Non-Stockpiled Trade / Influence

[Geoff the Medio]

From here

...there's no greatly compelling reason I can think of to keep Trade as the only stockpiled primary resource...

I've previously suggested making trade not stockpilable. There is one major reason I see why trade would be better left stockpilable: It give empires something to exchange with eachother as a lump sum. If there are no minerals or food to exchange, then all that's left as a currency is "trade" points.

The way trade is distributed also makes it more suitable for being left stockpilable than minerals or food. IMO a resource can be stockpilable but not distribution-limited (trade), or distribution-limited but not stockpilable (industry / production). Having a resource be both leads to problems with game mechanics and interface that I'd like to avoid, like deciding where the stockpile is stored or how much is available in disconnected subsets of planets in an empire. This isn't a reason to keep it stockpilable, but a note that a consideration for why food and minerals should not be stockpilable doesn't apply to trade.

One reason to make trade not stockpilable is that I suspect for the espionage / social uses I envision for trade (or "influence" as I'd like to rename it), it would be better balanced if it was not stockpiled. If a minimum total trade/influence amount is required to be able to do certain espionage or influence activities, having stockpiles would make it harder to impose such limits. If empires need to produce some amount consistently to pay for an activity, that's a more powerful restriction to have available.

Not having a stockpiled "money"-type resource also avoids the apparent need to have issues like defecit spending and how to deal with a defecit when there is no money "in the bank".

IMO a non-stockpiled "influence" also makes more sense in context. For a "real" empire, "money" would not exist; it's merely a tool used to manipulate / control the populace. Commonly-understood microeconomic principles don't really sensibly apply to galaxy-spanning empires...

[Sloth]

There is one major reason I see why trade would be better left stockpilable: It give empires something to exchange with eachother as a lump sum. If there are no minerals or food to exchange, then all that's left as a currency is "trade" points.

I can think of some more mechanics that would benefit from a stockpileable resource:
- The derilict special, where the player finds something valueable (currently minerals).
- Random events.
- Espionage events (stealing wouldn't be possible without a stockpile).
- Capturing planets.

I also have to add that most players enjoy amassing something.

[Geoff the Medio]

- The derilict special, where the player finds something valueable (currently minerals).

The "you found 40 gold!" style goody hut is a standard, though not a particularly interesting one, IMO.

- Random events.

Too vague to be meaningful...

- Espionage events (stealing wouldn't be possible without a stockpile).

Yes it would; much like research, rather than instantly stealing money/tech, a spy would give a bonus to output of influence / trade each turn while in place.

- Capturing planets.

Not sure what you mean by this.

I also have to add that most players enjoy amassing something.

In my experience, it's usually not a good strategy to mass large amounts of money in 4X games. If you've got lots of extra money, that probably just means you should have set a lower tax rate / higher whatever else rate. I'd expect more players to care about building an empire and overcoming opposition, rather than watching their empire treasury indicator increase...

[Zireael]

Idk about stockpilable/nonstockpilable.

However, I think trade could be a good requirement for some advanced techs and/or buildings or ships. For example:
Techs - Cyborgs, Sing of Transc., Xenoarchaeology, Death Ray, Terraforming, Remote Terraforming
Weapons - Death Ray
Buildings - Bioterror Facilities, Genome Bank, Cloning Center, Imperial Center...

[eleazar]

There is one major reason I see why trade would be better left stockpilable: It give empires something to exchange with eachother as a lump sum.

I agree, we must have at minimum one stockpile-able resource.

Besides facilitating imperial exchange, we are likely to need a cost to balance the proliferation of planets/ships, to soften the steamroller effect of just having a lot of stuff.

IMO a resource can be stockpilable but not distribution-limited (trade), or distribution-limited but not stockpilable (industry / production). Having a resource be both leads to problems with game mechanics and interface that I'd like to avoid, like deciding where the stockpile is stored or how much is available in disconnected subsets of planets in an empire.

I don't see the problem with a stockpile-able industry/production. The production queue takes care of any distribution/interface questions. And the simple rule previous applied "If it can't connect to the capitol, it can't be stockpiled" eliminates confusing multiple stockpiles.

One reason to make trade not stockpilable is that I suspect for the espionage / social uses I envision for trade (or "influence" as I'd like to rename it), it would be better balanced if it was not stockpiled. If a minimum total trade/influence amount is required to be able to do certain espionage or influence activities, having stockpiles would make it harder to impose such limits. If empires need to produce some amount consistently to pay for an activity, that's a more powerful restriction to have available.

In some ways it would be easier to balance, but in others less. If "Influence" allowed you to induce enemy planets to rebel (for instance) then, with non-stockpiled influence, you could get an equally resistant planet to rebel every turn. There would be no rare/difficult activities that you would have to save up for, just things below your production threshold that you could do as often as you liked, and things above the threshold that you could never do.
Non-stockpiled would tend to be a micromanagement temptation, since any influence not use per turn is wasted.

Not having a stockpiled "money"-type resource also avoids the apparent need to have issues like defecit spending and how to deal with a defecit when there is no money "in the bank".

