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Join Date 02/2006

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Is too much weight put on trading....??

I noticed that on easier difficulty levels < normal I was able to pretty much get away with not trading with other civs. On normal difficluty and above, it seems that you MUST trade or all the other civs will come at you-- good or evil. Other than extra income from the trade revenue why does it seem that you HAVE to trade or set up lots of trade routes? Do the computer players treat this as hositle so that they come at you eventually (nearly all at once )? Have any of you won at the higher levels w/o trading?

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Trading is a plus to your relations with the race you trade with. So if everyone is trading with everyone else, they all have better relations with each other than they have with you.

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I'm playing on Bright right now. I have maybe... 3 trade routes that I am using. I am making a tidy profit, running my economy at 100%, but do have the third largest Empire. Oh yeah.. I'm evil as well and gearing for war.

Trading is a BIG help, but not 100% necessary.

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It´s always stupid to compare real world with fantasy scifi like GC2 but then again, no modern nation in the world can sustain itself without trade

So yes I would consider trading really important, and it´s important to renew your old trade routes with more lucrative ones later in the game.

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Trade is a nice bonus, but it's pretty limited once you reach a certain level (trade never makes much more than a couple hundred billion credits for me in the best circumstances).

Now Tourism.. there's a cash cow without limit. Tricky as heck to do right though.

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You can get away from trading your techs by "giving" gifts of around 100cr's ever so often. Just watch your relations meter and pick and choose wisely. I've been in a very violent warring galaxy and everyone of the AI's is Friendly or Warm to me. Even the minors love me.

What I do though is watch that STATS page and the MISC tab, when a race is 1 to 2 weeks away from completion of a tech I already have, you might as well trade it or sell it to them, it gives you income/influence and it also increase your relationship with that race. The key to this strategy is you MUST stay ahead in the tech race at all costs. So, keep that research slider up there pretty high 50% or better.

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How do you know which routes to replace? Since the trade route income changes every turn depending on where the trader is in its route, and the "max" trade is always equal to the current trade, I can never figure out if one route is better than another. Am I missing something?

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I find trade is absolutely critical. I generally play a very warlike game, but even, with the AI on Intelligent or higher, Trade will help keep you in the good graces of Races you don't want to war with "just yet", not to mention that it is a good way to get an extra 300 bc every turn fairly early in the game. On larger size galaxies the need and benefit for trade decrease somewhat, but the diplomatic benefits of it are noticeable.

If you plan on playing a wargame, simply don't trade with the race you plan on attacking first, because you'll lose the routes anyways and its not like you'll need the diplomatic bonus.

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I think the game is such that no one aspect is entirely necessary. True trading is a big plus. I am also climbing up the difficulty ladder, I used the trading at the start of the game, but now I dont need it for money anymore ebacuse I developed second most populous empire and at 100% Im making a heafty profit. I elected to make my traderoutes very short so they are easy to protects and I dotted them with econ bases with just plus trading income mods. It's working ok right now. My military is weak but the only war I got into is the one I caused myself hehehe. We will see how the game plays out. I think I might have made some mistakes at start and shouldn't have changed my civ spec because it's been 5 years and Im still only halfway through my first conquest :/ At this pace the game will take probably 15 years, which is terrible even on Gigantic map that I am playing.

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The economic value of trade depends greatly on galaxy size. on a small galaxy, a full compliment of trade routes will make up a significant part of your income. They need to be protected, you should build starbases to amplify their revenue, etc. On a gigantic galaxy, your taxes will dwarf whatever you get from trade, so you don't need to fuss so much about it.

The diplomatic value of trade is still important in a gigantic galxy. If you run all your routes to the same AI, then you're quite likely to have good relations with that AI. A good approach is to pick a like-aligned AI early, run all your trade routes to them, and then subsequently form an alliance.

I have to say, though, that if I can get a minor race in my territory (where they're not going to be easily conquered by another major), I'll very often run all my routes to them, and then recover their half of the cash by selling them stuff. No risk of losing those routes later in the game.

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Another thing to think of, especially in larger maps, is to outfit a frieghter with more engines. Push it to the limit in speed to get routes early for an economic edge.

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Gah, misread the original poster's question... thought he meant freighter-type trade.

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Another thing to think of, especially in larger maps, is to outfit a frieghter with more engines. Push it to the limit in speed to get routes early for an economic edge.

I usually pump out diplomatic translators first thing, trade that for starting money and freighters of other races. If you trade a race for their freighter soon after its built its usually right next to their planet, just click the planet and instant trade route. Last game I was on I got 5 trade routes established within 2 turns.

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