EadTaes wrote:
It's easy to block a trade race like that. You need only to not make peace with them. If you remain in cold-war or war with the player there will be no trade. So just don't go to peace with them and if you check the diplo window and see he is a peace with someone else and he is to far away from you attack then attack the guy he is at peace with. If you take away the player he's getting the bonuses from he gets none.

Incorrect. As was stated just a couple posts above yours, the Blockade Breakers trait specifically allows you to trade with empires with whom you are in Cold War status, or even a declared war.

But if a fix is need then you would need only to add a condition research int he diplo tree that would create a trade agreement. If booth players do not create/accept a trade agreement then their should be no trade.

That is almost precisely what a Peace Treaty IS. Blockade Breaker simply circumvents the trade aspect of the treaty.

You tend to underestimate those traderoutes and laugh about people playing custom races, which are trimmed to max out traderoutes and abuse blockadebreaker. But after turn 100 when he has double of your FIDS you actually start thinking, what may went wrong, but then it's too late.

Well i never had a 100 turns game. 80 turns max on large size. I mean the winner is already decided by that turn.



If you spawn close to aggressive player by the turn he discovers wormhole there will be 2, 700 mp fleet on your closest world to him. For example cravers has 25% bonus on everything from the very beginning and because he went all military traits and you went trade and pop his fleets will just trash everything you throw on him. After 15 turns you will lose half your worlds.

CaptainPsilon wrote:
Well i never had a 100 turns game. 80 turns max on large size. I mean the winner is already decided by that turn.



If you spawn close to aggressive player by the turn he discovers wormhole there will be 2, 700 mp fleet on your closest world to him. For example cravers has 25% bonus on everything from the very beginning and because he went all military traits and you went trade and pop his fleets will just trash everything you throw on him. After 15 turns you will lose half your worlds.

I didnt try out Cravers yet with their 25% FIDS-bonus at start. But it takes too lang to invade his colonies. He can just switch to industry production and pump out fleets too.

Uhm, correct if I'm wrong but doesn't forming traderoute require you to be either peace, co-operation or in alliance with player you want to trade with?

I mean surely traderoutes don't work if you are in cold-war or war with other (or if works thats bug).



Therefore player shouldn't be able to abuse traderoutes unless someone else accepts his offer of peace.

Hupailija wrote:
Uhm, correct if I'm wrong but doesn't forming traderoute require you to be either peace, co-operation or in alliance with player you want to trade with?

I mean surely traderoutes don't work if you are in cold-war or war with other (or if works thats bug).



Therefore player shouldn't be able to abuse traderoutes unless someone else accepts his offer of peace.

You are basically right, but there is a trait (Pilgrim I think) called "Blockade Breaker", wich allows you to maintain trade routes even in Cold War and War (even if the system is blocked).

In combination with the Amoeba Affinity (visiion to the whole map) and Trade improving traints like Merchant you have a very powerfull Race with unstoppable trade routes.



In my opinion, trade is fine but blockade breaker is just way overpowered. Maybe restrict it in war or let the trade routes scale with peace (cold war -1 Trade route, war -2 trade routes,.... peace +- 0 cooperation/alliance +1)?



BR

Alris

@Hupailija

Look at Blockade Breaker trait. It allows Trade routes in war/cold war state, also when system is blockaded.



@liquidGG Conquering system takes 4 turns(if your fleet is large enough).

Hissho, Cravers, Sowers are considered to be most aggressive affinities. And somehow players tends to attack Sophons and Amoeba first. If there's no wormhole that defend you from Hissho then you might not live long enough to build up trade bonus.

I think blockade breakers should be more expensive



probably 10 points is right value

Kaoschan wrote:
Building a Custom Race with Amoeba Affinity + Merchants + Diplomats + Blockade Breakers (the big point) is seriously overpowered in term of economic power.

As soon as you get the First Contact with any Race, the Traderoutes start to get active in a gigantic fashion (4 homeworld, 2 for other system) yielding an enormous amount of money and sciene.

So much it feel a bit gamebreaking, especially because Blockade Breakers has a cost of 6 Points (which is way to low).



Some of the Custom Trait Points need a serious rebalance.

Trade Empires are specialized, thus they have to be powerful in their domain (and yes, traderoutes are quite powerful). Just use an aggressive, military approach in multiplayer games and they fall easy enough (they have not even one military trait).