That depends how "money" or "influence" is used. If it is not used for "sustaining" existing buildings/ships/etc then there is no need to allow players to have deficits or go into the red. Though there may be good reasons for sustaining costs.

IMO a non-stockpiled "influence" also makes more sense in context.

I dunno. "Influence" is sufficiently abstract that any quantification does it some injury, and a stock-piled or non-stockpiled form could be equally plausible.

In theory, i'm favorably inclined to the having "influence" rather than "trade". I see it as a catch-all of entertainment, public-relations, propaganda, and more sinister high-tech methods of manipulation the populace.
Though really if we merge minerals/industry, there could be an argument for having both "trade" and "influence".


Is this just something on your mind, or do you see it as having application in the near future?

Idk about stockpilable/nonstockpilable.

However, I think trade could be a good requirement for some advanced techs and/or buildings or ships. For example...

You're not really explaining yourself.
What are you saying?
these things require both trade and research to build, or
cost trade to maintain?

[Bigjoe5]

From here

...there's no greatly compelling reason I can think of to keep Trade as the only stockpiled primary resource...

I've previously suggested making trade not stockpilable. There is one major reason I see why trade would be better left stockpilable: It give empires something to exchange with eachother as a lump sum. If there are no minerals or food to exchange, then all that's left as a currency is "trade" points.

I was thinking that might be a use for stockpiled strategic resources, actually, though I see what you mean about the problem with limited-distribution resources being stockpilable.

One reason to make trade not stockpilable is that I suspect for the espionage / social uses I envision for trade (or "influence" as I'd like to rename it), it would be better balanced if it was not stockpiled. If a minimum total trade/influence amount is required to be able to do certain espionage or influence activities, having stockpiles would make it harder to impose such limits. If empires need to produce some amount consistently to pay for an activity, that's a more powerful restriction to have available.

In some ways it would be easier to balance, but in others less. If "Influence" allowed you to induce enemy planets to rebel (for instance) then, with non-stockpiled influence, you could get an equally resistant planet to rebel every turn. There would be no rare/difficult activities that you would have to save up for, just things below your production threshold that you could do as often as you liked, and things above the threshold that you could never do.
Non-stockpiled would tend to be a micromanagement temptation, since any influence not use per turn is wasted.

I don't really think that causing planets to rebel would be something that you just "do" with trade as a one-turn thing. It would probably be more like you allocate trade to build up espionage on an enemy planet, then when the espionage is at a high enough level, you would allocate more trade to the rebellion project at some rate, perhaps through a queue similar to the production queue, which would take some number of turns to succeed.

The rare/difficult activities would be the ones that require a very high level of espionage, and a high amount of trade for many turns, much like rare and difficult to produce buildings are the ones that require a lot of production.

[em3]

There is one major reason I see why trade would be better left stockpilable: It give empires something to exchange with eachother as a lump sum.

I agree, we must have at minimum one stockpile-able resource.

Besides facilitating imperial exchange, we are likely to need a cost to balance the proliferation of planets/ships, to soften the steamroller effect of just having a lot of stuff.

Alternative currencies are PP/turn and RP/turn over a number of turns. Although this would make things harder if the "paying" empire removed appropriate focus from its planets (so that it is incapable of generating and transferring the PPs or RPs it owes).

Money is easier to conceptualize, as long as there is some use for it beside inter-empire trade (hurrying production, sustenance).

I don't really think that causing planets to rebel would be something that you just "do" with trade as a one-turn thing. It would probably be more like you allocate trade to build up espionage on an enemy planet, then when the espionage is at a high enough level, you would allocate more trade to the rebellion project at some rate, perhaps through a queue similar to the production queue, which would take some number of turns to succeed.

The rare/difficult activities would be the ones that require a very high level of espionage, and a high amount of trade for many turns, much like rare and difficult to produce buildings are the ones that require a lot of production.

I really like the idea of spy activity as projects that are "built" on enemy planets.

[Zireael]

You're not really explaining yourself.
What are you saying?
these things require both trade and research to build, or
cost trade to maintain?

Either of those two is fine, as long as it forces the player to have a significant amount of "trade/influence" before gaining those techs/weapons.
If we make trade stockpilable, I'd be in favor for a very high cost to build (for example, 500). If it's not stockpilable, then it could require say, 50. Or 5 per turn. Or whatever.

[eleazar]

....you would allocate more trade to the rebellion project at some rate, perhaps through a queue similar to the production queue, which would take some number of turns to succeed.

A Influence Queue is probably a good idea, weather or not influence is stockpile-able. Depending of course on exactly how Influence is used.

[Geoff the Medio]

I don't see the problem with a stockpile-able industry/production. The production queue takes care of any distribution/interface questions. And the simple rule previous applied "If it can't connect to the capitol, it can't be stockpiled" eliminates confusing multiple stockpiles.

