Improved AI decreases difficulty again.Trade-focused empire rise now!

[Nyaruko]

Straight to the conclusion: 1 pop + 10 mineral = 5 volatile motes ≈ 150 EC.
Depend on AI, The richer the AI, the more resources you trade.
Will VMs depreciate in value? Yes,But AI is now building a lot of fortresses that consume VM.As long as you don't trade too much at one AI, it won't depreciate.
The only downside:VM production require buildings.But not a problem for void dweller.

If you want to reproduce,Be sure to set grand admiral and difficulty adjust modifier on.

My primary income are from trades.

 

[theBigTurnip385]

This has been the case for Rogue Servitors for a while now, this isn't new

 

[TrotBot]

This has been the case for Rogue Servitors for a while now, this isn't new

the screenshot is not rogue servitors, i don't understand your point

 

[DamnedLackOfTropicalFruit]

the screenshot is not rogue servitors, i don't understand your point

Trading volitile motes is part of a larger family of soft-exploits where you take advantage of the AI's trade acceptance.
Usually it's done with food or consumer goods, because the AI consistently overvalues them and they're easy to specialise your empire for.

Rogue Servitors are traditionally used for this exploit, as they have access to a special CG job that's far more pop efficient than anything other empires have access to.
This is supposed to be balanced because rogue servitors don't have any use for an excess in CG, but this falls apart if you trade with the AI. A single pop in the early game can be netting 40+ EC in value, and can eventually beat the motes deal shown here.

Unlike what the post implies, the AI doesn't necessarily need to be using the resources you sell it. You can sell CG to a gestalt empire that has literally no use for it, and it will overpay like a normal one does. Instead, the main thing the AI checks is if you need the resource. If you have a huge monthly surplus of a resource, the AI will pay less for it. If you have monthly market orders that put you in the red, the AI will value the resource higher.

 

[Nyaruko]

Trading volitile motes is part of a larger family of soft-exploits where you take advantage of the AI's trade acceptance.
Usually it's done with food or consumer goods, because the AI consistently overvalues them and they're easy to specialise your empire for.

Rogue Servitors are traditionally used for this exploit, as they have access to a special CG job that's far more pop efficient than anything other empires have access to.
This is supposed to be balanced because rogue servitors don't have any use for an excess in CG, but this falls apart if you trade with the AI. A single pop in the early game can be netting 40+ EC in value, and can eventually beat the motes deal shown here.

Unlike what the post implies, the AI doesn't necessarily need to be using the resources you sell it. You can sell CG to a gestalt empire that has literally no use for it, and it will overpay like a normal one does. Instead, the main thing the AI checks is if you need the resource. If you have a huge monthly surplus of a resource, the AI will pay less for it. If you have monthly market orders that put you in the red, the AI will value the resource higher.

CG and food will depreciate significantly over time.Volatile motes now extremely needed by AI in 3.5,Due to fortress spam.

 

[SirBlackAxe]

Unlike what the post implies, the AI doesn't necessarily need to be using the resources you sell it. You can sell CG to a gestalt empire that has literally no use for it, and it will overpay like a normal one does. Instead, the main thing the AI checks is if you need the resource. If you have a huge monthly surplus of a resource, the AI will pay less for it. If you have monthly market orders that put you in the red, the AI will value the resource higher.

That sounds like a major scope bug to me. Any idea if it's ever been reported?

 

[DamnedLackOfTropicalFruit]

That sounds like a major scope bug to me. Any idea if it's ever been reported?

No, I think it's intentional.

In theory, it means the AI is intelligent and knows it can charge you more for resources you really need, and pay you less for resources you have in surplus.
In practice, it's easily abused, as the player can trick the AI by temporarily changing their monthly output.

The AI does check its own economy, and also factors that in when valuing trades, but the AI always builds its economy cautiously.
Since AI economies generally never have significant imbalances, and player economies often do, the player's side of the equation ends up having a much higher weight - even if you're not abusing a single month market order.

