Matrix Games Forums

I see this annoyance is still in the game.Can we please have this stopped so only allied can do this.

ORIGINAL: ASHBERY76

I see this annoyance is still in the game.Can we please have this stopped so only allied can do this.

This.
What I'd really like is to have is the ability to bar any militarily strategic resource from export. Especially fuels. Had an alien fleet stop by and took most of my fuel, causing an empire wide shortage. Not cool.

Shoot first, send warnings later. [;)]

ORIGINAL: VarekRaith
What I'd really like is to have is the ability to bar any militarily strategic resource from export. Especially fuels. Had an alien fleet stop by and took most of my fuel, causing an empire wide shortage. Not cool.

Greedy private sector all they ever want to do is make a profit.

If you don't want them using your facilities/resources, then change your Trade relations status.

Without a Trade Embargo, you're pretty much saying you want peaceful and positive/neutral relations with that Empire.


Now as for having the ability to select which items you are willing/unwilling to trade with other Empires (outside the unique items), yeah, I'd like to see that myself.
I often see my Empire running out of certain luxury items as the game progresses. If you go through some of your Ports an view the inventory you'll see mass quantities of these items as being reserved for other Empires.

The US trade with China but it does not mean they want the Chinese refueling their Fleet at pearl habour.

ORIGINAL: ASHBERY76

The US trade with China but it does not mean they want the Chinese refueling their Fleet at pearl habour.

You make a good point in regard to current times, but a better analogy might be Colonial or better yet maybe Star Trek (Original).

I say Colonial because of the vastness and the unknown/unexplored involved. Ships would harbor in foreign ports and take on provisions.
For a Star Trek reference consider the Klingons and their trade/relations with Federation Starbases.

In both of these cases I look at this more as a re-provisioning transaction since the actual number of resources we have is as limited as they are.

I really do understand what you're saying and I tend to agree, but until we can selectively choose what we're willing to trade with another Empire I regard this as an aspect of the above to situations.

I agree with Ashberry76 wholeheartedly and without reservations.  I have the same things happening to me.  Another thing I would like to do is to restrict my private sector from throwing ships into the meat grinder of my hostile and belligerent neighbor!  I lose a ton of commercial ships because they repeatedly attempt to trade with the villainous Dhayut!  I even slapped trade sanctions on them and yet...I got tons of warning sirens and pop-ups as my commercial fleet sallied forth into the gaping maw of Dhayut space. 

This is a good point. It often seems counterintuitive that any old military ship that you're not at war with or have trade sanctions against can refuel at your colonies and bases. Maybe the odd ship here or there isn't so bad, but definitely refueling a whole fleet is undesirable.

So, instead you'd like two empires to have a Free Trade Agreement or Mutual Defense Pact before they allow refueling of military ships at each other's colonies and bases? And/Or possibly simply having a positive relationship with each other (i.e. both empires like each other)?

What do you think?

ORIGINAL: elliotg

This is a good point. It often seems counterintuitive that any old military ship that you're not at war with or have trade sanctions against can refuel at your colonies and bases. Maybe the odd ship here or there isn't so bad, but definitely refueling a whole fleet is undesirable.

So, instead you'd like two empires to have a Free Trade Agreement or Mutual Defense Pact before they allow refueling of military ships at each other's colonies and bases? And/Or possibly simply having a positive relationship with each other (i.e. both empires like each other)?

What do you think?

Especially when I don't have enough gas to fill up my own ships...which seems to be my normal state of affairs. [:(]

ORIGINAL: elliotg

This is a good point. It often seems counterintuitive that any old military ship that you're not at war with or have trade sanctions against can refuel at your colonies and bases. Maybe the odd ship here or there isn't so bad, but definitely refueling a whole fleet is undesirable.

So, instead you'd like two empires to have a Free Trade Agreement or Mutual Defense Pact before they allow refueling of military ships at each other's colonies and bases? And/Or possibly simply having a positive relationship with each other (i.e. both empires like each other)?

What do you think?

I agree with these notions (The MDP and Free Trade Agreement). Both are good.

Yeah, outside of being able to select what you're willing to trade on the open market, I think at least a positive relations trigger should probably be used.

An FTA should definitely allow refueling.

How about a checkbox in the settings so it can be customized to the player's preferences, that should make everyone happy?

I think the ability to refuel in another empires space/facilities should be a whole treaty by itself.  Something like a 'cooperation' or 'assistance' treaty.  This should apply to the 'state' level of ops.  Private or commercial ships should still be able to refuel in another empires space....however, as I said before...You should have some sort of way of commanding the private sector to stay clear of certain empires space....maybe the idea of convoy's should be introduced somehow as well for the private sector....or fighter escorts or something.

ORIGINAL: elliotg

This is a good point. It often seems counterintuitive that any old military ship that you're not at war with or have trade sanctions against can refuel at your colonies and bases. Maybe the odd ship here or there isn't so bad, but definitely refueling a whole fleet is undesirable.

So, instead you'd like two empires to have a Free Trade Agreement or Mutual Defense Pact before they allow refueling of military ships at each other's colonies and bases? And/Or possibly simply having a positive relationship with each other (i.e. both empires like each other)?

What do you think?

Free trade agreement should only allow civilian ships to purchase goods between spaceports
while the Mutual Defense Pact would allow military vessels.

ORIGINAL: elliotg

This is a good point. It often seems counterintuitive that any old military ship that you're not at war with or have trade sanctions against can refuel at your colonies and bases. Maybe the odd ship here or there isn't so bad, but definitely refueling a whole fleet is undesirable.

