Its an option in Civ 4 to turn off all tech trading in the game so it should apply to humans too I imagine. Makes things interesting sometimes. I can't see how it would hurt to have it in.

Yes totally agreed an option which disable tech trading and is applied to everyone is a must considering also how tech trading is managed.Anyway tech trading should be also fixed, i'm obliged to play ideological war scenario just to not play a game with an insane tech trading

MOIISKA the AI sees you and the other AIs as teh same. It gives no preference to the other AIs. Maybe the other AIs are just spending more time talking to each other/.

I spent some hours this weekend looking into this.

I don't have the ability to put in a "no tech trading" feature (i.e. I write the AI, but I'll bring it up).

But I can have the AI be more picky about what it tends to trade.

So here's what I've done:

1) I have it be more picky about what it's willing to trade than it was before.

2) I have it less inclined to trade military technologies back and forth.

It doesn't sound like much but I think people will be pleased with the results.

As Shalkto points out, the AI doesn't treat the player any differentlyt than each other. The AI also doesn't trade techs with anyone they have poor relations with.

I think the 'problem' people are having is that they only hit the diplomacy screen every x number of turns, whereas it's no problem for every AI to examine every other player (human + AI) every single turn and re-evaluate whether it wants to make an offer for a trade.

That way if A is at war with C, B and C trade techs, then A and B trade techs, each for fair prices. Now imagine you are C and you start wondering how A got your technology...

I'm -guessing- the difficulty already controls the extent to which the AI exploits the diplomacy avenue?

As Shalkto points out, the AI doesn't treat the player any differentlyt than each other. The AI also doesn't trade techs with anyone they have poor relations with.

Yes, Brad, but they just go and trade it to someone they have normal relations with, who in turn trades to the other race that they DO have good relations with. As other peoplre have mentioned, the net result is that when one person knows a tech, everyone else knows it too within a few turns, and everyone has the same list.


As it is right now, when you decide you want to trade or sell a tech, you may as well trade it at the same time to every major/minor race in the game and see what you can get from it, as everyone will have it anyways in short order...you may as well be the one to profit.


I wouldnt want to see inter-AI tech trading disabled, as it forces you to make hard choices about giving tech away. You have to be prepared to see every civ in the game use it against you when you trade it to one. I would , however, like to see more variations in the techs the various races have at their disposal.

The problem as been mentioned in many other threads stems in part from the silly offerings from AI offering powerfull techs for any old junk they dont have. And you right they dont recognize the difference between AI and player ...thats part of the problem.

Gigantic galaxy with 9 AI (and a bunch of minors).
Each turn one or more AI players fire off this random tech give away .... that means the human player has a 1 in 10 chance of being on the recieving end. That a 90% chance an AI player will recieve this 'free' tech upgrade. Oh but ALL the AI players will be doing this tech giveaway and each time there is a 90% chance it will be going to another AI. Oh they may not give it to other AI they are at war with but the ones they do give it to might turn around and give it to them anyway.

Give it 50 turns and your pretty much guaranteed that every game is going to be identical, with all the AI sharing the same techs running the same type of ships etc

It is a pretty much a non-issue when running small galaxies with only 3 AI of differing 'moral' viewpoints but it breaks down badly the bigger it gets.

Get rid of the tech give aways (to human and AI) and you fix the worst of it right there. There are already built in weightings that the AI uses to judge if something is a good deal ...when then totaly bypass it and make all that pointless?

Myros

So here's what I've done: 1) I have it be more picky about what it's willing to trade than it was before. 2) I have it less inclined to trade military technologies back and forth. It doesn't sound like much but I think people will be pleased with the results.

I hope it helps. I was playing a couple of games with all AIs set to intelligent. With just a moderate diplomatic edge (+10% innate + Populists and a diplomatic tech to myself) I just seemed able to bootstrap my way into a strong tech lead. I think I only traded 5 of my own techs. After that, my treasury was high enough that I could buy any tech I wanted and sell it to enough appropriate targets to get the tech, make a huge profit *and* keep all the techs I researched myself as exclusive. Just seemed a little too powerful. AIs should value a tech based at least partly on how many already have it.

I'm also wondering if it takes into account the value of bcs at different stages in the game. Tech trading allowed me to pretty much drain the treasury of many of the competing players, allowing me crazy spending at a stage in the game where credits are often hard to come by.