 

[L.Y.HJ]

They will identify what they are missing for resource exchange
Exchange useless resources for useful ones

I don't think it's a problem

 

[Nyaruko]

They will identify what they are missing for resource exchange
Exchange useless resources for useful ones

I don't think it's a problem

Do they need food?I don't think so.Food can be traded to machines,For 1:1.5 food-alloy exchange rate.

You can sell CG to a gestalt empire that has literally no use for it, and it will overpay like a normal one does.

Same as food.Most empires,especifically machine, overpay for food,And sell alloy underpriced.

it means the AI is intelligent and knows it can charge you more for resources you really need, and pay you less for resources you have in surplus.

The reason of why they overpay for food is unknown.They are Grand Admiral,Shouldn't lack for food so much.Use food to trade alloy is pop-efficient.
Not just Gestalt,All empire will overpay it.

 

[Sanvone]

Welcome to the world of sheningans with diplo trade builds. If you saturated one empire with motes you can always liberate them into new empire with your alignment which will create new demand for your goods. That said waiting for Motes is kinda long. CG have the benefit of transforming AI empires into mostly worker economies.

It really is different feeling as for example resource edicts become more obsolete and all of sudden envoys become valuable resource for getting trade acceptance. Also you give damn about other AI empires surviving instead of annexing them, which really pulls you into diplomatic aspect of the game. I strongly recommend giving it a try at least once. DeanTheDull popularised this strat 9 months ago on subreddit to my knowledge, so he definetely can expand on this more.

 

[DeanTheDull]

Welcome to the world of sheningans with diplo trade builds. If you saturated one empire with motes you can always liberate them into new empire with your alignment which will create new demand for your goods. That said waiting for Motes is kinda long. CG have the benefit of transforming AI empires into mostly worker economies.

Specialist economies, I think you met, but yeah. CG also has the benefit of leveraging Fanatic Egalitarian / Masterful Crafters / Egalitarian from the very early game- possibly as early as first contact- to get the most net minerals possible in the early game to build all your infrastructure, and your CG base, to support a science economy. That, in turn, can allow you to sharply shift to alloys once your have the balance

Kind of a trip with Habitat play, to be honest, as you can just do industrial-habitats for everything, with the right diplomatic neighborhood. Also makes Shared Burdens kind of good rather than kind of bad, as you no longer deal with their over-costed workers but get the bonuses to specialists. That's crushed by Masterful Crafters, of course.

It really is different feeling as for example resource edicts become more obsolete and all of sudden envoys become valuable resource for getting trade acceptance. Also you give damn about other AI empires surviving instead of annexing them, which really pulls you into diplomatic aspect of the game. I strongly recommend giving it a try at least once. DeanTheDull popularised this strat 9 months ago on subreddit to my knowledge, so he definetely can expand on this more.

I think people already hit the main points- and some nuances I hadn't hit at the time (AI cares more about your income flow than their own, though that does matter- you see the difference before and after an empire enters a trade federation with you)- but I'll note Overlord changed a few functions. The general effect can be caught in the subsidy/tax relationship, where you heavily tax subjects heavily for their basic resources (making them spend more pops to produce the margins that lead them to start building industrial districts, which you subsidize), but having ongoing diplo-trade blocks tax/subsidy relationships of those types of resources. IE, you have to not have an active CG-for-X in order to make a vassal relationship out of it.

 

[theBigTurnip385]

All these Origins have nice advantages for building a cg trading empire.

hegemon, Imperial Fiefdom, Void Dweller, Teachers of the Shroud

 

[Nyaruko]

That said waiting for Motes is kinda long.

For void dweller,Food in early game it's the best resources to trade due to high output by starting tech.Rely on it enough to switch to strategic resources smoothly.

as you can just do industrial-habitats for everything,

Strangely cg even worse than food in mid-late game.The reason unknown too.In 2275,The most valuable seems to be strategic resources, followed by food,On grand admiral and with adjusted modifier on.


Currently beat 25x swarm.Almost all energy are provided by AI.