Let's review how trade routes work in GC3
1: you build a rather costly vessel. 7 times.
2: you haul past mobs of pirates, wormholes, and space plague until reaching some filthy, backward planet to bestow your wonders upon (direct each ship to another race's world)
3: you enjoy a pittance of a weekly cashflow bonus, that increases gradually until you can see that invincible trade empire you envisioned finally drawing near on the horizon
4: 2-4 of your trade partners decide they don't like how you treat your own citizenry (execute summarily or pet on the tummy, it don't matter) and declare war - you lose your trade revenue and get to remake those routes @ 5 bars latinum each, all over again
Unsatisfactory!...
It seems a better alternative would be to make trade routes location-based, after initial establishment. That would fully redeem the monumental cost of creating them (including destruction risk); as well as give lots of potential for giving pirates new roles as local players (eg, trade with pirates: no diplomacy bonus, but possibly higher gains); but most critically it would scrap the obscene downside of having more trade licenses, namely losing EVERYTHING (or seemingly) the moment you or your partners decide to have a lil ol war.
The alternatives, in order of preference:
A: have the route remain in list with some means of restoring it at near to the prior value
B: have a smuggler mode when at war; also allow re-establishment if a route is dismissed. For example, the original trade route with Fenix III can't disappear, but you can use it at 1/2 value if you're at war with the partner civ, or abandon it while at war, establish a fallback route with a 3rd civ, then swap the lower value fallback route out again for the original route if you make up with your previous partner--at the built up value, not the originating 3 creds or whatever!
C: this is sophisticated but intersting. Have trade ships designate a tile in space as endpoints, then let those endpoints be modified by the game's progress. this isn't too far away from the way the system works currently - just increased weekly returns as weeks pass, BUT the economic impact would remain in place even if the civs involved stop trading for a while or forever: example, you've taken over the target planet, that's ok! You can maintain the trade route internally, but rather than growing over time, the value decays. Doesn't that sound interesting? ...Or let some friendly civs bid on taking over the route with the planet you now own, with their planet becoming the new endpoint tile, as far as that trade route concerns you. Or have some other mechanic, anything really would be better than "whoops, that trade is gone now!"
PS I brained this up after getting my free trade ship from pragmatic:traders eaten by a fleet of 5 hungry pirate ships the other day
Thx for sticking around! :>
Costly? Say what? Compared to my military ships, that thing is nothing
However, I agree with you that the rewards for the effort spent is somewhat lacking at the moment.
That's a diplomacy screwup. War is bad for trade, working as intended. Diplomacy is almost completely screwed up and trade routes are the least of our worries with that thing... ^^
A couple of observations,
I totally agree with you on the rewards of trade routes. They were great in GCII but not so much in III. Too few routes available, and too little revenue, compared to other sources of income. Trade routes should easily outpace tourism.
I have never been advised that another faction has opened a route with me. Maybe they are doing it without my knowledge, but if so there should be some advisement that a route has been opened. If they are not sending trade ships, why when my diplo status is good?
Yeah, the income from trade is laughable, particularly when compared to the generally very generous output of market planets. It's not really a choice - the bulk of your cash must always come from a couple of market worlds, and trade and tourism are largely just very small increases. If it weren't for the (also very small) diplo benefit, I probably wouldn't bother to trade at all.
Id like to see a change where trade is more valuable to the econmy that market focused planets.
Nass have you changed you mod in leiu of the fact we can no longer focus planets?
Not yet; my mod always remains current for the released patch, not the opt-ins. I'm basically going to re-implement the wheel if at all possible anyway. I also suspect I have a method to consistently get the AI to specialize planets properly in 1.3... depending on if that works, and whether 1.4 allows me to mod the wheel back in, I may well prevent my copy of GC3 from updating to 1.4.
Quoting Larsenex, reply 4 Quoting naselus, reply 3 Yeah, the income from trade is laughable, particularly when compared to the generally very generous output of market planets. It's not really a choice - the bulk of your cash must always come from a couple of market worlds, and trade and tourism are largely just very small increases. If it weren't for the (also very small) diplo benefit, I probably wouldn't bother to trade at all. Id like to see a change where trade is more valuable to the econmy that market focused planets.Nass have you changed you mod in leiu of the fact we can no longer focus planets?
Id like to see a change where trade is more valuable to the econmy that market focused planets.Nass have you changed you mod in leiu of the fact we can no longer focus planets?
Uhh, you also need to consider that the cost of a market planet... includes either a science or a builder full planet. That's going to offset your gain just a little, heh heh. Also there's nothing wrong w trade income, when things work out. For example I've a game where I haven't gone to war for over 100 turns, and my income covers my entire fleet and colony upkeep. My gripe is only that it's a rigid, dull, worry-prone system. Remind me how it builds on GC2 again? -- No I don't consider the "trade post" building an expansion!
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