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How much fiddling can you do with the intelligence of the AI? I'm on Monarch difficulty in my current game and I can generally get them to give me all their money for Fortification or some other low-end technology. The AI is lacking a bit of I, methinks
BOS13, the reason you are able to gain a large amount of money from the AI for techs is that you are playing on Monarch Level. This changes as you play higer levels. Reason, The AI has a AI to AI trade rate that you can see in the Editor under Difficulty level on the bottom. This setting becomes a much larger percentage as you play higher levels. What this setting does is set the pesentage of Trade for Techs between the AI. IF the setting is Low, the AI does not trade Techs as much and Needs techs faster than they can gain them without trade...so then they are willing to Pay Dearly to gain Techs they need just to keep up.
Compare Monarch level with Sid level. Hugh difference in Trade. IF the AI already has techs from interactive trade from all other AI CIVs, they are not willing to pay much for techs unless they become far behind you.
Another factor that affects how much the AI will pay for Techs is how long it will take them to research and gain the tech. So under the General tab in the Editor, in Technology settings, you can change the Min and Max time to gain a researched tech. IF this time is Longer in the Min and Max slots and you also adjust the settings for the AI to AI Trage Rate to a lower percentage, the AI will pay More for techs. IF all settings are adjusted higher, the AI will not pay much because no need to pay for what they will gain soon, the same as the Other AI CIVs. When you trade a Tech, you might as well take the time to trade that same tech with ALL other AI CIVs because they will all have it free from Trading with the CIV you traded it to. When I say ALL, I really mean most because that does depend on the Level of trade setting but hope you see my meaning.
There is a Balance that takes place between many settings for the Game and all effect eachother. In my MOD, I have adjusted the settings to gain Techs faster in order to have around 200 moves After discovering all Techs in the Tech Tree. Reason, I want time to play with all the Great Units that come after discovering all Techs. In the CIV III Game, normally we have very few moves to injoy the Fun Units that can be built from techs at the end of the tech tree. All that Work and not much time to play so to speak...so I changed that.
...anyway, point is, yes ithe game can be adjusted where the AI appears to be intelligent by actions...but in reality, it is all caused from settings that allow them to gain or not gain techs fast enough to at least keep up. Time and Trade.