Current Situation

When a nation is in anarchy, somehow that nation is still able to operate at 100% efficiency to fulfill trade agreements to all of it's trade partners.


Suggested Change

For all trade partners who are trading with a nation in anarchy, for the duration of the anarchy the benefits received by that trade would be reduced by some percentage (determined by Admin or this discussion).

Approved for discussion

Now this is an interesting idea.

I 100% agree with this suggestion. It would add an interesting dynamic to war. Usually people don't care if they are trading with the enemy or not, they want their trades to be complete, so nobody minds fighting somebody they trade with. With this suggestion, you now have to put some thought into going to war with somebody you trade with as them being in anarchy could reduce not only your economy, but also your military effectivness, total population which in turn reduces soldiers / tanks caps.

Not only that, if an alliance is trading pretty heavily with another alliance and they get attacked, it gives incentive for the other alliance to come to their defense as their economy is being attacked as well.

It could bring sphere politics more into the forefront as it may be in the alliances best interests to not trade with themselves (due to being in war would amplify damage to themselves for every nation in anarchy).



As far as how much, just to throw some numbers out there, i believe that anarchy is a 50% reduction in collections and nuke anarchy is a 90% reduction in collections, so how about we start the discussion off with those 2 numbers. If a trade partner is in normal anarchy, you lose 50% of the affects gained by that trade and if in nuke anarchy you'd lose 90% of the affects of that trade.

Now looking at bonus resources, they would need to be reduced as well. If bonus resource X requires 4 resources and an anarchied trade partner is providing one of those, then 25% of the bonus resource is reduced by either 50% or 90% depending on type of anarchy. if bonus resource requires 3, then it would be 33% if it requires 5, then 20%

I my explanation makes sense.

Nice thoughtline, but having too heavy calculations goes against the KISS method. I'd say both types of anarchy reduce the efficiency of resources by %50, and also those of bonus resources connected to the affected resources as well (If you need 1 wood and 1 nail to build a ship, you can only build half a ship with half a wood and 1 nail)

While this is certainly realistic, from a gameplay perspective I don't like this idea.

Granted, this suggestion would obviously increase the "realism" of the game.
I don't see realism as a big concern when it comes to trades, anyway, as in that respect the system is already broken beyond repair: trading - say - Coal with a 3 NS nation isn't different from trading it with a 90k NS one, despite the obvious differences that there would be between the two in terms of technology, infrastructure, knowledge etc. - Nations without Microchips can go to Mars, nations without Steel can have submarines, having Marble makes constructing things cheaper, Wheat is needed for Beer with no mention of barley...

Fact is that the trade system has the purpose of enhancing the game mechanics, without "much" concern for realism.
About game mechanics, unfortunately, this suggestion doesn't contain anything about what would be the problem with the current situation and why the suggestion would be better than it. Unless Bilrow is a bit more thorough in his explanations it is hard to even just understand the rationale behind his suggestion.


All of above said, I already have a few reasons to dislike this suggestion.
I am in a 4k nations Team and, nonetheless, I don't usually have a large pool of willing trade partners to choose among, and my alliance - that happens to be the largest in terms of members count - couldn't have the majority of trades to be internal; I'd guess that an overwhelming majority of the players is in my same situation.

Long story short - I may be more thorough if this suggestion's rationale is extended - the penalties would be quite difficult to be avoided and they would add just an opaque, randomly penalizing aspect to the game. The only significant effect that I can think of as of now is that alliances that cared to develop an "as extended as possible" policy of internal trades would be even more at a disadvantage if/when suffering a beatdown.
For these reasons I say "no" to this suggestion.

TBH this is an amazing idea and I love this. 50% reduction of trade benefits for duration of anarchy/nuclear anarchy sounds great. Will really give color politics meaning that doesn't currently exist.

People keep saying this will affect color politics. What exactly will this do? I'm really not seeing how this will change anything except to randomly make certain people lose trade income during wars.

Interesting idea.

I doubt it would really hurt anybody in a way that they can complain about, as the only way that a large number of people's trade partners being in anarchy either means that a) they're in anarchy too or the GRL is through the roof, and happiness isn't going to matter much.

