Yes I think the way Civ5 is going to do it is much better then either favouring the AI or the human in whole tech trades.  Frogboy, what do you think of the above post?

Best regards,
Steven. 

In Civ 4 I loved the option to remove tech trading as it always seemed the computer always went ahead of me in tech because it would trade with others AI and leaving me nothing to trade for.

In a later patch they added an even better option, "No technology Brokering". This option restricted trading only the technologies you researched yourself (same for the AI), instead of being able to trade for a technology and then use that newly traded tech to gain other ones from different civilizations. After they added that I usually played with that option checked and "No tech trading" unchecked.

The big issue with tech trading is always the AI, if all of the AI's start trading tech between themselves then the player doesn't have a chance. I say make it an option, so players can decide from themselves once the game is released.

Actually techtrading in Elemetal is a bit strange, because of the fact, that techs themselves do not have fixed prices, but depend on your progress within one tech tree. Therefore you cannot give a value to a given tech researchpoint wise. As a result the AI should value techs according to their benefits (e.g.,  the civ IV AI did dynamically calculate a value for each tech). This weighting should then be used not only for techtrading but also for research. (And it also should weight the value that a given technology will offer to you). 

As a result - is implemented correctly - the AI should value your technologies (and the technologies of the other AIs) quite low and its own technologies rather high (remember it researches the preferred technologies itself) tehrefore technologiy trade will happen rather seldom.

Furthermore the current prices of technology are somewhat inflated. In 3C' you can simply buy a technology from the AIs for the gildar produced by your caravans in one turn.

I will further assume, that we will see - or rather not see because they are hidden from view - some "shoppinglists" and "for-sale-lists"  for the AI, where all proposeas you make, that do not fit to one of the lists are either dramatically increased in cost, or will simply be refused.

Usually in Civ games, they tend to make the computer cheat a little in this respect to reduce the amount of cheese/abuse since the "real" value of a tech is much more than it's cost in research points.

For instance say you are thinking of going at war with someone but he has a tech advantage in warfare, or you don't have certain key techs to go at war, then those techs are very valuable, and techs that will improve your ability to research are quite a bit less valuable. For an AI it's difficult to give values to these things. I don't program AI's but I'd think it be really difficult to program an AI that values the proper techs at the proper time and doesn't end up trading away it's advantage for things it doesn't really need.

So usually I think they just end up making the computer very reluctant to trade techs unless they are dealing with a direct ally, or "cheat". I still like having the option, but obviously something they will want to monitor closely so it doesn't artificially inflate difficulty or leave avenues for cheese.

Give three options: no tech trading, no tech brokering, and full tech trading. No tech brokering is an excellent middle ground for balancing technology trade (and making it worthwhile).