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Here's my general trade strategy, for what it's worth.
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I'm far from a great player, but I've managed to fund my entire empire off of trade at times, so maybe someone that doesn't have my weaknesses can make more of this strategy.
Early on, I stick to trade routes with neighboring major civs, mostly to keep them on reasonable terms with me. Long trade routes just don't seem worth it. Also, unless you've already got a starbase somewhere, trade-enhancing modules don't help much early game due to the 5BC maintenance on them.
I always trade my trade-route increasing techs as soon as I get them, unless there's a wonder involved. More trade routes means more money floating around the galaxy, and more money floating around the galaxy means that you can get more money from selling trade goods and techs.
When I get up to about five trade routes, I start shifting my strategy to trading with a minor civ that is close to my financial capitol, if possible. It's important to make sure that the planet you're trading with won't culture-flip, because you're about to put a lot of eggs in one basket. You also want the minor to be in a sector that has the same x or y value as your destination, as diagonal trade routes can't be boosted as efficiently.
As trade routes to other civs go away (due to war or similar, or just because you feel like it), establish new routes with the minor civ.
Since you've got several short routes going through the same sectors, trade-enhancing starbases will pay for themselves better than they did earlier for two reasons. First, with multiple routes, the starbase will be increasing each of the routes without increasing its maintenance fee. Second, with short routes, the freighters travel through fewer sectors, which means that it will spend a higher percent of it's time in a single sector.
Start by dropping a few starbases in whatever sector the mini-freighters spend the most time in, and then work on the other sectors. As long as the starbases are paying for themselves, feel free to put in as many starbases as you can, but make sure that the freighters still go into the sector in question, you don't want to fill it up to the point that they have to go around the entire sector and so don't gain the bonus (no, I've never gone that SB crazy).
Finally, you have to be careful of any starbases you put in the minor civs home sector. They might increase the chances of a culture flip. However, there's an easy way to get around that. After you've built the starbase, added all the trade modules, and enough defense to make sure it's not too soft a target, give the starbase to the minor civ. This way, not only will it not encourage a culture flip, but now you're not even paying the maintenance on it. NOTE: Do not give a minor civ several starbases in the same turn. Give it one SB per turn, or every few turns, otherwise the AI will see its expenses going up with no immediate reward, and will disband the starbases (that I have had happen to me).
Using this trick, I've had late-game empires funded entirely off of trade, to the tune of 6000+ BC/Turn. It works almost as well on a tiny map as it does a gigantic map, provided the game lasts long enough to get it set up. It's definitely not an early game strategy, however.
        
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In other words you want the destination planet to be in the same column or row as the origination planet. If origin planet on a coordinate plane is (X,Y) then the destination planet should be ({X+k},Y) or (X,{Y+k}) Hope that helps a bit
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Let's see if I can describe it in words.
Lets say you've got your major econ world, where you want to run all your trade routes from, in sector 0,0, and you want to run and boost trade routes to a system in sector 2,1.
Assuming that the freighters are going from the center of one sector to the other, and there's nothing that they have to go around, the normal path would be: 0,0 - 1,1 - 2,1 - 0,1 - 0,0, so you'd have to boost 4 sectors.
Now lets compare this to trading from 0,0 to 2,0: 0,0 - 1,0 - 2,0 - 1,0 - 0,0. Here, you only have to boost 3 sectors.
But that's not all, there's an extra bonus there. assuming you're going from the center of each endpoint sector, you'll spend twice as much time (50%) in sector 1,0 compared to the other two sectors (25% each), so trade-boosting starbases there will be twice as effective as they will be in the end sectors. In fact, the combined trade routes only needs to bring in 20BC/turn before dropping a maxed trade starbase into the center sector will at least pay for itself. The trade routes in the end sectors would need to bring in 40BC/turn in order to pay for the trade enhancements.
Now let's look at a very bad case: A slightly off-diagonal trade route. Let's say that the econ center is at the center bottom of 0,0, and the dest is at the top senter of 2,2. Now, the path looks like 0,0 - 0,1 - 1,1 - 1,2 - 2,2 - 2,1 - 1,1 - 1,0 - 0,0, which is spread out across 7 sectors, and the most travel distance any one sector gets is 25% for sector 1,1. So, right away the trade routes would need to bring in 40BC/turn before any benefit could be seen, and that's just for one sector. The rest of the sectors wouldn't be cost effective to upgrade the trade until they hit 80BC/turn.
Now, to show the long-vs-short trade route issue, take that 0,0 to 2,0 example, and stretch it out to 0,0 - 11,0. No loss due to diagonals, but each non-endpoint sector gets about 10% of the freighter travel distance, so even without diagonals, a trade starbase won't pay for itself until the trade routes reach 200BC/turn. Considering that I've never seen an unboosted trade route bring in three times that of the shortest possible unboosted trade route, this just doesn't make economic sense, once you've got enough trade routes to make boosting more than pay for itself.
Also note that if you've got military spending turned on just to build constructors to boost trade routes, this won't pay for itself in the short term. If you've got military spending anyway then this isn't an issue, as the money would be wasted anyway.
If you do get stuck with a diagonal trade route, look for sectors that the freighters spend the most time in, preferably as close to the end of the return trip, because at that point they're making the most money which means that it can be boosted most cost-effectively.
Does this make more sense? This should make it clear.
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Alf's got some good points, most that I've already been using but hadn't mentioned. Though I disagree on the importance of long trade routes. In the early game it's more important to establish good relations with those close to you, in my opinion, and in the mid to late game trade-boosting starbases on short routes will blow away the same amount of trade-boosting starbases on long routes. Long trade routes are also more likely to be lost in times of war.
