Trading too powerful?

[Faulty Logic]

I'm pretty sure it is. In fact, focusing on trade early makes the strategic part of the game pretty trivial.

Linked issue has a proposed fix. Thoughts?

[Mick]

I just hope this doesn't make it too frustrating to reach that magic 90 number. It makes sense that you don't want players to just do one thing to reach it, but how many different options are there? The most straightforward one already is limited to 50.

[Faulty Logic]

You could still reach it by trading, it would just take longer. And though it would encourage you to find alternate ways for the last couple points, it would not require it.

[BobTheJanitor]

I agree that it is too strong now, but I also worry that there's not much to replace it. Trade with non-spacefaring races does seem like a bug, though, especially since you can see ships flying off from the supposedly non-spacefaring worlds. But I've already reported that. That aside, if trade were nerfed, what would take its place? I guess there's that mutual goodwill thing from having planets with high RCI values. (Which isn't well documented and I don't entirely understand) But outside of that, what, decades of grinding improve relations dispatches? Which only gets you so far anyway.

[DBrickShaw]

I agree that it is too strong now, but I also worry that there's not much to replace it.

These are my thoughts as well, but I think this is an independent problem from trading being too powerful. In the absence of trading, it really seems there's not much you can do to promote relationships increasing beyond 50. I've spent my last few games trying to create a Strong alliance (Burlust-Actuian-Thoraxian). I've failed every time because I couldn't set up trading routes with the Burlusts (since I can't manipulate them into colonizing moons), and there's really nothing else I could do to push relationships past 50. What other options are there right now? Friend of a friend bonuses help a bit, and I suppose encouraging both races to declare war on the same race could help.

[BobTheJanitor]

I believe the Burlusts also like other races better when the other race has a big military, although I'm not sure how much that is numerically, and if it's worth the problems that will come from all these races having giant militaries.

Really, this game could greatly benefit from an in game reference of some sort, that tells you what causes relations to change in what ways, because a lot of it is kind of needlessly obfuscated at the moment. Like trading, it just mentions in the description that it will improve relations, but it doesn't say +X per month or anything nice and straightforward like that. You'd have to go look at the relationship bars and divide the numbers for trading by the number of months to get an actual statistic.

And even if that were listed numerically on trading, that won't help with more nebulous things like respect for a race's good RCI values, since there's no one specific action you do in relation to that. That pretty much requires a separate reference, or just remaining obscure forever.

[windgen]

I think the cost of colonizing moons should increase.  (The explanation for this mechanic could be that the most suitable moons are always the first to be colonized.)

Also, maybe pirates could target trade routes, which eliminates the reputation benefit until someone kills the pirates?

And I definitely agree about needing more ways to improve race relations.   Especially with races like Burlusts or Boarines that can't get trade routes.

[Draco18s]

I'd also like to see some more diversity in choice between some of the "aid..." options.  Right now they all gain the same amount of influence, target different stats, and pay generally crap (except fleet construction, which pays the most, but has no real downside).

That is, something more like (for a generic race):

Aid Fleet Construction (good pay, low influence)
Aid Research (low pay, low influence, gain tech)
Aid [RCI] (moderate pay, high influence, tweaks RCI values)

For the warlike races maybe they pay less for fleet construction, but have better influence gains, but none of them want to be nurses and weakling doctors so they'll pay a lot for that, but not think much of you (low influenece).  And the high-research races (Evucks, Acutians, [that third one]) they'll give more influence (but you'll have fewer opportunities to do research, due to the much faster rate that they research things on their own).

[Darthcaboose]

Trading has always been a critical component to most 4X games. I especially like Civilization V: Brave New World's take on it. I do think trade should be that great stabilizer between two races, though maybe it shouldn't be the thing that takes it all the way to the '90'. Maybe a fix could be, in order to create a trade route between two races, a criterion that requires both races like each other by 5 or 10 or something like that.

If anything, I wish the game could expand on the trade system a little bit more, showing what possible trade routes are possible based on what mineral income levels each race has from the Race Relations screen. Maybe give options to encourage races to harass the trade of others.

[casualsax]

I'd like to see the regular grind option to improve race relations capped at thirty, and then an additional option to encourage one race to create an embassy on another race's planet.  This would cost credits, have a chance at failure and require both races be at 25+ relations with each other.  This would then create a trickle of goodwill between the races every month.

[DBrickShaw]

I've thought about this a bit more, and I think any nerf to trading would also need to be accompanied with a buff to some other method of promoting strong relationships (or a new mechanism altogether) to keep thing enjoyable. A simple adjustment that I think would accomplish this would be to scale the maximum relationship attainable through dispatch missions with the player's influence on the relevant races. Basically, instead of this:

Max Race A -> B Relationship Attainable Through Dispatch Missions = 50

Something like the following could be used:

Max Race A -> B Relationship Attainable Through Dispatch Missions = max(50, Player Influence with Race A)

or

Max Race A -> B Relationship Attainable Through Dispatch Missions = max(50, min(Player Influence with Race A, Player Influence with Race B))

I do like the idea of keeping an arbitrary baseline relationship (50 being used here just because that's the current cap) which can be achieved as long as your influence is high enough to run friendly dispatch missions. If this proves to be too powerful, the rate of relationship increase could also be scaled down based on the races' current relationship (i.e. relationship would be increased at the current rate up to 50, and the increase rate would gradually slow as the relationship value increases past 50).

