Use tech trading/brokering?

[Imhotep]

Thus far, I've been playing with tech trading and brokering disabled. This is a relic of my playing Gal Civ II, where I came to the conclusion that the human was much better at tech-trading than the AI and so would gain a huge advantage from this game option being active.

Any thoughts on tech trading/brokering in Gal Civ III?

[Tiresias the Blind]

I like it with trading on but brokering off, because of the specializations. Getting the other specializations is a good incentive to trade with the AI players.

But I found that them trading amongst themselves got too rampant with the brokering on and I'd be left behind tech-wise very quickly because of it.

In the end, I suppose it comes down to personal preference, but those are my preferences.

[rog214]

I play with brokering off.

In either case, the AI makes up for the human's more efficient/effective trading by sheer volume. Tech wise, the Ai will trade anything to everyone (relations permitting) at every chance it gets. The more races you have in contact with each other, the worse it gets.

No brokering at least makes for some diversity in technology. Otherwise, mid game you get aevery race havingroughly the same techs.

[Imhotep]

My concerns are:

1) Is the human better than the AI at trading?

2) It might become like another form of micromanagement, by having to contact 11, or however many, civs every few turns, and therefore become boring.

[Ragic]

there should be at least some sort of treaty requirement to trade tech. not that 'research treaty' whatever that does, but something earlier in the tech tree, maybe require a non aggression pact to at least be in effect.

i also think it would make the pace of tech trading more reasonable if you had to have the prerequisite techs for whatever your trading for.

[Tiresias the Blind]

Originally posted by Imhotep:

My concerns are:

1) Is the human better than the AI at trading?

2) It might become like another form of micromanagement, by having to contact 11, or however many, civs every few turns, and therefore become boring.

1) I wouldn't say better, but more discerning. You wouldn't trade tech to a faction with whom you were at war, so that they could then turn around and use said tech to kill you. The AI might. I am also unsure if they have the same constraints that they give players when they trade, but I have no real way to test this so it is just a suspicion.

2) just because you can trade with another civ doesn't mean you are obligated to. If they don't have anything you need or want, then you don't have to make a deal. Also, you don't want to be constantly making deals and thinning out your resources in the effort.

The diplomatic bonus you get from trading comes from the trade routes, not the deals on the diplomatic screen. The trade routes are automatic once you contact another faction's world with one of your trade ships, and require no oversight. So, again, there's no need to make deals frivolously.

[Dray Prescot]

True, but they (AI Civs) can/will only tech trade with Races that they have meet. So in the earlier stages of the game, someone who makes the effort to explore widely (which requires both ship range and starbaes/colonies to extend that range, as well as the ships being built) and meet a lot of Races can have an advntage in tech trading. Taking the Minor Races out of the tech trading market changed tech trading a lot. You can often hire some good Mercenary ships to do long range exploration and meet more Races sooner. Getting rid of Wormholes (most of the time) hurt also, since a surveyor on its way home from a long way (via going down a Wormhole) away could meet new Races a long way away.

With Tech Trading plus Brokering on, I would make an effort, when I got a new tech that I was willing to trade to other Races, to trade it to every Race that would make a deal on it. Otherwise a couple of turns later, that tech may have traded onwards by 2nd and 3rd, etc, Races before I could trade it myself to them. By turning off the tech brokering, now I do not have to worry about them reselling something (starting the next turn) before I could. But there would be a lot of techs that I did not want to trade, i.e. the ones that I really used and did not want to fight/compete against.

Fairly often, at some point in the UP, laws may be passed to turn off tech trading and or brokering, if they are allowed at game start/setup.

Later in the game, wholesale/widespread tech brokering can make it very hard on human players to compete.

[Imas]

Only recently started playing this game (since GalCivs 2 really frustrated me back in the day, but this one seems to have garnered quite a following), but I instatly turned off Tech Brokering even for my very first game.

It's a lesson I learned the hard way all the way back with Civilization 4 :-)