1) Yes. All of your trade routes must differ from each other either in terms of the source or destination planet. For example, you may have all your routes go to the same planet as long as each starts out from a different planet.

2) Yes. I only used trade in my first few games before I realized it was not worth it since my domestic economy can bring in much more income and it is not affected by wars. At game start don't waste money on buying colony ships but you might want to buy a few factories. Preserve your game start bankroll to fund your empire while you grow your economy. I set my taxes just low enough to keep morale at 100% so that my population grows at twice the rate plus there are production bonuses for morale > 80%. Research the morale techs to boost your morale, allowing you to raise taxes and keep morale high. Research the economic techs for the economic bonuses and build lots of stock markets. Grab every morale and economic research you can get your hands on and build them up for the maximum bonus.

3) Income is a function of your tax rate, your population level, and your economic bonuses. To increase your population you need to add farms but also entertainment centers to maintain morale but that decreases the number of stock markets you may build. In DL 1.2 I was able to build two farms and bring my population up to 25B per planet with only one virtual reality center (60% morale) and a stock market (30% economic and 10% morale bonus) plus the original colony of 5% for a total of 75% morale because I would control several built up morale resources; economic planets would be loaded with stock markets (late in my current DL v1.2 game I'm netting about 175000BC per turn with a population of 7 Trillion and 474 out of 475 planets). In later versions of DL and all versions of DA, the morale output of the entertainment centers was reduced and stock markers were reduced to 25% economic and 0% morale bonus). I've read that in DA one farm per planet is optimal because 2 stock markets will bring in more income than an addition farm and entertainment center (does not generate income but in needed to maintain morale with the larger population). Never place a farm on a 300% farm bonus title!

4) I don't bother with trade routes but their outputs are a function of the population of the planets and the length of the trade route with the length of the route being the dominant factor.

As for trade, my experience is that the worth of trade routes depends on map size. A larger galaxy size, of course, increases the distance and therefore the value of the trade route. In my current Super Breeder AAR (gigantic map) my trade income is 1600bc/week due to a special even that doubled trade income, which is very nice. But even at the normal 800bc/turn that is quite a haul for the investment of only 8 or 9 trade routes. Some of that is due to alien’s trade routes with me, but not that much.

Mascrinthus, I’m not sure you’re correct on the trade routes. I routinely build all my freighters at my capital (or another planet with a good industrial potential and location with respect to the target planet) and send them out to different planets, general another races’ capital so it has the highest population and greater value. But I sometimes send multiple freighters from my capital to another capital and I haven’t noticed that the second and later trade route between the two worlds is void. I’ll be sure to check, though, and post here to verify. I sure hope I'm not wrong, otherwise I've been totally wasting resources.

There is also the alien race’s attitude to consider. Trade routes improve relations, and the AI tends to not want to jeopardize trade income for war (it is one of many variables). Trade routes are a way to mollify neighbors, if you are so inclined, and in this instance it ‘pays’ a relationship dividend.

Tourism income is proportional to your influence domination of the galaxy and I think the population (which also increases the influence production at a planet). So the more space you control the bigger your tourism income. I don’t know if it also factors in the magnitude of your influence or just the area you control, though. There probably is a formula out there, but if you’re shooting for tourism ‘freebee’ money then get a high influence rating, take minor race and major race capitals (which have a big influence bonus), build a few planet improvements that increase your influence at a planet, and grab influence resources. And watch the money roll in!

Yes, eco starbase bonuses to planets do stack. If you check your planet screen you can see the bonuses due to eco starbases. You can get much more than 4 SBs with a little work since you can place them in adjacent sectors (and up to 4 per sector). If your planet is in the right spot it isn’t hard to see getting 16 SBs (4 in each of 4 sectors) that give bonuses to a given planet. I try to get as many planets as I can under the influence of a given SB, and try to ensure that my manufacturing and research worlds get as many boosts as possible. Economy planets don’t benefit as much, though.

Hydro

Hi!

I've never heard of that "rule", and game does not check for that either. When I chose a trading partner (an ally until the end) most my trade routes go from one of my planets to one of his, making as long route as possible, all between the same two planets.


I've also never seen that happen. A bonus was mentioned in some very old articles about game development, but AFAIK never realized in the game.

BR, Iztok

Whoopps fat finger the last statement "I wasn't specifically looking for this ..."

