Trade-what would you do with it?

[DrFranknfurter]

Things I'd like to see from an improved Trade mechanic:

- Logistics, including fleet support during a war

- International influence

- Some way to expand what "local supply chain" means as the game progresses, so it goes Same-Planet -> Neighbors -> Sector -> Hyperlane Link -> Gate-Mates as your tech advances

I would like a sense of progression to logistics. For hyper relay links and FTL techs to matter and for the sense of scale to gradually shift what a local supply chain means to your empire.

Strong agree, Bureaucrats were more interesting than the global sprawl reduction mechanics we have now.

Not much was done with them, but a lot more could have been done.

I often lament what could have been if old mechanics had been carefully explored, considered and expanded upon rather than discarded. History repeats if what went wrong it isn't understood (+admin cap from pops is replaced with -sprawl from pops with some similar end results).

The problems with adjustable admin cap were innumerable but the relevant one was that the opportunity cost for a large empire to bypass it was lower than the opportunity cost for a smaller empire to work with it or bypass it.

This I agree with.

With admin cap this was a literally unsolvable problem without massively altering the entire admin cap system or rewriting math as a concept, for reasons to complex to bother typing out in this post when the search function is right there.

This I disagree with. For me admin cap was merely an issue of poor math and poor UI. I think current sources of sprawl reduction from ethics, traditions, civics, ascension levels, governor levels, council levels, traits etc. have similar balance problems that admin cap had in the past... but that's all probably off-topic to trade.

Spoiler

For trade costs it's just a case of making sure that trade costs, the benefits of hyperspecialising, and a non-trade-focused empire's admin planet trade per pop output are in line to slightly favour dealing with deficits at source.

And the first step in that is to remove the redundant hyperspecialisation bonuses from planetary designations.

Let's work this out as an example of how instead of a knee-jerk "Retvrn to 3.14" response we can try looking at how old mechanics could benefit from the new systems.

Planetary ascension boosts the mechanical bonuses from designations.

The mechanical bonuses from designations disproportionately benefit hyper-specialised planets.

Larger empires can more afford to hyper-specialise planets, even in 3.14.

Planetary designations providing mechanical bonuses is redundant given specialisations mostly take up that space now.

Planetary ascension -"mechanical bonus from designation" +"district specialisation" = planetary ascension should directly boost district specialisations, or provide boosts based on district specialisations.

Not only does this expand the ascension mechanic and integrate it better into the new system, it also makes it much easier for ascension to be viable for mixed planets. Since tall empires are the ones most incentivised to use mixed planets this also increases ascension utility for tall empires. And every ascended planet will be slightly different instead of just max ascension homeworld designation number 137.

Man this looks way better than 3.14 planetary ascension.

This for some reason I was mightily confused trying to parse. Forgive me if I am wrong but I am going to try to simplify it as much as possible:

Paraphrasing: District specialisations instead of planet specialisations could be boosted by planetary ascension levels.

Going in that direction sounds like a lot of work, and would ascension levels next boost all buildings as well?
Would it make high level worlds better at everything?
Would there be any use for planet specialisations at all other than a tag for the AI to know what to build?
How exactly does this relate to the topic of trade?

 

[HFY]

I would like a sense of progression to logistics. For hyper relay links and FTL techs to matter and for the sense of scale to gradually shift what a local supply chain means to your empire.

Yeah, and for fleets the logistics cost could be something like (fleet size + distance) x min(1, enemy codebreaking - your encryption) x (enemy interdiction missions).

This kind of thing where distance from your border factors in could make the basic Stellaris limited-war goals more attractive, as both Claims and fleet activity would be bound to a similar early range. Later in the game you can do whatever, of course, because you can build to support long-range missions.

I often lament what could have been if old mechanics had been carefully explored, considered and expanded upon rather than discarded. History repeats if what went wrong it isn't understood (+admin cap from pops is replaced with -sprawl from pops with some similar end results).

One of the early suggestions that I liked was basically:

- You can build Bureaucrats on your Empire Capital to start.

- With Byzantine Bureaucracy, you can instead build one Bureaucrat building on every colony.

- With one of the Colonial techs, you can start to build an extra Bureaucracy building on every Sector Capital.

- Something (a tech or tradition) gives you the ability to build a Space Versailles which acts like your Empire Capital in terms of allowing Bureaucrat spam (on that one colony only of course).

And then add some specific mechanics to reduce Sprawl for different kinds of empires -- Auth Enforcers might reduce Sprawl a bit (at the cost of reduced Worker Happiness), Egal pops might have lower Sprawl if they are happy, Pacifists get lower Sprawl inherently already, and so on.

