Trade and Commerce: Mod thoughts

[[Q]uik]

Trade minerals / month for energy
and wise versa is a totally okay way to do it; I will give you say 20 of the minerals I earn each month and you'll give me x of your energy each month, or a clump sum. That is - essentially trade and the trade in order to be "fun" - or at the very least logical has to involve some of that. Otherwise it's merely arbitrary and not really based in anything - again; Click to gain money. or "trade" influence for money lol.

 

[Vasious]

Trade minerals / month for energy
and wise versa is a totally okay way to do it; I will give you say 20 of the minerals I earn each month and you'll give me x of your energy each month, or a clump sum. That is - essentially trade and the trade in order to be "fun" - or at the very least logical has to involve some of that. Otherwise it's merely arbitrary and not really based in anything - again; Click to gain money. or "trade" influence for money lol.

Think that is already an option
Monthly trade of Minerals for Energy

 

[[Q]uik]

Well then - and that is as far as that trading system has to go; Unless we want to get into civilian sectors and such - which I sincerely doubt will happen.

 

[Daetrin]

Oh, yes, I agree that simulating where the trade pathed (based on trade agreements, hub positions and FTL tech) would be important.

What I meant was the effects of the intergalatic trade (like access to luxury goods, unemployment owing to competition and so on) could just be events which give a modifier, rather than trying anything more complicated

It could be, and I would assume that any added system like trade would come with its own set of events, but there are benefits to having a dynamic and active system influencing your empire. First of all, it's another layer of complexity and richness that, done well, makes managing your empire more interesting. Depending on how trade is implemented, it could for example help you define your sectors. Right now, they're useful and important but their specific layout doesn't seem particularly meaningful. It could also improve the flow of pops and such to "border worlds" or "underdeveloped worlds" with a few edicts. Conversely it could naturally create systems/planets of interest as your trade increases, converse to the above, so you know what planets you might want to keep directly under your thumb.

Clearly it doesn't need to actually figure out the goods that are being passed around. As I said it could just use an intensity map and derivatives, and assume pops + local resources + buildings equates to the trading power of that planet.

 

[TheLand]

Think that is already an option
Monthly trade of Minerals for Energy

Yes - and I don't think it adds much, to be honest.

It looks like players can develop for minerals/energy as they wish. Most planet tiles can be developed for energy or for minerals just as well. Given that, you can balance your production without trade. One could say it's just a get-out for sloppy planet development....

 

[[Q]uik]

Well yeah it is; And any other form of trade would be as well. Even the "press button get money" option is just a flat upgrade- without the cost, so it wouldn't add anything either.

 

[MN121MN]

IMHO, I agree with both OP and @Daetrin post on trade, but here's my take on it

Civilian Access This is the fundamental key of trade: Civilian access. If your empire does not have civilian access, don't expect to make trade links. I think the discussions regarding happiness and ethos spread should not be based on trade, but more on the civilian access. Regarding migration. I agree with @Daetrin's post.

Basis of Trade Following DD on Planet's resources, assuming no change was done on this mechanic,

The Basic Resources
View attachment 142998 Food is a requirement for Pops to grow. If there is plenty of Food, Pops will grow faster. If there is a lack of Food, Pops will be unhappy.

View attachment 142997 Minerals are used to produce most things in the game. If Minerals represent matter, Energy Credits represent work.

View attachment 142996 Energy Credits represent all liquid assets and energy produced by our Empire. Actions, such as clearing tiles, cost Energy Credits to perform. This resource is mainly used for upkeep, and although it can be hoarded, that might not be the best way of handling it.

Then I think trade should only occur to exchange food/minerals with energy credits, energy credits being the main "currency" in this game. However, if we disregards this basic resources as the "essential resources the empire controls", being civilian resources are treated separately, then the next mechanic wouldn't make much sense which is

Resource Modifiers There are two viewpoints on this actually.
1. Either an increase in energy credits and decrease in the amount of minerals/food produced for the nations selling minerals/food and a decrease in energy credits and increase in the amount of minerals/food produced for the nations buying, or
2. A gradual increase in the resources available to the empire, reflecting the overall gain of trade in the empire (when your empire opens up, automatically your supply of a particular resources increases as well). This is line with OP suggestion that as time grows and trade grows stronger, the modifier will increase up to a certain maximum where the two empires' economy becomes closely integrated.

Planet Tile Buildings or Stations We should try to add additional planet tile buildings or stations to make trade steering more sense. For example, with the creation of a CBD in a particular planet, other species prefer to go trade in this particular planet and increases immigration attractiveness. It will also help boost the production of resources in that particular planet, making it useful to be placed in large or huge planets.

Benefits & Loss for Trader-type Empires
If we decide to create a benefit for trader-type empires, then my suggestion would be to reduce the influence maintenance for these links while increasing the gains they receive from the empires, but they should have a negative resource production modifier to reflect their need to trade.

But we have trading via Diplomacy
While this mechanic is already in-game, this seems more like direct exchange of resources between one empire and another, while the discussion is more on civilian trade. Of course more strategic resources like the terraforming gases cannot be traded efficiently, but as the viewpoint suggests, creating an unknown unlimited resource modifiers is more useful, and if you can compound this with trades from other empires, it can be quite a boom for the empire conducting trade.