I also like the embassy idea casualsax just presented. The main problem I see with my idea is that it would encourage players to spend a lot of time grinding relationship dispatch missions, while an embassy system wouldn't have this problem. Perhaps a combination of the two ideas could work, with embassies being the more powerful mechanic.

[NickAragua]

Seeing as how it's the only way I'm aware of to get interracial relationships to move upwards at acceptable speeds, I disagree with the OP. I guess there's the Boarine special ability, but that's only available in certain situations. The dispatch mission, meanwhile, takes a long time for very little return (and is capped?). I guess I haven't gotten to the "end game" yet, so maybe I'm missing something.

[jonasan]

i also think that trade, and the current benefits it gets for each race and the potential federation is overpowered. especially when combined with colonize moon planetary advice - this is seriously exploitable. With enough moons the trading races can establish so many trade routes.... and the moon and trade resource bonuses along with the relationship increase is game breaking.... victory is really rather simple (and fast) once your trading partners are properly setup...

even with reduced rates of relationship increase over time this will still be an issue i reckon, and there has to be something better we can do here....

first off, I think that the colonize moon advice should be limited to one moon every year/per race (the endeavor of colonizing a moon and setting up resource harvesting there has got to be a relatively time consuming process).

next, you could nerf the trading relationship bonus to only give a bonus once (+5?) - when the route is established - no incremental relationship boost over time just for a trade route.....

and then we get a new mechanic.... an interim step between a system of independent races and the federation..... imagine a 'Trade Union' that could be set between two races assuming that they had say 5 (or 10?) trade routes established between their worlds, and a mutual relation of +30? (50?)

this 'trade union' between two races would be where the incremental relationship boost over time would kick in, a small but steady boost as long as these trade routes remained open and successful - and this would eventually lead those two races to the point where they might consider forming a true federation...

i like casualsax's idea of the embassy in relation to this Trade Union - once the union is established, constructing an embassy/trading post on the other races homeworld could give a slight boost to the incremental relation bonus over time.

all of this would make the 'form federation through trade approach' much more of a long term endeavor involving the colonizing of moons, harvesting of resources, establishing of multiple routes and long term business partnership between races in a trade union, and eventual unity in a federation - and it would be a process open to so many more open to mishaps, problems and sabotage - requiring much more player input, and in general being much harder to pull off for the hydral!

........this idea of the interim step between independent races and the federation could then be taken further.... for example...

a 'Military Coalition' could be formed between two races who have a mutual relation of +30, and have spent a total of 5 or 10 years (longer?)  fighting wars at the same time, against a common enemy. (note, there could also be a +5 mutual relation boost when a race declares war against another's current enemy to help this along)... and once this coalition is established, the continued success (i.e. non-betrayal/non-collapse due to race death) of the coalition would cause the races to gain the relation boost over time between each other, which would lead eventually to the opportunity of a federation born of a military alliance. A race could establish a 'military base' on the home world of their coalition partner which would give a similar bonus to the embassy/trading post in the trading approach.... further still this could be a way of getting one race to help another more easily in a military sense, i.e. two races in a military coalition could be more likely to send their ships to help defend the planets/outpost of their ally and also to assist them with assault on their enemies.

perhaps other kinds of 'coalitions/unions' between two races could be created... for example... a 'Scientific Foundation' could be established when two races had researched and shared 20 (?) techs with each other and a research lab could be set up on the others world to boost the relation bonus over time........ and union ideas that i'm sure we can come up with

also, i'm guessing that one member of a union would be rather upset if their embassy/base/lab was blown up! and would most likely blame their partners (assuming the terrorists that the hydral hired did their job right!). This might cause a radical drop in relation between the two former partners.... there are all sorts of ways this could be played with, new mechanics and possibilities that these interim partnerships could add to the game in terms of helping them form and also breaking them apart.

anyway, i think you get the point... and i hope some of that made sense.... for sure trade needs a nerf (as you've all rightly said), and I reckon the strategic game is in need of more mechanics to complicate, diversify and extend the experience in ways that require plenty of player input along the way.

i think interim coalitions of different varieties between two races would be a nice fit for this

what do you all think?

EDIT: also, this might well be a really good way to increase the challenge of the strategic game.... and, for example, if the AFA were on to these hydral tactics and sabotaging your efforts to even bring about these partnerships, well, then things could get a lot more interesting!

[kasnavada]

I agree that it is too strong now, but I also worry that there's not much to replace it.

All hail bob for his mighty advice.

Try without that and basically relations between nations don't rise.

Personally, I don't think that trading is too strong though. I feel that other options are way too weak.

I mean:
- 2 points of relations for a technology ?
- 5 points of relation for AFA support (only once you've got a federation...)
- 0,3 point / month on the dispatch thingy, which basically prevents you from doing meaningful stuff ?
- some bonus once the 50 bar is reached. Maybe 0.5 / month or something like this
-

Without other significant options, it's not really an option to tone down trade.

[Draco18s]

What if we reversed things?

How would things play out if trade was capped at +50 (that is, inter-racial relations would not increase from trade at +50 and above), but you couldn't do manual influence until +30 (and would do very small amounts)?

At negative relation values we run into a problem (can't start trade routes, can't do it manually), so we'd need something there (leaving Boarine powers aside for now).

Thoughts?