Hi guys and thanks for the feedback! About some of your questions:

Mythox wrote:
is there a possibility to use trading as away to blackmail / pressure in the diplomacy?

That is up to players and certainly intended. On the other hand, the pressure system might allow you to place a trade embargo on someone, or force trade agreements.

Romeo wrote:
I have an off-question: Are trade ships a separate class of ships unto themselves? Are they just a way to outfit ships? Or are they more of an "intangible" ship like in Civilization?

Good point! Trade ships will need to have a physical existence as you use them to place branches. Regarding the fact that they are a separate class or simply another outfit of the civilian ship, it has yet to be defined (depending on what works best in tests).

Sezneg wrote:
My one concern is that the diplomacy system actually allows for developing your neighbor into a long term ally. That's not easy to do in ES1, and with the extra work and resources required to create these routes, losing them to fickle AI spasms is a real disincentive to have foreign trade.

You are correct. Our goal is that the AI uses both the marketplace and the trade system in a meaningful way.

Kweel_Nakashyn wrote:


Is there a way to attract foreign traderoutes in your Empire (without that Empire's consent, which could share profits) ?

Can you use your tradeships as spies to watch foreign Empires ?

Is there border taxes, if yes, can you finetune them ?

Currently no, we want to keep the system as simple and accessible as possible. But what you describe could probably be achieved with blockades and privateers.

Tridus wrote:
If you're friendly with another player, can you place branches on their systems? Can they also place branches on those systems (effectively giving the system two branches for two players)?

Yes and yes.

Tridus wrote:
Does a trade agreement enable that, or can you do it in any peaceful status and a trade agreement just enhances it?

No, the friendly status (actually it’s rather a "not hostile" status) is enough for that. We have two courses of actions for trade agreements, pending testing:

• The first one is that a branch that you own, which is placed in a system owned by a player with whom you have a trade agreement, will see an increase in their revenue (will probably be safe).
• The second one is that signing a trade agreement with another player will trace a route from their best branch to your best HQ (and inversely), if a path can be found (might be more subject to problems ).
  
  

Ridiculi wrote:
This sounds great! One question though: Can you close existing branches and reopen them in a different system?

You have a good point and this is something we have considered. For now, we're going to start testing with a static approach.

Eji1700 wrote:
Smuggler routes a possibility perhaps? Say race X has a strategic resource I really really want, but they won't give it to me. We do have a trade route, but I don't actually get the resource from it. Perhaps the ability to use that route to "smuggle" the resource I want, but it costs Dust per turn to have it up, and I run the risk of getting caught and having the other player take action against me for it.

Currently if you have a hard point on a non-hostile system that produces a certain resource, you'll automatically gain a fraction of that resource. That fraction can be increased by signing trade agreements, and you can forbid a player to exploit it by having a trade embargo against them. So it's not smuggling per se, but the end result can be comparable. Maybe we could think about a "Smuggler" ship that has a smuggling fleet action over an unowned system containing resources... I'll add it to our list of things to investigate.

Cronstintein wrote:
I found this a little confusing. If the point of the system is to create trade entanglement with your allies, there should be a definite incentive to creating foreign branches, no? Otherwise I see more benefit from having all my branches/HQs in my own system, negating it's purpose.

Yes, my answer was more focused towards the diplomatic aspect. In game, the incentive will still be strong! Placing a branch in foreign territory could grant you access to a resource not present in your empire, and this is actually how you could achieve the longest routes, maximizing the length bonus provided to income.

It will certainly be possible however to play it safe and have all your routes be contained in your empire.

is there a possibility to use trading as away to blackmail / pressure in the diplomacy?

I have an off-question: Are trade ships a separate class of ships unto themselves? Are they just a way to outfit ships? Or are they more of an "intangible" ship like in Civilization?

This looks awesome on paper.



My one concern is that the diplomacy system actually allows for developing your neighbor into a long term ally. That's not easy to do in ES1, and with the extra work and resources required to create these routes, losing them to fickle AI spasms is a real disincentive to have foreign trade.

Is there a way to attract foreign traderoutes in your Empire (without that Empire's consent, which could share profits) ?

Can you use your tradeships as spies to watch foreign Empires ?

Is there border taxes, if yes, can you finetune them ?



Tradewars could be fun in escalation:

- you spied, so I raised taxes

- you raised taxes, so I used piracy

- you used piracy, so embargo !

- whaaa ? CASUS BELLI oneoneone

Sounds cool. Having to actually build up the trade network is more interactive than where it just kind of happened before.



I'm curious about how this works with other players. If you're hostile, trade doesn't happen, and that makes sense.



