For Economy v3: Trade Value as Currency

[exi123]

I wouldnt see Trade Value as a currency. As it is now, it represents some kind of private wealth or sector which can be steered to the direction i need. How does this translates into pure energy? I have no clue, consumer goods and alloys make a little sense (and later naval capacity and others as mentioned by Grekulf as an idea), because the private sector may also be able to produce it, but stil create resources out of thin air. And lets not forget: The game also generates deposits with trade value in space, whats this? For me this could be shiny minerals or other stuff, useless for the military, but from high value for pops.

I say it represents the ability of my economy to produce or service things from value. If you go far back in human history, where different tribes and early empires traded, it was mostly for goods they have no knowledge to produce or resources they dont have.

Its a very abstract system right now and i always have the feeling that it never got the full polish the devs had in mind when they introduced it with Megacorp.

 

[MadCow94]

Its a very abstract system right now and i always have the feeling that it never got the full polish the devs had in mind when they introduced it

Stellaris, summarized. I kid because I love.

Edit: I think this is why the Custodians initiative is so important. Essentially "finishing" content previously released without having to say that's what they're doing. And it's a great thing to see.

 

[Eled the Worm Tamer]

You know, a better notion might be to make factions more important and render trade value as the size of the civilian economy in a given stellar polity. Both in a regional sense, system by system, and overall.

So it would become Trade Value that governed the amount of resources accessible on the internal market, and relative trade value provide a discount with the galactic market. But would also constitute the ability of a second helper empire to work within your borders.

This might mean that the militant faction start funding additional shipyards and the like, translating into more naval capacity, or a materialist faction sponsor private research projects that you then gain the results of, or a spiritualist faction organizing missionaries.

 

[athenir]

Looking closely trade value is generated by the pop (trade from pop) based on their stratum and living standard and represent the wealth and economic activity of those pop. for information, decent living standard generate 0,5 trade from leader, 0,33 from specialist and 0,25 trade from worker while under stratified economy leader generate 0.5, specialist generate 0,33 and worker generate only 0,1 trade value.

Unfortunately, some trade value modifier (trade from job) lost their "%" and subsequently overshadowed those values. ( to show the absurdity of it, clerk under stratified economy still make 4 trade value, more than a leader under any living standard, while having nearly zero wealth of their own.)

for information, the trade value screen accessible on any planet is divided in three sections ( end value, base value and modifier)the "trade from job" value is listed in the modifier section of the trade value screen. that imply it was meant to be a modifier.

if we want to start talking about trade value, fixing that error is primordial for me because that changed the calculation extremely.

for example, let's take a new colony with high stability and 3 pop (decent living standard), two specialist (the colonist) and a merchant (from the mercantile tradition)

-- the trade value from pop is 1,13 , 0,5 from the merchant (ruler stratum) and 2* 0,33 from the colonist (specialist stratum)

--high stability give 22% trade value.

----if "trade value from job" remain the same the caluculation is like this : (1,13 +12)* 1,22 = 16 trade value.

--- if "trade value from job" is a modifier the calculation is like this : (1,13)* (1,22 + 0,12) = 1,5 trade value.


if trade value is to be used as a currency, it would be used to import ressources to a planet and be generated by pop and export.
The value i envision is like this : 1 trade value for basic ressources (mineral, energy and food), 2 trade value for processed ressources (alloy and consumer goods) and 3 trade value for strategic ressources.


that way, planet that are autosufficient would generate more trade value than a planet that have to spend trade value to import needed ressources.

Planet with high population would generate more trade value than a planet with low population.

Planet geared toward production (with large amount of ruler and specialist) produce more trade value than a ressource extraction planet (with a majority of worker)

the more a planet export high end ressources (processed or strategic) produce more trade value than a planet that export basic ressources.



Bonus:

if faction can have control of a planet, the strength of that faction could be based on the trade value that isnt used up.

 

[MatthewP]

Looking closely trade value is generated by the pop (trade from pop) based on their stratum and living standard and represent the wealth and economic activity of those pop. for information, decent living standard generate 0,5 trade from leader, 0,33 from specialist and 0,25 trade from worker while under stratified economy leader generate 0.5, specialist generate 0,33 and worker generate only 0,1 trade value.

Unfortunately, some trade value modifier (trade from job) lost their "%" and subsequently overshadowed those values. ( to show the absurdity of it, clerk under stratified economy still make 4 trade value, more than a leader under any living standard, while having nearly zero wealth of their own.)

for information, the trade value screen accessible on any planet is divided in three sections ( end value, base value and modifier)the "trade from job" value is listed in the modifier section of the trade value screen. that imply it was meant to be a modifier.

if we want to start talking about trade value, fixing that error is primordial for me because that changed the calculation extremely.

for example, let's take a new colony with high stability and 3 pop (decent living standard), two specialist (the colonist) and a merchant (from the mercantile tradition)

-- the trade value from pop is 1,13 , 0,5 from the merchant (ruler stratum) and 2* 0,33 from the colonist (specialist stratum)

--high stability give 22% trade value.

----if "trade value from job" remain the same the caluculation is like this : (1,13 +12)* 1,22 = 16 trade value.

