Really? It's that bad? Can you give any examples of the kindof prices you got?
Huh, should probably still play though games if possible and send in the metaverse information. Maybe that'll help them work out the kinks.

Turn out the lights, the party's over.

It seems that 1.01A slams the door on the abusive tech-trading strategy. I didn't have much time to mess with it, but I tried selling some tech that I think would have fetched me 5- to 10-bc streams before, and now all I could get was 1- and 2-bc. Nice.

Also, it seems much harder to trade tech for tech now. The AI expects you to give more than you get. Nice.

It might be a touch too strong, definitely isn't fair, and may have other ramifications, but making it hard to trade tech may be the only way to stop the strategy.

I think it's safe to say I won't be winning at the upper levels any time soon again. Back to normal (I hope, maybe sub-normal?)

Thanks for the quick fix!

Olaf: I just tested a couple of human trades, but didn't play the game. If the AI opponents trade tech amongst themselves at near face value, and only the human player is given a tech trading disadvantage, that would definitely stack the table against the human player significantly, in effect creating a 5 against 1 advantage for the computer player. Are you sure you're not imagining this? Any one else seeing it? Developer comments?

I played an hour or so continuing the game in which I had built up a big lead pre-patch by tech trading, just to see what happened with the AI opponents tech, but because I had a big tech lead before, it was hard to tell if the opponents were trading or not. There looked to be a couple of places where opponents picked up tech from someone else, but then again, I got the Slug-thingies to give me some tech as a payment for an attack on the Drengil, so it's still very likely that tech will change hands in the game. I'm guessing the inter-AI trading plays by the same rules as the human-AI trading, but it would be nice to get a confirmation that this is true.

By the way, the game is really hard at the intelligent level now. I had a big lead before, so I think I can still win, but those yellow Slug-Thingies are everywhere and breeding like bunnies. No way I could beat this level yet playing from the start with 1.01a. No way at all.

I started a new game with the patch and played for awhile. I don't know, I was able to still get money from trading techs, but no it wasn't enough to keep running at 100% and still be putting money in the bank for 50 turns, which is what I was doing before. So the patch doesn't seem too harsh to me.

What about everyone else?

Cataleptic: sure, I know it'd be a -simpler- game, with more room for getting position-screwed and less room to make up for mistakes, but I just don't want it to be an -easier- game.

Cool that Brad's working on this issue so quickly--it looked like a pretty nasty balance hole.

~SDC~

Its hard for me to tell if the AIs are actively trading techs 'cheaper' with each other than with me. I did notice they had a LOT more techs than pre-patch playing on normal. Like I said above, so much so that I got my ass handed to me. I was able to win a game on subnormal fairly easily after that so I will go back to normal again for my next game.

Its still a very good strategy at the sub normal level of AI, but its nowhere near as good as it was before. I do think they tweaked it a little much.

olaf

I think it's a little overly tweaked too.

I can't even trade even level techs with the other majors. It'd be nice if you could trade even level techs without giving them away at 3 to 1

Something had to be done about the tech for money thing. It'd be nice to be able to sell the occasional tech to bolster the constantly hurting economy but to have an economy based entirely off of ludicrous tech tribute is a bit much.

I would also hope the other majors trade amongst themselves intelligently rather than being tech whores like the AI in Civ3.

Seems fine to me, i can trade techs evenly with Civs who like me, with those who dont..well i have to offer more, normally a little bit of money with them.

As for trading tech to minor Civs for money, i still do this, but no way in hell can i depend on it anymore, im having to focus on Trade routes and their efficiency and planetary econ imporvements now. Its harder..but feels much more fun, difficult and un cheesy

~SDC~

Ok Frogboy...

I am not sure if you are implying that I am a lying. I love this game and I only want to make it better :notsure:

I submitted my score twice now, so if its not showing up on the metaverse...well..its not my fault. I finished a game on medium map with all AI set to intelligent. The game wasnt challenging at all since this trading tech exploit made me rich beyond my dreams really fast.

Now I am playing on large galaxy (the one straight after medium) with all AI set to intelligent. Again just after a couple of years into the game I have a monthly income of over 1000bc and I am very very very technologically advanced (others still have defnders while I have battleships). This is getting boring and I dont know if I should continue this game.

I can email you my saved games if you want. I understand your sceptical approach but I am only trying to help to make this game better. Its a matter of time before all players out there discover this exploit.

-TLA-Russian

Sorry just discovered the second page to this thread (I am so dumb ). So it looks like the problem was fixed .I will download the patch in one second.

-TLA-Russian