If you're friendly with another player, can you place branches on their systems? Can they also place branches on those systems (effectively giving the system two branches for two players)?



Does a trade agreement enable that, or can you do it in any peaceful status and a trade agreement just enhances it?

This sounds great! One question though: Can you close existing branches and reopen them in a different system? I imagine as the game progresses a player will want to evolve their trade routes to take advantage of needed resources and changes in relationships between factions.

Again sounds like a good expansion to make ideas that seemed cool, but fell flat, actually work (privateers mainly and more interactive trade).



Smuggler routes a possibility perhaps? Say race X has a strategic resource I really really want, but they won't give it to me. We do have a trade route, but I don't actually get the resource from it. Perhaps the ability to use that route to "smuggle" the resource I want, but it costs Dust per turn to have it up, and I run the risk of getting caught and having the other player take action against me for it.

Quote:



Questions about consequences on diplomacy and incentive to place Branches in foreign territory

When you are at war with an empire, if the route goes through enemy systems then it will be interrupted. On the other hand, players at peace have the opportunity to sign trade agreements to further increase |their trade output.

A potential incentive to place a foreign Branch would be that the and bonus will be granted to the systems on the route regardless of the owner. But I'd agree that this is a rather small incentive. Our intention |behind that is to encourage players to have long-lasting alliances in the game (if your trade network is very intertwined you might want to preserve peace for a win-win situation).







I found this a little confusing. If the point of the system is to create trade entanglement with your allies, there should be a definite incentive to creating foreign branches, no? Otherwise I see more benefit from having all my branches/HQs in my own system, negating it's purpose.

Well, it took me a while to get this post ready:



My first, and most important question, is if the companies are generic or specific. That is, will we simply be founding "Trade Company A, Trade Company B" or will we instead found "Galactic Parcel Service (+50% bonus from trade route length)" and "Borer's Guild: (+100% Strategic Resource extraction on connected nodes)?

I think the latter would add some weight to the decision which companies to found. They might or might not be exclusive to the player who founded the HQ. The latter would increase competition for them, but also potentially cooperation for the sake of company branches you really want. The former would avoid the frustration of being beaten to a specific corporation by a single turn.



The "hardpoint" system still leaves some questions about details for me, though:

-Does the HQ itself count as a destination for trade routes from other HQs?

-It says a branch can be place don a friendly or neutral system, but is a "neutral" system one at peace, or one at cold war? May a neutral system even be an uncolonized system?

-What happens if two hardpoints share the same system as a neighbor, or even neighbor each other?

-Will planetary and system features have any impact on the value of hard points or trade routes passing through them?



And a few questions related to route length and the route computation:

- The way I understand the GDD, route length will change the gain of strategic/luxury resources and the bonus of FI on passed systems from trade routes. Does this increase or decrease with distance? An increase (or even a similar output) for a longer trade route would feel off to me

- How will foreign trade routes be indicated to us, so that we can judge where to blockade?

- Do trade routes avoid potentially hostile systems? For example, in the picture below, we have two Sophon empires who were merrily trading when the cravers took a bite out of their systems, and now occupy a lot of the area between them. Will the trade route simply be disabled, as the shortest route is across hostile territory, or will it be re-routed through their own systems? If it does not re-route, will the cravers gain FI bonuses during cold war (or any other empire during the truce after a war?)







Regarding the suggestions of using the placement of buildings by ships on neutral systems, I can see many uses. For example Pilgrim's designating holy sites on planets with Endless ruins, or buildings that are part of a wonder victory and require one per constellation, ormbassies that provide mutual Influence boosts.



Also, a module that would allow cravers to capture slaves while blockading would be interesting, but I feel the details of that would be very hard to figure out.

Hey guys and gals,

Today in GDDs: Trade!


Rationale
The idea is to allow the player to control their trade without too much micro-management, and allow trade to shape the galaxy map to create strong economical strategic points.





Trade Companies
HQ & Branches
Each player will have a limited amount of Trade Companies available to them throughout the course of the game, which will vary slightly depending on faction traits and research. To create a new company, a player will need to build an HQ as a system improvement on one of their systems.

To actually create a trade network, the player will then need to place Branches on other systems. The branches are placed using commercial ship and their fleet action, so you actually need to travel to the system you want to place the branch on. We define the following conditions:

• A single ship can only place a single branch
• A branch can only be placed on a friendly or neutral system
• The number of branches is limited at an empire level
• The number of branches depends on the number of trade companies, research, and faction affinities
  

Placing a branch will then create trade routes between this branch and all existing HQs. Placing a new HQ will also trace new routes to all existing branches, but we don't trace routes between HQs (see "Tracing a route" for more details and schematics).

