Hello everyone and welcome to another Stellaris development diary. Today we're going to continue talking about the 2.2 'Le Guin' update, on the topic of the Galactic Market. As said before, we're not yet ready to reveal anything about when Le Guin is coming out, only that it's a long time away and we have many more topics to cover before then. Also as said before, screenshots will contain placeholder art and interfaces and non-final numbers.

The Market
The Market is a new interface accessible from your topbar, where you can buy and sell resources. Resources are bought and sold for Energy Credits, with their prices dependent on a variety of factors such as whether the Galactic Market is founded, supply and demand, and possibly also from various events. On top of the actual price of the resource, there is also a Market Fee which has to be paid for any sale or purchase, equal to 30% of the purchase value. This Market Fee is there so that it will not be possible to make money by purchasing and then immediately re-selling resources at a higher price. Resources can be purchased either in bulk, or by setting up a monthly trade, where you for example specify that you want to sell 20 food and buy 10 minerals per month, and can set a minimum sale/maximum purchase price, if you want to ensure that major fluctuations in price do not disrupt your empire's economy too much.

Internal vs Galactic Market
At the start of the game, empires only have access to the Internal Market, which represents trading with actors inside your empire such as corporations and local governments, or in the case of Gestalt Consciousness empires, resource reprocessing. The prices on the Internal Market are set to always be higher than those on the Galactic Market, so relying too heavily on trading will be disadvantageous in the first few decades of the game. Some empires, such as Devouring Swarms, may only ever have access to the Internal Market (this is something we're still testing and balancing) and so might get better prices there. Once the game has progressed to the point where at least one empire knows about at least 50% of the other empires in the galaxy, the Galactic Market will eventually be founded. One empire that meets the criteria is picked as Market Founder, and their capital system becomes the Market Capital, spawning a special station and map marker to denote it. From then on, any empire (barring possible restrictions for Devouring Swarms and the like) that knows of the Market Capital system has access to the Galactic Market and is able to trade on it. The controller of the Market Capital get a reduction in their Market Fee and increased trade value for their trade routes (more on that in a later DD).

Prices on the Galactic Market are always lower than those on the internal market, though the actual prices will fluctuate based on supply and demand - every time Minerals are sold on the market, prices will drop, and conversely, every time they are bought prices will increase. The purchases and sales you make on the Galactic Market do not just affect your own prices but also those of other empires, so that it is possible to for example massively drive up Food prices by purchasing a huge amount of food, damaging the economy of any empire that is reliant on importing it. It isn't actually possible for a resource to 'run out' on the Market, so you will always be able to purchase critically needed resources, though the cost of doing so may be extremely prohibitive. However, some resources (such as Dark Matter and other rare strategic resources) will not be available until they are actually accessible to empires on the market in large enough quantities, and are not available on the Internal Market at all. The aim of the Galactic Market is to make it so that it is actually a viable strategy to specialize your economy, importing resources that are difficulty for your empire to produce and exporting resources that you can produce easily in large quantities.

Trader Enclaves
Since the Market has much of the same functionality as the Trader Enclaves from Leviathans, we're also changing said Enclaves for those with the Leviathans Story Pack. Instead of trading food, energy and minerals, Trader Enclaves will sell rare resources (Rare Crystals, Volatile Motes and Exotic Gases) in the form of monthly trade deals offered at advantageous prices. Each Trader Enclave will offer only one of these resources. Additionally, once you reach 50+ opinion, Trader Enclaves will sell special Governor-type leaders with unique, trade and commerce related traits. Finally, if you control the home system of a Trader Enclave AND have 50+ opinion with them, you will be able to build a special Starbase building in that system which lowers your Market Fee, allowing for cheaper trading on the Galactic Market.

Finally, just a note to say that we're ignoring the Slave Market tab of the Market screenshots on purpose - this is something that will be covered in a later DD.

That's all for today! Next week we're continuing to talk about the Le Guin update, on the topic of Sectors and Factions.

 

[Goblin-Cookie]

I don't like the forced way they intend to create a galactic market, it would have better simply have levels of market based upon the number of planets that are in the market, with the overhead price going down the bigger the market. Civilizations start with internal markets and can merge them together to form bigger markets, exchanging less control over the resources in the market in return for lower prices. The galactic market would be the trading block that controls more than 50% of habitable planets, so it is impossible for there to be more than 1 galactic market at any given time.

