Food for thought: trade routes, piracy and espionage

[Lord Striker]

In the short time that I've been browsing this forum, I've noticed these three suggestions pop up as popular ideas for Stellaris. Indeed, I have toyed with the ideas myself, and I do believe that these are features that should be included/expanded upon. Here's how I would implement them, if I were part of the dev team.

For trading, there should be a research (society, probably) for Interstellar Commerce, which allows you to construct trade ports as an addon to space stations. These trade ports will automatically spawn a trade ship for every starport within range (1 jump for warp and wormhole travel, 2 or 3 for hyperlanes to balance). The trade ships will automatically upgrade their jump drives as your empire does, and further reseach can be conducted to increase the number of jumps a trade ship can perform to reach a spaceport. Trading with foreign civs will generate greater boons, and the more prosperous the planet you trade with the more wealth your trade ships will generate from jumping to it. Of course, you can only trade with civs that have open borders and are not at war with you.

My idea for expanding piracy ties directly into my trade idea. Rather than pirates spawning as a one-off event in your empire's early game, pirate bases should crop up progressively as the game goes on, based on how many cargo ships there are passing through a system. Pirate should set up defensive stations with snares that entrap trade ships as they enter the system. A pirate group allowed to continue for too long will grow in strength as they consume enemy goods, eventually forming powerful fleets. This gives your fleets something to do during the peaceful lulls of the game and utilizes the pirate feature in a way that makes sense.

Individual pirate groups should form their own factions, allowing you to negotiate with them (for example, bribes to provide safe passage for your trade ships, or even designate targets for them to raid for a bounty). In addition, you should be able to get a rare research that allows you to construct privateer bases, which are essentially pirates funded by you who will raid other empires that you allow them to and share part of the bounty. Other empires will not be able to tell who these strange pirates are that keep attacking them, and you make money without ever having to declare war.

As for espionage, I believe that there should be a new ship type and hero category for this. The Agent should be a new hero type, who can engage in both espionage and counter-spy operations. They will man spy shuttles (for lack of a better term) which are only visible to enemy spies after a certain duration. These small ships can land on planets to perform sabotage and infiltrate political groups, they can blow up space stations or hack into research stations to steal tech, they can follow fleets and sabotage them (for example, disable jump drives temporarily), provide intel of course and even attempt to assassinate enemy leaders.

While all of these abilities are very powerful, counterspies can be attached to said planets and fleets to thwart these attempts, and as soon as the presence of a spy is known, a counterspy can be sent in to dispatch them. This may make for more dynamic gameplay during a cold war and even during hot ones. The speed and effectiveness of spies should be depreciable by enacting policies (e.g. security checks at trade ports, which greatly decrease trade income but increase security) and closed borders.

I know this is a super long post, but I think these ideas would be cool if considered, and since I don't exactly know how to mod it'd be pretty neat if someone took these ideas and ran with them.

 

[Derp]

Re: trade/piracy; pls no, or make it something you can toggle on game creation.
My computer suffers enough as games go on, I don't need even more things moving around for something as marginally interesting (and so easily abstracted) as trade.

 

[Lord Striker]

Re: trade/piracy; pls no, or make it something you can toggle on game creation.
My computer suffers enough as games go on, I don't need even more things moving around for something as marginally interesting (and so easily abstracted) as trade.

That is true, and I definitely understand your concerns there. I think that a trade system would really liven up the Stellaris Universe in the mid-to-late game. As it stands, most of the things wondering in and out of your space are Amoebas and space cows, which quickly disappear after mid game approaches, and the occasional Leviathan will jump around. The universe can start to feel awfully static and boring in the mid-to-late game unless you decide to start an intergalactic war and cause trouble for yourself, which was one of the issues I want to see addressed.

 

[Dalinski]

The perfect median for espionage are factions. Factions can start hidden, become revealed, extend to galactic factions. Giving you a mass of options .....IF factions ever become the mainstay of the game.

Your own espionage agency could become a faction and be vulnerable to infiltration.

