Adam Smith Foundation: Profitable Mapwhoring Project

Shiber · August 18, 2002, 15:20

I would like to propose the following trade:

(See final plan at bottom)

Sell WM to Rome for 8 gold.
Sell WM to America for 4 gold.
Sell WM to Aztecs for 7 gold.
Sell WM to Iroquois for 11 gold.
Sell WM to France for 7 gold.
Sell WM to Germany for 6 gold.
Sell WM to England for 7 gold.
Sell WM to Russia for 7 gold.
Sell WM to Persia for 6 gold.
Sell TM to Greece for 1 gold (they offer the same for WM).

Treasury before trade: 234 gold.
Treasury after trade: 298 gold (+64).

Possible alterations:
* Not sell WM to the Iroquois for 11 gold in favor of selling them currency for 25 gold (all the money they have left).
* Trade WM for WM with Babylon (they have no money to spare I'm afraid) and trade WM with Germany for 5 gold + their WM and then conduct all the other trades. Our WM will probably be worth a few more gold pieces then and we'll be able to get more money in exchange for it from the other civs.

NOTE: By doing so we are not revealing much of our territory. We've traded world maps or territory maps with every known civ at least once. True, some don't have our latest territory map and we'll be updating their information about our territory, but it's not like we have any reason to worry about England finding out where Memphis and Loveshack are. Basically all the other civs already know the vital information about our territory so we're virtually trading with information about other civs' territories here.

Future note (thanks for adaMada): we should be very careful about trading maps once we begin to explore Uber Isle (that is, if we find out that it's actually an island worth settling).

My thanks go out to Aggie for giving me the idea to research this when he mentioned that the Iroquois will pay 11 gold for our WM.

LATEST PLAN (following suggestions and new ideas)

Phase one (increasing the value of our WM)
-----
* Trade WM for WM with Babylon.
* Sell TM to Greece for WM + 4g (we pay).

Phase two (prices marked with * are expected to grow as a result of phase one)
-----
Sell WM to Rome for 8 gold. *
Sell WM to America for 4 gold. *
Sell WM to Aztecs for 7 gold. *
Sell WM to Iroquois for 11 gold. *
Sell WM to France for 7 gold. *
Sell WM to Germany for 6 gold.
Sell WM to England for 7 gold. *
Sell WM to Russia for 7 gold. *
Sell WM to Persia for 6 gold. *

Minimum profit: 63 gold.
Assuming that each civ (except Germany, whose treasury consists of the mere 6 gold that we'll take from them anyway) will pay +4 gold after we combine Greece's map with ours (based on Spiffor's tip), we'll make a total of 95 gold.

Aggie · August 18, 2002, 15:23

I agree whole heartedly except lets trade greece our tm they will give the same for it.
Aggie

adaMada · August 18, 2002, 15:30

Wow. That much for the World Map that everyone already has? Congradulations on another brillent idea Shiber.

Let's do it (with the Iraquois, Babylon, and Germany modification)!

-- adaMada

Edit: I'm right in assuming we've given our TM away at least once before, right?

Shiber · August 18, 2002, 15:36

Yes you are.
In effect, we are trading off information about other civs' territories.

Sheik · August 18, 2002, 15:37

This looks like a good idea. We should probably sell our world map to the Iroquois because another AI will probably give it to them if we don't.

adaMada · August 18, 2002, 15:40

Yea, once one civ has your TM, you might as well trade away until they've all got it. Awsome idea, though, to trade on this sort of mass scale!

We should be careful about trading TM and WM once we've actually 'seen' Uber Isle, though.

-- adaMada

MrWhereItsAt · August 18, 2002, 15:53

Ah, the AI already knows where everything is - that's how their cities predict future resources so well.

But if we can get money off of them for stuff they already know - you won't hear any objections from me.

El Presidente
MrWIA

adaMada · August 18, 2002, 16:00

Quote:

Originally posted by MrWhereItsAt
Ah, the AI already knows where everything is - that's how their cities predict future resources so well.

But if we can get money off of them for stuff they already know - you won't hear any objections from me.

El Presidente
MrWIA

Yea, I know that, BUT they can't (by their programming) settle a location they don't "know" about -- so, when we get Uber Island, we'll have to be veryy careful that we don't wind up letting them know about it before we totally colonize it.

-- adaMada

Shiber · August 18, 2002, 16:02

You're right! It's a good thing you've mentioned that.
I'm adding this to my report.
And thanks for all the compliments.

Kloreep · August 18, 2002, 17:11

Great plan.

I think I'll vote against the currency trade now. No reason to sell a tech for a measly 14 gold.