Which reminds me of another reason to have pre-positioned freighters. In case a trade partner declares war on you, or if a trade route is shut down due to attack, you can immediately have new trade routes in place somewhere else. They won't be as effective, but they'll be better than nothing.
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so each starbase costs 5BC to maintain now? I have 1.03 standalone
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DMF: A perfect diagonal, unless it goes exactly over the corners, will still go through more sectors and it will be spending less time in each sector because it's cutting corners. For example, a trip from the bottom left quarter of 0,0 to the bottom left quarter of 2,2, resulting in an identical, reversed path for the return trip still goes through sectors 0,0 - 0,1 - 1,1 - 2,1 - 2-2.
Yes, it limits the number of choices, but even the best trade routes I've ever seen didn't bring in 4 times the money of the worst one (as initially established, I've seen them grow with time to be quite significant). In the early game, the base amount is important, in the late game, assuming you follow this strategy, the ability to improve your trade routes is more important than the value of the trade route.
You won't always get a perfectly laid out empire that will fit this strategy perfectly, but more often than not, if you look around, you'll find a way to make it work.
Drengkiller: Yes, that change was made in one of the 1.03 versions prior to the standalone. Brad's looking at changing the way this works again, because the change they made didn't have the effect they wanted, so this whole trade strategy could go out the window in the future. Basically, they wanted to prevent starbase spamming, so they assigned starbases a 5BC/turn maintenence fee. This killed starbase use in the early game, but mid/late game, when spamming is a serious problem, wasn't very effected because at that time, there's quite a bit more money around. In fact, this starbase spamming form of trade strategy evolved in response to that update.
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tiny/rare is indeed a quite different game. That's what I play during my lunchtime at work. I guess when I say that this works best during mid to end game, I should specify that's a kind of mid to end game that doesn't exist to the same extent on tiny/rare maps.
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Can you have multiple trade routes to the same planet?
Like Earth To Hestia I and Vestia to Hestia??
Or 2 Freighters going from Earth to Hestia at the same time?, as i have not tried this yet.
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Ralegh: I'm not on masochistic yet, and even then that is usually what I do early in the game, until I'm at the point that I'm confident that I can defend myself against most threats (a three-on-one not considered "most threats" unless there's a three-way alliance out there).
chaoticspyder: the trade strategy at the top of this thread *DEPENDS* on being able to establish as many routes between the same two planets, to make SB multipliers more effective.
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Popup Target et al:
Thanks for the advice and info - certainly given me some stuff to chew on for my next game.
Just to clarify:
1) Do the starbases have a temporary effect or a stacking effect? Ie if my freighter starts out with 100 BC in materials in it, travels through one SB sector with a 10% boast and then another SB sector with a 10%, will my freighter finish its run with 121 BC in materials? Or am I misunderstanding how SBs work?
2) How do you determine what are the best planets to start a trade route from (in your own empire) and to (with another empire)?
3) Am I correct in understanding that your trade route (diagnols and such) basically distills down to "keep a straight line through as few sectors as possible"?
Thanks ya'll.
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#18
by Veteran fsk5809 - 5/20/2003 3:48:04 PM
1. The trade starbase has an effect for each turn the mini-freighter is in the sector. That's why you want horizontal or vertical routes.
2. I think you choose the planet solely based on tax revenue at both ends. I believe that all planets in the system count, not just the one that built the freighter. I usually go by planet quality, because that's the most important long-term factor. I also wait to build my economic capital until I know where I want to put my trade routes.
3. I think you should make sure the trade routes are horizontal or vertical. I believe that trade income is proportional to the number of turns in the trip. For a 2-sector trade route, going from (0,0) to (1,0), you get 1x, 2x, 3x, and 4x bonuses (approximately), and then it repeats. For a 5-sector route, going from (0,0) to (4, 0), you get 1x, 2x, 3x, ..., 10x, and then it repeats. So, you get the trade starbase bonus for fewer turns, but the bonus is bigger when you do get it. I think you come out even or ahead with the longer route, but I didn't perform an experiment.
Trade income in not smooth. It increases a little bit every turn. When the mini-freighter starts a new roundtrip, that route's income returns to the base amount.
    
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#19
by Citizen Liquid - 5/20/2003 7:14:30 PM
" The trade starbase has an effect for each turn the mini-freighter is in the sector"
Are you saying that the mini-freighter has to start its turn in the sector to get the bonus or end its turn or just pass through?
V
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#20
by Citizen Liquid - 5/21/2003 2:44:36 PM
bump
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Liquid998: I believe that it has to start the turn in the sector, but I've never done tests on it to be sure.
Polaris2200: What fsk+ said in message #18, right down to me not being sure about the same things.
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12bc is your highest trade route ever? I've seen much much higher. Longer routes can climb much higher, 12bc does sound about right for some of the shorter routes.
2 things you seem to be missing:
1. Each route may only be 12bc or so, but you can have multiple routes passing through the same system (therefore affected by the same starbase).
2. You can add more modules that boost trade to starbases. You should be able to boost trade much more than 10% with a maxed out trade starbase.
I must admit that I find setting up a trade utopia to be far too much trouble for what it's worth, but it can pay itself off if you stack all of your trade routes between the same two systems and throw down some maxed out trade starbases.
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#24
by Veteran fsk5809 - 5/23/2003 3:14:52 PM
Stack all your trade routes between the same pair of sectors. So, if you have 5 trade routes, with a +50% starbaae, instead of 10x5, you get 15x5, a gain of 25. However, this is on the first turn. When the mini-freighter is making its return trip, now the base is something like 20-30. Instead of 20x5, you now get 30x5.
So you spent 200x4 on constructors, but the trade starbase is giving you +30/turn. Besides, what else are you going to do with the surplus military production? It's better than building "nothing". The benefit comes as you build your economic capital, your tax base increases, and you get more +trade and +trade route abilities.
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