 

[Vaar]

I agree that trade, and the resulting gameplay, need to be in Stellaris, but I think it is difficult to implement. Notorious late game lag amplified by the new reliance on mass, small ships has put into question any system increasing the number of ships in the game. In fact, I would argue they need to focus on reducing the amount of ships in favor of late game performance.

However, trade needs to be in Stellaris. Having trade move around food, consumer goods, population and materials means that you both need to build a trade fleet and protect it. It means that pirates are a threat to your economy, trade wars, blockades and gorilla warfare. It could even tie into an espionage system.

We also need specialized planets. Garden worlds, megacities, worlds that are mineral rich, industrial worlds and ring worlds not only makes sense in gameplay, they are logical. I'm not the only one who finds it strange I'm mining on a ring world, right?

Anyway, what is the solution? I think it's clear that adding each little trade ship is not an option. However, I think having some form of physical ships representing trade is required because it adds so much to gameplay.

 

[Radically Right Wing]

I think that this could be improved by having Trade ships only coming to and from the Capital, Each Empire could get only 3 or 4 Trade Ships and be able to trade with their neighbors, this way they still have multiple Trade Routes they need to defend. Tall Empire could have more and become Trading Nations, maybe 7 or 8.

 

[Vaar]

I think that this could be improved by having Trade ships only coming to and from the Capital, Each Empire could get only 3 or 4 Trade Ships and be able to trade with their neighbors, this way they still have multiple Trade Routes they need to defend. Tall Empire could have more and become Trading Nations, maybe 7 or 8.

It's certainly an option. Maybe a slightly better option would be the way that Civilization solves the issue. In that way, you could have limited trade benefiting internal and external trade. However, that removes the possibility of having an economy within your empire, relying on magic to move resources around.

I suppose EU4 and HoI deal with the idea a bit as well, using trade lanes or missions to effect trade, but I'm not sure if an invisible option is best for Stellaris. Either way, I'm sure there will be an entire expansion based on economy and trade, so hopefully they come up with an interesting idea.

 

[Tekadiel]

I like this a lot. To me the most interesting thing would be a road/trade route network along which planets can share their resources (including food). This would offer a lot of potential for more strategic warfare:
A world cut off of this system would only produce for itself and would not give its resources to the empire resource pool. Additionally, empires should only trade which each if connected by trade routes. Blockades and raiding would suddenly become a much greater issue. Maybe this trade network could even be tied to a supply system for the ships, making doomstacks vulnerable to cut of supply routes.

 

[Vaar]

I like this a lot. To me the most interesting thing would be a road/trade route network along which planets can share their resources (including food). This would offer a lot of potential for more strategic warfare:
A world cut off of this system would only produce for itself and would not give its resources to the empire resource pool. Additionally, empires should only trade which each if connected by trade routes. Blockades and raiding would suddenly become a much greater issue. Maybe this trade network could even be tied to a supply system for the ships, making doomstacks vulnerable to cut of supply routes.

Exactly. The idea of trade routes and movement of goods creating the illusion of an economy would increase the depth of all aspects of Stellaris. Imagine funding pirates to attack your enemy's trade routes while not even at war or blocking a key world supplying most of an empires food or materials. I just wonder what the best way to visualize it would be.

 

[Dr. B]

Event, if Pirates are funded/get stronger at edge of a sector:

Pirates suddenly construct a powerful starbase at one of your important strategic resource points, take control of the resource, and auction it off to the higher bidder. Has to be some resource that is actually useful and in demand, and power of Pirates such that they can not easily be destroyed.

 

[Repùblica Vèneta]

I like your suggestions for trade and piracy, I hope it is something that the Paradox team takes a look at. It reminds me a bit of Sins of a Solar Empire. I know people are concerned about the idea of trade ships lagging down the late game, maybe the solution involves in limiting the numbers of them, and making that limit work within the gameplay mechanics. The trade ships could be huge Eve Online style freighters that only launch once a year, but make for very profitable and tempting targets as they pass through your empire. Protecting them would also give our fleets something more to do when not at war.