Mil could get reduced Logistics cost (thus able to use bigger fleets at longer distances) instead of having a Sprawl reduction mechanic.

 

[Critical Ethics]

This for some reason I was mightily confused trying to parse. Forgive me if I am wrong but I am going to try to simplify it as much as possible:

Paraphrasing: District specialisations instead of planet specialisations could be boosted by planetary ascension levels.

Yup. I'm a big dumb idiot who typed designation instead of district specialisation. I edited in a correction.

Going in that direction sounds like a lot of work, and would ascension levels next boost all buildings as well?
Would it make high level worlds better at everything?
Would there be any use for planet specialisations at all other than a tag for the AI to know what to build?

Maybe but I think it would be worth it, and no.

Everything they have a district specialisation for. If you have a CG DS and a Research DS and a Mining DS then you would get benefits to your artisans and researchers and miners, or get CG and research related bonuses to each rural district and bonuses to each mining district, depending on what the specialisations' ascension benefits were. A dual district alloy planet with no rural districts would only get metallurgist benefits even if you had a bunch of alloy plants sitting around in your planet capital (though since the planet capital is also a DS you'd obviously get some generic bonuses, that's what you'd tie the empire size reducers and such too).

Designations are currently used for both enemy AI and friendly planetary automation and for being able to put little icons on your planets so you can tell what they're for. I think that is more than enough use for them as a mechanic, but also disconnecting them from mechanical bonuses could allow those mechanics to be vastly improved. For example, "customisable" automation by assigning multiple designations to a single planet and allowing their weightings to impact each other, or even making a "designation" out of an existing planet that you want the others to copy.

How exactly does this relate to the topic of trade?

One of the functions of trade as logistics is to reward generalised planets. The way that planetary designations double up on specialisation makes this kind of a damp squib. By resolving this problem we increase the utility and impact of the existing trade mechanics.

 

[Critical Ethics]

Things I'd like to see from an improved Trade mechanic:

- Logistics, including fleet support during a war

It already costs more to have fleets in enemy territory, or do you mean supply lines?

- International influence

Doesn't trade already impact your diplomatic influence? I would like to see improved market and international trade mechanics.

- Some way to expand what "local supply chain" means as the game progresses, so it goes Same-Planet -> Neighbors -> Sector -> Hyperlane Link -> Gate-Mates as your tech advances

Pushing the tax to the system level and adding a second sector level tax would get you 90% of the way there without additional mechanics. Gaining habitats, kilostructures, and starbase modules would naturally expand your system-level flexibility and to a lesser extent your sector level flexibility, and as your trade and resource producing efficiencies increase so would the amount you can afford for handwave at the system level.

Anything which involves multi-system pathing or monitoring whether your have an uninterrupted path to the other planet is right out since that's where all the problems with the old trade system came from. You could maybe do a single-jump "refund" mechanic, which would therefore automatically include in-system gates, but that could be hard to express easily to the player.

Strong agree, Bureaucrats were more interesting than the global sprawl reduction mechanics we have now.

Not much was done with them, but a lot more could have been done.

Increasing admin cap is an unsalvageable mechanic for a lot of reasons, but I would love to see Bureaucrats not be just unity engines. One thing I think would be good would be to take the current Unity Edicts and EC Campaigns and unify their costs into a mix of unity and logistics. Apply edict cap to both the logistics and unity costs, have Bureaucrats produce mainly edict cap (and maybe a little naval cap?) alongside a small amount of unity and trade, and boost the unity output of the other Unity producers (and maybe add a few more thematic ones).

That way the main purpose of Bureaucrats is to fund Edicts with bigger empires needing more Bureaucrats to do so. This feels a lot more Bureaucrat-ey than producing generic unity and also giving you a way to offset logistics costs other than going all-in on capitalism. Having edicts cost logistics would also allow for some hive mind shenanigans, since Hive Mind edicts and logistics are both thematically really about where you're (pun intended) paying attention.

 

[DrFranknfurter]

Yeah, and for fleets the logistics cost could be something like (fleet size + distance) x min(1, enemy codebreaking - your encryption) x (enemy interdiction missions).

This kind of thing where distance from your border factors in could make the basic Stellaris limited-war goals more attractive, as both Claims and fleet activity would be bound to a similar early range. Later in the game you can do whatever, of course, because you can build to support long-range missions.

I do like the idea that it would be harder to intercept the logistics of a race that has the intel advantage over your empire, as well as a natural limit to how far you would be willing to push into another empire in the early game.

Total wars with starbases instantly swapping sides would be an issue... but the problem is more with how total wars work than anything else.

