Switch the market commodity to trade value.

[Unseelie]

Well, it would make generator districts less valuable, but really, what is trade value? its currency. Let that be the currency in the market, not energy.

And then the gestalts need some of it, but uh, that's fine. Let them sell raw materials or the work of their drones on the market in exchange for currency. I don't think that would be beyond them. Thoughts?

 

[Bezborg]

Agreed. Suggested many times as well.

my thoughts:

Time to make trade value into its own resource, and decouple it from energy + idea to rework energy

Hi all :) As the title says... It's high time to detach trade value from energy, and make it into a market currency. The overlap of trade value and energy makes no sense at all. Making trade value into a currency for the galactic market is a...

forum.paradoxplaza.com

 

[methegrate]

Well, it would make generator districts less valuable, but really, what is trade value? its currency. Let that be the currency in the market, not energy.

And then the gestalts need some of it, but uh, that's fine. Let them sell raw materials or the work of their drones on the market in exchange for currency. I don't think that would be beyond them. Thoughts?

I think it would be a fabulous change. It's definitely been suggested a few times, but that's because it's a good idea!

I'd love to see trade reworked and expanded in general. As a first principal, I think it should be split apart from jobs. Right now it's just like every other produced resource. You have workers, you assign those workers to jobs, they generate trade. But this means that: A) it functions pretty much like energy. The only question is, do I assign workers to commerce or generators? And B) it still rewards wide play. The more workers I have, the more trade I can generate and vice versa.

I'm not sure exactly what the mechanic should be, but I think trade should be something that you generate without jobs. Ideally, we would have cross-border trade routes between empires, which could generate trade for the systems those routes pass through. Or it could be something that you generate primarily on star bases, through policies and edicts, through having low sprawl (bigger empires do have pesky issues with crime and corruption after all), etc.

Regardless of how it's done, splitting trade off from jobs could let smaller empires emphasize building wealth and buying power. As a job-produced resource, it doesn't really reward any kind of asymmetric style of play. I could generate energy or trade to buy alloys... or I could just assign those same workers to a foundry. That'd be my next move at least. But either way, couldn't agree with you more on the market resource!

 

[HFY]

BTW, from a lore-mechanics perspective, this change would make some existing bonuses make more sense.

For example, if you host the Galactic Market, your currency is worth a bit more than other empires' currencies. This is why you get a reduction in market fee for being the host -- you're paying for commodities in a stronger currency.

Using a commodity like energy instead of a fiat currency makes the current mechanic look a bit insane, because the idea of a stronger currency only fits if the currency isn't an identical commodity which everyone can produce equally. You can only have a stronger currency if nobody else can print that currency on demand.

So yeah, TV should be its own thing.

 

[Mastikator]

But you don't store trade value, how can you buy anything with a currency you always have zero of?

 

[MadCow94]

But you don't store trade value, how can you buy anything with a currency you always have zero of?

...you make it storable.

I'm also on the list of people that have suggested this and think it's a wonderful idea.

 

[Mastikator]

...you make it storable.

I'm also on the list of people that have suggested this and think it's a wonderful idea.

So we'd have an extra resource who's only job is to be exchanged for resources in the market?

 

[Ludaire]

First, trade value isn't currency. Energy credits are currency, which can also serve for energy upkeep because all galactic currency is backed by energy.

Trade value is exactly what it says: exchange of goods and services, economic activity, and the overall value of said activity. Your government can then turn that value into energy credits (which is currency) via taxation or a mix of energy and something else by giving essentially tax benefits and other regulations guiding said economic activity in a certain direction that results in extra consumer goods or unity.

The system already works. You don't need to change trade value into something more concrete because it's not meant to be concrete. It's an abstract measure of activity in your empire that gets covered into more concrete things.

Secondly, on this:

And then the gestalts need some of it, but uh, that's fine.

No, it's not fine. Speaking as a player who mostly plays gestalt, I'd really rather not have one of our defining differences from regular empires removed in the name of redefining energy and trade value.

So we'd have an extra resource who's only job is to be exchanged for resources in the market?

