Trade Agreements

[dfeal]

Why is it impossible to make trade agreements as Britain, even with your allies that are Very friendly? Surely this can't be right. Britain was a major trading power in the 1700s and it traded with everyone. What has changed in this mod to prevent Britain trading, even with its allies? And how do I change/fix it?

Ran with the previous version (1.062 I think) right past 1750 and only managed to have 3 or 4 Trade Partners. Was making 40K per turn and was military the strongest, and the nation with the most research, but still couldn't even make trade agreements with my own Protectorates or any other small or major nation.

That is plain silly...

Apart from that, I'm loving your mod, so BIG Thank you.

[Pares]

Q. said, that this "bug" is hardcoded in the diplomatic files, and it can't be edited, yet. The Ai is deciding on the number of your resources, maybe...

[Enarion]

Q. said, that this "bug" is hardcoded in the diplomatic files, and it can't be edited, yet. The Ai is deciding on the number of your resources, maybe...

Sadly it's because the AI got too much money, the more money they have the pickier they get.

[Pares]

Sadly it's because the AI got too much money, the more money they have the pickier they get.

How about the unit costs? Are they different for the AI? Or not? Because we could increase the cost for everything a little bit, for the AI, like buildings, unit costs, etc. Not much, just a little. If it is possible.

[OTZ]

It is still possible to get trade agreements though - it just requires patience. I agree that it needs tweaking - but it's not a pipe dream like naval invasions.

[Enarion]

How about the unit costs? Are they different for the AI? Or not? Because we could increase the cost for everything a little bit, for the AI, like buildings, unit costs, etc. Not much, just a little. If it is possible.

Depends on what difficulty you are playing on, it varies from 60% to 20% discount for the AI, on both units, buildings and upkeeps etc. Not sure if Quixote added a larger bonus to the AI or not. Will have to check that.

I am currently testing out a new idea, a pet project on my own, playing it on VH/VH, and I cut all income (trade & industrial) both for AI and player with 50%. AI actually comes to me asking for trade agreements and offering me money. Which means, they are in need of cash too. I (Sweden) am currently at war with both Denmark and Courland, and well, it's going semi-ok, both attacked me first, but I am hurting for cash, since Denmark blocked my trading port, and they cut my income with half (which I already modded to be cut in half in the first place).

My take on it, is that flooding AI with cash seems to make them passive and agressive in diplomacy, since they will always have more cash then you, so they pile up with units at home, and don't trade with you. Why would they?

Not sure if Quixote wants to test something like this out.

[War&Politics]

I'm not convinced it's a bug. The AI is quite clever with trade agreements. It really depends on the value of the trade in question. If you have a lot to gain and they have only a little to gain (only exports earn you an income) then don't expect them to give you a trade agreement easily. On the other hand if you have nothing but "other goods" to export, they will often give an agreement to you for free.

[Arctander]

I'm believing more and more that the diplomatic responses have as much to do with prestige as they have to do with the relationships. I can get tech trades when my prestige is low, same with economic trades (and they seem to be something that once they're set, are best set for life...)

But once I get my prestige up, I can offer my first born son in a trade for tech or trading rights and I just get snubbed.

And it doesn't seem to matter what nation I am, nor how my diplomatic relations are, just how high my prestige is.

[Pares]

I'm believing more and more that the diplomatic responses have as much to do with prestige as they have to do with the relationships. I can get tech trades when my prestige is low, same with economic trades (and they seem to be something that once they're set, are best set for life...)

But once I get my prestige up, I can offer my first born son in a trade for tech or trading rights and I just get snubbed.

And it doesn't seem to matter what nation I am, nor how my diplomatic relations are, just how high my prestige is.

Agreed. I noticed this too. Maybe if someone should revert this, so the AI will respect you and accept trade agreement if your prestige is high, and decline, if your prestige is low.

[Daergar]

A simple test to do. In mid-game when you own all the trade theatres and have massive amounts of resources, ask for a trade agreement with another faction. After they decline, destroy all your ports, move all your trade ships away from the trade nodes etc etc, then ask them again either in the same turn or the one after.

I wouldn't be horribly surprised if they accepted.