It's easy to block a trade race like that. You need only to not make peace with them. If you remain in cold-war or war with the player there will be no trade. So just don't go to peace with them and if you check the diplo window and see he is a peace with someone else and he is to far away from you attack then attack the guy he is at peace with. If you take away the player he's getting the bonuses from he gets none.



In short war is a preferable state to be in to nerf other peoples empires. I had some people I had been at war with for 50-100 turns and taken no hostile action against them.



But if a fix is need then you would need only to add a condition research int he diplo tree that would create a trade agreement. If booth players do not create/accept a trade agreement then their should be no trade.

Just for the point, I made an Amoeba race with Blockade Breaker and Merchant x 2.



It's turn 22. From various trade routes, I have a science income of 45.5. This yields a total science of 119. That means without the trade routes, I would only have 73.5 science. That's a 61.9% bonus to science from just trade routes. That is absolutely substantial.

Blockade breakers then should only affect your self on your system. IE if enemy fleet comes to your system that system doesn't lose it's trade bonus and can still export it's luxury/strategic resource. It should not allow you to create trade routes with enemies. But I haven't seen many blockade Breakers that have lived fast the 50 turn limit. I then to go and knock out people that send peace treaties first. :P.





Or at least it should work booth ways. The person with the trait would get a better bonus because he has the otehr trade traits, but the guy who is being Blockad Breaked should be able to trade with the guy as well in return.

Unfortunately, your suggestion of just eliminating the main effect of Blockade Breakers nukes the entire concept of an economic race pretty badly. What would you give them to balance out the fact that their entire collection of picks is dead weight and has effectively cost them the game if everyone refuses peace? I'm sure you'd be screaming bloody murder if someone suggested, say, an early planetary tech that prevents other players from ever invading your systems.

I have an idea, what if an opponent makes 1/3 off of your the trade as well? Trade at the moment feels incredibly selfish at the moment, and could be combined with a political relations boost.



But in the end it would also buff anybody you trade with.

Maybe make Blockade Breakers only half as effective when not at peace with the target?

I like your idea, sounds like a good compromise.

It would certainly be a good starting point.

Agreed about 50% in war and cold war situations.

Additionally, if you have blockade breakers and are trading with another planet, that planet (or to be more precise, the opposing player that owns that planet). should be benefiting from the trade as well (I believe that is not the case right now - it is a one way only thing for blockade breakers, but I could be wrong).

Just increase cost to 10



It is not overpowered. I steamrolled everyone in mp who tried that strat. The game is over by turn 50 usually.

I absolutely agree with this! After I read it here, I tried this combination have been winning my games ever since. The FIDS just skyrocket and one has so much more research than other factions. The earlier one gets certain techs, the more influence this has on the rest of the game, like a caskade. In my opinion the ability "blockade braker" should be removed, it is too strong even for the Pilgrims. As races are reluctant to make peace, and thus "normal" races have problems getting all their trade routes used, the trait is just too powerful and provides too many advantages. It really brakes the game, not just the blockades.

I you don't like it, you could use another faction...



But yeah, this needs to be balanced.

Renamed the title.

I never bother with trade routes, hell i don't even know how to start them, considering the fact, no matter the race i meet, they tend to launch an unprovoked attack, so when i customize my characters, i always give negative trading traits to keep points for useful ones.

It isn't unbalanced if the AI knows it should just go to war with a race like that, but custom races have just been introduced so what did you expect to happen?

Isn't it balanced because of how weak the amoeba are in terms of military?

Problem here is that trade routes not only generate loads of money but also loads of research. For example 2 Systems = 6 routes. After short amount of time you will get around 60 research points out of it. I think thats why you can't beat them with military cause they have the better tech..

I find the trade rather weak..

Just calculate how big % of your income is trade.. its rearely above 10% even with those traits.

Licho wrote:
I find the trade rather weak..

Just calculate how big % of your income is trade.. its rearely above 10% even with those traits.

If you compare your entire science income for the system to the base science income, you will get this result, but you need to keep in mind that a lot of the bonuses are +%, so the net benefit of trade is much longer. There is also the exponential gain of getting science techs sooner when you otherwise would due to increased early game income.

