Hello to all! I'm fairly new at this game having picked it up on steam around the holidays. I wondered if some of the veteran players felt the Science or Trade agreements were worth it?

I hadn't noticed an appreciable difference in research/dust and the high cost of influence seems it could better used elsewhere maybe.

I sometimes just agree to one so they can stop pestering me every turn. Are there benefits I'm not realizing with these?

In my opinion, science agreements are absolutely worthless. At most, they produce around 300 science per agreement.

Trade agreements however, allow your trade companies to connect to the trade partner's trade companies, potentially going as far as to quadruple your income. This isn't really worth it for UC due to their weird trade company mechanic.

I had wars that brought me from swimming in dust to barely breaking even, because of the torn trade agreements. You just need to be careful who you're signing them with, empires that you can't connect with easily or that don't have many subsidiaries won't be worth much.

Science agreements, imo, are an afterthought, at some point you get so much influence that if you're not UE you can just as well sink it somewhere. I'd love it if instead every faction would bring some unique techs to the table that could be slowly unlocked by having science agreement with each other to represent, you know, scientists working together, flat science bonus is just dull.

DNLH wrote: I'd love it if instead every faction would bring some unique techs to the table that could be slowly unlocked by having science agreement with each other to represent, you know, scientists working together, flat science bonus is just dull.

I really like this idea, it definitely feels like it needs something.

Thanks CaptainCobbs and DNLH, I appreciate both your guys insight. I'll give trade agreements another try next time.