There is currently a means to allocate available production capacity, but as noted here, I don't think it's a very good one. The production queue itself doesn't answer the interface questions though; there's still no way to see how much production is available at a given location. This is more so an unimplemented feature than a fundamental problem, although having different stockpile mechanics in effect at different locations won't help this information be easily conveyed. I actually think having multiple stockpiles might be an easier system to understand and play with than a single limited-access stockpile, as player won't have to worry about whether a particular connected subset of planets has stockpile access, and will be able to use the same (or more similar) criteria to decide how to balance mineral / production output and consumption at any planet or group of planets. However, I think no stockpile of distribution-limited resources would be better still.

Not having a stockpiled "money"-type resource also avoids the apparent need to have issues like defecit spending and how to deal with a defecit when there is no money "in the bank".

That depends how "money" or "influence" is used. If it is not used for "sustaining" existing buildings/ships/etc then there is no need to allow players to have deficits or go into the red. Though there may be good reasons for sustaining costs.

If influence is stockpiled, an alternative might be to have an influence cost to produce or otherwise gain initial control of a ship or planet, rather than requiring an ongoing upkeep cost. This would make influence rather like just an extra production cost though... So probably not a good idea.

Is this just something on your mind, or do you see it as having application in the near future?

No immediate applications... There's enough other stuff being tweaked at the moment. Whenever empire-species interactions start getting implemented, it might be good to work on. It might also be best if done along with spies / leaders, which I think are a good means for players to use influence-type abilities.

As discussed by others, my conception of spending influence for espionage, tech stealing, sabotage, empire infiltration, planet happiness and species opinion manipulation, or to incite revolves is that they would all be ongoing activities that require multiple turns of funding to accomplish a goal. Games, particular Civ-type, that have random-chance instant result espionage are rather unsatisfying or pointless, IMO. Longer-duration espionage activities that require sustained funding gives the opposing players the ability to respond, perhaps by hunting and catching the spy / leader that is hiding there to enable to activity, or using their own influence to counteract the attack. A queue would probably work for determining how to allocate limited influence points to multiple such activities.

[marhawkman]

MoO2 and ST: BotF each had a generic "credits" resource which represented the empire's treasury/funds to construct things/bribe other races. I thought it worked pretty well.

SE5 is very different in that no resource can be stockpiled indefinately. Your empire can only store a certain amount of each resource(minerals, organics, radioactives)(the cap starts at 100K(to put this number in perspective, ships built at the start of the game might cost 3K of a resource) and can be increased by constructing storage buildings). This also works out fine. But it's inherently more complicated(to code). In practice, it's only moderately difficult to use. the main difficulty lies in finding sources for the resources you need.(the three are not used equally)

Stars! did NOT have empire pools at all. Only technology was shared between planets. Minerals came in 3 flavors(Ironium, Boranium, and Germanium) and had to be transported to shipyards from the planets that produced them. That sucked. The only cool thing it resulted in was being able to blow up enemy ships and haul off the debris as raw materials to be used in constructing more ships. But if an enemy managed to attack your freighters... BOOM! now you have a resource shipment floating in deep space. This is obviously a bad thing. It would seem like a good way to encourage players to keep enemies away from their space, but in practice you had to be so aggressive that sometimes it consumed more time and effort than it saved. The easiest way to solve the problem was to use shipping lanes that were as short as possible. If your ship could do a trip that only took 1 or 2 turns it would be fine.

anyways, that was getting a bit long winded. The point I was getting at is that not having empire stockpiles results in massive amounts of micromanagement. Ever try playing MoO2 without building freighters? yeah.... not fun. (unless you're a lithovore race)

[eleazar]

...The point I was getting at is that not having empire stockpiles results in massive amounts of micromanagement.

I can't imagine that we'd implement a non-stockpiled resource in a micro-heavy way like stars!
Any non-stockpiled resource would be similar to FO's current Industry resource.

[marhawkman]

Ah, a static meter rather than a quantity?

[Zireael]

I had an idea. What if we kept trade and influence separately? Trade would be used by/for economy techs and trading with other empires.

Influence, on the other hand, would be something that the following things would contribute to:
- Megalith
- number of planets colonized (or population, which boils down to the same)
- any Gaian planets owned
- any resource that exceeds the cap set by the player (by default set high enough [3k, for example] that it doesn't obstruct the player

You would spend influence for building empire-wide buildings (such as Cloning Center or Bioterror Projection Base or Industrial Center ... or Observatory) and for researching the high-end techs, specifically Singularity of Transcendence.

[Krikkitone]

Thinking about stockpiled resource.

Benefits
1. one-time boost (derelict ship, etc.)
2. Trade for one time Items (ie Planets, selling ships, etc.)

The stockpiled resource needs to
1. have a source (besides one -time boosts+trade to other empires)
2. have a sink (besides trading to other empires)

So using "Trade" as a stockpiled resource idea
Source: Planets cannot be "focused" on Trade, instead
Some base Trade from your Capital
Some Trade from every 'supply line' that you have
Some Trade from foreign trade agreements

Sink=can be spent as ANY other resource (Industry, Research, Influence), with a limit.
ie Limit = 20% of your total production of that resource that turn (so if you are producing 1000 Research per turn, you can buy 200 Research per turn)

[make sure the 'source' normal level of "trade output" is well below the "limit"]