Trade Mechanics and Morale

[nweismuller]

How precisely is trade capacity calculated for domestic and foreign trade? Is the bonus income for foreign trade always twice what you're getting for domestic trade or the limit on foreign trade capacity, or is the amount of foreign trade you profit from determined in a more complicated fashion? I suppose while I'm at it, I'll ask roughly what's intended for the morale effects of the sociology techs that currently just boost trade capacity provided by markets, and multispecies morale. In the final build, is it intended that a positive morale rating will be beneficial to a population that's already content, or will it just provide a buffer against whatever negative shocks can hit morale?

Not that you necessarily need to change this if you believe it's not called for, but I've noticed that starvation doesn't appear to impact the morale of a population as things stand, which seems counterintuitive. I would expect that not only would famine lead to surplus deaths, but also to growing social disorder- take this observation as you may.

[Arioch]

Trade charters add a limited number of foreign routes that are inherently more lucrative than domestic routes (and will be preferentially chosen by trading transports). We will add more descriptive information to the tooltips, but we're still balancing elements of these new mechanics.

There are many more morale effects that need to be added (for example, being enslaved doesn't currently bother people), so if you see something that you think should affect morale, you're welcome to suggest it. This is a system that will require a lot of tweaking.

Right now the morale system is mainly geared around preventing people from being discontent, but I think it's appropriate that there should be benefits to achieving certain levels of happiness. We'll continue to add more to the system as it seems appropriate.

[nweismuller]

I'm curious, though, how the number of foreign trade routes is determined- as, for that matter, the number of domestic trade routes in your territory is determined. With the understanding that specific numbers are likely to change, I'd still like to get an idea of the mechanics there.

[Arioch]

The number of available domestic trade routes is based on the number of colonies you have. I'm not sure what the formula is, but it's something like 10 per additional colony that you found; after you have a few colonies, you'd have to build a lot of transports to run out of available routes. The trade pool tooltip should show you how many available trade routes you have, though I notice it doesn't seem to be working for the Human player.

The Trade Charter currently adds a number of foreign routes that's a function of how many domestic routes the trading partner has; the number of routes is listed with the agreement in the Details tab in the diplomacy screen.

[nweismuller]

While we're on morale mechanics: is there any timeout on morale penalties from the purchase of slaves? I discovered to my regret that buying slaves from Marauders then immediately freeing them once they reach their destination still is a net negative on morale for a long time as of yet. You'd think that the reflexive (and popular) Phidi solution to their kin in bondage would be buying out the slaves, but evidently not.

Semi-related: it seems odd that Marauder colonies are spawned holding slaves from the 'younger' races, given the game's setup. I can see them hanging onto scattered slaves from the cultures that were around before the collapse of the hyperlanes after the Great War, but you'd think the Phidi, Orthin, or Yoral would remember having their people snatched up by the Marauders at some point over the past thousand years, somehow.

[Arioch]

Most morale hits have a limited duration before they expire. I think it's about 20 turns.

The Marauders grab slaves from whichever factions that are nearby.

[sven]

Semi-related: it seems odd that Marauder colonies are spawned holding slaves from the 'younger' races, given the game's setup. I can see them hanging onto scattered slaves from the cultures that were around before the collapse of the hyperlanes after the Great War, but you'd think the Phidi, Orthin, or Yoral would remember having their people snatched up by the Marauders at some point over the past thousand years, somehow.

Right now, the marauders only start the game with slaves from elder race populations (i.e., Ashdar or humans). However, if there's a younger race expanding nearby, there's a chance that they'll get slaves from that empire's population as the game goes on. This can happen either because of a raid (which you may see taking place in-game, if you have scouts in the area), or through some sort of nefarious black-market dealing, which is represented in-game as a small % chance to spawn new slave population matching the species of any nearby empires that the marauders are currently at war with.

Long story short -- if you see Orthin, Phidi, or Yoral slaves in a Marauder base, it's virtually certain that the same race has an empire nearby, and that they're in conflict with the Maruaders.