On top of these trade hard points (HQs and Branches), we define a notion of trade power that represents the global efficiency of a company, which can be improved on an empire level by building a repeatable system improvement (a finite number of times). However, to represent the logistics cost of managing several companies with potentially varying agendas, building more HQs (so founding more companies) will decrease each individual HQ's efficiency with each newcomer on the trade market.

A quick list to summarize the above:
[LIST=1]

I need to build an HQ on one of my systems to found a Trade Company

I then need to build a commercial ship to found a Branch

I move my commercial ship to a friendly/neutral system to found the Branch

A route is traced between my HQ and my Branch

Any additional Branch will trace a new route to the HQ

[/LIST]
Upon placing a trade hard point, the immediate neighbors will also contribute to the trade income (see "Income - Hard point" for more details).

A captured HQ will be deactivated for the corresponding player. Any player can at any moment remove trade companies from their economy view, effectively destroying the corresponding HQ (for a price). In the case of branches however, they are destroyed upon capture by an enemy.


Tracing a route
Below is a series of schematics to illustrate how we plan to trace routes between HQs and Branches.

• A green node is a node that directly contribute to its hard point income (neighbor); which one is indicated by the colored outline
• Trade routes take the color of their corresponding branches
  

First step is to build an HQ:



We can then place a Branch; the shortest route is computed between the branch and the HQ:



If we place a second branch, another route is computed:



Finally if we place a second HQ, two new routes are computed from the branches to this new HQ:




Income
Hard point
A trade hard point is either a Branch or an HQ. The income generated will be centralized on these systems, and modified significantly by the route's length. What contribute to the income is then:

• The hard point's system itself
• The neighbors of the hard point
• The length of the trade route
  

The income will be and on one hand, and Luxury and Strategic resources on the other hand. The FIDS part will be mostly based on systems stats, whereas the resources income will depend on the spatial localization (a hard point or neighbor needs to possess a deposit for it to contribute to the trade income).

All these incomes will be modulated by the route's length.

Systems on route
The systems on a trade route won't directly contribute to the trade income, but will benefit from being situated on one. Each node traversed by a route will receive a and bonus based on the system's development and modulated by the route's length.



Blockading
Blockade power
Who can say trade without also saying piracy? Any fleet will have a blockading power computed from number of command points, specific modules and possible faction affinities. This defines a max blockading power for the fleet, in % of leeched income from the trade route.

A faction fleet can blockade any hostile node that takes part in a trade network. The amount of trade leeched from the blockade will increment progressively per turn, until it reaches the max blockading power we computed earlier for the fleet. Players will also be able to hire privateers (mercenaries) from the market that won't show a specific ownership; using these units, they will be able to also blockade their allies or neutral trade networks without needing to declare war.


Hard point
Blockading a trade hard point (branch or HQ) will completely stop any route connected to it. The victim player won't receive any income from it, while the blockading player will receive up to their max blockading power in leeched income. As soon as the blockading fleet moves or is destroyed, trade will resume.


Systems on route
In the same idea, a player can block any node that is part of a route. In this case however, income is not completely stopped, only reduced by the corresponding fraction in blockading power. As above, when the raiding fleet moves or is destroyed, trade (and income) will resume at full capacity.


VIP Feedback

Add more cases where an empire can use another one's buildings
Not planned but interesting, we will see how we can integrate it in other mechanics.

Connection between Trade and Marketplace?
There won't be a direct interaction between trade and the Marketplace, however, they will be indirectly connected, as you will be able to generate luxury/strategic resources with a judicious branch placement. We have several ideas to further link them, but as it has not been confirmed and we don't know if we will have the time/means to do them, we prefer not to elaborate on that for now.

Will there be any benefit to building a branch/ hq connecting to the market?
For now it's not the case but I like this idea! We will look into it. We will most probably have an increased bonus for your route if it passes through the marketplace's system.

Questions about blockading and privateers
The intention is to make privateers a viable option through pricing and retrofitting. A blockade on a trade route will leech a part of the income; it means the owner still gets some income: for example if I leech 23% of a route, its owner will still obtain 77% of the income.

Questions about consequences on diplomacy and incentive to place Branches in foreign territory
When you are at war with an empire, if the route goes through enemy systems then it will be interrupted. On the other hand, players at peace have the opportunity to sign trade agreements to further increase their trade output.
A potential incentive to place a foreign Branch would be that the and bonus will be granted to the systems on the route regardless of the owner. But I'd agree that this is a rather small incentive. Our intention behind that is to encourage players to have long-lasting alliances in the game (if your trade network is very intertwined you might want to preserve peace for a win-win situation).