Because bigger markets offer better prices, there is an incentive for anyone who does not hate each-other to merge their markets together. We end up with a single galactic market, not because some random process made one but because the bigger markets gobble up the smaller ones.

 

[Calvax]

ecominic vassalisation is not a thing

Neither are hyperlanes but less flippently think of this as a way of:

a) Working the concept of an economic hegemony into the game via the mechanics already in place (since we're not getting a significant diplomacy update this time around)

b) Allowing for a greater diversity of playstyles i.e. one not reliant on military conquest (which is quite developed atm) or diplomacy via federations (which could do some work)

c) Incorporating popular SF tropes such as megacorps using their wealth to take over sovereign states

no one accept to become vassal for resource reason

We already have a military/scientific relationship in the game as the form of a protectorate. This is simply an extension of that; weaker nations in a hostile galaxy accepting protection of more powerful empires. A special vessel type might even work; "Subsidiary: this empire's economy is directly managed by another, benefiting from their superior financial management in return for political loyalty."

they are just more likely to buy directly from you ( if there will still be the possibility to make a direct transfer Between empire)

Which you are free to decline, in favour of pursuing other political goals.

or to declare war on you in order to take the resource they need from your sistems .

That is a strategic decision that an AI or player is free to make, a difficult one without allies given that they are at a significant disadvantage when it comes to constructing, maintaining and reinforcing military assets in the face of your superior economy.

this is not a fact, but if you look at history nation with lack of resource or money just went berserker . Mongols and the "Third Reich" were caused by absurd lack of resource or monetary situaion .

And in many other periods of history economic power has been used by wealthier nations to force others into political alignment.

it would be lovely to see an increase in opinion modifier if you give high valued resource . making diplomacy much easyer if you are rich ( classic trown money at a problem)

That will no doubt continue to exist as it does now. Favourable trade deals can give significant diplomatic boosts and wealthier nations will be able to afford better bribes than poorer ones.

 

[Verx90]

Neither are hyperlanes but less flippently think of this as a way of:

a) Working the concept of an economic hegemony into the game via the mechanics already in place (since we're not getting a significant diplomacy update this time around)

b) Allowing for a greater diversity of playstyles i.e. one not reliant on military conquest (which is quite developed atm) or diplomacy via federations (which could do some work)

c) Incorporating popular SF tropes such as megacorps using their wealth to take over sovereign states



We already have a military/scientific relationship in the game as the form of a protectorate. This is simply an extension of that; weaker nations in a hostile galaxy accepting protection of more powerful empires. A special vessel type might even work; "Subsidiary: this empire's economy is directly managed by another, benefiting from their superior financial management in return for political loyalty."



Which you are free to decline, in favour of pursuing other political goals.



That is a strategic decision that an AI or player is free to make, a difficult one without allies given that they are at a significant disadvantage when it comes to constructing, maintaining and reinforcing military assets in the face of your superior economy.



And in many other periods of history economic power has been used by wealthier nations to force others into political alignment.



That will no doubt continue to exist as it does now. Favourable trade deals can give significant diplomatic boosts and wealthier nations will be able to afford better bribes than poorer ones.

its always vassalization for military reason, or because they feel like they will get conquered in any way because they are too weak or small alone . but yea, there are space wales so you can think that there is someone in the galaxy so dumb to get vassalized with a debt .

atm you can give them tons of resource that they don't have and gain some relations , what i mean is that if you give 100 of foods that have a market value of 10 trillion energy they should get a much greater opinion of you .

 

[Tisifoni12]

I am unhappy with the current trading situation; all the instant trading, often apparently through space that is blocked by third party closed borders.
I am suspicious that this 'fix' is being conjured up to correct problems inherent to the game design rather than create a better system for trading.
Would prefer it if trade in resources, not information, was limited to states which border on each other, with perhaps a requirement for a trading hub. Possibly trade across relatively short intervening open space (e.g. 1, 2, maybe 3 jumps), which might be plagued by pirates . . .

