Trade in this game is really wierd and is maximised for playing on timy maps with few opponents.

The only thing I have been able to figure out to get good income consistantly is to sell trade technologies to all your opponents and then let them establish the trade routes.

Scincerely,

[email protected]

AFAIK, this info has never been definitively set down anywhere. Sorry.



As Scintor mentioned, sell/gift the Trade tech. I only do this for the minors, however, as I don't want to give any of the majors (potential enemies) another source of revenue. The AI's choice to trade with you *may* have to do with your military level (appeasement), and/or it *may* have to do with your economy. Again, though, I know of no definitive answer on this matter.



If nothing has changed since DL, a freighter is 'tagged' with the name of the planet on which it was constructed. Even if you were to send your Mars-built ship to Earth, and then send it on a trade route, it will still show up as a route from Mars, and the value of the route will be calculated accordingly. I can't remember if the graphic changes or not; it has been too long since I have tried this.

Hope I have been of some small help. Good luck.

I believe that most of the players who play at high difficulty levels for high scores and speed games, and those who play strictly military conquest games, don't bother with trade routes. If you like to play a lower key game with influence, tech or diplomatic victory, there might be a place for trade in that kind of game. I've been moving along the learning curve and I dropped Trade several games ago. Having said that, it's nice to have the AI's help your economy along by coming to trade at your colonies...the Minor Races do that a lot and make a good addition to your income even if you don't have the Trade tech yourself.

When I did use trade routes, I came to think that trying to get a better route just wasn't worth the extra turns...a short route to the nearest minor gave a good enough return without sending freighters on long exploratory trips. Once you extablish a trade route, any trade route, for some reason the amount increases as the game goes on and the defference between a long route and a short one is not asll that much.

1. I don't bother. The return on trade routes is not enough to waste my time building the freighters in the first place.

2. The value of a trade route is determined by the population of the origin world, the distance traveled, and the population of the end world. For example, if you are going to trade, build 1 world with a 13B population, 1 factory, StarPort, and the rest econ and morale buildings. Then send the freighters to the capital of the most distant opponent (the capital is usually the highest pop world, if not, find the highest pop world and end route there). Do this with every freighter you build, even if all of them go to the same end point.

3. Build econ starbases along the path the freighter takes and upgrade with trade bonus modules. In a GIGA map, it is possible to get trade routes worth 1000BC, but very tough to maintain, since each starbase is a target for AI opponents to destroy.
It is possible to have every inch of the trade route maxed with econ bases, but the cost in constructors makes it cost prohibitive, unless you are planning on going 10 years.

see this post
https://forums.galciv2.com/?forumid=347&aid=178259

Good luck.

Hi!

Potential for high pop (class 11+), distance (the further the better), trade path not crossing space of race(s) you'll have as enemies.


Make war, not love. Among AIs OFC, so their trade routes will go poof, and those free-flying unassigned freghters of them will hit your planets and establish trade routes.


In DL and DA a trade route doesn't cost anything. You invest 150-250 BC in a freighter, and after it hits a colonized planet of another player, your empire starts receiving each turn trade revenue, ranging from starting 5 up to ~200 BC at the end of the longest route in the biggest galaxy.

The main problem with trade is it gives the least money when you need it the most. A second one is it can be broken by too many random events to be a reliable enough source of income to build and empire with it. And the third one is it usually gives 1000-3000 BC income in a late stage of the game. If you have 500,000 BC tax income, that amount means nothing. But if you have only 5 planets, it can make the difference between a victory or a defeat.

BR, Iztok

I find freighters to be very useful and I use them every game. It's the only way I ever haul myself out of debt in the early to mid game, and you shouldn't underestimate the importance of anything that improves your relations with other races, unless you like being ganged up on. If you're doing very well they might turn against you anyway, but by then you won't need them so much.

Building economy starbases for no other purpose than to increase trade revenue doesn't seem worthwhile, especially if you need to pay for defenses on them, but it's cool when you can work out routes so they're all passing through your local planet-boosting economy bases.

You certainly don't want to be utterly reliant on them since all sorts of factors can result in lost routes, worst of all your trading partner turning on you. I also avoid trading with minor powers since either myself or somebody else will eventually conquer them. Usually I'll pick several would-be allies to trade with, with an eye toward making sure nobody they like is being left out, so there's nobody left (hopefully) to bribe them to war against me.

I disagree with both these assumptions. I like to have 1 trade route with every other civ, for diplomatic reasons. I want to go to war when and where I decide to, not when my enemies feel like it. A boost to relations is a good thing.

The Economic captial is a nice early boost to income, and you need the Trade tech for that. As soon as I get Trade, I trade it away to all the minors, so that they will start building the Economic capital as well, so that I will acquire them by conquest later.

Sentient species taste better...

In resonse to Kzinti's post, I gained these impressions partly from studying the games and strategies expounded by Mumblefratz, Wyndstar and Purge, where I don't recall seeing anything about building freighters and establishing trade routes. In fact I know I've seen discussion about how trade routes are lost and freighters destroyed so easily. Having the Trade tech and building an economic capital is something else and I should have mentioned that in my post. Anyway, thanks for your input, all things should be considered.

Hi!

Nope. It's my HW, that I turn into a production planet in almost all games.


Please see my previous line.


You obviously missed "You invest 150-250 BC in a freighter". The last time I checked my most expensive late-game speed ~9 freighter costed around 300 BC - DA game ver. 1.8. Buying it for several thousands BCs somehow beats its purpose, don't you think so?


Nope. At least I don't do it, because those econ starbases cost too much to build - again beating their purpose.

I use freighters mainly as a diplo tool. If they bring some money, even better. So I keep their costs low, build the first batch (6-8 of them) on my main production planet (in early game my HW most of the time) when I run out of colonizable planets, and hit one good planet of each close neighbour (that I want to keep happy) with one freighter. Other mayor races in range also get one freighter. I establish more than one route only with the race I'd like to have as a reliable partner until the game end. That race should reside away from the area where I intend to start conflicts, so my money-bringing freighters usually live quite long.

That's about all what I can say about the trade in GC-2. I actually miss the way trade worked in GC-1, where it really made an impact.

BR, Iztok

The trade routes are for deceptive purposes....helps to quell their fears about us voracious predators. Then we pounce and devour!!   

Sentient species taste better...

I'm not sure I'm reading the PlanetImprovements.xml file correctly, but it looks like the Privateer in TA requires "Invulnerable Shipping." Unfortunately, that tech does not appear to be in any tech tree in the current build.

I still stand by my comment and I will expand on it a bit.

Iztoc is right, you cannot make enough money from a trade route to justify the cost of a freighter. Building freighters is only good as a diplomatic tool, not a economic one.

Strangely enough, the only way to make money consistantly from trade technologies is to sell it to everyone else and let them spend their rescources on building the freighters. It's counter intuitive, but it works! You make money from selling the technology, it takes up their rescources that otherwise would be spent making military ships, and you get money whenever the link a trade route to you.

Scincerely,

[email protected]

Contrary to the direction of this thread, I very often find trade extremely useful (excluding military games). The key to using trade effectively is economic bases, stationed around 1 planet where all freighters are coming from. This allows for nearly quadruple the normal revenue.

While I may be wrong, I also don't see a point in getting all freighters from your econ planet. I thought that improvements for economy on planets only increased tax revenue, not trade revenue.