Also this. Making trade value unimportant unless you're planning to do a lot with the internal or galactic market is rather sad.

If we're not doing that, would trade value also be used to pay upkeep for fleets? That energy upkeep is mostly money rather than raw energy. What about terraforming? Do we need to split that cost between the actual energy cost and trade value representing money for terraforming? Would building/district upkeep also be split?

Should energy be reduced to a planet-specific resource like amenities, so each planet needs enough energy to power its infrastructure with any spare being "sold" and turned into trade value at some rate?

This approach would require a huge rework of the whole energy and trade systems, essentially reversing two concepts in most contexts for no purpose except to redefine what currency is in Stellaris. If there were compelling reasons such a system would be better, maybe, but so often it mostly seems to come down to "I want trade and energy to mean something different than they currently mean," which doesn't strike me as a good reason for such a huge change that would require a lot of work that could be better directed elsewhere like AI, performance, sectors, etc. Or even making incremental improvements to the existing trade system.

 

[Unseelie]

Energy credits are currency?

Okay, well, I do understand why you're saying that. Because...the game is using them like that. And uh...that's wild. because a exchange of goods and services, economic activity, and value of said activity is denoted in currency. That's...what currency is. If energy is currency and trade value is...economic value...then both are currency.

This is why I'd argue that Energy Credits are...well, leftovers from pre-trade value economies, and that how I believe it ought be is thus:
Energy credits are spent when you need to dedicate electricity or heat or some such to a project, and they're essentially just a measurement of joules. Gestalts still buy things with joules, and alloys, and such, because they don't organize themselves with an economy. Buuut. They can buy currency, because...frankly, I just think its unreasonable that Gestalt superorganisms are incapable of collecting a big pile of gold because its useful for trade, and that kind of leads me to something else...What even for:

This approach would require a huge rework of the whole energy and trade systems, essentially reversing two concepts in most contexts for no purpose except to redefine what currency is in Stellaris. If there were compelling reasons such a system would be better, maybe, but so often it mostly seems to come down to "I want trade and energy to mean something different than they currently mean," which doesn't strike me as a good reason for such a huge change that would require a lot of work that could be better directed elsewhere like AI, performance, sectors, etc. Or even making incremental improvements to the existing trade system.

Because I don't understand why the economy rework that included trade didn't do this. I can only presume that time constraints kept them from doing that, but trade value is consistently caught in this half-baked state. You produce it, and its good for....getting other resources, and most nations, that resource is just a 1:1 trade value to energy, or 1:.5 energy .25 trade goods (which is often not actually worth it)

I believe making trade value that you can store a value of, using the market to trade to energy or other traded resources, or otherwise convert into unity via policy, is the foundation of incremental improvements of the trade system.

I do entirely agree with you that the trade system needs much more attention than this, but I think this is a step in the right direction, for flavor and for direction.

For gestalts, I'm not suggesting they be able to do anything other than buy trade value on the market and then sell it again, like a gestalt with no organics could (and would) buy consumer goods if they were a decent store of value. I'm thinking, actually, that they'd be even further distanced from singletons because they're not running an economy, but rather some sort autonomous single-producer, single-buyer scheme.

 

[HFY]

TV can also be used for Edict upkeep, especially the increased job upkeep portion of an Edict.

For example, right now it's insane to pay energy for Capacity Subsidies upkeep, but if you were paying (some reduced quantity of) TV for Capacity Subsidies that could make sense depending on your relative income of energy vs. TV.

 

[methegrate]

But you don't store trade value, how can you buy anything with a currency you always have zero of?

I'm on the fence about this...

On the one hand, you could just add a storage value for trade. Then an empire could build up wealth and buy things all at once.

Here, as you say, trade would be a standard resource who's only purpose is to buy other resources. Food maintains pops. Energy maintains ships. Trade buys things. Etc. That's fine to me because fungibility, existing just to be exchanged for other stuff, is literally the definition of a currency.

On the other hand, you might keep no storage and say that the empire's purchasing power is limited to their monthly income. If I have +200 trade per month, then I can set up standing transactions worth up to 200 TV per month.

