Negotiation stinks

Lewsir · October 8, 2002, 10:26

In the "beating dead horses" department...

Seeing the thread below complaining about the way combat works in CIV 3 and seeing the responses that say it is better with the uncertainty (and I agree), it reminds me that I hate the way you have to fiddle around in negotiations with other civs until your advisor tells you that the other guy will accept your proposal. I would much prefer to have some uncertaint (and greater variation) on what they will accept, and have the risk that you might give away too much or piss them off by not offering enough. And if you're going to have to try 8 times to zero in on the best offer, it might as well just have the advisor tell you up front what minimum offers will work.

I'm sure this has been discussed 50 times (is there anything that hasn't?) but I only started playing recently so I'd be interested in other opinions on this.

Wormwood · October 8, 2002, 11:59

Generally, when your advisor says something is acceptable, it can be tweaked around a little bit.

Lewsir · October 8, 2002, 12:16

Yes but how much time do you spend fiddling to get it just right? Seems like a waste of time to me.

Bella Hella · October 8, 2002, 12:22

i think it's a waste of time, but it's worth it to get as much as you possibly can from the AI. you can practically rape them for techs. i've developed kind of a system with how much gold i offer, but yeah, it takes a while.

Lewsir · October 8, 2002, 12:28

I shouldn't say it stinks - I really like the flexibility of being able to trade anything for anything. But there must be some way to make it a bit more fun to negotiate. Plus as I know people have often said, the AI is often unreasonably demanding (especially since they seem to be trading techs among themselves like crazy).

miccofl · October 8, 2002, 17:15

A "Calculate bottom line" option would be nice.

Destroyer · October 8, 2002, 17:18

You can screw them (ai civs) over if you can monopolise the resources. I think tis is the only way to keep up on the harder levels with research.

JohnM2433 · October 8, 2002, 17:37

If you really wanted the AI to be like a human negotiator, it would have to haggle. The AI in Colonization did this, IIRC.

Also, there is no way for more than one player to form a monopoly in a luxury/resource/technology. And the AIs do not try to outbid each other on a deal with someone else. If they did, you could wind up getting a tech for 1 gold. But there's no way for one player to even see what deals his/her/its opponents are offering each other, so that could never happen.

Allowing negotiations between more than 2 civs at a time would greatly enhance multiplayer. For one thing, civs with an alliance/MPP could negotiate peace with a mutual enemy without breaking their deal.

Jaybe · October 8, 2002, 18:05

If Lewsir dislikes it now, just wait for PTW...

... As I understand it, we aren't going to have ANY guidance as to what is acceptable. Hope I'm wrong (or they change it ... maybe it was just relating to person/person negotiations but that was not the impression I had).

You don't HAVE to tweak to get the last gold out of them and if your reputation with them is important, you will LOWER their payments, not raise them. Often I'll just accept their offer if I consider it "fair".

Lewsir · October 9, 2002, 03:33

Oh, if you give them a beter deal it can affect their attitude toward you? That makes it somewhat more interesting. Any idea how far you can go with this? Say, if you throw in a bunch of gold (say a signficiant percentage of what they already have) can you be confident that it will lead to an improvement in attitude?

Prince · October 9, 2002, 13:21

You pretty much need that guy telling you what can and cannot be done, because the civ's attitude to you is just way too unpredicatable. When you're more powerful and expanded than him, he might still not trade his world map for yours.

Jaybe · October 9, 2002, 13:44

Lewsir, there are no yardsticks (oops! You're in Paris) ... Metersticks(?)

to go by. You just try it out and try to build a bankroll of goodwill (if you want to do so). There are NO guarantees, just as there are no guarantees that YOU will not stab your trading partner in the back so you don't have to pay for his luxuries.

Prince, regarding reluctance to trade world maps that might also apply to me if I was in their position. I have acquired territory/world maps just before declaring war on occasion.

Destroyer · October 9, 2002, 19:42

You are tight about needing an advisor, as tech values continuously change, and I have no idea how resources are traded - It aint one for one with the ai for sure!

CiverDan · October 9, 2002, 20:26

U can also screw them for multiple techs if you take a few of their cities. This works on any level, including diety.

Jaybe · October 9, 2002, 20:34

Destroyer,
As is often mentioned, in luxury trading it is a matter of who can benefit more pays more. If you already have 4 lux to the AI's 3, and you have twice as many cities, SHOULDN'T you pay more??

I have had occasion to NOT be a major civ and trading for lux was quite even (or better)!

Prince · October 10, 2002, 10:28

Quote:

Originally posted by Jaybe
Prince, regarding reluctance to trade world maps that might also apply to me if I was in their position. I have acquired territory/world maps just before declaring war on occasion.

True, but without giving any other examples, the AI still tries trades sometimes that really don't make sense for me.

Purple · October 10, 2002, 14:45

Quote:

Originally posted by miccofl
A "Calculate bottom line" option would be nice.

I've often wished for such an option, but there can be more than one possible "best" deal, depending on the combination of items you are seeking or offering.

I do agree that the whole process is a little annoying, especially when you need to shop around with a number of civs.

It would help enormously if you could adjust the gold offer/request directly rather than deleting gold from the table, then adding it and entering a new figure on the popup.

hexagonian · October 10, 2002, 15:55

Simple...