Apocalypse · August 18, 2002, 17:13

As Minister of Science, I suppose mapwhoring. We need money to buy techs

Vlad Antlerkov · August 18, 2002, 18:22

The unintelligence of the AI never ceases to amaze.

Unless they lack a map of the island, the only things that benefit will be our pockets.

Spiffor · August 18, 2002, 18:25

SHiber : a flawless plan, as often. Go for it !

adaMada · August 18, 2002, 22:59

Has anyone noticed the Greeks have reached their island? brings up a very good point, which we can help as part of this plan... when we do our massive trade, we should get an updated version of the Greek's TM assuming we don't already have one that's very up to date (even if it costs us a bit of money) -- we've got to know what they're doing on their island.

As such, if this trade takes place enough turns after our previous buy of the Greek's TM, we should change the plan to buy the Greek's map, I think.

-- adaMada

Donal Graeme · August 18, 2002, 23:08

I officially support this plan of action, and send it to the President for approval. Anything that gets us money will be good, and the fact we don't really lose anything makes it even better. And a chance to learn more about the Greek territory, including their island, would be important.

Kloreep · August 18, 2002, 23:12

Just one point: we'd need te buy the Greek's WM, not their TM. (Unless they've founded another city already, but, in that case, we'd still miss out on some of their map of the island.)

Shiber · August 19, 2002, 07:20

Other than satisfying our curiosity, buying the Greek WM will have no positive effect on our civilization. So what if they've made contact or are about to make contact with a "lost civ"? As sad as it sounds, there's nothing we can do now.
I oppose spending money to buy the Greek WM. I see no actual benefits coming out of it.

MrWhereItsAt · August 19, 2002, 07:25

And it is a GOOD point too, Kloreep - thank you.

Unfortunately, we can only make this trade two ways:

As proposed above, sell our TM to Greece for their TM + 1 gold.

OR, buy their WM for our WM and 4 gold (as in WE pay).

Nonetheless, 4 gold is nothing, and the fact they aren't willing to swap means they know something we don't - let us go with the second option!

Concerns, agreements, rants?

Shiber · August 19, 2002, 08:56

I disagree. Other than satisfying our curiosity, new maps of Sky Isle (Greece's island) will not benefit us in any way (see my post above yours).

Spiffor · August 19, 2002, 11:51

IIRC, the AI sells each unexplored square for 2 gold. Itmeans the Greeks now 2 more tiles than last time.

But I say go for it, and Shiber wil agree with me :
Since the other Civs are willing to pay some money for our WM, their geographic knowledge is lesser than ours. Meaning, they don't know the Greek map (which is on par with ours).

I.e, if we buy the Greek map, we'll have 2 extra explored tiles to sell to everyone. Just imagine Rome, Russia, England, France etc. willing to pay us 4 gold more

(hey, it's map-whoring isn't it ?)

We should buy Greece's WM before proceeding to the rest of map whoring, for the sake of our wallet !

Donal Graeme · August 19, 2002, 12:11

Spiff, you hit the nail right on the head. By buying the Greek WM first, we can sell our WM to everyone else for a little bit more. Thus, we earn more money in the long run!

Togas · August 19, 2002, 12:16

Quote:

Originally posted by adaMada
Yea, I know that, BUT they can't (by their programming) settle a location they don't "know" about -- so, when we get Uber Island, we'll have to be veryy careful that we don't wind up letting them know about it before we totally colonize it.

We need to sell off our Map as much as possible now before we move to Uber Island. Once we send off those boats to Uber Island I want a moritorium on world map trading until we've sufficiently settled it to keep the other civs from racing to do the same.

--Togas

Sheik · August 19, 2002, 13:22

After we do these trades we must get to Uber Isle as fast as possible.

Shiber · August 19, 2002, 16:33

We'll still be able to sell our TM until we settle. I'll see if I can come up with a TM-whoring project in about five to ten turns from now.

Shiber · August 19, 2002, 16:55

Double post.

Shiber · August 19, 2002, 16:57

Attention: the latest plan is now on (see top post, page 1). Please let me know if you want any further changes, otherwise I'll put this up on a poll in about 20 hours.

adaMada · August 19, 2002, 16:58

One last thought...

I know you suggested WM and then TM, and I know we've got a WM plan, but would it be more profitable to do TM first? The AI might not value our TM as much if they have a fairly recently WM, but the opposite may not be true.

Just a thought... I'm not really sure how the AI acts in these sort of situations, but I thought I'd throw it out.

-- adaMada

Lawrence of Arabia · August 19, 2002, 18:29

Sell the maps and also currency, but wait a couple of tunrs before selling it. That way, we can get max money from the AI. Also, it is better to get a measely sum for it then letting the Ai trade it away from no profit at all for us.