 

[Verx90]

I am unhappy with the current trading situation; all the instant trading, often apparently through space that is blocked by third party closed borders.
I am suspicious that this 'fix' is being conjured up to correct problems inherent to the game design rather than create a better system for trading.
Would prefer it if trade in resources, not information, was limited to states which border on each other, with perhaps a requirement for a trading hub. Possibly trade across relatively short intervening open space (e.g. 1, 2, maybe 3 jumps), which might be plagued by pirates . . .

mhh , we still don't know how things work. i'd realy like to know if internal trade route are strengthen by friendly empire around you, empowering your trade route , so a small empire inside alot of other friendly empire ( a federation for example) can become a center of trade . we will see

 

[xarastier]

What about slave market?

Like Wiz said, you'll have to wait for a further Dev Diary issue discussing the slave market.

 

[xarastier]

Cool so if there is a slave market will there be a "stop slave trade" War goal against slaver empires?

As Wiz said above, the discussion here is the Galactic market. You'll have to wait for another Dev Diary to come for the discussion of slaves and the Slave market.

 

[_mattdm_]

I'm not super keen on

> Trader Enclaves will sell special Governor-type leaders with unique, trade and commerce related traits.

because this discourages leadership-focused races and abilities. Why bother if you can just buy better leaders?

 

[Zarpaulus]

I'm not super keen on

> Trader Enclaves will sell special Governor-type leaders with unique, trade and commerce related traits.

because this discourages leadership-focused races and abilities. Why bother if you can just buy better leaders?

I think they're talking about leader traits, not racial traits.

 

[_mattdm_]

I think they're talking about leader traits, not racial traits.

Oh, I know, but there are ratial traits like "+1 level cap". The opportunity cost of these is significantly reduced if you can just buy governors. (If it's capped to just one, like the science leader, that's less of a concern, but if every trading station has one, you can probably hire all of the leaders you might want.)

 

[Zeelilus]

because this discourages leadership-focused races and abilities. Why bother if you can just buy better leaders?

Because buying costs resources. I'm sure there'll be some math at which point it's better to build an energy focused species and buy your leaders rather than build a leader focused species and save energy because you're not having to buy any. That kinda thing is at a min/max level that I don't think most people want the game entirely balanced around.

 

[xsmilingbanditx]

It sounds great...but I hope the AI gets a little bit more competent in Resource Management and production. Your friendly neighborhood AI still seems to a kind of food fetish :-D

 

[Buffalo444]

Ooooh! I wasn't expecting there would be a founder and that the market would have physical presence. That has potential, I love the idea!

Speaking of potential, have you thought about expanding the economic warfare even more by allowing targeted attacks? For example, something like imposing trade sanctions on specific empires and persuading other empires to do the same? Say, for each empire that signs on the "Blorg Dark Matter Embargo", the Blorg get a 25% market fee penalty on Dark Matter purchases from the Galactic Market? But to prevent abuse, the initiator of the embargo has pay some kind of monthly maintenance (Influence?) to enforce it?

It would allow diplomatically-focused empires to actually utilise the relationships they're cultivating in an active and tangible way, beyond just adding a new member to their federation every couple of decades.

I feel like with the implementation of a market, embargoes need to be included. I think a percentage modifier to cost based on 1) the number of known empires participating in the embargo and 2) the "trade influence" of said empires. If Space-USA decides to embargo Space-DPRK, it should have a large affect on the cost of the trade good in question, but less so the other way around. However, it should not eliminate the availability altogether, as pretty much everything can be acquired by non-state actors or 3rd-parties, for the right price... (even if effectively the good becomes unavailable, just because the empire cannot afford it). However, this leaves the need for trade influence...

If war breaks out, can fleet block the trade routes so that the enemy country doesn't get access to the GM?

I feel like trade goods can probably move via non-state traffic (essentially privatized transportation, abstracted by the market fees). However, it would probably be good to have a fleet stance and laws that allow the disruption of trade traffic, to allow this for empires that do not care about bystanders, or wish to go to extreme measures to win the war. It would probably be necessary to have that disrupt the trade of ALL empires that cross through that system though, as well as apply a negative malus in relations with the empire, which would look best if it was in proportion with trade influence through that system...

Oh man, this has so much potential.