Trades (Resources) are not only about happiness, and when your environment/happiness is down is the worst moment to have another penalty on top of that...

Well, Since uninvolved alliances would be hurt if they are trading with an alliance that gets involved in a war, they are more likely to take steps that would help keep their trade partners out of war. It may bring more same color defensive treaties about.

If one alliance was always going to war (or failing at raiding, or whatever) It could piss off enough of those that they trade with to either have them boycott all trading with that alliance or to try and push them off the sphere.

As it stands now trades are completely outside the politics of this game, and as we all know, the politics make up more of the game than the game mechanics themselves. Doing something to tie in trades with the rest of the game is a good idea.

Of course its possible that people will view it as GRL type of penalty and just ignore it, but i still feel that it would bring a new dynamic to the game.

Which is why i think if it was implemented it would cause alliances that would normally be uninvolved to make a stand. Bad things drive people to do something about it. since there are no penalties at all in regards to trades, nobody cares about trades beyond the point of making sure they have them. There is no concern about trading with the enemy. There is no concern about protecting your trade partners. Nobody cares if there trade partner gets zi'd as long as they still trade. This change has the potential for making people care.

IMO, horrible idea. Trades are hard enough and a big enough of a pita the way they are now.

Maybe for you, but not for all.

I've had to worry about trades 6 times in my nations existence, and 4 of those times where when I made the choice to change colors. I am about 900 days old, so that means on avg I had to worry about trades once every 150 days or so if you include my decision to change colors. If you only include the unexpected drops/deletions, then i deal with trades on avg once every 450 days.

The times that I did have to deal with trades, when I spammed out to potential trade partners the majority of the replies I got back were "Sorry, I am already in a stable trade circle". That means the majority of people that have resources I want are not having a hard time with them.

While I agree that some do have a horrible time with trades, it is mostly due to having crap resources or trying to be on a smaller sphere for other reasons (usually senate related), and this suggestion neither makes that better or worse.

This suggestion doesn't really follow the KISS method, although now that we have the Moon and Mars bases I guess we could let something like this slide.

The most it should do is losing the +1 happiness for being on the same team, the resources themselves should not be effected.

This would create an absolute windfall in trades with neutral alliances. Beyond that, from a game perspective I'm not seeing enough benefit to make it worth implementing right away.

As with some other reasonable ideas, there are other things that should go ahead of it in line in terms of development (naval/air interaction, battleship shore bombardment, field artillery, light armored vehicles, land area that is actual land area, Fine Arts Center wonder, etc., etc.

I would rather see more work on changing the resource system to make them a bit more ballanced than adding new features to it.

Good idea, but IMO other things need the attention before this one.

I'd go the opposite - keep the +1 happiness and remove the bonuses (or seriously reduce them to say 10% (although going by the KISS method removing them entirely would be easier).

It's an interesting idea, but unless the penalty was VERY small, it'd give way too huge an advantage to the attack.

Unbalancing the war system to the point where whoever attacks first wins is simply game breaking, we don't need to screw with major mechanics like that.

I disagree. with how common nukes are, both sides will pretty much be enveloped in anarchy pretty quickly thereby affecting the trade partners of both equally. Really its again going to be the smaller side will be stuck in anarchy while the bigger side has less in anarchy. If an alliance where to purposfully distribute their trades to other alliances instead of internally that would mean that more alliances within the sphere would be pushing for the war to stop and may even join in so as to cause damage to those that are already damaging them.

It will probably benifit more a more diverse trade set rather than going for only alliance-trading.

Also another idea might be to have different colored trades not be affected so much.

So same-colored ones for me would lost 75% of their bonuses including bonus resources, but different colored trades would keep 50% and keep the bonuses resources, but also working at 50% capacity (or maybe 75%). It actually gives a somewhat small reason to seek different color trades.

Since good trades now are so easy to find within your color, we need this so we spend more time picking safe trade partners.

Horrible suggestion. The trade system is problematic enough as it is without people coming up with new and innovative ways to encourage people to quit the game.