[nweismuller]

I'm particularly noting this because I'm seeing Phidi slaves as the Phidi Combine in newly-contacted Marauder colonies (that I promptly pay off for peace). Is this intended behavior?

[sven]

I'm particularly noting this because I'm seeing Phidi slaves as the Phidi Combine in newly-contacted Marauder colonies (that I promptly pay off for peace). Is this intended behavior?

No. That's a bug. If you have good relations with them, and they've never raided you, they shouldn't have any Phidi slaves. Would you upload your save? Thanks

[nweismuller]

I'll start a new game to try and force that again- my current save in which that happened has long since had me purchase those poor enslaved Phidi to liberate them.

[nweismuller]

OK, I just found the issue again. Are saves uploaded by 'upload game logs' in the options menu, or is there some other method I'm missing in the sticky threads? I'm not seeing that I can attach save files to forum posts.

[sven]

OK, I just found the issue again. Are saves uploaded by 'upload game logs' in the options menu, or is there some other method I'm missing in the sticky threads? I'm not seeing that I can attach save files to forum posts.

It's 'upload game logs'. Also: I can generally dig through the gameplay history of a save pretty quickly, so it's not always necessary to upload logs right when the issue has just happened. Though, of course, that does help

[nweismuller]

OK, game_1256 just uploaded, with first contact with Sitovan's Marauders at Hamal I. You can see they have 1,013,518 Phidi slaves despite this being first contact. Only semi-related: why isn't the leader of Sitovan's Marauders named Sitovan? Or was Sitovan an old leader who has since been replaced by Glaveh the Crusher?

[sven]

OK, I just found the issue again. Are saves uploaded by 'upload game logs' in the options menu, or is there some other method I'm missing in the sticky threads? I'm not seeing that I can attach save files to forum posts.

I believe I've found the bug. As of r16916, none of the young race should find their own population living as slaves on marauder bases that they've only just contacted. However, there still is a chance that a marauder you're at war with will spawn slaves from your own population once contact is established between your two empires.

That is still potentially confusing, and I think we need to do a better job of explaining it to the player. At a minimum, your adviser should probably give you a report, like "a group of Phidi prospectors was kidnapped by Marauders while exploring the Alarak system!" Similarly, if one of your neighbors has slaves captured via that sort of event, they should perhaps send you a diplomatic request, asking for your aid in destroying the base, and/or liberating their citizens.

[nweismuller]

Vis-a-vis suggestions about things that should affect morale...

It occurs to me, given the Gaiad description, that they both should have morale penalties for overdevelopment of their planet (which I haven't seen thus far with them), and exemption from Market morale bonuses. If they don't participate in alien economies, it seems unlikely they'd get luxury goods to make their lives more pleasant from alien markets.

There might be a case for Scavenger morale penalties to reflect their lawless and criminal nature, but I can't for the life of me think of the specific conditions under which they should apply.

I've noticed that Orthin get bonus morale when assigned to Research duties on a planet- whether a comparable effect should be in play for Phidi assigned to Trade is an open question.

Starvation should be an immediate and harsh morale penalty- bread riots and rebellions over famine are as old as history.

Some of the more warlike species perhaps should get modest morale bonuses after notable victories against their hereditary enemies- I'm thinking of Roman triumphal marches where the crowds cheer the victorious general. Perhaps tied to planetary conquest specifically?

It might be worthwhile to introduce a modest crowding penalty to morale on planets very near or at their population cap, if for no other reason than to spur investment into a market in heavily-developed worlds to serve civilian needs. (If crowding penalties are introduced and Gaiads are exempted from Market morale bonuses, there almost has to be SOME way to keep Gaiads under control given natural population growth, otherwise they'll eventually unavoidably become rebellious with nothing to do about it.)

To change topics to trade-
In older versions, I used to be able to sign trade charters with splinter colonies, but I'm no longer seeing that option. Was it intended that you could trade with splinter colonies, or no? I thought it made sense to swap goods with tiny enclaves of Humans and Ashdar, and missed being able to trade with them since that changed.