I imagine a possible evolution of the galactical market design:

At the beginning everyone has their own inner market where prices are forming dependent on their own trades. Then any two empire can diplomatically agree to unite their markets, so that both of them will affect the prices. Then add there new empires and so on. So we will get trade leagues similar to federations, though they don't necessary have to be transitive.

And then we have new casus beli and diplomatical interactions. Embargo, trade wars all these awsome stuff.

I think this has a TON of potential, and could make the game feel a lot more interwoven as well as provide tons of RP depth.

You would be making the slavers rich though. You would become part of the problem.

But I suspect only slaver scum will have access to the slave market.

It would be interesting though if you could purchase slaves as a non-slaver (with the right ethos, like egalitarian, fanatic-egalitarian, and maybe specific civics) and then raise them as a unique army with bonuses vs the slaving empire(s) that acquires them, and bonuses in liberation wars. Think escaped slaves in the Union Army during the America Civil War, or Khaleesi's armies from GOT. A mechanic like this could also give way to a Mercenary Market, where empires with battle droid or powerful warriors (SPACE ORKS) could sell their services. The base cost and upkeep(with profit) could then be paid to their originating empires, minus the market fees...

It'd be better to tie the penalty to your proportion of resource production. So, for instance, if you produce 50% of all Dark Matter in the galaxy, then the Blorg have to spend +50% more to buy Dark Matter. If you don't produce any Dark Matter, then your embargo is strictly a symbolic gesture (though you can still create it so you can invite the actual producers).

There'd be no need for a particular maintenance fee, since it's already balanced by diplomatic considerations and by the need to corner markets if you want to really hurt someone.

I think it would be better to have the penalty tied to trade influence as opposed to your production. IMO it makes more sense; an empire with a lot of trade influence may not produce the embargoed good, but other empires would be reluctant to sell it for concern of negative effects with the influential trader, thus reflecting it in the price.

I also think the maintenance fee would be necessary, as it should cost -something- to actually use your market influence against someone else. Leverage can only be applied with force, i.e. maintenance costs.

After thinking about market formation a bit, I'd prefer 'a little' more complex conditions.

1. 50% of empires should know 50% of empires, instead of first one, to discourage 'trade-scientist' race.
2. Only top 3 trade value producers should be eligible, to ensure that trade-center will form in trade-oriented empire.
3. Once first two conditions are fullfilled a special project with huge monthly energy drain becomes available, to allow some underhanded capitalism hijinks.

Well, maybe modders will make something eventually.

I think maybe more qualifications, like knowing 30% of empires and having positive (or a minimum positive, not just +1) relations with at least 20% of all empires.

I think then it could be a timed project that consumes influence, where a competing empire could spend their influence to disrupt the project, so its more of an effort to accomplish.

Also, if relations drop, the project could fail, to abstract the galaxy's empires losing faith in you. This could add more depth and requirements to it, allowing for some subterfuge...

I do however feel like this could not be restricted to one empire alone, but perhaps with escalating requirements based on the number of established trade hubs (i.e. +5% known empires, +4% with positive relations). This would allow trade hubs to come into existence organically, but still put a cap on them, as well as reflect the competition that arises when multiple entities compete in the same field. Perhaps after the first one is established, having a certain amount of trade influence could also be a requirement (x% of the highest trade influence of a station -controller-). this would allow fledgling traders to establish themselves if something catastrophic happens to a major trader, or just have to establish themselves on the market prior to getting their own cut...

These could also get modifiers based on ethos, civics, and ambitions, to help those who are focusing on it fast-track themselves.

In addition to this, would it be possible to mod in the owner getting a cut of each trade, out of the market fee?

I think this should probably be part of it. Say 10% of the 30% fee goes to station controllers, with the percentage of that 10% they get based on how much trade influence they have.

Hey that's not such a bad idea! You could make it be the finisher for the prosperity tree (like how war doctrines are now for supremacy.) And in that way each empire can have their own market if they follow that tree.

I think it needs a few more requirements than that, otherwise it would feel quite generic if -every- empire can get a trade hub. I do think that giving bonuses towards getting one (with maluses based on how many exist already) would be good.

I'm not sure exactly how treating pops as property by indulging in the buying of slaves doesn't just make you a slaver as well. Regardless of how well you treat them, if you were truly liberating them then they'd return where they came from, not be relocated to your factories.