Building a Custom Race with Amoeba Affinity + Merchants + Diplomats + Blockade Breakers (the big point) is seriously overpowered in term of economic power.

As soon as you get the First Contact with any Race, the Traderoutes start to get active in a gigantic fashion (4 homeworld, 2 for other system) yielding an enormous amount of money and sciene.

So much it feel a bit gamebreaking, especially because Blockade Breakers has a cost of 6 Points (which is way to low).



Some of the Custom Trait Points need a serious rebalance.

Increase the point cost of blockade runners and then it might be more balanced.

It works in SP but in MP when you just start getting decent bonuses from trade there is 2000MP fleet over your homeworld

Licho wrote:
I find the trade rather weak..

Just calculate how big % of your income is trade.. its rearely above 10% even with those traits.

Let me give you an overview what I experienced with my mates in MP (I won't talk about SP, since you can outplay the AI with almost every tactic/race).



First: We are obviously talking about custom races, since everybody wants to create his own fraction and some ridiculous overpowered combinations can be made.



Ok lets go:



We are 4-6 mates playing MP on different galaxy settings including AI, no pirates (at the moment; my mates hate them^^). I myself focussed on a Hissho race - without the original -20%science debuff and minor tweaks to improve the race. Call it Hissho 2.0 - the gameplay is most likely the same.



Second mate plays different custom-made fractions, most likely improved versions of the given ones.

Third mate plays a sophon-based race, heavily focussed on keeping taxes low and be good at research and benefit from superior techs etc.



AND our last mate, playing a full trade-based race with united kingdom affinity. -> The BEST, by FAR the BEST custom race at the moment.



I'm considering myself as a newbie to the game, but understanding the general gameplay and most tactics. Our Sophon player has a really good understanding of the game and I would consider him to be really really good at the game, same like our random-race player. But we have almost no chance against our trading mate.



Let me explain why: The game starts, everybody is colonizing, scouting and stuff. Here the first thing comes into play: 3traits: blockadebreaker + increased traderoutes by +2 and +50%increased benefits from traderoutes. The moment he discovers some of our starsystems we already lost.



He gains a HUGE, a damn HUGE bonus - 4 traderoutes on his homesystem, 2 on every colony with 50%increased benefits. This takes place in round 10-20. (10-20 rounds later (~50rounds!!!) he can double that again with the techs, remember that!) After that he is already placed first in FIDS and will never lose his number 1 status again.



Here is why: He gets so much dust and science from traderoutes -> He has MORE research output than our sophon player with +30%science and low taxes for even more science (and our sophon player is really not a noob) AND so much dust he can instant-buy systemimprovements to skyrocket his colonies even more.



And second thing: He gets +approval for every nation he is allied or in peace with. So he can raise taxes while he is trading and peace with us + the AI.



-> Now his race affinity kicks in like mad: increased production for taxes >50%. He can do this since he has +approval as trait and the +approval from being allied/in peace with other nations AND because of the huge science bonuses so he already researched the +approval stuff many rounds before most of us can do. When he reaches that point we definitly lost the game. He can pump out BETTER (thanks to research) and MORE (+0-50% production from affinity) FLEETS than us.



You can't stop him. You just can't. Maybe if we ally against him and block all our systems at the choke point, but he can still profit from the AI. (guess we need to turn AI off)



And if we ALL (if only 1 player forgets to block choke points, the traderoutes are created and game over) need to adjust our tactics just to counter 1 (!) player something is broken.



And don't tell me to kill him early on with aggressive bushido gameplay. I tried it and it takes like 10 rounds to colonize a system at the beginning with destroyers. So he can put up a decent fleet (remember race affininity -> more HP for ships) and fight me off.

I could succesfully hide ALL my systems to him, since i put a fleet up to kill his scouts, but he crushed with a small army through the blockade of another player and discovered some systems + the systems of the AI. -> game over.

I even levelled my combat hero while killing his scouts and stacking up the +5% more dps bushido for my fleets but it took WAY to long to invade him.



The fact that invasion in early game takes way too long and there are no restrictions from the invasion to him (blockadebreaker -> traderoutes work in those systems too; and he can even build fleets in that systems, something I think that has to be changed too = you shouldn't be able to build fleets in attacked systems) he cannot be killed like the AI with a rush strategy. At least not from 1 player alone.