Suggestion: stealthed routes and pirates
I'm not sure about the stealth mechanic, mainly because it would feel a bit weird in terms of lore to hide a complete trade route, considering the infrastructure and number of people required to run it properly. It could however be interesting for the raiding fleets! It could tie with our probe mechanic (to reveal them).

Suggestion: making the marketplace also the first HQ, and granting the possibility to impose tariffs on trade
I have mixed feelings about your marketplace idea. On the one hand it's interesting, but on the other it would give too much value to the marketplace, which is an early game building that already has several advantages for its owner. I think it might be safer for now to keep it detached from trade (at least in that area). I like the idea to give other means to hurt trade, we'll investigate (smuggling was mentioned as a theme).

Suggestion: recompute the route tracing in case of a blockade (if the route goes through your systems then you get the income)
Might complexify the accessibility of the current system for a result that would be comparable.


And that's all for now! I let you guys trade ideas!

[NDE: This last pun is entirely jhell's fault)

This looks great. Much more interesting than the old "Get Trade Cap Up, Explore, Peace, ..., Profit!", but you'll actually have strategic decisions placing HQs and branches, and blockading will also actually work between end point and start point rather than just at them. I really think trade routes should change to avoid blockades though; would be weird if enemies could do piracy on your route when your ships should just be able to go around; maybe trade routes could even dynamically move away from points of conflics and enemies. And the system also looks a bit complicated to completly understand.

Missed your post by a few mins ^^

The-Cat-o-Nine-Tales wrote:
My first, and most important question, is if the companies are generic or specific. That is, will we simply be founding "Trade Company A, Trade Company B" or will we instead found "Galactic Parcel Service (+50% bonus from trade route length)" and "Borer's Guild: (+100% Strategic Resource extraction on connected nodes)?

Companies will be generic. On our "nice to have" list though, there is the idea to be able to specialize them using specific luxury resources; it would then grant a purpose to the company like the ones you described. It is not currently planned however, but priorities might shift with testing and feedback.

The-Cat-o-Nine-Tales wrote:
The "hardpoint" system still leaves some questions about details for me, though:

-Does the HQ itself count as a destination for trade routes from other HQs?

-It says a branch can be place don a friendly or neutral system, but is a "neutral" system one at peace, or one at cold war? May a neutral system even be an uncolonized system?

-What happens if two hardpoints share the same system as a neighbor, or even neighbor each other?

-Will planetary and system features have any impact on the value of hard points or trade routes passing through them?

- No, HQs don't trace routes between them. A branch however will trace routes to all HQs.

- Maybe you will have read the other post before I post this, but I'll write it back here : a neutral system is a non-hostile system, so currently, not at war or in a trade embargo. The system needs to be colonized though.

- This is not a problem; the neighbor will contribute to both incomes, and a branch can be a neighbor to another branch and contribute to its base income (will only be based on the system's characteristics though, not the added trade income).

- They will . For now population and system level are the most important factors, but this is subject to change.

The-Cat-o-Nine-Tales wrote:
And a few questions related to route length and the route computation:

- The way I understand the GDD, route length will change the gain of strategic/luxury resources and the bonus of FI on passed systems from trade routes. Does this increase or decrease with distance? An increase (or even a similar output) for a longer trade route would feel off to me

- How will foreign trade routes be indicated to us, so that we can judge where to blockade?

- Do trade routes avoid potentially hostile systems? For example, in the picture below, we have two Sophon empires who were merrily trading when the cravers took a bite out of their systems, and now occupy a lot of the area between them. Will the trade route simply be disabled, as the shortest route is across hostile territory, or will it be re-routed through their own systems? If it does not re-route, will the cravers gain FI bonuses during cold war (or any other empire during the truce after a war?

- It increases with distance. The idea is to create interdependencies between players for trade, so longer trade routes are better (encouraging you to place a branch outside of your empire).

- The galaxy will feature visual indications on the lanes in case of trade, and of course the scan view will provide more detailed information.

- No, they don't. In this case, the Cravers would indeed gain FI bonuses during cold war. The case you showed is a great example actually: the best course of action here would probably be for the Sophons to ally and take back the system blocking the trade route.

I second cat-o-nine-tails route recalculation thing. The route should choose the safest path, not be hard-coded for the shortest one.

Maybe it could be unlocked by a tech; starts with the shortest path, then unlocks the "commerce safe transportation protocol" to detour the unsafe nodes.





BLACK TRADE COMPANIES



A Black trade company is an underworld of smugglers which can get past certain restrictions, such as war and blockades.

It has advantages and disadvantages over standard trade companies.