Resist the urge to haggle - The first time that you get acceptance from the AI, take it without a second thought.

I bet nobody does that though.

JohnM2433 · October 10, 2002, 16:17

Well, sometimes you're in a position where you need to pinch pennies...

But often you're not. And since offering better deals to the AI improves their attitudes toward you, they will probably offer you better deals in the future if you do not try to wring every gold coin they have out of them. So haggling might not be as effective a long-term strategy as one might think. It might even be a bad idea, depending on how important it is to your strategy for other civs to like you. If you're going for a diplomatic victory, you may actually want to give gifts to other civs.

Jaybe · October 10, 2002, 17:01

Quote:

Originally posted by hexagonian
Simple...

Resist the urge to haggle - The first time that you get acceptance from the AI, take it without a second thought.

I bet nobody does that though.

Hexagonian,
I am so disappointed that you did not add a smiley...

Of Course, I often take what is offered without haggling (unless it is a total reject).

Sometimes I try to get more, sometimes I GIVE more or have them pay less. It depends on the situation, naturally: Friends, foes, competitors I want to bleed dry, civs across the sea with almost NO luxuries while I have a substantial surplus.

FrustratedPoet · October 10, 2002, 17:11

Quote:

Originally posted by hexagonian
Simple...

Resist the urge to haggle - The first time that you get acceptance from the AI, take it without a second thought.

I bet nobody does that though.

I do.

Cidifer · October 10, 2002, 17:11

As for giving them a good deal to ijmprove their attitude toward you this doesn't really work well most of the time in my games ( could be my play style or difficulty level) before I have practically financed an entire war trying to keep a couple civs alive so that the other wouldn't catch up to me. At one point I gave 1,000 gold at once to one of them (after giving them a couple techs the turn before) and they were still annoyed with me (same as they were the turn before), other times I've given a world map for free and they've gone up a level (or maybe I should say down) for exmaple from annoyed to cautious or whatever the previous one is.

Jaybe · October 10, 2002, 17:56

Cidifer,
It is hard to tell how civs will react to your charity. If you are the substantially dominant civ then everyone else may be at least "jealous" of you. I generally consider aid to civs as a long-term project. You do not know how it would have been different without your generosity.

One very effective, though temporary method of improving relations is to get them into a war with you against someone else, either through an Alliance or MPP. After the affair is completed, their attitude will generally revert to where it was before the war.

I play at Regent.

Ethelred · October 10, 2002, 17:59

Quote:

Originally posted by hexagonian
Simple...

Resist the urge to haggle - The first time that you get acceptance from the AI, take it without a second thought.

I bet nobody does that though.

I do it with my allies and Civs I am getting along with and want to continue to get along with much of the time. Sometimes even my allies seem to be trying to take advantage so I often check to see what they are willing to pay and then either go back to what they offered or pick something in between.

For civs I am annoyed with or intend to go to war with then I go for all the traffic will bear. They aren't going to be happy with me anyway so I might as well get what I can.

Purple · October 11, 2002, 13:05

Quote:

Originally posted by JohnM2433
If you're going for a diplomatic victory, you may actually want to give gifts to other civs.

I often do this, either to bolster an important ally who's fighting a proxy war for me or to curry favor with a neighbor who is trying to pick a fight with me before I'm ready to engage.

DanaLea · October 20, 2002, 13:16

Quote:

Originally posted by Purple
It would help enormously if you could adjust the gold offer/request directly rather than deleting gold from the table, then adding it and entering a new figure on the popup.

You can do this. If you left click on the gold amount it removes it from the table, you knew this. But if you right click it, it gives you the pop-up to change the amount. HTH

-Dana

Raion · October 20, 2002, 14:05

Oh, I just got done with a war with the Germans. He did start the war, and after making a deal. I fought him and defeated him on my territory, so finally peace was mentioned. He wanted too much, so I kept adding things to his side of the board, like all his gold, and tech and territory map, since he asked for mine.

He left, with saying something like : "I spit in your face, and will destroy your civilization, blah, blah, blah.

Later, he was more resonable, since I got right of passage through the seas of the Aztecs, if I wanted to take away a few cities too many he had. Now the Zulus and Bismark - Germans are at war.

Heck with him!

Purple · October 21, 2002, 16:43

Quote:

Originally posted by DanaLea

You can do this. If you left click on the gold amount it removes it from the table, you knew this. But if you right click it, it gives you the pop-up to change the amount. HTH

-Dana

Thanks for this! I'll try it!

Keeper of Hell · October 21, 2002, 17:59

The theory that the person who needs luxuries more should be willing to pay more is nice conceptually, but due to the surpassing stupidity of the AI it rarely works in a human player's favor. I've had civs two or three times my size claiming that three of my luxuries are worth one of theirs. And of course, it's impossible to tell the AI that they need to make a reasonable offer or you'll let them rot with a rioting population- all you can do is reject the offer, since they're incapable of understanding that no one in their right mind would take it. That's the thing that annoys me most about the AI- the unreasonable demands (I'm not talking about the "Give us this or we'll kill you" stuff, I'm talking about the bad deals it refuses to back down from).

Theseus · October 21, 2002, 23:51

I know what I do when an AI civ makes me mad...