[notger]

I think this is a game mechanic to balance the game: If someone is too powerful, work against him. We see this in all games with poor AI: Towards the end-game, they gang up on you or simply refuse to help you.
Games with great AI, like GC2 tend to be more or less over once you reach mid-game and are not ganged up upon.

Sounds realistic to me.

I would not give GB money, if they already ruled half the world, even if that meant that I would have to suffer a little bit myself.

[Pares]

I think this is a game mechanic to balance the game: If someone is too powerful, work against him. We see this in all games with poor AI: Towards the end-game, they gang up on you or simply refuse to help you.
Games with great AI, like GC2 tend to be more or less over once you reach mid-game and are not ganged up upon.

Sounds realistic to me.

I would not give GB money, if they already ruled half the world, even if that meant that I would have to suffer a little bit myself.

It seems logical... maybe we just need to re-think this...

[notger]

Yesterday, I thought long and hard about accepting a trading agreement offered by the 13 colonies to me, because I knew, half of that money would go to GB.

I thought equally hard about accepting a trade agreement offer from the Ottomans, because I do not want to weaken Austria too much.

I can imagine that AI has similar routines programmed.

(In the end, I accepted both offers. A strong GB would be a worthy adversary on sea (boy, their fleets are big!) and I could always supply Austria with money from my Ottoman trade.)

[TheSavage]

Maybe there's some "don't cooperate with the powerful player" going on, but I don't think that's the full story. I think it has more to do with how much cash the AI has. In the most recent versions of IS, I've had extreme difficulty getting trade agreements even in the beginning of the game when I was one of the weaker factions.

[KindredBrujah]

That's all well and good, but presumably your 'Wealth' rating is based on the same value of money as the AI's?

So if my Wealth is 'Spectacular' and my Diplomatic Relation's is 'Meagre', that surely means either my GDP is massively higher, or my current war chest is?

My main problem isn't with the larger Nations rejecting Trade Agreements (which is fair enough, since they can't really hope to gain anything from giving the player more money) but with the little minnows (usually they reject Trade Agreements a couple of turns before declaring war on me, but that's another issue).

I think it's probably fair to say, however, that if you control the majority of the Trade Theatres (which, frankly, you will, since the AI isn't programmed to aggressively take them from you), then you would have trouble bartering an agreement, because the deal will be so one-sided. Then again, that's how Supply and Demand works.
They don't not need the goods you're supplying, just because you're the only one supplying them. You just need to make it worth their while to give you lots of money for a very long time by sweetening the deal in the short-term.

I was really struggling to get any Trade Agreements in my UP game, even though one of the other Nations, The Mughal Empire, is Friendly towards me.
So, I eventually offered the Agreement at the beginning of my turn (when I had plenty of cash floating around) and eventually bartered a deal where I gave them 8200 igu (in game units) to accept.
So it is possible, it just costs a whole bunch.

Of course, it was only after that I realised all their ports were being blockaded by the Maratha Confederacy, so I haven't actually made any money from the Agreement at all yet. Gits.

[Maizel]

Offer them 10K. They'll accept.

It's an investment.

[OTZ]

As Prussia, I have noticed that it's actually getting easier to get trade agreements the further into the game I get. It's 1730, and I have a TA with well over a dozen nations - and they never cost more than 1K to get. I am swimming in money.

[Valakov]

using 1.66 version, as portugal, which starts out with a small port.

finally got the upgrade on the ports, and added some teritory in india from a surprisingly agressive and now extinct mysore.

im now at turn 64ish (4turns per year) and no one, absolutely no one will enter into a trade agreement. Own all but 4? of the trade nodes. trade offers given by the AI always include some major province to be given up by me.

the only trade partners i have had are the ones i started the game with, which for now means that my dream of kicking spain / france and great britain out of europe are on hold, as GB is my only trade partner i have left.

as a side note, i have a trade agreement according to the diplomacy screen with the Mughal empire, however, not at the time being at war, nor are they anymore, they do not show up on the trade screen.

on a positive note, GB is giving me 40kish per turn in trade income .. basically financing my burgeoning empire.

[aeoleron9]

My Portugal campaign had me swimming in cash from half a dozen of trade partners. Either you've pissed everyone off or you're just making too much money already.

[War&Politics]

Anyway, in the age of Mercantilism trade agreements should be very hard to get.