One of the early suggestions that I liked was basically:

- You can build Bureaucrats on your Empire Capital to start.

- With Byzantine Bureaucracy, you can instead build one Bureaucrat building on every colony.

- With one of the Colonial techs, you can start to build an extra Bureaucracy building on every Sector Capital.

- Something (a tech or tradition) gives you the ability to build a Space Versailles which acts like your Empire Capital in terms of allowing Bureaucrat spam (on that one colony only of course).

And then add some specific mechanics to reduce Sprawl for different kinds of empires -- Auth Enforcers might reduce Sprawl a bit (at the cost of reduced Worker Happiness), Egal pops might have lower Sprawl if they are happy, Pacifists get lower Sprawl inherently already, and so on.

Mil could get reduced Logistics cost (thus able to use bigger fleets at longer distances) instead of having a Sprawl reduction mechanic.

There were a lot of ideas at the time, and there are a lot of ideas that could still be useful in some form. But as with all ideas, the devil is in the details and making sure it works as you intend in-game.

Yup. I'm a big dumb idiot who typed designation instead of district specialisation. I edited in a correction.

Maybe but I think it would be worth it, and no.

Everything they have a district specialisation for. If you have a CG DS and a Research DS and a Mining DS then you would get benefits to your artisans and researchers and miners, or get CG and research related bonuses to each rural district and bonuses to each mining district, depending on what the specialisations' ascension benefits were. A dual district alloy planet with no rural districts would only get metallurgist benefits even if you had a bunch of alloy plants sitting around in your planet capital (though since the planet capital is also a DS you'd obviously get some generic bonuses, that's what you'd tie the empire size reducers and such too).

Designations are currently used for both enemy AI and friendly planetary automation and for being able to put little icons on your planets so you can tell what they're for. I think that is more than enough use for them as a mechanic, but also disconnecting them from mechanical bonuses could allow those mechanics to be vastly improved. For example, "customisable" automation by assigning multiple designations to a single planet and allowing their weightings to impact each other, or even making a "designation" out of an existing planet that you want the others to copy.

One of the key functions of trade is to reward generalised planets. The way that planetary designations double up on specialisation makes this kind of a damp squib. By resolving this problem we increase the utility and impact of the existing trade mechanics.

Thank you for the clarification. I'm still not entirely sold on the idea, but I can see how there could be some positives to late-game generalist worlds.
I worry the work needed to change the ascension mechanic over and making planet designations redundant would not be a net positive.

If I were to overhaul the ascension mechanic I think I'd rather do something more exciting like making planet levels involve XP gain and traits, very slowly levelling-up over time without any investment with traits offered based on what the planet has been doing and showing the history of the world through newly constructed monuments, added planetary features and unlocked planetary mechanics. Or something else new.

 

[HFY]

It already costs more to have fleets in enemy territory, or do you mean supply lines?

Maybe supply lines, maybe just distance in enemy territory rather than a binary in/out. Not firm on implementation, just effect.

Doesn't trade already impact your diplomatic influence? I would like to see improved market and international trade mechanics.

Do you mean that all production gives economic Diplo strength? That's not really comparable to having specific effects on trade-partners, like paying something to influence your partner's Ethics attraction.

Pushing the tax to the system level and adding a second sector level tax would get you 90% of the way there without additional mechanics. Gaining habitats, kilostructures, and starbase modules would naturally expand your system-level flexibility and to a lesser extent your sector level flexibility, and as your trade and resource producing efficiencies increase so would the amount you can afford for handwave at the system level.

Anything which involves multi-system pathing or monitoring whether your have an uninterrupted path to the other planet is right out since that's where all the problems with the old trade system came from. You could maybe do a single-jump "refund" mechanic, which would therefore automatically include in-system gates, but that could be hard to express easily to the player.

Yeah the system level should be something you can get quickly, and it would mean that multi-colony systems would be valuable for a good chunk of the game.

Sector-level should be easy to calculate, and "has Gate?" should be easy too.

Increasing admin cap is an unsalvageable mechanic for a lot of reasons

... but all of those reasons depend on Bureaucrats being spammable everywhere. If Bureaucrats are limited, then the issues should become solvable.

I do like the idea that it would be harder to intercept the logistics of a race that has the intel advantage over your empire, as well as a natural limit to how far you would be willing to push into another empire in the early game.

Total wars with starbases instantly swapping sides would be an issue... but the problem is more with how total wars work than anything else.

Yeah I don't remember a solution to Total War, maybe there needs to be a war overhaul so all the kinds of war in Stellaris are more coherent.