Are we playing the same game? I'm pretty sure when there are 210 possible unique pairs of resources (21 resources, 2 in a pair; 21 combination 2 = 210), and every good resource set requires at least two or three trades with pairs that match its requirements perfectly, and in some cases even four or five perfect matches, and there are only a few good resource sets, and they tend to overlap heavily in their requirements, that it is mathematically impossible for everyone to get a good resource set; the game is effectively designed to generate a permanent underclass when it comes to trades. I'm also pretty sure that when the number of people playing the game drops, the available trade options decrease, causing the percentage of the remaining players who can get good resource sets to decrease as well, expanding the number of players who can never get ahead, which only serves to encourage even further player losses, which in turn makes the problem still worse, and we end up with a positive feedback loop leading ultimately to the death of the game.


The trade system already wastes enough of people's time as it is.

I think thedestro was being sarcastic.

I didn't think of the additional waste of time this suggestion could bring.

Having to choose between spending other time to find new trade partners, or suffering a "random" penalty (i.e. a penalty that practically is completely subtracted to your control), will certainly be frustrating, with a very uncertain "better" situation for any other aspect of the game mechanics.

Frustrating players, especially if done "without a purpose", is nothing good for a game.

I already care. If my trade partner gets ZI'd it may make him quit. I definitely do not want that as it is hard enough to find a trade as it is...
Penalties on top of bad event penalties on top of infra/tech/land loss will drive people from the game. No sir, I don't like it.
Interesting but counterproductive.

I would support this if anarchies actually were relevant and meant something other than "I've been nuked" or "I'm being gangbanged."

Until that changes, I do not think that this suggestion is really a good idea. However I do like it, and wish that the current gameplay mechanics existed in such a manner that would allow this to be a useful addition.

Sorta like GRL?

This however would server a purpose unlike GRL. One would be more likely to take steps to see that their trade partners do not go to war and if they do would try to see that they get out of it as quickly as possible, whereas with GRL it doesn't matter because it affects everybody with absolutely no choice.

If it was implemented I would seriously think that the political aspect of the game would change a bit. As with every suggestion that causes a negative affect people come out in droves to say nay to it. Take a moment though and think of what you or your alliance would do if this was implemented. How would you deal with trades? Would it cause you to take note of who your treaty partners actually are?

I am quite willing to bet that if this change was implmented we would not see people abandoning the game in droves. We would instead see people and alliances adapting. Instead of trades being a set it and forget it which it is for the majority of people, you would need to pay attention to trades pretty regularly. The BEST sets may no longer be the best if the only partners you can find are in anarchy or always fighting. You would actually have to pay attention to WHO you are trading with.

How much interaction is there currently with trade partners? Most i see is when disappears you mass spam looking for a new one and thats it.

Like anybody else who thinks game mechanic changes can drive politics I think you are dreaming, and approaching the issue from the wrong end.

People with decent trades always overlook how much of a royal pain in the $@! it is to get trades when your resources are not the greatest, and throw out ideas like this.

It won't work.

I left the game some time ago, and quite obviously I came back, On my re-creation I got great resources, in my previous nation I had merely average resources (not even low end, just average). I can tell you RIGHT now, no !@#$%^&*, the incredible pain in the $@! that was looking for trades every couple of days, always being short, having my growth ground to a halt becuase my bills were almost as much as my collection most of the time. That was the major factor for me quitting, I wasn't driven out by ZI, or one sided wars, none of the political crap. Pure and simple I left becuase the game became annoying to play.

!@#$%^&* with trades drove at least one player from the game, and I had a decent set, how fed up do you think the people with bad sets get sometimes? You don't have to guess, look at the distribution of trades in the game, people with great resources are always full, people with poor resources are more often than not missing a trade or two, and the number of a type of trade in the game is ALSO reflected on how trades influence the player base. There are more resource combos for the high end resources than their are for the 'bad' ones, becuase people with crap resources quit in frustration more often.

And heres the part everybody misses, Its a damn game, GAMES should be FUN!

Scrambling for trades all the time is not fun, I got stable trades on day one, I've had them for over 100 days now, and I hope to have the same trading partners for another 100 days at least. If I never interact with the trade system again for another year I'll be happy about that.

