Isn't trading secret locations too overpowered?

[Arcurus]

For trading the same secret location worth 70K i could make an non aggression pact for no cost with all pirates.
Since the location is super far away from them the location is worthless to them.

The same location was worth 400k for other empires which made them all super happy.
So for nearly zero cost all the galaxy was happy...

This seems super broken to me.

Maybe reduce the cost of secrets or at least reduce the cost the more the secret know.
Maybe also consider if the secret location is in reach...

[Pocus]

I was wondering that too, I can give the position of a distant colony to my neighbor, and that's worth 320 k. That's still early game and my income is only 15k. It seems too much by a factor of 10. It's the position of a colony I doubt they can reach, not the colony itself.

First thing to take into account is how the info is useful to them, I don't think that's factored. The cost seems absolute.

[BTAxis]

Meanwhile, some technologies have a value of 0, even some pretty powerful ones.

[Arcurus]

Meanwhile, some technologies have a value of 0, even some pretty powerful ones.

Yea trading looks quite broken...

[SirHoraceHarkness]

Looks like they did a fairly robust overhaul of the diplomacy and negotiation options and will need some balance passes.

[swizzlewizzle]

Trading with AI in most 4x games is broken.. I wonder if it would be better to just strip the system so that it is, as best, a minor benefit to players?

[Jim D Burns]

I think the AI should only be interested in sites that lie within current colonization range for their empire. That would keep them valuable trade items but prevent players from abusing it by trading sites the AI could never possibly use. Then perhaps cut their value by 50% or reduce the positive effect to diplomacy by 1% per month or something.

[Arcurus]

Looks like they did a fairly robust overhaul of the diplomacy and negotiation options and will need some balance passes.

Actually trading was also quite broken in DW1. Not only you could make tons and tons of money trading secret locations, you can also get money for declaring war or making peace. Then after few time make peace and then let you pay again tons and tons for making war...

A simple solution would be to cut the money by 1/10 the AI is valuing the secrets if they get them from the player...

[feygan]

Just bin the tech trading totally, and instead have a series of research agreements similar to trade agreements. Each one brings you a research bonus amount equal to a % of the other empires research income. Spread it out over maybe 5 or so levels and you have an actual reason to develop good diplomatic ties.

Heavily reduce the bonuses for location information and instead bring down the diplomacy tech costs and it gives you a more level curve with how you improve releations.

[Iunnrais]

I'd say reduce the value of the locations based on the distance to the nearest colony of the target empire, and reduce it further if the location is within claimed territory (not belonging to the target empire). Don't reduce it to the player, of course, because if the player wants it, the player is going to go get it. The AI doesn't really do the same.

[ramnblam]

Just bin the tech trading totally, and instead have a series of research agreements similar to trade agreements. Each one brings you a research bonus amount equal to a % of the other empires research income. Spread it out over maybe 5 or so levels and you have an actual reason to develop good diplomatic ties.

Heavily reduce the bonuses for location information and instead bring down the diplomacy tech costs and it gives you a more level curve with how you improve releations.

Love this suggestion.

[Emperor0Akim]

Yep sounds amazing.

[Arthanis]

Removing the tech trading in exchange for a boring and generic percentage bonus you get once and forget about for the rest of the game seems like the kind of shallow thing I would expect from Stellaris. I'm extremely against it.

The current system may certainly need a balance patch but at least it gives you an incentive to check on other empires regularly to see if they have anything new to offer.
This is already a lot better than ignoring other empires for 90% of the game until you decide to declare war on them.

Unlike other games, it also makes an economic focused empire that trades for most of its tech quite viable.
Which I believe is gonna be an important basis for when they eventually reimplement playable pirates.

[baldamundo]

Yeah I've had some locations valued at millions of credits. Tbh I suspect a lot of the options are overvalued compared to how useful they are to the AI.

Does the AI actually benefit from being put in touch with another empire or finding out about an independent colony on the other side of the map?

The funniest one actually is pirate empire contacts - you can trade 100,000 credits worth of different pirate empire contacts, and all the other empire is really getting out of it is the opportunity to be blackmailed by 10 new groups!

Agree with others that removing tech trading seems like a boring solution, even if it is a bit unbalanced. Although maybe it would work if the research agreement types are quite granular.

Also i assume this is a bug, but I've often been able to sell the same location information to the same empire multiple times!

Other thing is the AI seems probably too happy to just sell you all their mining colonies when your borders overlap.

[OrnluWolfjarl]

Removing the tech trading in exchange for a boring and generic percentage bonus you get once and forget about for the rest of the game seems like the kind of shallow thing I would expect from Stellaris. I'm extremely against it.

The current system may certainly need a balance patch but at least it gives you an incentive to check on other empires regularly to see if they have anything new to offer.
This is already a lot better than ignoring other empires for 90% of the game until you decide to declare war on them.

Unlike other games, it also makes an economic focused empire that trades for most of its tech quite viable.
Which I believe is gonna be an important basis for when they eventually reimplement playable pirates.

I like the idea of a Research Agreement. Perhaps instead of giving you a flat bonus it could give you a slow increase to random techs you don't have yet, but they do. And the level of agreement could maybe determine the amount of knowledge trickling to each other, the research areas it applies to and the threshold at which you stop gaining new knowledge on a certain project.

[Emperor0Akim]

The Agreement should also favor the the less advanced party.
Because being honest, that will always be the AI

[Arcurus]

The Agreement should also favor the the less advanced party.
Because being honest, that will always be the AI

sounds great, hope they will fix it. For now trade with AI is quite broken...