In that case, trade less represents a currency than overall market activity. You can harness up to 200 trade value's worth of market activity (in whatever currency) each month and direct it toward the resources your empire needs. In any given month you use it or lose it. I kind of like this version just because it has a pleasing asymmetry. A trade-based empire would have to constantly plan for the moment, which is a little different from how a production-based empire works.

***

In all cases, though, I think the key issue here is that trade needs to be produced through some other mechanism than jobs. Sorry, I know I'm a broken record, but when you point out the kind of absurdity in "So we'd have an extra resource who's only job is to be exchanged for resources in the market," I think that's what really going on. It is a little absurd to put pops into a job to produce a resource which only exists to get me the resource that I really want.

Why not just assign those pops to making the alloys in the first place?

To me, we'd need one or both of two answers. One answer is if trade gives you access to other resources, and you produce trade through some asymmetric mechanism. Why not just directly make alloys? Because you lack the population and planets to do so. So instead you produce trade through (insert good idea here) and buy those alloys.

Another answer is if there were resources that I couldn't produce but could only buy. The obvious answer there seems to be to make strategic resources much harder to manufacture and seed the map with higher-value natural deposits. Then, again, we have a reason to generate trade because you can't just directly produce the resources you really want. If I need 10 motes per month, the only way to get them is through trade (or conquest, of course).

Personally, I'd just do both.

 

[methegrate]

For gestalts, I'm not suggesting they be able to do anything other than buy trade value on the market and then sell it again, like a gestalt with no organics could (and would) buy consumer goods if they were a decent store of value. I'm thinking, actually, that they'd be even further distanced from singletons because they're not running an economy, but rather some sort autonomous single-producer, single-buyer scheme.

I mean... this makes perfect sense to me.

If everyone uses euros to buy and sell things, and I want to participate in that market, I need to go get some euros. So I grow corn, sell it on the market, receive euros in exchange, then use those euros to buy clothing and an iPhone.

Sure, gestalts wouldn't necessarily have internal trade value, for the same reason that I don't bring $3 downstairs with me when I make a cup of coffee. If I want someone at Starbucks to make me a coffee, it costs money. If I make it for myself, there is no exchange of goods and services with my hands and feet. But I feel like the problem there is more that they designed hive minds primarily by taking game mechanics away rather than building new ones in. I don't think this would be as big an issue if hive minds had their own mechanics to replace the ones they can't use.

Otherwise, like I said, the rest makes sense to me. Hive minds have no more of an internal economy than my kitchen table. But there's no reason they can't participate in an external economy for the same reason that, just because I don't sell myself a cup of coffee, I'm perfectly capable of understanding the concept of getting money to buy one from someone else.

 

[Unseelie]

To me, we'd need one or both of two answers. One answer is if trade gives you access to other resources, and you produce trade through some asymmetric mechanism. Why not just directly make alloys? Because you lack the population and planets to do so. So instead you produce trade through (insert good idea here) and buy those alloys.

Hmmm.
This leads to interesting ways to add to the commerce system.
Make trade value gain buffs as it travels across your nation.
Have starbase buildings and planet buildings that say something like "trade routed through here is improved by X",
Make commercial pacts increase those bonuses (some sort of expression of having more participants in the market being good).
Make the number of non-rivaled neighbors and the size of their trade network affect one another.
Make the government types and ethics have a trade value footing. Isolationists less, xenofriendlies more, megacorps the most


I still think trade value ought be produced by pops, but I think the trade value produced by pops ought really depend on....well, on their neighbors and the amount of improvement in their trade network. A nation, even a large one, cut off in a single galactic arm with one neighbor ought reasonably have less trade value than a polity near the center with many neighbors, and that same central nation less than a central nation with many neighbors and a a bunch of commercial deals.

 

[MatthewP]

If we put aside lore for a second (which I think is very much in the eye of the beholder on this one), it seems like the gameplay effect would be to make both trade and energy weaker overall, and to add a step to certain transactions - namely converting to/from energy. Anything that is done with trade value today would be exactly the same other than spending it as energy, which would have a new tax.

Are these desirable changes? If so, why?