But here's the trump card, Admin runs this game on donations, driving off players means less donations, Admin loses money. We need changes that make the game more fun, not less. So you go on about 'interesting' and 'realism' and keep over looking the fact that the player base of this game is used to, and still here becuase of, a system that doesn't require them to babysit it. Any nation over 2k infra probably isn't dealing with their nation other than paying bills, for 2 weeks or more at a time if not at war, back collection cycles mean you can ignore your nation for almost a month before it requires your input. CN's major distinction over the million and one browser games out there is you don't have to babysit the damn thing, a few minutes a week keep you competitive. People who want something that needs babysitting play AE.

I've played other browser games, ones where if you aren't online 8 hours or more a day you'll never be anywhere close to the top ranks, That stops being fun as soon as the novelty of the game mechanics wears off, I've stopped playing all those other games over time, but more than three years later here I am still on CN.

You want to move the game toward a system that requires more babysitting? Then yea players will start moving on, Because anybody who like me, enjoys the fact that it only takes minutes a week to stay competitive will look at this and see more needless complication, they will see another addition that penalized people who are either less active or less lucky than somebody else, and when it crosses the line from 'feature' to 'annoyance' people will start to quit.

Game mechanics driving politics...hmm kinda like how nukes or peace mode never drive politics in war, huh?

Congrats on picking one sentence out of a half dozen paragraphs, would you care to take a stab at the rest of the post, or just pretend cleverness by ignoring the majority of it?

Also, you missed the key word there, changes.

I think you are overstating the difficulty in finding trades - yea, you're not going to get all the trades you want if you just let people come to you. This is a alliance-based game though and you should have allies who are willing to help, if they aren't, maybe you need to reconsider your alliance choices. And yea, not everyone is going to get the best trade set out there because let's face it, there are a finite number of resources and the only thing that matters now is maximizing profits by increasing revenue, decreasing costs or both. You know what else is a lot of work? Finding stable tech-dealers. Just because something requires effort beyond simply clicking a button does not mean it's bad for the game, maybe just bad for you.

So....

What would half a uranium trade be?

Not all resources grant a nation a number based effect.

Simpler to do (read: Less code) -- would be set the happiness values of those trades, -1 for anarchy, -2 for nuclear anarchy.

And, based on my experience, it usually takes four days to a week for me to replace a lost trade. And I have cattle/water as my base resources.

Also, everything needs a counterpoint.

This is only creating 'bad' -- there is no 'good', no value to counterpoint the bad.

An example of 'counterpoint' -- events. You can have a 'good' event, or a 'bad' event.
That balance allows me to actually do things like paying bills with any regularity. Because if every event was -x happiness, -x income, -x environment, -x land, etc., it would only cause people to up and leave.

Perhaps adding a +1 happiness bonus for trades that exist >20 days, and the happiness effects I mentioned.

Besides, its simpler to change happiness in code than it would be to change resources. (Likely -- not having seen the code I wouldn't actually know.)

That analogy completely blows up when you realize that finding a tech deal is something that all nations can do with relative ease and finding ideal trades is something that is very easy for some nations and a royal pain for others. This idea adds tedium to the game without the slightest reason or concrete suggestion for improvement- obviously it is more realistic for the bonuses to be reduced, but we've gone down that road hundreds of times now in this forum on far too many topics. The level of run is more important than how "realistic" a feature is or is not.

I also am amused that this is being taken so seriously, given it's designed mostly to be a huge windfall/recruiting device for NPO.

Finding a stable trade circle, yea. Finding a trade partner is not that difficult. It's the same for tech dealers. You can easily find someone who says they'll sell you tech, but your not always guaranteed it will come to you every 10 days on the nose.

Personally imo I think removal of bonus resources could suffice. Bonuses reasources are useful enough to give someone a wakeup call, but don't deny you access to their resource itself or the trade team happiness bonus. It complies with the KISS method and while it can cause inconvience, it may make some people actually look to either help someone who constantly gets anarchied or find someone else putting another factor into the value equation beyond simply what's best for maximizing profits (although that will still be primary one). In some cases someone being anarchied may have zero effect if their resources don't give anyone a bonus resource.

