Expanding trade options

from GalCiv3 Forums

In order to liven the game it makes sense to introduce more options for trade. The current trading system is one of the weakest links in the Galactic Civilization series: send or receive a ship for trade, and you receive money. There is no trade-off (pun intended) to this exchange, nothing to make it more interesting than gaining credits. In order to make it interesting, trade should be modified in the following ways.

For starters, trade should be possible both within and without an empire. Foreign trade will be encouraged over internal trade by the possibility of access to wealthier and more advanced markets than domestic markets, but will ultimately limited by a lack of trade licenses. Domestic trade will be unlimited to the extent that the player can construct, pay maintenance on, and protect trade ships within one's borders, as well as to the extent that the player desires and needs trade.

There should be two kinds of trade: food trade and consumer goods trade. Food trade will consist of sending a portion of the agricultural production of one planet to the other, while consumer-goods trade converts a portion of total social production on the planet into consumer goods that are sold to the other planet (much like Economic Stimulus). Based on the existing GROSS income, population, and food production (for food exports) of the planet, a price distribution will be created, using a log-normal distribution to define which per unit price would result in the maximum profit, the default cost of production for a unit of food or consumer product being 1 BC.

The revenue generated from trade will be added to the gross income of the sending planet and subtracted from the gross income of the receiving planet. Through this model of trade it will be possible to account for the wide variety of markets present throughout a game. Additional food on a planet will allow additional population to exist there, while exported consumer goods will increase approval (as should Economic Stimulus, to a lesser extent).

Trade, however, would not be solely a zero-sum game because value is added economically on both sides of the transaction with warehousing, distribution, packaging, retailing, etc. These should be set at 5% of price given on each side for domestic food transactions (7.5% foreign) and 10% on each side for domestic consumer goods transactions (15% foreign). In the case of two-way transactions, the effect would be doubled since the food and consumer goods are considered to be unique to each planet, but further recirculation (sending goods from planet A, to planet B, to planet A, to planet C) would result in a compounding increase in price required to make a profit based on the appropriate value added. In other words, the 1 BC cost basis mentioned earlier would rise, leading to lower sales and profitability. Trans-shipments would see a rise of 2% on food (4% foreign) and 5% on consumer goods (10% foreign), and could thus be made viable by the consolidation effect of having less freighter-distance, etc.

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Reply #1 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

i agree that trade is one of the weak points in GC and ive been toying with dufferent solution based on a pyramid scheme style trading system

 

for the system i envision 

generating trade routes
each planet would have the capability of sponsoring 0-2 trade routes(outgoing) based on planet class (loosely tied to planet quality),but could have any number of incoming trade routes. 

profit and maintenance 
each trade route would provide a fixed amount of profit ~1bc to each of the planets and would cost an amount equal to 1bc per ~20 tiles distance

pyramid scheme

when one planet is trading with multiple other planets each trade route gets a 10% bonus to income based on the number of unique trade planets it is trading with
ex Planet A has 4 direct trade routes to planets B,C,D,E in this case the trade routes each earn 130% of their total amount. this would result in 1.3BC credits for each of planets B-E and 5.2 BC for Planet A, a total of 10.4 BC with Maintenance costs of 4BC assuming all planets are within 20 tiles of planet A

adding in secondary trade routes will add a 5% bonus taking the above example lets add planets F, G they are trading with planet E
this would increase A-B/C/D trade routes to 140% each (the original 100% +3 primary trade routes at 10% and 2 secondary at 5%) the A-E trade route would increase to 150%, and the two new trade routes would be at 135%. assuming all planets are within 20 tiles of each other this would result in 16.8 BC profit and 6 BC maint

tertiary trades and all additonal routes thereafter
would add 1% expanding on our current pattern (B/C/D - A - E - F/G) if we add 5 more planets to G,  H-L 

A-B/C/D would increase by 5% each (1% for each of the new tertiary trades) for 145%

E-A/F would increase by 25% each (5% for each of the secondary trades) for a total of 175% (E-A) and 160 (E-F)

E-G would increase by 50% (10% for each of the new primary trades) for a total of 185