Anyway, since slaves are restricted to a special non-default strata, you most likely will not be able to buy them unless you were already a slaver.

See my idea for liberated armies. I think it would need to be limited, but could add an interesting bit of depth and RP-ability.

So with slave trade, seems like we might be able to buy and sell slaves... can we buy and sell robots is another question...

I sure hope so, that would only make sense. It might have to work a little differently though, with the seller getting cost+profit, and the buyer paying cost+profit+market fee. That would require a little more depth to the sales, but could give some interesting options, such as if a desperate empire decides to liquidate its robotic population at a negative profit to cover the cost of that last ditch effort fleet...

I like the idea of markets in these games.The problem is they magically get resources from thin air just so you are not stuck..It should all be empire driven and yeah if shit runs out tough.

I think you can probably have both, or at least a compromise that should satisfy both sides. Add events that give market modifiers to the overall market as well as specific goods. Then add a stability factor (centers on 0, to +100 and -100) to the market as a whole as well as each trade good. If a specific good has a drastic change (I.e. a bunch of empires buying extreme amounts of minerals to replenish war fleets, or plentiful harvests start getting dumped on the market due to several agrarian empires making farming breakthroughs at the same time and having too much surplus) have that affect the market stability. The further from 0, the higher the likelihood and shorter MTTH of an event happening that crashes the market (maybe just for that item, maybe the whole market if things get too good or too bad on the whole).

Make market stability vague for most empires, but perhaps give a more accurate readout to station controllers, empires with certain civics and/or ambitions. This could allow savvy trading empires to take advantage when something serious is on the horizon, or maybe cause that something serious themselves.

----------------------------

A lot of this would be assisted by a trade influence mechanic. I think it could work fairly similarly to EU IV, with a combination of civics, ambitions, production, piracy and diplomacy affecting the trade influence and empire has at any given time.

Also, pirates should get reworked with this. I'm hoping to see trade routes pillaged by both empire-aligned fleets (for the right kind of empires) flying under a jolly roger, as well as fleets of disgruntled criminals from unstable or high-crime empires that decided to make it on their own.

Oh, and you could fight this by assigning fleets to patrol trade routes and combat piracy, which could boost your trade influence. how about that. lol

 

[Diettinger]

Hello everyone and welcome to another Stellaris development diary. Today we're going to continue talking about the 2.2 'Le Guin' update, on the topic of the Galactic Market. As said before, we're not yet ready to reveal anything about when Le Guin is coming out, only that it's a long time away and we have many more topics to cover before then. Also as said before, screenshots will contain placeholder art and interfaces and non-final numbers.

The Market
The Market is a new interface accessible from your topbar, where you can buy and sell resources. Resources are bought and sold for Energy Credits, with their prices dependent on a variety of factors such as whether the Galactic Market is founded, supply and demand, and possibly also from various events. On top of the actual price of the resource, there is also a Market Fee which has to be paid for any sale or purchase, equal to 30% of the purchase value. This Market Fee is there so that it will not be possible to make money by purchasing and then immediately re-selling resources at a higher price. Resources can be purchased either in bulk, or by setting up a monthly trade, where you for example specify that you want to sell 20 food and buy 10 minerals per month, and can set a minimum sale/maximum purchase price, if you want to ensure that major fluctuations in price do not disrupt your empire's economy too much.
View attachment 403906

Internal vs Galactic Market
At the start of the game, empires only have access to the Internal Market, which represents trading with actors inside your empire such as corporations and local governments, or in the case of Gestalt Consciousness empires, resource reprocessing. The prices on the Internal Market are set to always be higher than those on the Galactic Market, so relying too heavily on trading will be disadvantageous in the first few decades of the game. Some empires, such as Devouring Swarms, may only ever have access to the Internal Market (this is something we're still testing and balancing) and so might get better prices there. Once the game has progressed to the point where at least one empire knows about at least 50% of the other empires in the galaxy, the Galactic Market will eventually be founded. One empire that meets the criteria is picked as Market Founder, and their capital system becomes the Market Capital, spawning a special station and map marker to denote it. From then on, any empire (barring possible restrictions for Devouring Swarms and the like) that knows of the Market Capital system has access to the Galactic Market and is able to trade on it. The controller of the Market Capital get a reduction in their Market Fee and increased trade value for their trade routes (more on that in a later DD).
View attachment 403907

