Jump to content
  • entries
    7
  • comments
    50
  • views
    20,945

Trade Circles

MrCyber

Entry posted by MrCyber

7,050 views

 Share

Welcome to my first economics article. As promised in my welcome post of my blog I will be covering all kinds of economics topics in my blog. Today's topic will be Trade Circles.

What is a Trade Circle?

A trade circle is basically an agreement between 6 players (you + 5 others) to share each others resources with the other participants in the trade circle to allow everybody to profit from the combined strength of the resources. Trade circles are always setup in such a way that the combined resources of the participants give access to one or more bonus resources.

Take a look at the following setup for a trade circle as an example:

As you can see there are a total of 12 resources (2 resources/participant, 6 participants) and they are combined in such a way that they give access to a total of 8 bonus resources. In the statistics below the pictures you can see what the total combination of resources give your nation as far as discounts, happiness increase, population increase, etc.

This particular trade circle is one of the best trade circles for a beginning nation to be part off since it accomplishes several things for a new nation:

  • It gives big discounts on infrastructure purchases and infrastructure upkeep costs
  • It gives discount on technology, so you can make more profits from tech deals (tech deals will be explained in a future blog posting)
  • It also gives a decent population increase and population happiness increase.

Why should I be in a trade circle?

Being in a (good) trade circle is the most important thing for your nation to do as it will significantly increase the growth of your nation. If you are not in a good trade circle, immediately correct this and set one up for your nation. Without it you will have a significant disadvantage compared to players that are in a trade circle.

How do you setup a trade circle?

Setting up a trade circle is in principle very simple, but in practice it turns out to be a little bit of a challenge. I found that the following process is very successful in getting a trade circle established. I've used this process for my own trade circle(s) several times and I also used to to setup trade circles for other people.

  1. Select one of the standard trade circles.
    Make sure that your own resources are both in this trade circle, preferably as mandatory resources (the ones with a red dotted line around them)
  2. Split the remaining 10 resources in groups of 2.
    Avoid hard to find combinations of resources such as lumber/iron, marble/aluminum, etc.
  3. Run queries in Cyber Nations to look at how many people in your color sphere have the resource combinations you created in the previous step.
    You can run those by putting something like "aqua wheat wine" in the search field at the bottom of your nation. It will then return all aqua nations with wheat and wine as a resource.
  4. From these lists of nations, find the ones that have 1 or more open trade slots.
    Also check all nations that have full trade slots to see if they have good trades (2 or more bonus resources). A lot of people have full trade slots, but their trades don't give any bonus resources, or less bonus resources then the one you're creating. They might want to switch to your trade circle.
  5. Send these nations a message something like:
    Hi,
    I'm currently working on creating a trade circle that will have the following bonus resources:
    - <Bonus resource 1>
    - <Bonus resource 2>
    - <etc>
    To complete this trade circle I need someone with your combination of resources. If you are interested in joining this trade circle, please send me a trade request. I will then send you a message with the names of the other participants in this circle.
    I'm sending this message to all people with your resource combination on the <color> sphere. The first person to send me a trade request will get the spot in the trade circle.
    Best regards,
    <your name>
    This message is worded this way to accomplish the following:
    • Inform the potential trade partners what the bonus resources of the circle will be.
    • Telling them that they are the only ones left to complete the circle (this may or may not be true, but since all of them will think it, it will speed up the creation of the trade circle significantly).
    • Letting them know that they are not the only one that is considered for a spot in the circle.
    • Tells them that if they want in, they need to act quickly and send you a trade request to secure their spot in the circle.

[*] You now just wait for people to send you trade requests to complete the circle.

In my experience it takes 3-4 days to complete one.

What are the standard trade circles?

The standard trade circles are listed below. Keep in mind that the resources that have a red dotted square around them are needed to get access to one of the bonus resources in the circle. The resources without the dotted lines are so called fillers and can be exchanged for any other resource. The fillers that are shown are considered the best filler.

  1. Beer / Construction / Fast Food


    This is widely considered the best trade circle. It provides:

    • Big infra purchase discount
    • Big infra upkeep discount
    • Big tax improvements

If you have 2 resources that fit in this circle, always go for this circle.

[*]Asphalt / Automobiles / Beer / Construction / Steel

This is a very balanced trade set and provides:

  • Maximum infra purchase discount
  • Maximum infra upkeep discount
  • Moderate tax improvements

[*]Asphalt / Automobiles / Beer / Construction / Microchips / Radiation Cleanup / Scholars / Steel

This is a great circle for a small nation to do tech deals with. It provides:

  • Maximum infra purchase discount
  • Maximum infra upkeep discount
  • Discount on technology
  • Moderate tax improvements

[*]Affluent Population / Fast Food / Fine Jewelry

This is the best circle for tax collections. It provides:

  • Highest tax improvements
  • Very low infrastructure upkeep discount
  • Very low infrastructure purchase cost discounts

You really only want to use this circle to collect taxes with.

[*]Affluent Population / Construction / Fine Jewelry / Steel

This is a fairly balanced circle. It provides:

  • Big infrastructure purchase discount
  • Big infrastructure upkeep discount
  • High tax improvements

[*]Asphalt / Automobiles / Construction / Fine Jewelry / Microchips / Radiation Cleanup / Scholars / Steel

This is another good circle for nations that tech deal. This circle provides:

  • Maximum infrastructure purchase discount
  • Maximum infrastructure upkeep discount
  • Discount on technology
  • Moderate tax improvements

[*]Asphalt / Automobiles / Construction / Fast Food / Steel

This set is great for someone that has 1 construction/asphalt resource and 1 Fast Food resource. It provides:

  • Maximum infrastructure purchase discount
  • Maximum infrastructure upkeep discount
  • Moderate tax improvements

I hope you have enjoyed this blog entry. If you have any questions, please post them as a comment and I will answer them as soon as possible. If any information is missing, please post this as well and I will update the blog posting accordingly.

 Share

8 Comments

Recommended Comments

MrCyber
Why did you make this public? :mad:

GJ MrC.

because it's common knowledge anyway + it should stimulate people wanting to participate in trade circles, which is good for all of us.

Link to comment
MrCyber
If you're trade swapping, then circle #4 (which is sometimes used by swappers for collecting) probably wants wheat instead of uranium to boost pop and therefore collections.

Yes, wheat would be a better choice for collections. The reason I put uranium in there is that most people who use #4 are large® nations who normally want uranium available to be able to buy nukes.

Link to comment
Haflinger

Well, if you already have the 20 or 25 nukes, AND YOU'RE TRADE-SWAPPING, heh, you only need the uranium there for bills.

However, this article isn't on trade-swapping. Perhaps a later article will talk about it. :)

Link to comment
MrCyber
Well, if you already have the 20 or 25 nukes, AND YOU'RE TRADE-SWAPPING, heh, you only need the uranium there for bills.

However, this article isn't on trade-swapping. Perhaps a later article will talk about it. :)

Yep it's in the plan to cover that

Link to comment
Guest
Add a comment...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
×
  • Create New...