So, instead you'd like two empires to have a Free Trade Agreement or Mutual Defense Pact before they allow refueling of military ships at each other's colonies and bases? And/Or possibly simply having a positive relationship with each other (i.e. both empires like each other)?

What do you think?

I would like to see the trading system expanded somewhat, and have written up a brief description.

The current system should remain for those who don’t want to set and maintain specific policies; after all that seems to be the traditional stance of the game, allowing you to deal with whatever level of detail you are comfortable with and automating the rest.

I propose that trade be given its own section on the diplomacy window, with a way to set specific policies for each race.

The first level of detail would be a menu with each race much like the existing diplomacy window. Clicking a race would change the right-side panel to a list of broad trading plans, each with a checkmark such as:

-Luxury Exports - Authorize the export of surplus luxury resources to this empire.
-Common Construction Exports - Export common construction materials to this empire. (any strategic resource listed as ‘very common’)
-Weapon Components Ban - Disallow exports of any material which is the main component of a weapon system. (Iridium for bombardment weapons, for example)
-Strategic Reserve - Limit exports to materials which stockpile exceeds current demand by 50%.
-Preferred Partner - Preferentially trade with this race over other available partners.

These aren’t meant to be conclusive, just examples. Beyond this, one could simply go into a more detailed window and set each resource on/off for that race.

This would add depth to the diplomacy and strategy of the game. If I can secure and control most sources of Carbon Fibre on the map and choose to trade it only with my allies, it would financially harm my enemies. This also allows you to remove the awkward ‘trade loros fruit’ checkmark from the diplomacy screen (or whatever other extremely rare resource you have) and put it in its own trade interface.

This also opens the game up to requests, demands, and raids for specific materials. Imagine loading a troop carrier up and giving it the order “Raid colony for Ilosian Jade”. It swoops in, drops the troops and extracts some of the material then loads up and flies off. You could park your war fleet around the enemy’s colony and demand a shipment or ongoing tribute of Ekarus Meat, or simply request a supply of Dantha Fur from your ally in exchange for a sum of credits. “Trade 500 Dantha Fur for 1000 credits per annum”

I don’t know how difficult this would be to implement, the hardest step to me would seem to be getting the AI to understand and utilize the system intelligently. I think it would add a lot to the game though, especially if you play a mercantile empire based around trade. If you’re the only large-scale supplier of Jakanta Ivory, other empires will have to weigh the benefits of attacking you against losing their supply of ivory.

+1 forsaken111, the details are up for discussion but this is definitely an area I would like to see expanded. I would like a system where there are more options than "trade all our super rare luxuries with them regardless of our own demand" or "trade none of our super rare luxuries with them", inlcluding many of the options you talk about.

And what about pirates? Right now they run protection rackets, real pirates would actually go after the goods freighters carry for their own sake. Being able to raid enemies for their resources and dealing with pirates stealing your resources to sell to your enemies (or buying resources pirates have confiscated off you or your enemies) would add a lot of depth.

ORIGINAL: Aures

+1 forsaken111, the details are up for discussion but this is definitely an area I would like to see expanded. I would like a system where there are more options than "trade all our super rare luxuries with them regardless of our own demand" or "trade none of our super rare luxuries with them", inlcluding many of the options you talk about.

And what about pirates? Right now they run protection rackets, real pirates would actually go after the goods freighters carry for their own sake. Being able to raid enemies for their resources and dealing with pirates stealing your resources to sell to your enemies (or buying resources pirates have confiscated off you or your enemies) would add a lot of depth.

Indeed, I'd love to be able to hire a pirate faction and direct them to perform raids to acquire a specific resource which I am in short supply of.

Good idea, but I meant that more generally a pirates goal should be to pirate (ie confiscate goods and ships) rather than blow them up. The decision faced by a freighter running into pirates should be whether to try and escape/fight or give the pirates what they want and dump the cargo overboard for them to pick up. Lots of possibilities there. Not that there wouldn't still be a role for pirates blowing up ships for other reasons (though that is closer to privateering or racketeering than pirating proper) as they currently do.

ORIGINAL: Aures

Good idea, but I meant that more generally a pirates goal should be to pirate (ie confiscate goods and ships) rather than blow them up. The decision faced by a freighter running into pirates should be whether to try and escape/fight or give the pirates what they want and dump the cargo overboard for them to pick up. Lots of possibilities there. Not that there wouldn't still be a role for pirates blowing up ships for other reasons (though that is closer to privateering or racketeering than pirating proper) as they currently do.

Perhaps in the future pirate behavior could be tied to their race, so the more aggressive races are more likely to run protection rackets and blow ships up, while a Haakonish pirate gang would board and steal the cargo to sell it to the highest bidder.

Also a good idea, but I fear something this expansive would probably have to wait for another expansion. Too much other good stuff on the table. Still, that means there is plenty of time to flesh out the idea properly. Until then we will probably have to settle for checking what happens when trade sanctions are in effect as some people have reported it is not terminating trade as completely as you would expect. The best thing we can do is make the game popular enough so Matrix can put some more manpower on it, I'm surprised Elliot is able to field as many requests as he does. Makes my christmas shopping very easy, at least for people I know who like computer games.

I also heard mention in another thread of an idea for an alternative gameplay mode as a pirate. I think that would be cool and the ideas raised here would go a long way to making that viable.