G-H/I/J/K/L would each produce 173% (5x Primary 2x secondary 3x tertiary)

this would cause 36.4BC per turn profit and 11BC per turn Maintenance 

 

unique trades

each trade route would only be counted if it provides a unique trading partner in my example (B/C/D - A - E - F/G - H/I/J/K/L)
if planet H started Trading with Planet F it would increase its trade by both planets by 5% instead of 10 % since they would both gain a Primary trade route (+10%) but their secondary trade routes with each other through the E-G trade route dont count (-5%) 

 

trade hubs this system would generally encourage you to build trade hubs 1 planet in your empire with which all other planets are trading you would most likely only use secondary trade routes to connect planets that cannot support their own trade routes or to avoid large maintenance costs from isolated groups of planets

you would also be encouraged to find trade hubs from other civs and connect them to your trade hubs 

Reply #2 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I like the idea of internal/external trade, as long as external trade has a decent payoff (yes, trade with your friends but there has to be something to make trading with your nuetrals worthwhile)

Making a planet's trade-worthiness related to Planet Quality makes sense - would a Poisonous Atmosphere planet's population really give a ding dang about building Freighters and selling Consumer Goods to the Terran when they can't breathe too good!!?? But unlike androshalforc, I think that Planet Quality should affect both incoming and outgoing freight. I wouldn't send my best Traders to that 3 Level Planet to deliver the Terran 50 Consumer Goods and have come back looking all icky with cancerous warts all over them.

Having not tried Trade yet myself, has anyone noticed if you get better prices/quantities bought depending on the quality of your relationship with Race A over Race B? You're trading with both: You're Warm with Race A, they give you 60BC per Zenith Crystal/Buy 20 Zenith Crystals. You're Neutral with Race B, they give you 50BC per Zenith Crystal/Buy 10 Zenith Crystals kind of relationship. I know that would on it's own encourage trading with your Friends, somewhat negating my first point, but we all know how relationships can change, and for me an interesting game mechanic - which impacts both Diplomacy and Trade - is: What do you do if the neutral Race asks for 50, not 25 Zenith Crystals now and the race you're actually Friends with still only wants a measly 10 a month? While you can only produce/harvest 52 Zenith Crystals a month, making it impossible to satisfy both Races completely, so do you kiss goodbye to the 10 from Friend, 50 from Nuetral, or try and appease them both by part-supplying which incurs trade fees etc from the UP Trade Council? And to complicate matters, you're very aware of the relationship between the two Races you're trading with and how they feel about you trading with the other Race, so sometimes whatever road you take, at least one Race will be royally pissed off, too.

Could a mechanic like parallel importing be implemented. I'm thinking of:

1: The Alterians have a trade deal with the Yor to import 25 Zenith Crystals per Month for 55bc.

2: A business group from the Alterian planet Alta X comes to you and basically says "we prefer your Zenith Crystals to that Yor garbage, would you sell to us 25 Zenith Diamonds for 55bc?"

Basically, what I'm suggesting is that when you Trade - Food, Consumer, Whatever - you can do it with:

A Race

A planet/group of planets owned by that Race. This trade agreement would have consequences for your relationship with that Race as a whole if the Alterian leaders figured out why Alta X isn't taking it's quota of Yor Zenith Crystals. If you start trading with a planet that's rebelling against it's Race owner, you'd fund that planet's rebellion and diplomatically make them more likely to flip to you (Influence being bought by the trade route. Obviously if the Planet is subjugated by it's Race owner, that influence goes)

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Reply #3 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

At the risk of being unpopular, I'm going to push back on this idea.

Why?  Two simple words: Time management.  In my current game on turn 165 I have 109 colonies, and at least another 40-50 colonies still possible for me.  The more I have to do, the more complicated the game becomes and the more time I have to spend micromanaging my colonies.  At some point, the game stops being fun and starts becoming a chore.  It would be reasonable, I suppose, to suggest not playing on an insane map with lots of worlds, but then why even give the player that option?

Does that mean I'm opposed to the idea of trading?  No.  But it has to be "reasonable."