Whether or not that is the case, all the debates here are free of CN poltiics and are debated solely on their potential merits (or lack thereof) in the game.

Says misses fish and uranium.

Some resources are easy to find trades with, some resources are a royal pain in the $@! to find trades with, surprise like all people who think trade searching isn't that bad, you have high end resources and are in a stable trade ring.



So you are talking about introducing a massive penalty into the resource system triggered by events entirely outside the control of the nations being screwed over by said penalty. I'd be out 4 happiness for my set, thats like taking a wonder away from somebody. Whats the up side? How do you game the system in your favour to make it worth the hassle? Or are we just playing "How to drive players away"?

I disagree.. this means you might risk players canceling their trades with you just because you've been at war and in anarchy for too long, which can be devastating because people will be very reluctant to initiate a gimped trade with you if you're in anarchy. I'd prefer if it was the other way around, if you were in anarchy your rioting citizens would intercept 1/3 the incoming trade convoys for personal use, reducing the benefits of all your trades by 33%.

I honestly don't know how you could make that analogy, and I frankly ignore how the discussion could continue over that with several walls of text (that I hadn't the time to read).
My point was about the amount of (additional) time one would have to spend on something as dull as looking for a new trade partner... yeah! Any political activity - and I don't even start to address how wild a fantasy is to imagine hundreds of CN players suddenly "growing a spine" to act over penalized resources - I was saying: any political activity couldn't change the fact that your partner is already in anarchy. And, I was saying: () the amount of additional time wasted in the "not so much" exciting activity of finding a trade partner would be frustrating.
Now, back to your analogy, how do you think one could waste time to try counter GRL? Spamming Admin? Trying to hack the game code? Rain Dancing?...
No, my friend, one just comes back later, or s/he just accepts it - fully knowing that it's a global event that affects everybody, anyway.
And there goes your analogy...
[/irony]



At the cost of being redundant: how much time is already wasted over the dull activity of replacing trade partners? ENOUGH!!

Myself with all the times i've changed colors or had somebody drop on me i think i've spent a total of 30-40 days searching for trades out of 900, and 90% of the people i've spammed in that time reply back to me that they're happy with the stable trade circle they are already in. One of the guys that used to be in my alliance said he wouldnt' change teams because he had silver and coal and didnt want to look for another trade circle because it would be difficult. He also said his existing trade circle had been going for 500+ days straight.

Yeah, it might be painful to find trades if you got crap resources but you know what, I don't care. If the naysayers are right about the fact that this wont change any political aspect of the game and all it will do is add a penalty then nothing with how people handle trades currently is going to change and all this suggestion will do is introduce a money sink. That in itself is enough reason to implement it, just to remove some of the excess money that is in this game.

But you know what, changes in game mechanics DO alter the political game, or do you still play the same way as when a nation had 6 war slots total instead of splitting them up to 3 offensive and 3 defensive. What about when the declaration ranges changed from 50%-200% to the current range? did that affect how anybody organized their battalions and how they made target lists? It is naive to think that a change that can cause significant impact on non involved nations will cause no changes in how people play the game.

I've noticed that every suggestion that causes a penelty or negitive consequence has naysayers jump in and say it will ruin the game, and cause people to leave the game. But this game needs things that make it harder, or the gameplay will stagnate and that will cause people to leave.


EDIT: and to answer you question about GRL, my comment on that was in regards to you saying it would be a penelty that nobody had any control over.

Gameplay was never the draw for this game, its a simplistic interface, on a straight forward mechanics, that cycles once a day. yea it has twists, but it can't stand without these forums.

The game play in CN is the politics, these forums. Your infra farm is not what keeps you here, the exciting part of the game is all on these forums, In fact the only reason I have a nation is becuase you can't take part on the forums without one, my Alliance duties and the politics here are what interest me.

Then why would you care about any suggestion? No matter what happens, the politics will still be king.

