Hello everyone and welcome to another Stellaris development diary. Today we're going to continue talking about the 2.2 'Le Guin' update, on the topic of the Galactic Market. As said before, we're not yet ready to reveal anything about when Le Guin is coming out, only that it's a long time away and we have many more topics to cover before then. Also as said before, screenshots will contain placeholder art and interfaces and non-final numbers.

The Market
The Market is a new interface accessible from your topbar, where you can buy and sell resources. Resources are bought and sold for Energy Credits, with their prices dependent on a variety of factors such as whether the Galactic Market is founded, supply and demand, and possibly also from various events. On top of the actual price of the resource, there is also a Market Fee which has to be paid for any sale or purchase, equal to 30% of the purchase value. This Market Fee is there so that it will not be possible to make money by purchasing and then immediately re-selling resources at a higher price. Resources can be purchased either in bulk, or by setting up a monthly trade, where you for example specify that you want to sell 20 food and buy 10 minerals per month, and can set a minimum sale/maximum purchase price, if you want to ensure that major fluctuations in price do not disrupt your empire's economy too much.

Internal vs Galactic Market
At the start of the game, empires only have access to the Internal Market, which represents trading with actors inside your empire such as corporations and local governments, or in the case of Gestalt Consciousness empires, resource reprocessing. The prices on the Internal Market are set to always be higher than those on the Galactic Market, so relying too heavily on trading will be disadvantageous in the first few decades of the game. Some empires, such as Devouring Swarms, may only ever have access to the Internal Market (this is something we're still testing and balancing) and so might get better prices there. Once the game has progressed to the point where at least one empire knows about at least 50% of the other empires in the galaxy, the Galactic Market will eventually be founded. One empire that meets the criteria is picked as Market Founder, and their capital system becomes the Market Capital, spawning a special station and map marker to denote it. From then on, any empire (barring possible restrictions for Devouring Swarms and the like) that knows of the Market Capital system has access to the Galactic Market and is able to trade on it. The controller of the Market Capital get a reduction in their Market Fee and increased trade value for their trade routes (more on that in a later DD).

Prices on the Galactic Market are always lower than those on the internal market, though the actual prices will fluctuate based on supply and demand - every time Minerals are sold on the market, prices will drop, and conversely, every time they are bought prices will increase. The purchases and sales you make on the Galactic Market do not just affect your own prices but also those of other empires, so that it is possible to for example massively drive up Food prices by purchasing a huge amount of food, damaging the economy of any empire that is reliant on importing it. It isn't actually possible for a resource to 'run out' on the Market, so you will always be able to purchase critically needed resources, though the cost of doing so may be extremely prohibitive. However, some resources (such as Dark Matter and other rare strategic resources) will not be available until they are actually accessible to empires on the market in large enough quantities, and are not available on the Internal Market at all. The aim of the Galactic Market is to make it so that it is actually a viable strategy to specialize your economy, importing resources that are difficulty for your empire to produce and exporting resources that you can produce easily in large quantities.

Trader Enclaves
Since the Market has much of the same functionality as the Trader Enclaves from Leviathans, we're also changing said Enclaves for those with the Leviathans Story Pack. Instead of trading food, energy and minerals, Trader Enclaves will sell rare resources (Rare Crystals, Volatile Motes and Exotic Gases) in the form of monthly trade deals offered at advantageous prices. Each Trader Enclave will offer only one of these resources. Additionally, once you reach 50+ opinion, Trader Enclaves will sell special Governor-type leaders with unique, trade and commerce related traits. Finally, if you control the home system of a Trader Enclave AND have 50+ opinion with them, you will be able to build a special Starbase building in that system which lowers your Market Fee, allowing for cheaper trading on the Galactic Market.

Finally, just a note to say that we're ignoring the Slave Market tab of the Market screenshots on purpose - this is something that will be covered in a later DD.

That's all for today! Next week we're continuing to talk about the Le Guin update, on the topic of Sectors and Factions.

 

[Zarpaulus]

I understand why Devouring Swarm would not trade with other countries but hear me out :
Fanatic Purifiers can trade with same race as they are.
Determined Exterminators only hate Organics, they can have normal relationships with other machines. Including Ascended Organics that decided to become Machines.

Wouldn't it be silly if they were excluded from Galactic market?

Also, if everyone is Fanatic Purifier, will the Galactic market ever spawn?

Oh, but can Barbaric Despoilers access the Galactic Market?

I can imagine they might be selling a lot to the slave market tab.

 

[Tyrannical Prince]

Well, one of the options you get when you find contacts is sharing communications - that might be a bit more important now whether you give that info away freely.