After Stellaris launched, I always felt that the two areas of the game that were still lacking were internal empire politics and interstellar trade. I'm excited to see what they are doing with politics in Banks, I hope trade is next. It is a pretty iconic element of a lot of sci fi, and there are some great games out now like Offworld Trading Company which have proved that you can make surprisingly fun gameplay out of commerce and competition.

 

[Tekadiel]

Another suggestion: Maybe trade networks could work under the assumption that there is a fifth way to travel the hyperspace relying on star gates on star bases outside the gravity well. These bases would automatically connect to all trade stations in a certain range but only for trade and information as ships would be to big for this way to travel. Civilian ships would then only travel within the star systems between the planets and the trade base and thus hopefully not slow the game down too much (but I am not sure to be honest what slows the game down and what not).

 

[Gentleman Meow]

Another thought I had for pirates, once mid-game hits, is pirate bases. Pirate bases would spawn with their own system that you would have to locate, they'd be completely invisible until you got enough information to warp to this system and destroy the pirate base, to get this information you could use espionage, and destroying pirate fleets. These pirate systems wouldn't actually have any habitable planets, or asteroids to mine, it'd be an empty system that would disappear after the base is destroyed and you warp out. Pirate Bases would of course spawn pirate fleets to pillage mining stations/trade routes and the like, and maybe you can negotiate with them as well, like the OP talked about.
I feel that this kind mechanic would work fairly well, and I think it'd be better than just having pirates randomly spawn in your systems and start causing havoc, this way there would be a kind of logic behind it, I guess?

 

[alphamikefox]

I like quite a few aspects of all of these suggestions, and disagree only a little with some others but only because I think it makes more sense and is easier to work with what we have in the game already as jumping points and baselines instead of coming up with all new mechanics. Allow me to explain:

Science ships have survey system, so why not give fleets "hunt pirates" command? They scan stellar bodies in a system you control for "pirate bases," and sometimes trigger pirate anomalies. Examples could be: flush out a smuggling ring, have a small orbital hillbilly station shoot at your ships and cause light damage sending them back to spacedock, or you might actually root out an arms depot with a few ships and start a combat. The strength of pirate ships, bases and anomaly events in your empire can scale not just with distance from your capital but also with your tech level. Certain classes of ships, such as a battleship, hunting in a system prevent some pirate anomalies from ever triggering, and can also unlock different choices when they do occur

This will break down doomstacks into component parts in peacetime, and pirate anomalies don't stop when you're at war, so if you want to regroup your entire fleet and doomstack an enemy empire, you leave every single one of your systems open to being overrun with pirates the longer the war drags on. The larger your empire becomes the more of your fleet you will need to keep just patrolling to keep pirates in check...if that's what you want

I envision different pirate factions existing with different effects, some of which may-or-may-not exist at all based on what government type and ethos you play as. Some tentative examples are smugglers, cartels, arms dealers, and independents. They can have different effects on your systems if left to their own devices, not always entirely negative. For example, independents will build their own stations on resources in the same system, but only provide half or a portion of the resource to the empire itself. Smugglers may trade with other empires that you have closed borders with if you allow them to exist in your empire, and you can skim a small portion of that trade for your empire off the top if you let them exist in one of your systems, but again the resource output of that system and its stations will suffer. Cartels may traffic in slaves or refugees, bringing them into or out of your empire in a system that you allow them to exist in, which you might be able to make use of. All of the factions will eventually have ships and a base (or more) in your system that you will have to attack if you want to regain control of the system, arms dealers could be the most heavily armed of these, however if you don't attack them, they will remain neutral to military ships of your empire, but they will attack enemy empires that enter that system. Merchant marines, of a sort. Free defenses, if you will

To balance this, I would introduce a mechanic called "law and order" that is related to distance from your capital, but can also be increased by certain buildings and varies depending on government type and ethos. The more law and order in a system, the fewer ships you need to patrol that system on "hunt pirates" in order to keep piracy at bay. Again, if you want it...maybe you'd like to play as a plutocratic oligarchy that lets pirates roam free in your empire!