However to more directly address your point, many many many people have complained that there is nothing to do at the top once you have every wonder, so what happens? Admin keeps adding wonders. Just because the politics is what drives you (and me as well) doesn't mean that there aren't those that are driven by the gameplay itself. I'd be willing to be that everybody in the top 10 probably care quite a bit about gameplay, perhaps even over the politics.

Resources are like looks. The super model always gets to pick the cream of the crop, but the ugly chick with zits has to settle with whats out there, and the maimed deformed girl may even have to pay to get it. Thats life.

Now back to the suggestion itself.

Good things.
Will it change gameplay dynamics? Yes it will
Will it add a touch of realism? Yes it will
Will it change anything in the political game? Possibly

Bad things.
Will it make it harder for those with bad resources? Possibly
Will it make it harder for those with good resources? Possibly.

EDIT: and just FYI, i made a suggestion that is pending to hopefully address the bad resource problem for new nations since there seems to be such an uproar about bad resources. We'll see if it gets approved for discussion.

I agree with this suggestion. It would make it more realistic and make war more damaging

It would completely disincentivize intrasphere rivalry. That'd be an interesting impact.

As I covered before just becuase the infra farm is secondary to the politics doesn't mean its not there, BAD changes still have the power to drive players away, or discourage new ones.



Nothing to do at the top? While a concern is unrelated to messing with the trade system, unless you are suggesting that searching for trades will be what keeps people interested?



I've been on both ends, this is my second nation, it does indeed suck, and I am MUCH happier with better resources since I'm not looking for new trades every couple of days.



Oh goody relevant data, but it seems to be not quite accurate.



Debateable as good but lets run with em anyway



Not yes, possibly. I'm of the opinion that we'll see an acceptance not a change. I don't see this changing how the game is played beyond factoring in the extra penalties. You expect to see DoW's that amount to "Anarchying my trade partners is harming my alliance, knock it off." ? I don't. Trades are still hard enough to get, and annoying enough to mess with that people will always take them where they can get them.



Ahh the never ending fetish with realism. You know how often I hear these arguments in real life? Its amazing how many people think realism is better. Its not, in fact, as a game designer or Game Master if you have a choice between realism and playability, realism almost always loses. Realism for the sake of realism is not good, in fact its usually bad.



Possibly, I'll give you this one. Unlikely I think, but possible.



Not possibly, definately, nice try playing down the bad while palying up the good. Your tally was three good, two possibly bad.

Our new tally is;

One possible complication on the system with no positive benefits, Thats usually a 'bad'
One realism plug which we have to decide constitutes a positive change to the game or not, In line with above I'm going with another 'bad'
One possible political change. That actually has the possibility expanding the political aspects. We'll go with a "maybe good"
Two counts of resources getting harder to manage effectively, It really should only be one thogh, so one more 'bad'

By my count we are at three bads and a "might be good" Sounds pretty terrible to me.



If you aren't going to share why that might help us here, I'm not seeing how its relevant.

Surprisingly, I've got a stable set of trades for now--some in alliance, some out. Lead/Silver mix here. As far as penalties on trading with an anarchied nation, I'm not sure how well that'd work as a stimulus.

HOW would you get that sort of communication going? I've got about two or three alliances in my trade slots as it is, and you could potentially have five. Granted, there doesn't seem to be a lot of inter-Green warfare, but even during the Karma War some of my trades were on the 'other side'. How do you even figure out which ones to care for and which ones can go..er, can be ignored?

Seriously, I don't really see a benefit as far as driving politics. Realism isn't always a good thing (said while playing a game featuring a squirrel as protagonist).

And you know what, I had to work my but off as anyone in TOP at the time can attest to for almost 6 months in spite of said resources. Then after the war, I had to find another TC. My point is that it happens and having good resources is no guarantee to getting a TC for what you want.

The upside is balancing the trade system to not focus solely on economics, but have security issues in mind as at least a secondary level.

Uhh no we covered this already, complexity and realism for their own sake are not improvements to a game.

If there is a penalty for not working the system correctly there needs to be a bonus for working the system exceptionally, THATS balance.

