Trade

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UesugiKenshin
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Re: Trade

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http://birth-of-the-empires.de/wiki/ind ... itle=Börse
The biggest problem with the economy in BotE is you hit a maximum quickly as population rises to it maximum and cannot grow, thus the impetus for colonization. But other than a few tech that allow greater taxes, then that is all that can be gained.

And then you can mine lots of ore, a huge amount so far as the Romulans in my current game, but it devalues the prices too greatly with each sale by one whole integer. That makes it break. Automatically you lose 15% profit through the exchange tax. That can be overcome by special research (I focused on that as it's annoying to pay this tax). Or you can try to acquire a monopoly once you meet all the major races.

You want stability of commodity prices, and the way to do that would be the sale of ore or crystals would drop in value by the sale of say 1,000 units, not a 100 units. If follows that the more rare ore or crystals would be very stable like iridium should be the sale of 10,000 units would drop the value by credit point.

The tax on ore or crystals should be no more than 5%.

Example without tax.
Titanium is 252 credits. Each 100 unit sales reduces it by 1 integer so 251 for the next sale. Instead each 1000 unit sales reduces it by 1 integer so 251 is the new price. Otherwise there is no way to actually sell very much ore or crystals as large sales make the price fall to zero!. Think about how much ore would be mined on a galactic wide scale. It would mean an economy with very low ore prices by this constraint. It's horribly askew by devaulation. Sales would never be in high volume. That makes no sense as it's an economy that demands say coal, but selling coal in any large amount devalues it to zero.

You can't essentially have any precious metals as there is stability in them either. When the whole point is that say gold adds stability in an economic system. It's a flaw in the programming. That is especially so as that is what is required to wage war.

Think about it. Wars are expensive in terms of resources but all nations have the capacity to wage war and are not constrained by metal prices. You can even make a philosophical argument that technology rises due to war and that war helps the economy.

This devaluation every 100 units should be scaled by different amounts per ore type or some ore may never be devalued as it's so rare. Every major and minor race wants it and population increases, so it's always in demand, but cannot everbe adequately mined. So its price always rises.

http://birth-of-the-empires.de/wiki/ind ... e=Deritium
This is effectively the spice of Frank Herbert's Dune book series. It should be horribly expensive over time, and controlled by the Khayrin (Klingons) and why every major race would eventually all wage war against them.

Deritium likely never falls in price.

Once generating lots of crystals, then try selling many of them. I noticed rather than a drop of one integer that it dropped by many integers like 4.
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Re: Trade

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Trade is also flawed as your minor races end up as yours through membership, and then you create resource routes within your empire, so there is no profit. Errr what? All cities in an empire generate profit or they collapse as infrastructure has upkeep.
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Re: Trade

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Pick any ore in western civilization under ordinary circumstances. It will never see the volutility seen within BotE. The way to fix this is simple, you base the downswing on much high sales volume, and likely the more rare the natural resource, in terms of required technology and energy, then the more stable it must be. Or else no investors would risk building mines and distribution. That requires a simple calculation change in the program.

Who would spend millions to then sell only a small volume and then watch it drop to approaching zero in value? No one.

Why sell natural resources as game dynamics?

The empires (human and AI) have inadequate credits through taxation. That is easily modded by racial attributes being modulated in likely proportionality and granting income generation through various buildings in a similar gradual fashion based on the required technology and energy. Or else building is to no purpose as the economy grinds to a halt due to maxing out population.

That is partially the impetus for colonization and war to deprive the opponent of natural resources, industrial might to create military units, and income. And so limit research.

The empires sell natural resources to fill shortfalls in revenue. But also there are progressively lengthier amounts of turns, despite better factory types, and so it's faster and cheaper to sell natural resources to accdelerate infrastructure construction.