Prices on the Galactic Market are always lower than those on the internal market, though the actual prices will fluctuate based on supply and demand - every time Minerals are sold on the market, prices will drop, and conversely, every time they are bought prices will increase. The purchases and sales you make on the Galactic Market do not just affect your own prices but also those of other empires, so that it is possible to for example massively drive up Food prices by purchasing a huge amount of food, damaging the economy of any empire that is reliant on importing it. It isn't actually possible for a resource to 'run out' on the Market, so you will always be able to purchase critically needed resources, though the cost of doing so may be extremely prohibitive. However, some resources (such as Dark Matter and other rare strategic resources) will not be available until they are actually accessible to empires on the market in large enough quantities, and are not available on the Internal Market at all. The aim of the Galactic Market is to make it so that it is actually a viable strategy to specialize your economy, importing resources that are difficulty for your empire to produce and exporting resources that you can produce easily in large quantities.
View attachment 403908

Trader Enclaves
Since the Market has much of the same functionality as the Trader Enclaves from Leviathans, we're also changing said Enclaves for those with the Leviathans Story Pack. Instead of trading food, energy and minerals, Trader Enclaves will sell rare resources (Rare Crystals, Volatile Motes and Exotic Gases) in the form of monthly trade deals offered at advantageous prices. Each Trader Enclave will offer only one of these resources. Additionally, once you reach 50+ opinion, Trader Enclaves will sell special Governor-type leaders with unique, trade and commerce related traits. Finally, if you control the home system of a Trader Enclave AND have 50+ opinion with them, you will be able to build a special Starbase building in that system which lowers your Market Fee, allowing for cheaper trading on the Galactic Market.

Finally, just a note to say that we're ignoring the Slave Market tab of the Market screenshots on purpose - this is something that will be covered in a later DD.

That's all for today! Next week we're continuing to talk about the Le Guin update, on the topic of Sectors and Factions.

Again cool stuff. This ought to also include the Transport/Raider/Escort pools I suggested in another note.
Math behind interstellar transport is simple enough. If a planet produces enough of anything it does not import. If it does not it will find the closest source and supply from it. Based on the hulls in the transport system, calculate the number of deliveries and time to deliver to determine the capacity load on the transport command. Factor in the ship maintenance cost (plus 0 to 30%) dependent on whether the nation is socialist or very capitalist)
The system may want to include a detail such as transportation of raw ores or refined materials and local stockpiles of Materials. This could have a massive impact on wars as if your fleet is engaged on the far side of the empire and you need to suddenly build a defensive fleet elsewhere... A stock of raw materials may be a big problem!!! It may also permit less advanced races to export ores they cannot process...

 

[JeremytheJedi]

This is a pretty exciting update. So many questions.

• Will Gestalt Consciousness empires be able to be the market capital?
  
• If you drive up the cost of a resource, will it normalize over time? Sometimes the AI doesn't necessarily do great things with their economy and one could technically drive up the cost of all resources preventing the computer from being able to participate in galactic trade.
  
• Can destroyed enclaves respawn? It'd be cool if there was event for trader enclaves to request rebuilding in empires for which they have positive relationships. Nothing is worse than a devouring swarm, or an L-Cluster fleet, wiping out a trader or curator enclave in early game and then being bereft of their offerings thereafter.
  

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

Can destroyed enclaves respawn? It'd be cool if there was event for trader enclaves to request rebuilding in empires for which they have positive relationships. Nothing is worse than a devouring swarm, or an L-Cluster fleet, wiping out a trader or curator enclave in early game and then being bereft of their offerings thereafter.

I sure hope not! That's... kind of the point of them being destructible and hostile forces targeting them! I've both played and watched games where an emerging threat trashed numerous Enclaves and the player has to adapt and find other ways to make up for the lost resources.

It really adds a sense of desperation and meaningful impact to a threat spreading across the map.

 

[Arkangilos]

Yeah, I would definitely prefer a galactic market to a galactic UN.

 

[dav77-b]

Cant wait for an intergalactic famine because the khan conquered the bread basket of the universe.