Scamming Backwards Civilations

Crostoneman · August 11, 2002, 01:09

I was reading through this forums and seeing posts of people who wanted to have 64+ civilizations on a map to make it difficult. I came to an idea that could replace goody huts because in a standard map with 32 civilization, goody huts would be difficult to get. I thought about changing the A.I. tech trading code about not having it know what other empires techs are. So if you were lucky enough to make contact with an empire that never heard of writing, and neither does all if his contacts, you could have a one time bonus of scamming the civilization into giving you 1000gp or equilivant for writing when it was about 5 gp to one of your contacts. Sort of what the European countries did to the ancient Americans. (Oooh, look, shiney Irons for 1000 gp)

P.S. It could go both ways, making the civilization furious with you when they discover the scam.

Coracle · August 11, 2002, 05:36

Great. 64+ civs.

The game isn't already slow enough for some of you??

Your subsequent point is valid.

Ijuin · August 11, 2002, 08:40

The best way to make this work, I think, is that each civ should always act as though the civs that it has contact with are the only sources for anything. By this I mean that, say, if there are 16 civs in the world, and Civ A has contact with 4 AI civs, and you offer it a tech that all 10 of the AI civs that Civ A is NOT in contact with have, but NONE of the AI civs that Civ A is in contact with have, then Civ A will rate the tech's price as though you had a monopoly on the tech, and not as 11 civs having the tech, since you are the ONLY civ that Civ A knows that can supply it with said tech. Likewise, if Civ A knows ONE other civ that knows the tech you are selling, then it will act as though there are TWO civs in the world that know the tech.

In short, prior to getting contact with each AI Civ, each Civ should know NOTHING about that particular civ other than that it exists somewhere in the unexplored darkness, and that contact with it can be purchased from certain other civs that it already knows. The civ should NOT know what techs, resources, etc. that the unknown civs possess. The end result of this is that they will offer a higher price if you are the only one who can supply them with something.