There is a third reason: to manipulate the mined natural resource prices and subvert all economies but your own, albeit once doing so, then it's a lengthy amount of time for the manipulation to return to a natural balanc point (which maybe significantly lower)

Instead, it's smarter to do what I suggested and when minor races agree to trade, then terraform their planets, and create multiple trade routes, and improve their attitude toward your empire. But even this aspect can be improved if "gifts" allow not only credits but mined natural resources. Why devalue your own ore and crystals and lose 15% to get credits to give to minor races? Cut out the middleman. A program change would allow direct ore or crystals to any minor or major races.

You see right now, you can give ore or crystals when you have a trade or better diplomatic status, and to best persuade these malleable races, you maintain peace, and avoid threatening actions, and gift ore and crystals. But you cannot offer a gift of mined natural resources unless trade has been established. That is where diplomacy is broken.

I had a minor race that was angry. After trying for over 200 turns to get them to change and allow trade, I invaded their system and began terraforming anyway. So they went from angry to hostile, but then after one planet was terraformed went back to angry. That may work with some races.

All races can get the change of government trigger and totally change in their attitude to you.

The best way to meet new minor races is to send a weak colony ship to their system. That forces a first contact, and you the ordinarily immediately leave. Then trying to negotiate trade.

Gifts work when bribes won't as some are incorruptible. I have yet to offer a bribe. A gift of mined natural resources makes sense.
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Re: Trade

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Currency is worthless paper credits with no foundation is reality. It's actually debt exchange.

Money is currency backed by a natural resource like titanium, deuterium, durantion, crystals, and iridium. Now you have genuine wealth. Why trade real money for fake credits? It makes no sense. In effect, all ore or crystals you mine... are a reserve of money...like a bank. And when on a war time footing, all empires should race to manipulate the natural resource prices by dumping it to get far more credits. You get the higher price while they realize they should have sold, and thus get less. It's especially smart to do special research and so avoid the natural resource 15% tax.

Or if a program change creates stability, then sell it in stages to greatly accelerate some infrastructure buildings, mostly factories (there are many names like foundaries and engineering guilds), and accelerating research buildings. Then your empire has the technological advantage or the industrial might, both historical aspects that typically win standard wars (but not asymmetrical warfare which likely once begun never ends).
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Re: Trade

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The point of trade in a conquest game is to ultimately defeat all empires by profiting enough and building standing armies and your space fleet so yours are ready and superior, while the opponent is stunned and has an inadequate military force. It takes a long time to build the better ships and a lot of planning.

BotE is built to appeal to turtlers,yet they are uncommon players, so the best way to remedy this is preset save games where all infrastructure is prebuilt and then all the standard military strategists have to do is decide what kinds of vessels and troops to build. That saves them hundreds of turns. The latter folks are interested in tactics and unit composition. They want feints and ambushes and being sneaky by pretending diplomatically all is well, then bold invasions.
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Re: Trade

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In GalCiv2, starbases not only were major ways to defend regions of space, but also were military outposts to project power, repair stations, could boost the economy, could accelerate research,or act as information warfare. They even could be expensive Death Stars like in Star Wars 4.

The outposts and starbases are a tactic of turtlers as they tend to build highly defensive structures.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtling_(gameplay)

With program changes, outposts and starbases could similarly change the game to win by various ways including trade. They activate bonuses which alter credits or mining efficiency or even could alter the attitude modifiers of minor and major races.
https://galciv.fandom.com/wiki/Starbase
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Re: Trade

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For over 200+ turns, the Lokonar have disliked the Omega Alliance and not wanted to trade. They were initially uncooperative, but since I kept asking, they became angry. But then they met the Terrans and became members of their empire.

When the Terrans first met me, they were angry, but still offered friendship. I accepted and they gave a gift of ~3000 credits plus 200 crystals which were worth about 200 credits in blocks, so a princely sum in total.

Then the friendship treaty lapsed and they wouldn't accept a friendship treaty with the Omega, but they did accept a trade treaty.

So I tried something. I created a trade route with the Lokonar and it worked! It didn't matter that they were angry at me, as part of the Terran Confederation, they had to accept trade regardless. So I tried nearby Elton who I have never met, and yet they also allowed a trade route too!