I also have ideas for trade, but I want to separate them in my next post so that people can decide how they feel about each suggestion separately

tl;dr: pirates. And sorry it's so long

 

[alphamikefox]

As far as a trade system goes, I can understand lagging the game up, but I don't think radical new mechanics are necessary that would make such lagging problematic. I like Civ V and Civ VI ideas of trading, but I don't see them being fun for Stellaris. I'm more inclined to take a page from some of EU4's trade system. We can skip out on the trade goods/production/trade power jazz (though maybe later those would be nice) and just create a system of trade flow directions to and from systems that build trade spaceports

I guess it's never sit quite well with me that a colony on day 1 can start contributing minerals and energy to your empire with no means of interstellar distribution or any meaningful infrastructure to speak of. I suggest that a colony not contribute resources to an empire from that system until it is linked by a trade network to your capital. In order to do this a) eliminating the -10 energy from colony ships and b) start with a trade spaceport in your home system and the ability to build trade hubs in any system not owned by another empire with closed borders, essentially the same criteria for building wormhole stations. Tentative idea is that wormhole stations can be upgraded to a trade hub for wormhole empires, but that's just a spur-of-the-moment thought that I'm not sure of the balancing for. Anyways, trade hubs "reach" as far as your highest FTL tech (jump drives etc. included) and link to each other as long as they are within range and are not blockaded. Blockades can be done by military ships of other empires either in enemy territory when at war or in unclaimed territory when not at war, but that will give the victim empire a "trade protection" wargoal that they can use, or trade can be blockaded by pirates if they control a system (see my previous post). The effect of a blockade is that all the systems upstream of the blockade, including the blockaded system, will suffer resource penalties from all the planets and stations that produce resources. Your capital is always downstream. This can cause direct and crippling effects on an empire's economy both in and out of war, and encourage people not to overextend their empires or expand too quickly. As for sectors, my suggestion is that the sector will have one centralized distribution hub for the sector that sends resources back to the homeworld, or the nearest core world that can be linked to that sector. Testing and balance required

I'm not entirely sure how to work in interstellar empire trade into this mold simply because there aren't enough tradeable things right now in Stellaris, but with the addition of a consumer goods mechanic, albeit a rather...bland concept of consumer goods, maybe something like that can be traded across empires. In the meantime, trade routes can be connected to other empires once the appropriate early game tech is researched and one of your trade hubs that can reach another empire is converted to an interstellar trade post, that then allows you to trade with that and any other other empires in range that has open borders with you. In addition, refugees and migrants travel along trade route paths, allowing you to have some control and direction to have them flow into or out of your empire

A few other basic notes about trade hubs: they do not start as targetable in wartime like defense stations but can be strategically attacked and destroyed, albeit at a significant relationships penalty for destroying a civilian target (with empires that care about such things). When it comes to other alien spaceborne lifeforms they will not attack trade hubs either, since they are unarmed, but so long as an amoeba fleet is in that system it counts as blockaded, as above, until they fly off or are killed. This is essentially because traders don't wish to fly precious cargo near giant violent space aliens until they go away. Lastly any empire can build their own trade hub in neutral space, and any number of multiple empires can build trade hubs in the same system, but you can only have (and only need) one per system. Trade hubs from other empires remain in a system even if it falls under the control of another empire and remain unblockaded as long as relations with them are friendly and borders are open. At any time, though, an empire can demand that any trade hubs built in their space be dismantled, typically a prelude to war

tl;dr: trade. I am too verbose

 

[Shock360]

Should be EU4 but more dynamic. Give commercial resources, that can be traded. Give a trading value for each other nation. If it's above 0 then your nation will trade with them. Have modifiers depend on things like open borders, etc. If the two aren't allowed to trade then it's illegal trading(what's the term! XD). Have technologies let you gain more money from this.