 

[Unseelie]

Well the thing is, right now, trade value is just energy that you can't store. The default trade policy is to convert it into energy at 1:1, and the other trade policies to other things, which is cool...but could just as easily be the market having sale options for unity or science. I'm doing some math, but I think its generally dubious to buy unity or science with trade value, rather than just working unity or science jobs.

I uh...don't want to suggest we get rid of trade value. Which makes me want to suggest leaning into it, rather than my other impulse, which is to say "get rid of trade value, its just bad use of pops"

Right now, a build without trade value bonuses but with the Merchant guilds starts with this production:
A clerk makes 2 amenities, 4 trade value
a merchant makes 3 amenities, 12 trade value.

a researcher makes 5.5 of each tech, for 16.5 total, or 4 research per possible clerk trade value.
a unity worker makes 5.5 unity, or 1.37 per trade value of a clerk.
a generator worker makes 8.5 energy, vs the 4 a clerk can make.

Merchants are great, but they're rulers, you can't get too many of them.


Unless those two amenities are really, really what you need, if you want energy or research, just turn those workers into the right job...which leads me back to wondering what trade value is even for. What energy is for I've got fine. Its for pouring into projects that require joules or heat or whatever, and yeah, that's "not a lot" but there's not a lot of generator districts anymore either, and I think spending more pops on trade value, because of a change to the market, would be grand because it gives trade value a point to exist.

I'm also very interested in a trade focused player to come in and tell me how I'm wrong about ignoring clerks in favor of unity dudes, energy dudes, and etcetera, because from where I stand, I've never understood why I'm not getting just straight energy and provided with a way to turn that into science(though I think that science is its own can of worms).

 

[MatthewP]

Well the thing is, right now, trade value is just energy that you can't store. The default trade policy is to convert it into energy at 1:1, and the other trade policies to other things, which is cool...but could just as easily be the market having sale options for unity or science. I'm doing some math, but I think its generally dubious to buy unity or science with trade value, rather than just working unity or science jobs.

I uh...don't want to suggest we get rid of trade value. Which makes me want to suggest leaning into it, rather than my other impulse, which is to say "get rid of trade value, its just bad use of pops"

Right now, a build without trade value bonuses but with the Merchant guilds starts with this production:
A clerk makes 2 amenities, 4 trade value
a merchant makes 3 amenities, 12 trade value.

a researcher makes 5.5 of each tech, for 16.5 total, or 4 research per possible clerk trade value.
a unity worker makes 5.5 unity, or 1.37 per trade value of a clerk.
a generator worker makes 8.5 energy, vs the 4 a clerk can make.

Merchants are great, but they're rulers, you can't get too many of them.


Unless those two amenities are really, really what you need, if you want energy or research, just turn those workers into the right job...which leads me back to wondering what trade value is even for. What energy is for I've got fine. Its for pouring into projects that require joules or heat or whatever, and yeah, that's "not a lot" but there's not a lot of generator districts anymore either, and I think spending more pops on trade value, because of a change to the market, would be grand because it gives trade value a point to exist.

I'm also very interested in a trade focused player to come in and tell me how I'm wrong about ignoring clerks in favor of unity dudes, energy dudes, and etcetera, because from where I stand, I've never understood why I'm not getting just straight energy and provided with a way to turn that into science(though I think that science is its own can of worms).

I don't think you're wrong, except this quite critical part:

"Merchants are great, but they're rulers, you can't get too many of them."

You can get lots of them now, which is why trade builds are in. Clerks are bad, for sure.

Edit: also worth mentioning, if you were right that trade is currently bad, and you just make the change in the op, trade would still be bad. Its value in terms of other resources would be unchanged; only its value in terms of energy would be reduced.

 

[Unseelie]

Edit: also worth mentioning, if you were right that trade is currently bad, and you just make the change in the op, trade would still be bad. Its value in terms of other resources would be unchanged; only its value in terms of energy would be reduced.

Well, trade would be worth more. Being trade-able on the market makes it worth more. Its stealing that value from energy credits, and is overall a nerf because we don't make as much trade as energy credits (though I'm very open to the idea that I'm wrong there).