I just checked my game, and my trade is as follows:

• Weekly trade income: 1647bc
• Number of trade routes: 7
• Source of my trade routes: all originate at my capital system (capital or side planet)
• Destination of my trade routes: 3 to Altarian capital, 2 to Krynn capital, and 2 to two different Drath worlds
• All my trade routes go through 3 economic starbases, which have trade bonuses that range from 20% to 30% each. Getting these extra bonuses is key, so having one or a few origins for my trade routes so they go through economic starbases is important if you’re going to bother with trade. The only way I’ve been able to do this is to have planets in one system built the freighters, and generally since I build them early if at all this is my capital or capital system secondary planet (other planets have a poor manufacturing base early in the game). This can mean that I don’t build the freighters such that I get the longest route since the trade multipliers of the eco starbases may be much more lucrative than distance. Note that you can make a separate argument on whether eco starbases are a waste of money and time since if you add the cost of building all the constructors and having to defend them you may not come out ahead unless you have a longer game. In short, your eco starbases better cover a bunch of planets or don’t waste your time.
• There are about 5 or 6 Altarian trade routes, all of which go to my planets (or planets I’ve taken from the Yor). I don’t see any other trade routes on the Trade Minimap.

Slabster – let us know what you find out! I’ll keep an eye on it, too. If it is substantiated then it might make sense to pay close attention to when and where eco capitals are built!

Hydro

Listen, I Red Raven Leader Of the Pharohs have a trick for you to use.

I use no trade routes and earn a fair amount, keep your taxs just above 50% approval that way your public become happy and start to... well you get the picture. your population will grow and will it does build market tile improvments to increace your income. hope this helps, keep in mind that i make trade with the minor races (they dont complain), it really helps if you have an alliance with a buyer.

A follow up on trading ... I find trade is a valuable weapon. In my current game I'm Alatrian, gigantic map, tight clusters, abundant planets, random everything else -random players, random intelligence, level set to beginner - I'm still a newbie and haven't actually played a full game, just sandbox senarios. I got Iconians, Terrans, Arceans, and someone to far away to ID who disappeared really quick. Had great difficultly developing because of the range between clusters. Started out and colonized 11 worlds and ran into Iconians everywhere ... they wiped everybody but the the Arceans and me. I've managed to stay alive because I got my civ bonus for diplomacy to 200%. Then when pirates appeared, the Iconians went into economic shortfall fighting them ... and I got 6 SB resources they lost when they scrapped them. I set my civ capital as my economy capital and established trade with the Iconians and the Arceans. I tried the Terrans, but they were too far to reach. Even with max life support I couldn't get near them. Seems there is a range cap that ships can't exceed no matter how much life support you have. My strategy at this point is SB influence because the Iconian military is astronomical in size and tech. Military is my only minus in relations(so they don't sqash me like a bug). I found their capital, it had an Omega Defense System and manufactering capital on it, so I built influence SBs and flipped it, only to find the Omega DS was a wasted tile - can't scrap it and it don't work since I have one already. I discovered that 19B pop worlds take forever to culturally dominate. I had the ratio on one up to ~88 before it flipped. Discovered that the Iconians were deliberately growing pop until morale caused their worlds to defect to the I-League for influence. Anyway, I found out that trade will cause the very large pop worlds tp flip way faster than normal. I build 4 influence SBs (with max influence) next to the worlds I want and establish all my trade routes to my chosen target and 10 to 20 turns becomes around 6. After pecking and scratching I finally got my military large enough to ally with the Iconians (got aroung 30 precursor rangers and didn't know what to do with them because my maintenance is taking too much budget. I didn't want to sell them for fear of having them used against me. I didn't want to scrap them, too valuable to waste. I finally decided to upgrade them with advanced troop modules for invasion and population redistribution. Today I munched the Ardvaridiands buy offering them all my tradable goods plus 250bc to declare war on the Iconians - my ally. I had 7 ranger transports fully loaded waiting at their planet. After they declared war I received the message to declare war on the Ardvaridiands and did it. Then I invaded and got their PQ26 world.  

Dear (Citizen)ToS Iceman:

Are Embassies and CECs really useful for anything?

I only use them on my political capital world, which also has 4 influence SBs. It only is worth it if your not the largest empire in the galaxy. Otherwise you get creamed by the UP proposals the AI crams down your throat. Trade is only marginally useful for income, whereas its often crucial for flipping worlds, and good diplomatic relations with stronger AI empires. I've noticed that trade favors the recipient monetarily in an equal setting, but gives the initiator more influence.

I'm certainly not the expert on trade since I only played games with trade in late 2005 and early 2006 as a beta tester. I quickly came to the conclusion it was better to build up my domestic economy instead so my income was not significantly affected by wars (I still lose the trade routes setup by the AI), as I pick off the AIs one by one.

Yes, you can do that, and I mentioned this before, but I consider it an exploit. I have no shame in exploiting it on Suicidal, though--the AI is cheating already, exploiting is just part of what evens the odds.

You DON'T necessarily have to save and reload, though. The 25% anomalies have a distinctive look to them, and they're called "Civilization graveyards" when you hover your mouse over them. What could happen is you could explore it and you get an "it's a total waste of time anomaly", and then you're screwed. Then you might want to save and reload.