The game has little hidden aspects. Now with a trade agreement, you can enter their homesystem so I'm going to send a colony ship to these and see if I can improve their attitude even though if they were unaffiliated, it would anger them and make them hostile just doing so.
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Re: Trade

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At some point if this works, I'm going to try to subvert the Lokonar and probably Elton as they are within my territory. I'm going to colonize nearby, then create an outpost and then upgrade to a starbase nearby, and them try to subvert them.
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Re: Trade

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Trade is a quirky element in BotE. The player begins trade negotiations to generally have new income streams. But that is a very small amount of credits per turn.

And it's difficult at first as your systems need those mined materials for domestic usage.

However really the goal is to move from trade to friendship to higher levels. Then as members, you are building infrastructure so that minor race generates their own mined materials, though may begin with a resource route.

It's a stepping stone otherwise it accomplishes no helpful long term purpose but strengthens the minor race.

You can make a fortune openly selling mined materials by dumping them, thus knocking down the price, then the AI can't sell theirs without taking a beating. Then certain tech eliminates the 15% trade fee.

Routine trade between systems is not profitable enough to keep at it.
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Re: Trade

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It's not wise in total elimination games to keep large treasuries as the AI knows your treasury amounts. So it's better to spend that down or they will try an extortionate demand and then likely will still end up declaring war.

However with open ended games with multiple goals, the AI on the easy level as the Terrans was very easy to get along with. I doubt the Khaoran ever are easy to get along with.

The Trade system can in effect be a "bank" from which you draw credits when redeeming ore or crystals. Prior to turn 200, a drop can last a long time from a sell off. Titanium got to 400 so I sold it down to 200 ~#140 and by #180 it was at 281. So a cycle then gets progressively shorter to find a balance.

Then it can rise to 900 in turn #350 and dumping it by a range of 200 points in a spread then can return pretty quickly. That is generally how to make 100,000s of thousands every few turns. Then with monopolies, you pay and get double production.

You pick titanium and sell it down, then pick deuterium and do the same. You are switching off dumping ore or crystals. That allows the sales price to rise.

Sometimes demand is so brisk that you can sell all material and in 3-5 turns, the price is back up again. As the Omega, I had a seemingly vast fortune and was spending all my time just accelerating construction by rushing buildings.

You are doing these lot sales of a 200 credit spread, which quickly recovers, and so you deny the AI to get a high price, and there must be quite a demand at that stage as the price skyrockets in a discernable predictable pattern.

You let 200 be the settling point, then 300, then 400, so it ratchets up to what you think the natural resource is worth versus what the market will bear versus what the AI has developed regarding mining infrastructure.
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Re: Trade

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I recent ran a bribery test of BotE and noticed the economy seemed to be slower as I took 50,000 credits and use that to improve diplomatic relations with the minor races. But it took longer for mined materials to rise in value.

I now am running a test of that supposition. When you accelerate buying of infrastructure ie the economy is HOT as lots of spending is going on in an abbreviated amount of time, this inflates titanium and likely whatever mined material is being currently utilized say deuterium is required for power generation, thus if a HOT ECONOMY is happening, this inflates subsequent critical natural resources.

That is how to game the system and manipulate prices. Then the more you do that buying of buildings, as I tend to do,and focus on mining to increase production of extraction, then it feeds itself and raises the price, thus you can then sell more.

This is a theory in formation being tested.

Imagine a tank of water and the temperature is low. You want to increase the temperature but the change in temperature is not merely the molecular characteristics for a material (the phase changes of gas,liquid, and solid in physics), but also the amount of energy used and the volume of water. So with poor control, the temperature rises too fast as you sent too much energy at once versus a smaller volume of water (boiling and potentially a gaseous state). Insufficient energy and rising volume could see no effect as the incoming temperature of the water is cool.

All manipulation of prices have similar aspects to that example. Demand raises prices unless volume vastly rises... which lowers prices.

