I agree that trade right now is broken too easily, it can be very profitable but it is too perilous, with a simple war declaration making trade useless in that respect. I also agree that Amplitude has designed the game so that there are a lot of techs (and even a hero tree) devoted to it, yet it is broken so easily which makes no sense game-design wise.



I'm not totally convinced that internal trade is the way to go though. IMO it is better to simply introduce a tech that allows partial trading (25/50%) during war/cold-war. You could have the cold-war trading tech branching off of Relativistic Markets and the war trading tech somewhere further up the left tech tree. You could then introduce a corporate hero skill that grants another 25% (additive to the prior tech) increase to trade during war/cold-war, make it require Veteran 3. Of course, the Craver's either simply wouldn't have those two techs, or have them much further up the tech tree.

I second the need for a 'internal trade', or 'domestic trade' game mechanic.



I think it should have a few mechanics though:





Some of the trade improvements could increse the % dust from domestic trade lanes.

The trade bonus could start at less than 50%, but would get stronger with technology advancement.

The internal trade would also get a cumulative bonus according to the total number of trade lanes doing domestic trade. This could be research-unlockable, or start at a very low bonus and improve.