SHORTEST PATH

Black trade companies will always use the shortest path, and they cannot be completely blockaded. There will ALWAYS be someone vulnerable to bribery along the way to let a ship pass through, or ignore a probe detection, or otherwise shove stuff under the rug.

Even though a blockade does not completely block a black trade, it can significantly reduce its output - 90% reduction by default.



Black trade nodes are not destroyed by war. To eradicate them a concerted effort requiring a strong militia, stationed ships plus an industrial "building" to raze it - actually it represents extra resources being dedicated to the wara agains the smuggler network.



OILING THE ENGINE

If there is a black trade node in the enemy territory, two things happen: 1) The player's blockade % reduces, which means more profit. 2) The blockading player's spoils of piracy % increase as well.

Justification: Since the black trade network is better established on both sides of the blockade, it becomes easier to move product behind borders to and from. The more well-established teh tarde network, the less risk, and less resources are squandered in trying to bypass the blockades. In a bleaker lore view, as corruption encroaches, the black trade syndicate profits more, having more opportunities of corruptible people available, thus spending less on bribes. Also it becomes easier to avoid physical altercations and destroyed goods.



The black market is a convenient but double-edged sword, that would bypass the hard blockades but benefit the other party as well.

Depending on political party and laws passed, presence of a black market node or HQ could reduce happiness to a lesser or greater extent, or have no penalty at all.

Presence of a black trade node or HQ would allow flowing of strategic and luxury resources through the network.

The trouble with routes automatically rerouting is that it makes blockading a route without just blockading the hard point itself extremely difficult. This way, there's places on the route you can go after without just hitting the hard points themselves (or if you're on a map that only has one route between far flung places).

Tridus wrote:
The trouble with routes automatically rerouting is that it makes blockading a route without just blockading the hard point itself extremely difficult. This way, there's places on the route you can go after without just hitting the hard points themselves (or if you're on a map that only has one route between far flung places).

Yeah but why wouldn't it be like that I mean you already want to blockade hardpoints anyway and it'd make no sense if you could blockade one system and it'd work if there was a way around. Like if there was 1 road between two cities and you blockaded it it'd make sense if it'd stop trade but if there was 1 road and also 1 road through another city then it'd make sense that trade would be redirected. And this works even better here since there are no roads in space.

Will colonies be affected by having a branch or a route through it?



For example lets say there's a system I own in the center of the map, and it just so happens to work out that 4 or 5 routes go through that system due to map geography and where I and others are placing their branches and HQs. Will it see increased trade or migration given that it should, logically, be a trade hub?

With route recalculation, an option would be to give the option of letting pirates set up a base in a system.



A pirate base in a system gives -happiness, but it will harass all systems adjacent to it, giving +dust as it pays the bribes to maintain operations.

The pirate effect is more of a 'move profit from adjacent planets to this one' for the host of the pirate base, which means leeching FIDS from friendly and enemy adjacent planets. It wouldn't harm local economy that much, or at all, since the player's FIDSI is just trading places (and mostly converted to dust) - but it would have a negative happiness impact.

A pirate base's strongest effect would be to strongly leech on trade routes going through any adjacent node, or the pirate base's node.



While not outright blockading, stealing 50% or more of the enemy's profit can be even better.

Brazilian_Joe wrote:
I second cat-o-nine-tails route recalculation thing. The route should choose the safest path, not be hard-coded for the shortest one.

Maybe it could be unlocked by a tech; starts with the shortest path, then unlocks the "commerce safe transportation protocol" to detour the unsafe nodes.

Like Tridus said, the risk is that blockading becomes marginally useful. It's probable that most hard points will be on well defended systems or systems that are placed deep in one's empire, hence it would be much easier for pirates to target soft blockades on the route itself.

Brazilian_Joe wrote:
BLACK TRADE COMPANIES



SHORTEST PATH



OILING THE ENGINE

There are several good ideas in your suggestion, but it would be a new system by itself . We certainly would like to make the smuggling notion appear in the trade part of the game, but as we have few resources it might not be possible to do before release.

Eji1700 wrote:
Will colonies be affected by having a branch or a route through it?

Yes, they will . From the GDD:

jhell wrote:
Systems on route

The systems on a trade route won't directly contribute to the trade income, but will benefit from being situated on one. Each node traversed by a route will receive a and bonus based on the system's development and modulated by the route's length.

In the case where your system is traversed by multiple routes the effects will indeed cumulate!

Brazilian_Joe wrote:
With route recalculation, an option would be to give the option of letting pirates set up a base in a system.

This is a really interesting idea! Something comparable might actually be feasible without too many additions. I'll add it to our list of things to investigate.