BROKEN: TRIBUTE in TRADE. v1.01a via sdcentral

i've noticed since the patch i've actually hit the other side of the spectrum. I can't make any deals without being ripped off by the AI... hence i make no deals. just aint worth it. even sellin transports doesn't give much.

~SDC~

Hm... I know they said they fixed the lower AI levels, maybe Bright+ are not "fixed?" What AI levels you at? And are you trying the deal where you let them pay for 5 turns? not anything else? It's a wierd sweet spot I've noticed. Try payments like 25bc/5 on things like [TRADE] or [COLD FUSION]

grrrr- this is beginning to frustrate me.

~SDC~

It is broken. I just tried a 100bc/10 to get a 500 bc/5 trade, as blatant as you can get and EVERY one I asked said OK... good god that's dumb!! At BRIGHT level.

~SDC~

Could you explain in more detail what you are seeing.

~SDC~

At this rate I think we'll just take out the X per turn feature. I don't really hvae time mess around with this anymore.

~SDC~

Gah! Don't take out the tribute / turn feature... I do a lot of trades where I get some amount for the next year as a way to bolster my economy :notsure:

Egads... you sound angry. I'm sorry. I emailed you a screenshot from the latest build.

But there are other bad issues with trading via diplomacy: Selling ships that move at rates of 2 from the opposite side of the galaxy so the AI doesn't even get to use them, for example; my scout selling gambit, selling the AI bad planets.

I think it all needs some reevaluating. Not trying to put off the work to you guys, hell I do whatever I can to help out and offer sugegstions. I just think the evalution for what I amoffering the AI needs to consider further details than jsut the item itself.

For this wierd problem I think there's some math problems behind the scenes, but the other trade inequities that are oh so obvious and ripe to offer the AI have workarounds and possible fixes too:

Ships are worth less to the AI the further they are from places of interest to the AI (places it wants to attack or defend) until they are worth 0 when too far away to be timely; ships in orbit to worlds the AI wants to defend are worth >, if the AI thinks I'm going to attack, it's ships are worht infinite maoutns so I can't buy out his defenders and waltz in with troops, etc...



~SDC~

Exodious,

As things stand now, the diplomacy trade part is broken anyway...

~SDC~

It's not broken. But it isn't cheese proof.

At a certain point, we have to draw the line. Do we put development resources into keeping ahead of the cheese tactics that a handful of people are aware of or do we put them towards putting in things that will benefit 99.9% of users? No matter how much we invest into the diplomacy screen, someone, somewhere will always come up with some tactic that takes advantage of a round off error or some minut eoversight.

It is a single player game. If you want to ruin the game for yourself, that's certainly your business. But my job is to assign developers to things that will benefit the maximum number of people.

That doesn't mean I won't take a look at improving this stuff when I have a free moment. But it's not going to be a priority.


~SDC~

OMG, this is a posssible game killer though. It isn't something I tried to do to your AI, it came about through simply how to play the game. I needed money, I had ships to sell, I did it. It became profitable and then ridiculous and a way to ruin the AI's economy.

Why not have the AI eval. how much it could use the ships? how much *money* it has to spend in the market and then not spend more than that. Wouldn't it be fundamental to the AI to have noly a certain amount of tribute going out at any one time anyway? regardless of "chees tactics?" and then jsut not agree to spend more??

Or make selling ships/planets/whatever *never* profitable so it is more an act of desperation to sell stuff off (like tech too) rather than a viable way of playing the game.

you initially tried to make this a viable way to play the game, but now you're changing that thinking?

~SDC~

What I am saying is:

"The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few."

I am looking at that code this evening and will see what I can do. But no, I'm not going to write some algorithm that goes through every ship you offer for trade and make some evaulation on it. I would much rather put that time into having the AI handle star base placement or improve its tactical abilities.

There are probably simpler ways of keeping players from doing this. I'll probably make is to that only decent ships are of value to the AI.

~SDC~

Oh, one other thing- if the AI can't handle the X/turn part, then make it eval. on just a one-off payment. That would be totally reasonable.

Also trading against the AI during war makes it really easy to buy out his ships and invade planets without ever having to face them. When he has just that one battle axe that could hold the place until my frigates arrive and possibly stop me altogether, it's too simple to buy it and invade... no diplo during war unless it's strictly to make peace.

~SDC~

Brad, I'm ALL FOR ANYTHING SIMPLER you come up with, including making it jsut not profitable to sell it ships. It makes more GAME sense for me to be giving ships away anyway to affect diplomacy standing with my allies and secret friends I'm trying to help in a war. I also think one-off payments alone instead of the IxT formula would help them with their budgets immensely!

~SDC~

I'm for maximizing the enjoyment of the game for as many people as possible.


~SDC~

So am I... but I didn't think I was such an outsider here on this. Others have noticed the problems too... -sigh- I'll shut up now.

~SDC~

being able to trade everything via diplomacy is one of things that makes this game great. but it also seems to be one of the areas most susceptible to cheese. especially things like ship and planet trading. but it's also fairly obvious that when you're exploiting a loophole...and you're only hurting your own enjoyment of the game.

as fot this 5 round thing, it seems like a minor issue in any case. just don't use 5 per turn until SD decides to fix it. thanks for posting it though, as i'll know now to avoid doing it.

i guess the only real issue is the metaverse.

cheers

h

I'm going to go ahead and post an update tonight with a fix for this stuff since there's a rathe rgrevious bug with the propaganda anyway.

It'll be 1.01a.33 I believe when it gets up there.

~SDC~

fantastic. your response time continues to impress. does this mean no more free propaganda?

cheers

h

-fingers crossed-

Listen, I'm only vocal like this when I really care about a game. This one is in myheart.

~SDC~

I would have to play very differently to succeed with no X per turn diplomacy.

I noticed the 5 turn thing also. That to me sounds like something that should be fixable.

As for trading the AI scout ships, and crappy planets, a simple fix for that ought to be just making it so the AI flat out wont buy planets below a certain class, and wont buy ships below a certain tech level.

olaf

Let me say one thing though - this thread did sohw up a bug in diplomacy with regards to the <=5 month trades.

~SDC~

I'm not quite sure why Brad's calling it a non-broken issue or cheese tactic if the AI will happily trade $2500 for $1000, particularly when the $2500 comes over a shorter term. You can't even justify it as a loan w/ interest that way.

~SDC~

update's available.

cheers

h

We're talking two different things. The money for money issue is a bug. Trading ships and crummier planets can be looked at but ultimately that's one of those things where only so much time can be spent.

What I'm uploading onw should take care of this stuff but if it doesn't, unless it's relaly serious and something that casual players will notice, then it probably won't get priority.

~SDC~

It's now available. 1.01a.33.

~SDC~