Help on tradegoods

Join the club, some give obvious bonuses, such as population growth +30%.

No one knows why they appear as tradeable in the diplomacy screen, if you trade it, do you lose the bonus? Do you get the bonus if you build ait and not trade?

Also it seems they arent valued much, the AI normally wont offer more than 50bc/5 for one of mine.

~SDC~

think of 'em as shareable Wonders. If you built it you will get the bonus as will anyone you trade them to.

Ahh...Trade Goods. These are your number on money makers ladies and gentlemen. If you produce these items on a world they do appear under trade good in the diplo screen. You will automatically get this bonus as Mr. Lucky says, and they also bestow their bonus to anyone whom you trade them too. The real bonus comes from trading them, as most of the Alien Races, Major and Minor will pay top dollar for them. I customarily build these trade goods and then shop them to everyone offering them for between 35-75bc for 36 months. This huge income allows me to, in turn reduce taxes increasing morale and increase spending as I have a larger surplus.

wait, you don't lose the bonus when you trade them? are you sure?

i thought they were supposed to be a monopoly item. i never traded them since i thought i'd be giving up the advantages.

cheers

h

Nah, you keep the bonus too. They are monopoly items, you control their production but you can 'trade' a license to produce them to another Empire. Kinda the way you don't buy and own Windows(tm) but Microsoft sells you a license that allows you to use it. :notsure:

can you "take back" the license? If you trade it to someone, can you cut them off?

~SDC~

No, there's no mechanism for turning it off ... it's a perpetual license.

~SDC~

I purchased "Frictionless Clothing" from one of the minor races, which I believe is supposed to give a 10% morale boost. But my morale never changed after the deal. What gives? Is this a bug? What about other trade goods, do their bonuses take effect if purchased and not invented?

Oh, and can anyone tell me what tri-neutronium steel (I think that's right) is supposed to do? Why is their no in-game way to check on the effect of a trade good? I see a bunch listed in the trade diplomacy screen from other races, but haven't a clue what they do.

~SDC~

I had a similar situation where I demanded "Tri-Stronium Steel" from the Yor Collective in exchange for peace. They agreed but it didn't seem to give me any increase in ship hit points.

- Matt L. :->

~SDC~

I believe that trade goods are definately broken.

As a test, I gave my "Gravity Accelerators" to the Torians but the speed of their ships did not increase.

- Matt Lepinski :->

~SDC~

They certainly did work in my last game (started on 1.01.029). I haven't picked up any in my current game, yet.

~SDC~

It could be just the "leased" trade goods don't work for the empire that makes the purchase. I can't tell if the trade goods my empire invented are working, just because they were all morale boosters... and morale is still a mystery to me.

~SDC~

I bought the a trade good that gave me a 30% diplomacy bonus. I could only see this in my stats screen and I noticed it in my further diplomatic actions.

You have to realize that getting a +20% bonus on something does not mean that you get 20% extra of that thing, but that your bonus increases by another 20%:
example:
If you start the game with +50% hitpoints (war party) and you increase this with tri-strontium steel by another 20% it will mean that you have a +70% bonus on hitpoints.
so your ships will have 1.7xnormal hitpoints. This is only a 13% increase.
(a battleaxe will go from 60 to 68 not 72)
So the higher your bonus already is, the more limited a certain bonus will be.

With speed it is even more tricky since a ship with a speed of 2 and a bonus of 20% will still move at a speed of 2. (2.4 rounded down).

Morale is a bit confusing because a morale bonus of 10% empirewide means that your morale STAT goes up 10%. Depending on your original morale skills this may result in a morale increase of a few % but usually not much more, and DEFINATELY not by 10% on every planet.

~SDC~

Biggy Boy,

I see what you mean about Hit Points and Tri-Strontium Steel. It is very possible that I got a

Biggy Boy,

I see what you mean about Hit Points and Tri-Strontium Steel. It is very possible that I got a

~SDC~

I'm sorry. My posting doesn't seem like it's working very well.

In any case. I see what you mean about Tri-Strontium Steel ... Maybe I just didn't notice the
+10-15% increase in hitpoints. However, I'm pretty certain that something went wrong when I gave
the Torians my gravity accelerators because the turn after I gave them the trade good their
survey ship was still only moving at 2 Movement Points per Turn.

Has anyone verified that giving trade goods to the AI definately gives them an observable benefit?

Thanks,
- Matt Lepinski :->

~SDC~

gravity accelerators give 20% speed bonus so that would indeed not show in a survey ship with a base speed of 2.
I'll try to see through espionage if it has any noticeable effect

~SDC~

I've noticed that the AI also sells the trade goods at what I consider ridiculously high prices! I was offering half a dozen techs for Tri-Strontium Steel and they wouldn't take it

Also, I have seen trade goods on more than one culture's diplomacy screen (Aphodisiac, to be specific). Once is became available through more than one culture, you would think that the price would drop, wouldn't you?

Was the AI you were trying to trade with at a friendliness level below Neutral? I find they want a heck of a lot more in trade the more they dislike you.

~SDC~

No, I have seen this too they want ridiculous prices even when you are friends and you are also a much better trader . . . It is really annoying and seems to have just happened recently with a ”fix”.

biggy boy,

grav accelerators give +2 squares in speed to every ship in your fleet. at least this has been the case in all my games. the percentage thing is misleading and i believe it's been switched to integer values in the most recent update.

cheers

h

Well, in the designers defense, the tradegoods ARE really powerful, so I think it's natural that the AIs want a lot for them...

The only other thing I have observed is that I often get the announcement that many AIs have the "monopoly" on trade goods. I was under the impression that, like galactic wonders, they could only be produced once. Is that pop-up displayed even when the tradegood is traded to them? Or do I just have the wrong idea?

~SDC~

The problem with 'multiple' monopolies is that if a trade good (or Galactic Wonder) is in a build queue of a civ when another one completes it, then it's not removed from the queue. Then, when the second civ completes the project ownership is transferred.

Of course, you can exploit this yourself.

The project ownership is transferred to the "new owner" !??

I had already noticed the "build queue" problem but I imagined that both civs would get the bonus provided...

Are sure of this ? Is this planned to be corrected ?

It's obviously a bug.

The trade good is transferred, I assume it's the same for a wonder. If you do not own the good, look at the trade screens after the second civ gets it. You can no longer trade for it with the first Civ (certainly on UP races). They may keep the bonus, but if so, they can probably trade to get it again.