Well I never give communications as it denies the possibility of more anomalies but now I might consider it if it means getting the galactic market.

I think they meant though that your first contact would have a major communications project that could have good, bad and neutral outcomes.
An example might be if you're militarist, you get an increased fire rate against that empire for the next 20 years (incentive to go to war soon)
Or maybe if you're spiritualist, a bad outcome could be that your people are shocked at the news and receive a large happiness debuff for a time.
Your second and third communications projects would be similar.
At some point it would just be easy (as it is now) to establish new communications

 

[TheRealRemus]

Wow, wizz your DDs never seiz me to get me thrilled about playing stelaris again, cant wait until the patch.
Every change so far is most welcome and exciting! Lucky us that this is not locked behind a DLC

Until next time.^^

 

[SteelCrow]

hmm, the Galactic Market Founder should be the one that uses their internal market the most.

Also #Placeholder UI

 

[Binch2123]

Could it now be possible to play tall as a manufacturing empire that buys basic materials like minerals, processes them into, for example, alloy and then sells that at a profit to the market ? Of course it will depend on the galaxies setup, and the whole supply/demand shenanigans but is it mathematically feasible in most galaxy scenarios as the market fee seems to be quite hefty unless the price difference between materials and their respective products will be higher than at least 30% (or rather more to make it actually worth while)

 

[FaintestVirus]

Lets say, you are playing a heavy RP empire who is very private and keep to yourself, importing and trading but with closed borders and general caution toward aliens, like a dwarf kingdom. You set out to explore the galaxy for riches and happen to meet some aliens, then suddenly bam. Your private, closed off, and reclusive homeworld is now the center of the galactic market because you made contact with 50% of the other empires. Do you receive a popup asking if you even want this? Will you be given the option to opt out of founding the galactic market, as to avoid your RP being shaken apart? Also will you be given the ability to move your market capitol to another world, apart from your homeworld, for either RP reasons or practical? I personally feel like founding the galactic market should be an invested choice, and not the currently depicted odd system. Now keep in mind the DD clearly states that everything is still in early WIP, so this stuff isn't set in stone yet. I read disclaimers <3

 

[John Rusher]

If you are xenophobe, you should be least likely to become the founder of Galactic Market. Also having Galactic Market should increase Xenophile attraction.

Basicaly, Xenophobe should only be able to get galactic market, if everyone else is even more xenophobic. Possibly there should be even chance that fallen empire(non-Xenophobe) becomes center of galactic market if no one else is eligible (increasing chance of them awakening).

Xenophobe fallen empire should only have a chance of getting galactic market if everyone is determined exterminator/fanatic purifier/devouring swarm.

 

[Death Dragon]

Lets say, you are playing a heavy RP empire who is very private and keep to yourself, importing and trading but with closed borders and general caution toward aliens, like a dwarf kingdom. You set out to explore the galaxy for riches and happen to meet some aliens, then suddenly bam. Your private, closed off, and reclusive homeworld is now the center of the galactic market because you made contact with 50% of the other empires. Do you receive a popup asking if you even want this? Will you be given the option to opt out of founding the galactic market, as to avoid your RP being shaken apart? Also will you be given the ability to move your market capitol to another world, apart from your homeworld, for either RP reasons or practical? I personally feel like founding the galactic market should be an invested choice, and not the currently depicted odd system. Now keep in mind the DD clearly states that everything is still in early WIP, so this stuff isn't set in stone yet. I read disclaimers <3

You should probably just play as inward perfection. I'm guessing they won't get access to the market.
The DD makes it sound like the early game market being "internal trade" is just a throwaway line to explain why you have access to a market and the galactic market sounds like a straight upgrade because everything would be cheaper on it, so there probably wouldn't be any gameplay reason to reject the galactic market.

Like some other people said, I would like it more though if there wasn't just a single market and multiple groups of empires had their own separate markets.

 

[John Rusher]

OK but how to explain Devouring Swarm having internal trade? How does one trade with itself? In fact it is so for all gestalt consciousness. External trade makes sense for gestalt, but internal is basicaly hanging on nothing but suspension of disbelief.

 

[halander1]

I understand the need for a market system to prevent mass failure in the new planet mechanics but this simply feels too 4X like, and not a grand strategy game.

There is no strategy in auto-transferring to galactic markets. And at this moment the idea of a single galactic market simply doesn't make sense. Even in modern society we don't have a single world market because nations would boycott it due to competing interests.

Furthermore, it really limits the hell out of all the great potential that was availabile for trade (as it seems) by outright preventing an embargo and blockade from killing an empire. A great example of the trade nations of eu4 like Portugal who god forbid have an army, but was so wealthy and could control the markets so well no one wanted to face them. The dreams of murdering civilizations Foundation style is lost.