--- if "trade value from job" is a modifier the calculation is like this : (1,13)* (1,22 + 0,12) = 1,5 trade value.

I think your idea is interesting, but

A) a completely different idea of what trade value should do than the OP, and

B) what you’ve identified as an error I don’t think is. Clerks and merchants generate much more trade value on purpose, it’s the main output of their jobs. You can certainly suggest changing this but make sure you understand how the existing system is designed first. Your change would make merchants a completely useless job for example, and that’s not the kind of thing you want to have as an accidental side effect.

 

[Ludaire]

I think this just adds extra complexity that isn't really needed. Especially because you'd need to figure out how in the world gestalts generate "trade." The way gestalt societies work is entirely different. The idea of trading things around and having property, ownership, and even "value" the way an individualist society sees it makes no sense for them. Fiat currency would also make no sense to them and likely wouldn't be something they'd accept as valuable, even more so than alien societies in general (which is the another issue).

I like energy credits because it gives us a currency that's backed by a universally valuable thing, energy, which would be valuable to a machine empire or hive mind in a way fiat currency wouldn't. It's essentially the gold standard, but backed by energy. When people hand energy credits to each other, they're not handing literal batteries around any more than coins and bills under a gold standard are made out of literal gold. In some cases it is energy being converted into energy credits, in which case a generator district or Dyson sphere is comparable to a gold mine. However, the energy upkeep for most things like the fleet and starbase upkeep isn't the literal energy needed to run them. It's the money spent to support those things that includes food, supplies, wages for personnel, maintenance costs, etc. In some cases, that may mean converting the credits to energy, but this would be the equivalent of a jeweler exchanging currency for gold they use as materials instead of money.

Gestalts likely view energy credits less as actual currency used for the exchange of goods and services and more like an abstraction to simplify the high level view of resources being moved around the empire. A gestalt mind overseeing an entire society would track big things food and minerals, but there's a lot more to making society tick, and at that high of a level, an abstraction likely helps, leaving the details to the drones. This makes the gestalt internal market more of a way to shift resources around within their "economy" rather than monetary exchanges. Where they're actually getting the resources from would be the day to day running of the empire, with the resource stockpiles we see being only the resources that are immediately useable for us as the central mind to execute tasks at the highest level. Energy is a decent abstraction for the rest of that, and smoothly transitions into currency when working with other empires.

Also, energy credits are used for gestalts because creating another system for representing "upkeep" just for gestalts would be confusing and time consuming with little to no benefit.

We already have a lot going on in the Stellaris economy with multiple different exchanges between basic resources and more advanced resources. Adding in currency separate from energy would only move a few things like Dyson spheres and generator districts into a separate system that needs a way to convert into the currency we use for upkeep everywhere. I think it's better to just view some of the sources of energy that are definitely energy, not energy credits, as analogous to gold mines in a gold standard. They're a way for our empire to print more money to be spent that's actually backed by something instead of it just leading to inflation, and most of the time "energy credits" is paying for many things alongside energy needs themselves.

Obviously this is working with simplified economic models, but this is a space opera video game, not a realistic economy simulator.

 

[MadCow94]

I think this just adds extra complexity that isn't really needed. Especially because you'd need to figure out how in the world gestalts generate "trade." The way gestalt societies work is entirely different. The idea of trading things around and having property, ownership, and even "value" the way an individualist society sees it makes no sense for them.

Then gestalts should have no access to ANY market at any time. But they do, including the internal market.

Which means gestalts appreciate the concept of transporting goods from an area with a surplus to an area with a deficit and managing their economy of scale.

Which is trade value.

 

[MatthewP]

Then gestalts should have no access to ANY market at any time. But they do, including the internal market.

Which means gestalts appreciate the concept of transporting goods from an area with a surplus to an area with a deficit and managing their economy of scale.

Which is trade value.

I think gestalts having an internal market is purely a gameplay consideration. There isn’t any non-tortured explanation. Transporting goods between planets is a different idea, already abstracted completely in stellaris and unrelated to trade value.

 

[MadCow94]

I think gestalts having an internal market is purely a gameplay consideration. There isn’t any non-tortured explanation. Transporting goods between planets is a different idea, already abstracted completely in stellaris and unrelated to trade value.

Exactly my point. No matter what RP logic people need to use to justify gestalts having trade value and access to markets, make it happen because it's for the Greater Game.

 

[Richard Dolder]

I vote trade value becoming the market resource AND import resource. (ie every 1 resource a planet imports costs 1 trade value, all excess buys stuff. So non-specialized planets have a purpose.)

Also it's really annoying that energy is hard coded as the market resource.

 

[MatthewP]

I vote trade value becoming the market resource AND import resource. (ie every 1 resource a planet imports costs 1 trade value, all excess buys stuff. So non-specialized planets have a purpose.)

Also it's really annoying that energy is hard coded as the market resource.

it could be cool. Worth noting, making TV an import resource is a much, much bigger change than making it the market resource. Making it the market resource really wouldn’t have much impact on the game, but the export idea would have a huge impact on how planets are built and therefore AI.