Calculating the value of a trade route

from GalCiv2 Forums

Hello,

The game tells us that the further away a planet is, the more valuable the trade route is.  I have some questions though.

Does the speed of a trade vessel affect the trade route's worth ?  With maximum tech, with a speed of 97 in a Dread Lords campaign, the trade between my planet in the corner and the Yor in the center of the screen is around 75 with 2 economic starbases in between.   Yet my freighter at a speed of 97 can make the trip between the Yor planet and my planet a lot faster than a vanilla freighter.

Also, it doesn't seem possible to have a fleet of freighters do 1 trade route.  It seems that the assignation is 1 ship / 1 route.  The idea of a fleet is to arm the freighters ( with 1 Weapon & 1 Defense Assist per fleet) and have those fleets operate the trade route.  If they are attacked, the attackers has to face a fleet instead of a single ship.

The documentation doesn't say anything about a vessel's speed as it relates to trade routes nor about a vessel's capacity to in relation to the worth of a trade route.

One other example:

1- Trade ship 2 trade modules speed 2 should  produce a trade route twice as lucrative as a freighter with 1 trade module speed 2.

What is the formula used ?

strategies
5,406 views 2 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Does the speed of a trade vessel affect the trade route's worth ?
No. The speed of your frieghter only changes how quickly you can establish the trade route. Once established your frieghter is replaced by speed 1 trade vessel if I recall correctly. Your speed has nothing to do with the value of the route, the prime determinant of the value of the route is distance although I'm pretty sure that the population and/or income of the two terminal planets is involved as well.

it doesn't seem possible to have a fleet of freighters do 1 trade route
It isn't. There is the UP event that arms frieghters but I think that's about all that can be done.

1- Trade ship 2 trade modules speed 2 should produce a trade route twice as lucrative as a freighter with 1 trade module speed 2.
Nope, this isn't the way it works. Like I said your friegther is replaced with a generic trade ships that slowly moves back and forth between the end points at 1 parsec per turn. Speed has nothing to do with it.

What is the formula used ?
I don't know. As you mentioned you can increase the value of a trade route by placing econ starbases along it's path. I have known folks take this to the extreme and line the entire path with as many econ starbases as possible and reach values of on the order of 8,000 bc's per turn for one trade route. However in my opinion this is not worth the time and effort involved. It's an interesting experiment but the total income from trade is almost always dwarfed by your income from taxes in anything but the rarest galaxy setups.

Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

The 3rd factor that determines the lucrativity of your trade route is the amount of time it is in existance. At least, until the cap is reached.

Arming freighters is no good idea, as you'll have to pay for Military Vessels. Further, in relation to the bcs you can harvest via trade weapons are much to expensive in comparison.

Think beforeahead when you want to establish a trade route. Always through secure territory, in save backlands of your empire - and always to a civ you might want to align sometimes (and finish off as the last enemy)

Object Desktop - Get all of our enhancement utilities in one suite