In military spending with an arms race, then the demand is overwhelming. Prices rise as the buyers snap up every weapon they can acquire.
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Re: Trade

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As prices rise, then all sellers of mined materials then consider if selling is a good idea to likewise accelerate construction as this additional revenue stream can modulate this versus standard revenue like taxation. But when watching, you sell off blocks to halve the sales price. Like 400 credit titanium is sold to achieve 200 credit titanium. Then the price is so low, that other empires do not want to deflate their own supplies of titanium and restrict selling.

"Dang it. The Omega sold titanium so low that our profits will be low. Hold off selling."

Then the player watches the charting and how fast the rate of change is, and whatever is their new setpoint trigger, say 450 credit titanium, then sells it to 250 credit titanium.

"Argh! The Omega did it again. We could sell at 250, but then could only sell a little volume. Hold off selling again."

Rinse repeat. It worked so well by this combination rapid construction and sell off of mined materials, that I was getting rapidly cycling prices of 900.

Then besides this, you buy a monopoly and thus reduce infrastructure upgrades and double production.

You want any technology which reduces costs like the 15% tax on mined material commisions. This way you maximize your profit.
Zuletzt geändert von UesugiKenshin am Freitag 24. April 2020, 21:51, insgesamt 1-mal geändert.
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Re: Trade

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I have successfully replicated this mining commodity pattern. And doing so increases the rate of change to return to a trigger point and accelerates in brevity of length of time. Thus the limiting factor is total ore or crystal production as you require these to say make buildings. So you have to carefully manage how big a sell off at first or you will have credits but lack your own domestic mined materials to build.

You have to do resource routing carefully so you always have a source you can share OR domestically be able to mine in that system. I start with the former strategy then expand to the latter.

I believe this is foolproof on the easy setting. Every turn I am accelerating construction.

The Terrans were upset as they spied two juicy systems and coveted them. They offered a non-aggression pact. I moved in to those systems which were outside their sphere of influence. They declared war. I offered a new non-aggression act. They ignored me. I offered a second non-aggression pact. They similarly offered a second non-aggression pact and friendship too. I accepted.

The map is maxed out but has six empires. I control a sixth of the map. The rest are trying to also. So the Terrans needed those two systems.

I can pretend to forget, and keep constructing and slowly build fleets. Already the Xibren agreed to trade and they were angry.

Diplomacy and trade are linked by rapid construction as then your empire can produce what the minor and major races require for trade.

I believe this is an excellent strategy as long as you manage to defend yourself, likely with outposts then starbases and ultimately with orbital batteries, minefields, and shields. Offensive fleets come later. Build bunkers and the power to use them.

The Omega can do tremendous sabotage and will not forgive the Terrans violating the non-aggression pact as my vessels were without fault.
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Re: Trade

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The raison d'etre for trade is to gain income to build fleets. You don't win by making the most in credits, you just paint a target in your back as your systems are juicy desserts for the ravenous AI empires.

And offensive vessels don't perform well against starbases and advanced defenses. Later offense is the best defense,but not in turn #180.

Try this with 3 empires and a huge map and normal expansion and you can likely breathe easier until turn #300. That is what I formerly did and became a powerhouse empire.

It's way easier and safer and less expensive to negotiate with boatloads of cash...than naked aggression and pointless conflict.
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Re: Trade

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Also, prior using bribes and sweet deals and gifts, I coaxed two minor races into membership. Now with rapid expansion it changes the tone of diplomacy.

"Those Omega have a hot economy and are building so intensely that we ought to join their empire."
So they offered membership without any coaxing as they wish to ride my coattails.
https://grammarist.com/idiom/ride-on-so ... il-effect/

As the Omega are unfairly penalized with diplomacy versus the Terrans, this is likely a strategy to defeat them at their own game of subverting minor races. For game testing, with the Khaoran, the Rotharians, the Omega, then I have played innocently and benevolently even though I could have attacked. I choose not to to test the BotE programming.

There is more than one way to skin a cat.
https://grammarist.com/phrase/more-than ... kin-a-cat/
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