This is not a high school project or a predictive model, its a game people play to have fun, making the game more annoying without any payoff is counter productive, we are not looking for realism, we are looking for enjoyability. A completely realistic game with zero players has failed, while an unrealistic game with many thousands of players is doing well.

If you want to add more complexity, more work, more effort, into a game we need to have a payoff for the player base a reward for the extra effort.

Take for example Astro Empires trade system.

A large empire could have upwards of 60 or so trade slots, I my self had 64 before I stopped playing. Now you can generate a lot of extra income through trades, the majority of your income by far if you did it right in fact. But it was hard.

You needed to trade with people long distances from you, and you wanted to have only one trade per unique player, finding 60 of those could be a full time job for a few days, and it was a potential security risk since you had to tell someone where you were to get the trades.

Conversely if you did not want to expend that effort, you could trade with your self, but there were downsides, trading with yourself used up 2 trade slots per trade instead of one, and people tend to have their empire in a clump, so its easy for your other planets to provide support in the event of an attack. So the distance on the trade routes was typically low, this lowered the value.

If you took the easy way out and traded with yourself you lost half (or more) of your potential trading income, or you could place effort into acquiring outside trades and gain much more. This is what we are looking for, the incentive to justify the extra work.

No you're basis is completely faulty. Your assuming that balance can be thrown out the window and that is especially not true in an MMO. This does balance things somewhat. Yes, everyone all around will have to consider their trade partners more carefully, but those with better resources will not be as advantaged as they are now. You ideas do not hold water beyond theoretical constructs.

There have been other ways to balance the system and those have been shot down as to complicated or requiring too much coding. Denying bonus resources for another trade partner who is in anarchy (but still giving you access to their base resource) is neither complicated nor requires should it require that much new coding.

It is a balance because right now the only thing that matters is economics - nothing else. Thus someone with rubber/lead will always get the short end of the stick. By adding another factor, security, you do complicate the system, but you also give a new dynamic people must think about.
That's all good, but those principals cannot apply here. You can't set up multiple trades with yourself (unless your sockpuppeting).

"Screwing everybody" does not count as game balance, we are not balancing a PvP fight here, we talking about how game mechanics function, which brings me back to the orignal point, if there is more work involved in playing this game there needs to be a pay off for that effort.



"Other ideas won't be implemented" Is not an argument in favour of what you are proposing, it is only an argument against the already discarded ideas, you are just running in logical circles now.



Weather or not the base resources are balanced is an entirely different topic, one thats been going on for at least 3 years, lets not get into that here, its not the issue.



I feel like a broken record, did you miss the part where I explained why complexity for its own sake is a bad idea? Or was it the part where I explained why you need to balance a penalty for not using the system optimally with a bonus for using the system exceptionally?



Thats all well and good that you failed to read for context, I was not suggesting you trade with your self, i was illustrating an obvious example of the more effort/bigger bonus less effort/smaller bonus balance that needs to be maintained that your suggestion, and replies are consistently ignoring.

Let me draw you another picture. its slightly less effective since the payoffs are closer to parity than my AE one, but perhaps something from CN will be more understandable.

I need to locate me some trades, I can grab 5 trades with whoever, grabbing whatever, and still have some bonuses, but If I spend the time and effort to get my self into a type a trade ring, I get better bonuses, and more bonuses than if I had not spent the effort.

This is the effort payoff balance I'm talking about, if you take the easy way out on your trades, you accept less profitable bonuses, if you apply more effort, more work at a task thats not really fun to most of us, you get better trades, and more profitable bonuses.

The last thing this game needs is a more tedious and frustrating trade system. It's also wrong to add new penalties to a running game; it's the surest way to lose players. If you're going to change things in a running game, the right way to do it is to add new rewards. Adding a happiness bonus for having the same government type as a trade partner, for example, would be a good way to promote trades between nations with the same government type. Adding a happiness penalty for not having the same government type as a trade partner, on the other hand, would be a bad way to promote such trades. Likewise, adding a penalty for trading with an anarchied nation would be a bad way to promote security considerations in trading, while adding a bonus for trading with a non-anarchied nation would be a good way to promote the same.