I'm thinking that my old Civ2 habits die hard. Even though I know that tech trading is really important in Civ3 I always jealously guard any advance I know the others haven't got. Part of it is because I don't want them to build a specific wonder or offensive unit that they might use against me later on....only in Civ3 some of the wonders aren't that important to have.
As the greeks I'm on a real freaking big continent with the Romans next to me, the chinese connected by a bottleneck at on end and the egyptians on the other side. I spent most of the early game trying to get my borders straight and get a tech lead. My border with the chinese and the egyptians on one end is in bad shape. The corruption (Firaxis...please fix this...) is so bad those cities reach size 6 and the temple is still 30 odd turns away from completion! I'm building the forbidden palace in one of them hoping it will allow those cities to make something! (They have to...my iron resource is up there dammit!)
Anyway, Cleopatra wants to trade her world map for mine and she wants currency. Hmmm...I'd rather not. I'm sick of the AI and its unfair deals. But I gave it to her because I have no horses! The nearest horse resource is so far away that even if I got a settler there the city would be useless.....and a colony? Right. That would be one long ass road.
But thene the chinese contact me. They want a map swap but they want monotheism too. I don't want to antagonize them, but I had to say no. I don't know if they have theology or not and I'm building the Sistine Chapel. (can you have theology w/o monotheism?) My question is this....how badly does the AI react when you won't trade a tech? Theres no way I'm giving them the tech until I have the wonder.
