides tech would you buy a military alliance?

The only other possibility is cash, but that runs into the problem that cash and research are too fluidly interchangeable in the game. A real-world nation can easily increase taxation to raise cash without stunting its military development. Not so in the game -- spending any cash on anything means delaying your entire future research progress and military capabilities.

It -is- informed by the AIs refusing to betray civs with whom they have positive attitudes, so it's a big step up, but now instead of unlimited whoring, it's selective whoring.

And I don't see what's wrong with that. Selective whoring is better both than unlimited whoring or no whoring. The player should have _some_ ability to affect the diplomatic landscape and get an ally when he really legitimately needs it. So should the AIs. But with No Tech Trading, the price of alliance is invariably prohibitive. With No Tech Trading, the effect of the entire diplomatic system (outside of actual UN activities) reduces to a flag of "I won't attack you", rather than allowing the nuances of diplomacy to spread through the rest of gameplay.

However, I also want other things to be part of our milieu as well -- things that are wiped off the competitive map whenever tech trading is involved.

Could you elaborate on that? I don't think you've given any examples. Tech trading only adds options -- how does it take any away?


(Disclaimer: I've used the male pronoun for the human player, for brevity and readability. Don't mean to exclude Griselda or anyone else. )