The most efficient way to generatre trade incone

How I stopped worrying and learned to love trade

from GalCiv2 Forums
I have been reading a number of cost benifit analysis of establishing a trade route verses the income it generates. I was pondering this when it hit me! There is a guaranteed way to make income from the trade technologies with no capital investment other than research costs (or trading cost).

Sell it to all of the other Civs!

Some of you will immediately dismiss this as an exploit, but it actually works out quite well. First you get cash or other valuable assets in return for the technologies, which with lots of opponents and minors can add up to several thousand BCs.

A tidy sum in and of itself, but beyond this, eventually, they will start establishing trade routes with you. This brings you a steady weekly income with no cost to you!

Later on in the game you can even convert old ships who have outlived their usefullness into trade ships with little cost (I always have a few extra survey ships floating around.)

Scincerely,

Scintor@aol.com
strategies
3,450 views 1 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Scintor, one thing to keep in mind: If you establish trade routes to far away civilizations, and then build cheap constructors (after researching miniaturization, a tiny hull with only a constructor module is super cheap and quick to build) to make economy starbases along the route - only upgrading them with trade modules, then you will see that enourmous amounts of funds can be had with trade routes. The trade income can even outstrip your maximum tax income. Just one freighter further along in its route can add hundreds per turn to your income, and I often end up with trade generating 50% of a 10,000 plus economy before the end of the game. If you get the Mega Event that greatly increases trade incomes, then trade can generate even over 10,000 credits per turn. Just think, with a route generating 300 per turn (which they can do near the end of a route), then building and placing 4 constructors will DOUBLE that income in the effective range of the economy starbase (10 turns). So, almost no income for 3000 extra credits just for starbase, much less the trade route income. By the way - YOU STILL GET OTHER RACES TRADING WITH YOU! Ok, nuff said...