Question on AI Tech Trading

There is an "AI willingness to trade" field in the tech tree files that goes from 0 to 100. Either decrease all the values by the same amount in notepad or in the builtin tech editor.

Excellent.  Thanks very much.

Actually, I'm not sure that will do it.  If an AI player is willing to trade two techs worth 50 each for one worth 100, he'll still make the trade when they're worth 25 and 50, respectively.  I need to find something that will make the AI player demand more in order to make the trade.  MOO had this kind of a setting for each AI player (or maybe in general).

Have you messed with it at all yet?

The AI also values some start of line techs more as part of the hard code, but it tends to take the research required into account as well.  Admittedly, it's not very good at it, and I honestly never sat down and figured out the formula, but there is a formula, and if my understanding of the XML tags is correct (which, no offense, but it probably is), it should accomplish what you're asking for.

Apologies if this is redundant and irrelevant.

Also, if you routinely play as a particular race, you can only decrease the values on that race's tech tree, while keeping the others the same. This will make your techs "worth" less than theirs.

Just to clarify:  I'm not looking to change the AI's willingness to trade with me.  I'm looking to reduce the rate at which the AI players trade with each other.  I'm new to GC but it seems that, after a short time into a new game, the AI races already have ten techs while I only have one or two.  I'm only setting the difficulty one or two notches above normal at present so I figure they must be swapping techs like mad.  This was a well-known problem with MOO and seems to have made its way into GC.  I assume that's why the game includes the Disable Trading setting.

In that case, changing all the valuse will get what you want.

Okay, I'll give it a try.  But I don't see how dropping the AI Value for each tech will reduce inter-AI trading.  Won't they still be happy to swap techs with equal value?  Can you shed any light on that?

Btw, thanks for all the help.

The "willingnesstotrade" field is not realtive as far as I know. It seems to be directly added into whatever equation governs the code. AIValue, on the other hand, is relative, and the actual value does not matter except when it is higher or lower than another value.

Wait, there's a separate Willingness to Trade field?  That's what I'm looking for but I couldn't find it.  What file is it in?

AytchMan, simply because the races have 10 techs while you only 1 or 2 does not relay on the willingness to trade field. Depending on the level you chose to play with, the AI will cheat whenever it wants and play unfair, this may be another reason for their quick jump in techs. I remember when some posted that the AI's ship have a ridiculous high number of logistics or laser units in their ships.

I may indeed be extrapolating too much from MOO but it was a problem there.  And I recognize that some amount of AI cheating is necessary. I guess the question is whether the extra techs come from a big head start (which would be okay) or a propensity to trade tech too cheaply (as in MOO).  If the latter, I'd just like to level out the tech difference somewhat, then compensate by moving to a higher difficulty level.  Thus, if anyone can point me to the right file, I'd appreciate it.

What techs are you seeing them have?  All the same, common techs?  6 or 8 race-specific ones?

I don't remember exactly.  I just remember contacting the AI players after getting the Translator and seeing a list of eight or so techs for each race when I had maybe two.  So I made the assumption (and we all know what happens when I do that -- you just gotta watch me every second).  How many race-specific techs do they start with at the Normal+2 difficulty?

The same as they do at Cakewalk.

Minus HyperDrive, Stellar Cartography, Hyper Fusion Reactors, and Traditional Research, which you should have (depending on what race you are, as most of the races have them in one form or another), the numbers are as follows (Increase these numbers by 1 [except for vs. Altarians/Terrans] if you're playing as someone without Stellar Cartography.):

Yor: 1
Torians: 0
Arceans: 0
Altarians: 0
Drengin: 0
Terrans: 0
Korx: 3
Drath: 0
Thalans: 5
Iconians: 2
Korath: 0
Krynn: 0

-

Which basically means that unless you only dialed up the Korx and the Thalans, my theory wasn't correct.  Which brings me back to the question of what techs they had.

As a note, these are turn zero techs only.  It doesn't account for them researching all their little piddly 25tp techs at the start of the game.

Also, how soon did you have the Translator?

It took me quite a while to get the Translator as I had set the tech research rate on very slow.  So, it's likely that the AI players each added a couple.  As a side note, I assume the diplomatic trading page only shows the techs that can be traded, not every one that an AI race has discovered.  That is, only the ones I don't have.

I've started another game with Tech Trading on and, this time, I'll keep track of who's got what.  I'd also like to try setting the Willingness to Trade field to a different value but I still don't know what file it's in.

There's your problem: AIs usually research very quickly at the start of the game and are probably just out-funding you.

Still, to find the number, either opoen the various tech trees in the built-in editor (you have to activate bthe editor from the TA main window to get it to work) and fiddle with the slider on the bottom of the screen, or open the Data/English/TechTree.xml file and fiddle with the number in the field called "WillingnessToTrade".

open the Data/English/TechTree.xml file

That's exactly where I looked and couldn't find a Willingness field.  Is it something that was recently added?  Maybe I don't have the latest patch.  Or maybe I can just add it in.  What's the default value?

You DO have Twilight of the Arnor, right? It does not exist in DarkAvatar...

It also, to my knowledge, does not exist for every tech.

You are aware it's set on a per-tech basis, correct?

Which is where the second half of my previous post comes in. 

Define "quite a while" please?  5 turns?  8 turns?  25 turns?

Scoutdog--

Ha!  Yes, I have TA and I'm playing TA but I've been looking in the DA folder.  Doh.  The pills are not working.

Sole--

I'd say 'quite a while' was 20-25 turns.