I would suggeste blockadebreaker needs EITHER to be very expensive to have (20 points instead of 6; remember thats the key ability without this nothing works) OR rework into: traderoutes are not blocked when your systems get attacked by enemy fleets and remove the trade with nations on war/cold war)



Trade routes should only work when you have an alliance / cooperation with another race. Its just plain stupid that you can trade with nations while you are at war with them, while they cant trade with you. LOL

This is an exploit and i hope its not intended.



At the moment playing a science nation or trade nation is the key to victory.

The amount of trade bonuses depends on the population size.



So on planet with 4 pop , 1 trade route gives you something like +1dust,+2science. To get really huge bonus you need to have really huge planet.

CaptainPsilon wrote:
The amount of trade bonuses depends on the population size.



So on planet with 4 pop , 1 trade route gives you something like +1dust,+2science. To get really huge bonus you need to have really huge planet.

I forgot to mention, he also had the +population bonus for medium, small and tiny planets which gave him at least +1 additional pop on his medium starting planet too and he also tries to get +population improvements

I give you exact numbers



Race with All trade traits (diplomacy, merchants, etc..) and some trade tech (pretty expensive) on a system with:



23 pop : 3 trade routes +13 dust, +27 science each; total 39, 81 NOT AFFECTED by ANY bonuses

30 pop: 3 trade routes +17, +35

15 pop: 3 trade routes +8,+17



I can say that is pretty low, as you can see 15 pop has exactly 2 times less trade than 30 pop.



BUT:



34 pop system, with 14 level trade hero: 6 trade routes +70, +135 each; total 490 , 810

That is huge however takes like 100 turns to get , require high level hero and superb star system.



So 1-50 turn bonuses from trade are meaningless . Bonuses from Hissho or Cravers affinities are much higher.

CaptainPsilon wrote:
I give you exact numbers



Race with All trade traits (diplomacy, merchants, etc..) and some trade tech (pretty expensive) on a system with:



23 pop : 3 trade routes +13 dust, +27 science each; total 39, 81 NOT AFFECTED by ANY bonuses

30 pop: 3 trade routes +17, +35

15 pop: 3 trade routes +8,+17



I can say that is pretty low, as you can see 15 pop has exactly 2 times less trade than 30 pop.



BUT:



34 pop system, with 14 level trade hero: 6 trade routes +70, +135 each; total 490 , 810

That is huge however takes like 100 turns to get , require high level hero and superb star system.



So 1-50 turn bonuses from trade are meaningless . Bonuses from Hissho or Cravers affinities are much higher.

81 on a system science is quite significant. I just won a science victory with the Sophons (Vanilla) and my best research colony had 2735 research, almost 1000 of which from four trade routes. That's at turn 211 (the winning turn). At turn 72 of the same game, my best research colony was a mere 158. I only had three systems above 81.



Even a 15 pop home system with +8, +17 x3 trade routes is a huge boon to science in the first 20 or 30 turns.

Well my 23 pop system generates 182 science +82 from trade. It is equivalent of +45% research.

But my 12 pop system generates 108 science + 36 from trade = + 33%

And 3 pop system generates 66 science + 9 from trade = +13%



So generally flat % bonus to science (like science trait or craver/hissho/sophons affinity) is better because usually you dont have many 12 pop planets in mp game and under game i mean usual game where some warmongers are present. I get my 1st genocide/rage_quit normally by turn 40-50.



Plus there are 2 buildings that give you +60% bonus science on a system and this bonus doesnt apply to trade.

Plus there is planetary exploitation that gives you science affected by all +% bonuses.



The cost of all this trade staff is 30 points. So you can get +30% flat bonus instead and another +30-50% if you take sophons instead of amoeba.



15 pop system by the turn 20 ? Do you even build colonizers ? Anyway there is pop cap in the beginning so 6-8 pop on homeworld is your max. Furthermore usually you don't even have technology to travel through wormholes before turn 20. So no trade till turn 25 or so.



I dont say that this amoeba trade strat is horrible. I just disagree that it is overpowered. It works best on huge maps with moderate amount of players (not too packed not too low) and especially with peaceful players.



In my recent multiplayer game by turn 69 as hissho i had 3000 science per turn without any trade and +science traits.