I'm guessing your not talking about cargo trade?

Not that I don't believe you but how did you test that?

Well, I have played several games in which I encountered the AI very very early and it did not have the Universal Translator because I could sell it to it. Last game I encountered the AI on turn 7 and on turn 8 it sent me an offer to buy Universal Translator for a 130+ credits.

Look, when the AI wants to buy Universal Translator from me it means it doesn't have it. Then I see it tech trades with another AI - which also has no universal translator.

It seems to me perfectly logical that two factions can communicate as long as one of then has universal translator.

The yellow line is an indication of a trade route by a cargo ship. Not a physical trade in the trade window where you talk to them. You don't need to understand a race to have a trade route just like in real life ages ago two cultures could trade goods without needing to know each others language.

Look its fairly simple: I encountered an alien faction, something like turn 8, and it didnt have the Universal Translator tech. How do I know? because a turn later (turn 9) I get a trade offer from that faction which asks me for Universal Translator in exchange for 130+ credits. This should not be possible - how can a faction that does not have the tech offer a trade? Answer, because the AI is able to trade without the Universal Translator tech. I am using version 1.02, latest build, btw.

Guess you have a point here. To be more specific, the Universal Translator tech enables only its holder to initiate a dialogue. At least, this rule is set for the player so it should be in place for the AI as well.

Also I suspect the AI isn't bound to the time closing prohibiting him new trades for a specific time after a successful communication has been done.

They can trade with you when you have UT, they can also trade with another race if the race they are trading with has UT. Even if they themselves Don't have UT, Only ONE party in the trade needs UT. But so far you have shown me no evidence they are able to also trade with another race who dosnt have UT while them themselves also dont have UT. And if you have, you really havnt made that clear.


Can someone else chime in please, maybe im just not explaining myself plainly enough....

Ahh, well thats different then what was implied in your first post . im not sure if that's the case but if it is then i guess there should be a way to talk to other Ais who already  have UT when you yourself dont.. i think it was like that in galciv 2 but im not 100% sure.

The Universal Translator (UT) does not initiate conversations; it just makes them understandable. If you start a game allied with another player and neither of you have the UT then you get a contact message from the ally where your only responses are "Duh!" or "Smile, and nod knowingly."

If you are the only player with the UT you can communicate understandably with everyone. They can only communicate understandably with you. I think you're better off not trading away the UT for as long as you can.

in GC2 you had to have researched UT on your own, otherwise the game gave you an error message ("We need a Universal Translator to speak to this civilization") regardless if the civ you'd like to contact already has the UT or not. Thus, it was totally impossible to actual trade for the UT itself. And the same mechanism seems to be in place here as well, so to my eye it's fairly obvious from the examples ExNihil posted that something is off , ie. AI not playing to the player rules....