There were a lot of ideas at the time, and there are a lot of ideas that could still be useful in some form. But as with all ideas, the devil is in the details and making sure it works as you intend in-game.

Agreed, but we've seen a LOT of recent mechanics which would fail that metric -- lots of stuff which didn't even look great on paper, and was worse in practice when we found how easy things could be exploited, and then the mechanics were changed in a hot-fix patch.

I expect that our resident space nerds could help bang out something workable in detail, and then refine it as the meta evolves.

 

[BookHermit]

Go Mercantile tradition, swap to Marketplace of Ideas, complete every Tradition Tree by 2050, then swap trade to consumer goods and flip my Mixed Industrial planets to Foundries to pound out alloys and conquer. That's what I do with Trade when I do a megacorp trade based game run. Hasn't really changed between 3.14 and 4.0 aside from remapping district specs being an additional step and couple k mineral costs now.

If you mean broadly... I think Trade is fine where it is, though the costs of supplying planetary deficits need to scale more to maintain their impact later in game as a single building right now can produce enough trade per planet to pretty much offset that entirely.

I maintain that the bigger issue with Trade is how it made Energy feel less relevant and that Energy still seems positioned more as a currency than as a resource throughout game events.

IMHO, Energy needs to be used more heavily for upkeep, especially district upkeep, and should scale more to represent the exponential energy costs that come with population growth and maintaining the support infrastructure.

Trade should replace most of what energy does in events.

I also think Trade should have a stronger effect upon diplomacy, especially after hyperlane networks connect markets (there used to be a trade bonus for this, not sure how that works now) as the malus of a closed border upon inter-empire trade should encourage - maybe not trust but - a desire for open borders.

Not saying there aren't balance issues, but I think it's less of Trade being the issue as that there are other places where Trade needs to be getting used or have more weight and it isn't yet.

 

[Critical Ethics]

Maybe supply lines, maybe just distance in enemy territory rather than a binary in/out. Not firm on implementation, just effect.

I agree in theory but I'm leery of anything economy related that even touches pathfinding. We've been burnt too many times before and unfortunately distance also requires pathfinding.

Do you mean that all production gives economic Diplo strength? That's not really comparable to having specific effects on trade-partners, like paying something to influence your partner's Ethics attraction.

This seems more like a case for espionage to me!

... but all of those reasons depend on Bureaucrats being spammable everywhere. If Bureaucrats are limited, then the issues should become solvable.

Limited to 0 maybe >.>

Joking aside, the more ways people have to stay under admin cap the more it's implied that staying under admin cap is something they should be trying to do. That's why it's not even called admin cap/capacity any more. It's just a way of applying research and unity "upkeep" to empires based on how well they're doing and the worst thing you can do for a new player is make them think that blowing right past it is a bad thing. A fixed number means a growing empire will exceed it no matter what, and that being the opposite of bad for even for the tallest of tall empires is a lesson every player needs to learn easy and early.

 

[Seridor]

I actually wouldn't mind something similar to civ6's trade route system.
For example special districts and/or buildings would give you trade routes, both internal and international. The routes would be set manually (build a trader ship, send it to destination etc.). The buildings that provide extra trade routes would also give trader jobs and the more trade district/buildings you have on your planet the potential trade yield would be higher, so you could still specialise in trade. Also if you build a trade building in agricultural district for example it would mean you carry some food besides getting trade yield.

Now trade yield: either keep it as separate thing or just turn into energy credits, but eventually it would be converted to energy anyway. Logistic costs should be covered by energy.

 

[HFY]

I agree in theory but I'm leery of anything economy related that even touches pathfinding. We've been burnt too many times before and unfortunately distance also requires pathfinding.

IIRC the Claims cost is already calculated for every system, so just use that as "distance" for each empire.

No additional calculation than what the game already does.

This seems more like a case for espionage to me!

That too. Espionage should definitely be one way to do it.

But not only Espionage. We should be able to do stuff like Radio Free Europe (as a Campaign costing Energy, cost scales with target Sprawl) and also some kind of mercantile influence thing (costing Trade, requires a Commerce Pact, cost scales with target Economy) to influence the target's Ethics attraction.

A fixed number means a growing empire will exceed it no matter what, and that being the opposite of bad for even for the tallest of tall empires is a lesson every player needs to learn easy and early.

I remember at least one early 3.x player finding a way to win while staying under 100 total sprawl -- won with 3 Ringworld segments and one Ecu, if I remember correctly -- and that was before Virtual ascension.

That said, you're right that being above cap shouldn't turn your numbers red. Growth should be a thing you manage, not a thing you avoid.

Blob victories are real victories.