If trade builds are in...heck, then this is a buff to those builds, I think.

There's a further discussion to be had about whether we want to hold the value of the market the same or let it fall to the lower-utility of a less-produce-able resource. My own preferences lead toward fleshing out trade in a bunch more ways, to eventually get the market back to where it is now, but I'm not really a huge fan of the market as it is implemented, either...and that's yet another rabbit hole.

 

[MatthewP]

Well, trade would be worth more. Being trade-able on the market makes it worth more. Its stealing that value from energy credits, and is overall a nerf because we don't make as much trade as energy credits (though I'm very open to the idea that I'm wrong there).

Currently trade becomes energy credits, which can be traded on the market for other resources or spent as energy. In the new system, it would become trade credits, which can be spent on the market for resources. That part doesn't change in any way except naming. The thing that changed is that trade value is now worth less energy than it was before. What am I missing that makes it stronger?

If trade builds are in...heck, then this is a buff to those builds, I think.

Unless there are other changes I believe it would be a small nerf to trade builds. Because trade is still worth the same amount of alloys, unity, food, etc. that it is now, but it's worth less energy. Of course, you can make a net buff to trade builds by e.g. reducing the market tax or something. But that's unrelated to this idea.

 

[DeanTheDull]

Well, it would make generator districts less valuable, but really, what is trade value?

Mechanically, trade value is part of the process by which non-gestalts gradually gain long term economic efficiency gains over Gestalts who don't need consumer goods and start with solar panel starbases. It's also part of the mechanic by which organic empire living standards are balanced around, in which CG costs are balanced with, among other things, trade value per pop, another long-term gain for egalitarians to offset authoritarian early-game advantages. It's intended to be difficult to acrue, but with passive and indirect bonuses including, among other things, peacetime admiral experience gain and minor economic disruptions if not balanced appropriately.

In other words, it's an economic balance tool that is slow to grow and difficult to collect, but allows greater passive income than early-game advantages.

its currency. Let that be the currency in the market, not energy.

And then the gestalts need some of it, but uh, that's fine. Let them sell raw materials or the work of their drones on the market in exchange for currency. I don't think that would be beyond them. Thoughts?

What's the point?

Set aside it's role as a balance function. What problem does making trade value a currency actually solve, that can't be better solved another way?

 

[Unseelie]

Currently trade becomes energy credits, which can be traded on the market for other resources or spent as energy. In the new system, it would become trade credits, which can be spent on the market for resources. That part doesn't change in any way except naming. The thing that changed is that trade value is now worth less energy than it was before. What am I missing that makes it stronger?

Unless there are other changes I believe it would be a small nerf to trade builds. Because trade is still worth the same amount of alloys, unity, food, etc. that it is now, but it's worth less energy. Of course, you can make a net buff to trade builds by e.g. reducing the market tax or something. But that's unrelated to this idea.

I think you believe I'm suggesting that we get rid of the trade policies. I still think its perfectly reasonably to convert all your trade value production to energy at 1:1, I'd just suggest that accruing it, or a fraction of it to a pool for trades, and getting more of it in trades.

Under this system, the utility of the market gets moved from energy credits to trade value. Trade value is worth more, energy credits worth les

What's the point?

Set aside it's role as a balance function. What problem does making trade value a currency actually solve, that can't be better solved another way?

Your mileage may vary on this one, but the problem its solving is the "uuh..energy is currency?" question. Like, why aren't minerals or food currency?
We've got one mechanic that lets you trade resources around, and another mechanic that seems to be "economic activity" that isn't mining or farming or researching, partying or praying. What does a clerk...do? they engage in commerce, trading one thing for another. That's how I see it, anyway. They're workers in malls and distribution centers, ports and markets.
So then I stumble hard over the idea that we've got this resource, both made by pops and collectable in the galaxy map called trade value..and we don't use it in the market to trade for resources.

I don't think I've sold this as much more than a "I think this would make better sense"

But uh..arguing that energy credits are a currency and should remain a currency when trade value exists doesn't hold water for me either. Trade value ought be the basis of trade...and the market is trade?