 

[nweismuller]

OK but how to explain Devouring Swarm having internal trade? How does one trade with itself? In fact it is so for all gestalt consciousness.

Because, as the dev diary said, it models the ability to set up economic processes that allow you to convert economic potential. It is possible, for instance, to divert industrial capacity to additional agricultural machinery, fertiliser chemicals, and divert labor to clear marginal agricultural land to ramp up agricultural output even at relatively short notice. This is not efficient compared to long-term efforts to expand productivity, but crash programs to expand output in specific sectors are totally possible.

 

[John Rusher]

Of all "I kill you all with exterminatus" civics, only Fanatic Purifiers make sense to have internal trade, and even external trade sometimes(such us when you are trading with non-xeno or robots - i mean even to fanatic purifiers, robots should be treated just as mindless machines, and thus not considered as something to be purged, if it can be exploited thru it's idiocy, to gain resources... I mean : You don't automaticaly purge robot pops of xenos, unless you dissasemble all robots on sight.

 

[Daoko__]

I really hope they add some splash art to the current market tab or something to make it a lil more.. alive

 

[John Rusher]

Because, as the dev diary said, it models the ability to set up economic processes that allow you to convert economic potential. It is possible, for instance, to divert industrial capacity to additional agricultural machinery, fertiliser chemicals, and divert labor to clear marginal agricultural land to ramp up agricultural output even at relatively short notice. This is not efficient compared to long-term efforts to expand productivity, but crash programs to expand output in specific sectors are totally possible.

Seems legit, mainly from mechanical standpoint is makes sense balance wise. But it should be renamed when you play gestalt to "internal resource managment" instead of "internal market"

 

[Zeelilus]

Could it now be possible to play tall as a manufacturing empire that buys basic materials like minerals, processes them into, for example, alloy and then sells that at a profit to the market ? Of course it will depend on the galaxies setup, and the whole supply/demand shenanigans but is it mathematically feasible in most galaxy scenarios as the market fee seems to be quite hefty unless the price difference between materials and their respective products will be higher than at least 30% (or rather more to make it actually worth while)

I'd like to imagine a situation where one empire is amazing at producing minerals so it does so and barely focuses on the processing into alloys. Another empire does the inverse, having great alloy production but lacking in raw minerals. I imagine as long as they're both buying and selling their product at a decent rate to keep the pricing balanced that they'd both benefiting from doing this, rather than the two of them just keeping a perfectly balanced internal system.

 

[Cat_Fuzz]

Solution 2: Buy alloys to drive the price up and sell the excess on the internal market to recoup some energy.
Solution 2.5: Don't produce much alloys in the first place so your purchases are not wasted.

Option 3: Just sell directly to who you want to supply alloys to (as I assume old trade deals will still exist also)

 

[Jin_Cardassian]

I'd much prefer a more involved and intricate system, something like being able to set up local markets through economic treatise with neighboring empires, so that economy focused empires can start trading earlier and use their clout to build relationships with neighbors. Later on, empires could become members of more than one trading bloc, with the possibility of trading resources between blocs by buying low and selling high.

There are a few ways ways I could see to reformat this while keeping the "galactic market starbase" thing:

1) Make it an early game Megastructure (perhaps costing energy and requiring the Space Trading technology, so Corporate Dominion types get a head start). This allows you to create a regional galactic market with any empires you contact.

2) Other empires can and will do the same, so by the time the whole galaxy meets there are multiple local blocs, built organically.

3) Empires have to be let into a particular regional market by the starbase controller. Starbase controllers can also initiate diplomatic agreements to merge with others, growing the Galactic Market organically. They can also remove their bloc from the market, allowing for embargoes of a sort.

4) These regional starbases form the basis of trade nodes and trade routes (or at least macro-super trade routes between empires, since presumably normal trade routes are going to do something else).

5) Presumably there's some efficiency loss with distance from the nearest starbase, so the opening of wormholes and gateways really changes the economic landscape.

 

[Spartakus]

All these issues regarding the Market Capital would easily be solved by a galactic UN.
Vote for a new system initially when founded, when the system is invaded and every ten years.
Also non-fanatic Xenophobes could maybe accept themarket in an uninhabited system within their borders.

 

[Kepler68]

will there be any diplomacy related to this? like threatening to buy all the food on the market, and forcing an empire reliant on it to do things for you? or is this beyond the scope of the update? it already works well for MP (because you can threaten them IRL) but i would like to mess with the AI as well

 

[Ironking]

@Wiz you mentioned something about trade routes in another post. Is that still a thing?

Great update btw!