 

[TheLand]

IThen I think trade should only occur to exchange food/minerals with energy credits, energy credits being the main "currency" in this game. However, if we disregards this basic resources as the "essential resources the empire controls", being civilian resources are treated separately, then the next mechanic wouldn't make much sense which is

Resource Modifiers There are two viewpoints on this actually.
1. Either an increase in energy credits and decrease in the amount of minerals/food produced for the nations selling minerals/food and a decrease in energy credits and increase in the amount of minerals/food produced for the nations buying, or
2. A gradual increase in the resources available to the empire, reflecting the overall gain of trade in the empire (when your empire opens up, automatically your supply of a particular resources increases as well). This is line with OP suggestion that as time grows and trade grows stronger, the modifier will increase up to a certain maximum where the two empires' economy becomes closely integrated.

I view the "food", "energy" and "minerals" resources as highly abstracted. "Minerals" say might include iron, titanium, tungsten, aluminimum, gold, platinum, antimony, arsenic and a whole bunch of entirely sci-fi ones and their allows and so on... Some of these particular constituents of the "minerals" resource will be more plentiful in some places, so there is potential gains from trade.

To illustrate the point, consider a Blorg observing the Earth economy from space and concluding that there is only one resource which is called "stuff". Why do the humans keep shipping stuff around the planet when every country produces plenty of it? Because some places are better at producing certain kinds of stuff, compared to others....

Planet Tile Buildings or Stations We should try to add additional planet tile buildings or stations to make trade steering more sense. For example, with the creation of a CBD in a particular planet, other species prefer to go trade in this particular planet and increases immigration attractiveness. It will also help boost the production of resources in that particular planet, making it useful to be placed in large or huge planets.

Benefits & Loss for Trader-type Empires
If we decide to create a benefit for trader-type empires, then my suggestion would be to reduce the influence maintenance for these links while increasing the gains they receive from the empires, but they should have a negative resource production modifier to reflect their need to trade.

Good thoughts. I was just thinking about using (scarce and costly) station module space to support trading, helping make it more of a strategic choice and less of a "push for cash" button...

 

[TheLand]

Some updated thoughts.

Updating "interstellar commerce" with investment aspects requiring tech/construction to make it work, hard limits, and other things

Interstellar Commerce
* Establishing Commerce Links would be a new Diplomacy option (in Trade Deals)
** To do this requires appropriate tech research and/or space station module construction
** There should be a hard limit for number of commerce links (similar to the hard limit on embassy construction) - appropriate tech/construction increases this hard limit.
* This represents trade between two reasonably friendly powers, that occurs below the abstraction level of the game as a whole. I.e. starships flying backwards and forwards between worlds of the species independently of their governments
* Both parties to a Commerce Links gain a small passive income of Energy. This represents the overall gains from trade
**Fairly advanced technology / construction can add an additional small number of additional resources/effects, e.g. adding minerals or technology or happiness to the trade you get
* Establishing the links costs Influence
* Commerce links are cancelled if the nations are at war with each other
** They are also temporarily reduced / interrupted if planets in either power are blockaded
* The level of the income from Commerce Links depends on:
** The duration of the commerce links. It takes several years for income to reach a good level, and it continues to grow very gradually after time. After 100 years your economies are closely integrated and the gains are large
** The size *of your trade partner*. The more worlds in your commerce partner's empire, the more income you get. This is asymmetrical so a small nation gets more benefit from trading wiht a vast empire than the other way around. However, this is a much-slower-than-linear increase (e.g. the value of trading with a 10-system nation might be twice the value of trading with a one system nation)
** The amount of investment you have made in commerce-related techs and starport improvements
** Your Ethos, Traits and Government Type. A thrifty materialist xenophile nation governed by a plutocratic hegemony will gain more from trade than a spiritualist military junta
** Possibly The nature of your homeworld and your phenotype, compared to your trade partner's. Similar species type and slightly different homeworld (e.g. Continental world if yours is Tropical) would add value.

And on the strategic resources idea. I've realised that the concept of strategic resources giving a nation-wide bonus is 100% awful and anything that goes in this route should probably follow Paradox's model of special resources opening up new building options, which also require investment to make work. If the benefits only accrue to an individual planet, this is actually quite a good anti-blobbing measure.

Strategic Resource improvements
Another approach that might work instead or as well would be extending the strategic resource system.
* The number of strategic resources should be relatively high [~20-30? of course the actual number isn't confirmed yet, but only about 4 have appeared in the videos so far]
** This helps ensure everyone has some kind of resources to trade potentially
** This would probably necessitate reducing the impact of each resource (possibly considerably)
** Potentially lots of flavour here
* Strategic resources should appear on more worlds, so most worlds have access to at least one
** Including starting homeworlds so everyone has something to trade
* However not all resources would be available.
** A resource starts as a 'potential' resource, visible as a planet attribute
** Potential resources turn into actual resources when they are exploited, which is a process that happens below the level of abstraction [to avoid huge micromanagement & exploitability]
** How likely a resource is to become available / how long it takes to exploit depends on government type and ethods: militarist nations are more likely to exploit military resources, decadent materialists luxury resources, etc
*** A 'blob penalty' should be incorporated: it is much less likely you will extract a new strategic resource from your 50th planet than your 2nd
* Strategic resources allow specific construction investments
** The effects should be planet/system-specific
** The available construction options are affected by some technologies, and also possibly by ethics/government (a Spiritualist might have different effects from a luxury good than a Materialist, say)
* Strategic resources would continue to be traded in the trade agreement interface

 

[schultz]

I would love to see the OP's ideas implemented at some point down the road.