For instance--

Quoting androshalforc, reply 1

ex Planet A has 4 direct trade routes to planets B,C,D,E in this case the trade routes each earn 130% of their total amount. this would result in 1.3BC credits for each of planets B-E and 5.2 BC for Planet A, a total of 10.4 BC with Maintenance costs of 4BC assuming all planets are within 20 tiles of planet A

It has to work on all map sizes or it doesn't work.

Quoting androshalforc, reply 1
each planet would have the capability of sponsoring 0-2 trade routes(outgoing) based on planet class (loosely tied to planet quality)

I disagree.  This should be based on improvements built on the planet (a trade world just like a production world or a research world).  Also, the game should automatically establish advantageous trade routes based on improvements, with the exception of food and maybe production.  This would reduce the per-colony management burden on the player and the game could automatically shift trade routes as the game situation shifts (i.e. war, politics, etc.).  The game already does this with tourism income.

Food and production (maybe) would be the only trade I would have the player actually do manually.  And, production could be done via a tech combined with an improvement (think railroads in Civilization V which increase city production 25% for every city connected to the capital by railroad).

My opinion, for what it's worth.

Reply #4 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting Hamilmac, reply 3

It has to work on all map sizes or it doesn't work.

Quoting androshalforc, reply 1

Maintenance costs of 4BC assuming all planets are within 20 tiles of planet A

this was not a limit of all planets must be within 20 tiles. but to maintain minimum maintenance costs as you have longer trade routes the maintenance costs would increase so an extra 1BC for each additional 20 tiles of length, although this number seems quite high maybe 10 tiles works better

Reply #5 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting Hamilmac, reply 3
I disagree.  This should be based on improvements built on the planet (a trade world just like a production world or a research world).  Also, the game should automatically establish advantageous trade routes based on improvements, with the exception of food and maybe production.  This would reduce the per-colony management burden on the player and the game could automatically shift trade routes as the game situation shifts (i.e. war, politics, etc.).  The game already does this with tourism income.

Definitely. At least domestically the game should attempt to optimize trade routes based on pure immediate revenue considerations, although the player would have the ability to change the parameters of any trade routes.

As far as trade improvements go, they are a brilliant idea. In fact, they are an opening to an even more radical transformation of the game's economics which would make a better trade system more complete. Primary economic output should be based on industrial, agricultural, and service production, with each unit of production in each field yielding 1 BC of taxable income (a percentage of which would be remitted to your treasury based on the tax rates set as in previous games) and 1 unit of morale. 1.1 BC from the treasury can be used to purchase a unit of production and apply it to military production or social production, and 1.05 BC can be used to purchase a unit of food, while 1 BC can be used to purchase a unit of research. The "money making buildings" would go away; the service sector of the economy would be merely a function of the planet's industrial production and its population.

However what was mentioned above would merely be the various components of gross domestic product, not the net income of the planet's private economy. All economic exchanges on a planet would have the 5% value added rate for agriculture and 10% for industry and services mentioned earlier - in other words, the amount of money flowing on a planet, and the prices of goods and services, will contract by 5% every year. In order to remedy the situation the player would be able to print money, but in excessive amounts (i. e. more than 5% money supply growth in a year) this would produce inflation on the planet. The game would measure this amount out automatically and allocate money to the planet.

Foreign and domestic trade would fit into this picture as defined above, allowing resources to be moved where they are desired. In addition to this, trade could be used to help to equalize prices across your empire, by moving money from planets with net money inflow to those with net money outflow. The price differential between different worlds would be used in the calculation of profit as mentioned earlier. Thus exports from low-priced planets would be most profitable. Trade buildings could mediate this by setting a maximum number of goods that could be exported, imported, or trans-shipped on planets, and would produce value added in the economy based on total trade flows. They could be arranged in the following lines:

  • Import/Export: Market Center (5 units of Consumer Goods, 0.5 units of food in each direction), Advanced Market Center (2x of MC), Shipping Terminal (4x of MC), Adv. Shipping Terminal (8x of MC) (would generate value added based on trade flows)
  • Finance: Banking Center (5% value added on planet from all trade routes, 10bc value added), Stock Exchange (10% value added on planet from all trade routes, no value added)

In this fashion the economy of the game would make much more sense. Although in some ways it is a major departure from the existing system, in many ways it would make the game far more interesting and would complement the trade ideas here perfectly.