Commercial Treaties/Trading

[5/77 Armd]

So far, I've been unsuccessfull in this endeavor. Everytime I try to trade for a commodity, I get refused. Even when the message says "they can't possibly refuse!" Can anyone help me with this?

This is essentially a response to Ryoken's reply of how he's dealing with buying off the Danish in his AAR, but I didn't want to clutter up his thread with an off-topic question.

[Ryoken]

There are three variables that are critical in my experience:

1. The relations between the two countries.
2. The "danger" to the target country
3. The AI nation has enough money

They generally will not trade with you if they hate you. They generally will not trade with you if they are in immediate danger (at war with a neighbor, low on troops, etc). And they have to have enough money.

I think the last is the PRIMARY factor in trading, but I cannot be certain. My evidence of this is that I can make peace with a nation that despises me and is it horrific danger from their neighbors and yet they are more than willing to use the money I pay for peace to purchase my excess raw materials.

That is how I recycle my cash from peace treaties. I always have about 150% more raw material production than cash each turn, so it is a bargain.

[Ryoken]

I would also add that due to the low amount of cash on hand for most minors, they are unlikely to be able to trade in high volumes. On medium difficulty, I can usually get 100 raw materials for 100 gold once every three months per minor on average.

On hard difficulty, trade is virtually impossible. I only trade immediately after peace to get my cash back. That is the only time I have been able to get them to ever trade on that difficulty because everyone hates me.