Hi guys,
Just wanting to confirm how trading with the AI works.
If you send the AI a tech - will it always send something back if it can? Or is it based on chance? And is there any way to purchase tech from an AI - ie, if you don’t have a tech to offer it in return, can you send it money?
Last I saw a number from Jay, it was 80%. I have failed to receive tech when trading, so I know it is still below 100%. He wanted some risk involved. No, it will not send you tech for cash. There are times where the trade would have happened but the AI is out of cash. You can either wait until right after Production, or send it cash ahead of the trade if you are desperate for the tech.
One other thing to note. AI players will now work together and trade tech. They instantly swap tech on the first turn after someone Quits, and immediately when one goes AFK. After that, I believe he said they swap new tech every 4 hours. They also compare research times, and the fastest works on Weapons, and the others pick random tech.
Brian has an excellent explanation, as usual, just to complement, the trades b/w AIs is not immediate if the AI doesn’t have cash. I’m in a game at the moment where there is a variation in techs, esp weapons, and the only reason I can guess is that the AI with 1-2 stars left doesn’t have enough cash to trade, unless Jay set it up so that once an AI is below a certain threshold of some kind, it drops out of the cooperation…
Thanks Alias (btw, you drove me nuts in that last game -TheBrain).
I suspect it was a cash issue. Which AI has the higher tech? The one with only 1-2 stars? I was under the impression that they didn’t actually trade, but shared with each other. I would expect as it gets the money, it would forward that tech. I might be completely wrong.
Does anyone know if tech level matters? I.e., if I trade the AI a level 3 tech, and all it has to give back are level 4, will it do that?
It does not matter. Assuming that it has cash, and that the 80% success rate is still correct, it will trade regardless the level of tech. If you have several options to send, and the AI only has one thing for you to trade for, always consider what your enemies might need when picking what to give it.
Ah yes, good to know that I drove you crazy, that was the goal. 
The AI with 1-2 stars had the lower tech. You are correct, they do not trade as such, it is a cash for tech exchange, I believe. Likely was a cash flow issue, I imagine…
And I concur with Brian on the tech level, it doesn’t seem to matter, AIs are not picky. And it always pays to be careful what you trade indeed…
Thanks for the replies, guys. Good to have it cleared up.
The reason I asked about purchasing AI tech was because I’m in a game that has quite a few AIs and they’re all at least a level above me on every tech - I don’t have anything I can offer them in exchange!
You should pick the cheapest tech and lowest level that you could catch up to them on, get one level ahead of them, then in a single turn, trade that same tech with each of them to collect several different upgrades. Good luck Andy
BTW, if I’m not mistaken, I’m guessing that the AI can trade and make moves intra-turn.
I.e. in a 6 hour turn game, I’m pretty sure an AI player finished a tech in the middle of a turn and sent it to his AI comrades BEFORE the turn finished.
Also, I believe I saw a situation where an AI player had a carrier headed toward a star … and again, BEFORE the turn finished, it routed it to a nearby star that it could not see in the Dark Galaxy.
If true, cool stuff … and I like this addition to “help out” the AI.
I don’t see why it can’t, the AI is acting on a per Tick basis, just like your research transitions after a Tick. The turns are artificial blocks of time for us.
I would love to be able to set Empire Wide orders, such as forward tech to X Empire when complete, build Y amount of Industry using the Bulk Upgrades function when Terraforming=Z level.
I don’t want to automate the whole game, just things that happen between turns in a turn based, or at odd times (2AM for example) during a real time game.
Just to be clear, myy point is that a HUMAN play could not (currently) have made those moves that the AI player did … since we have to wait until the turn to do so - the carrier orders in particular.
Good tip! I’ll give that a try, thanks