Exhaustive Resource Guide
by +Zeke+» Fri Jun 01, 2007 2:45 am
EXHAUSTIVE RESOURCE GUIDE Prologue
Good resource trading is the single most important thing you can do for your nation. It is also one of the tedious, aggravating, and complicated tasks in the game. Yet if you do not take the time to eventually digest all of this then your CN career will be rather stunted. This guide is prefaced as exhaustive. It was exhaustive to make. It is very exhaustive in facts, theory, and tactics. It will leave you exhausted even after several trips through it.
But you still need to absorb it to succeed in this game.
Let's start out with the very basic known facts about CN resources. Basic Resources: Aluminum - Increases soldier efficiency +20%, lowers initial infrastructure cost -7%, and lowers initial cost of aircraft -8%. Cattle - Increases number of citizens +5% and lowers initial land cost -10%. Coal - Increases the purchased land area of a nation by 15%, increases soldier efficiency +8%, and decreases infrastructure purchase cost -4%. Fish - Increases number of citizens +8% and lowers initial land cost -5%. Furs - Increases citizen's daily income +$3.50 and triples the natural growth of a nation. Gold - Increases citizen's daily income +$3.00 and lowers technology cost by 5%. Gems - Increases citizen's daily income +$1.50 and increases population happiness +2.5. Iron - Lowers initial soldier cost -$3.00, lowers infrastructure upkeep costs -10%, lowers initial infrastructure costs -5%, lowers tank cost and upkeep costs -5%. Lead - Lowers cruise missile and nuclear weapon purchase cost and upkeep cost -20%, lowers aircraft upkeep cost -25%, lowers tank purchase and upkeep costs -8%, lowers soldier upkeep cost -$0.50, reduces environment penalties for owning nuclear weapons by 50%, and lowers all navy vessel upkeep cost -20%. Lumber - Lowers initial infrastructure cost -6% and lowers infrastructure upkeep costs -8%. Marble - Lower initial infrastructure cost -10%. Oil - Lowers soldier purchase cost -$3.00, increases population happiness +1.5, increases soldier efficiency +10%, lowers tank upkeep cost -5%, lowers aircraft purchase cost -4%, and lowers all navy vessel upkeep cost -10%. Pigs - Lowers soldier upkeep cost -$0.50, increases solder efficiency +15%, and increases population +3.5%. Rubber - Increases purchased land area of a nation by 20%, lowers initial land cost -10%, triples the value of land when selling (from $100 to $300), decreases infrastructure purchase cost -3%, and lowers initial cost of aircraft -4%. Silver - Increases citizen's daily income +$2.00 and increases population happiness +2. Spices - Increases the purchased land area of a nation by 8% and increases population happiness +2. Sugar - Increases number of citizens +3%, and increases population happiness +1. Uranium - Reduces infrastructure upkeep cost -3%. Allow nations to develop nuclear weapons only if that nations government preference supports nuclear weapons. If a nations government preference favors nuclear technology for the use of nuclear power plants but does not support nuclear weapons then the nation will receive +$3.00 per citizen and +$0.15 for every level of tech purchased up to level 30 but loses -1 population happiness. If a nation owns nuclear weapons but does not have uranium the cost to maintain nukes is doubled. Lowers Submarine and Aircraft Carrier navy vessel purchase and upkeep cost -5%. Water - Increases number of citizens per mile before population unhappiness by 50, increases population happiness +2.5, and improves a nations environment by 1 point. Wheat - Increases number of citizens +8%. Wine - Increases population happiness +3. Bonus Resources Affluent Population - Increases population +5%. Requires Fine Jewelry, Fish, Furs, and Wine. Asphalt - Decreases infrastructure upkeep cost -5%. Requires Construction, Oil, and Rubber. Automobiles - Increases population happiness +3. Requires Asphalt and Steel. Beer - Increases population happiness + 2. Requires Water, Wheat, Lumber, and Aluminum. Construction - Reduces infrastructure cost -5% and raises the aircraft limit +10. Requires Lumber, Iron, Marble, Aluminum, and a technology level greater than 5. Fast Food - Increases population happiness + 2. Requires Cattle, Sugar, Spices, and Pigs. Fine Jewelry - Increases population happiness + 3. Requires Gold, Silver, Gems, and Coal. Microchips - Reduces technology cost -8%, increases population happiness +2. Requires Gold, Lead, Oil, and a technology level greater than 10. Lowers Frigate, Destroyer, Submarine and Aircraft Carrier navy vessel purchase and upkeep cost -10%. Radiation Cleanup - Reduces nuclear anarchy effects by 1 day. Improves a nations environment by 1. Reduces global radiation for your nation by 50%. Requires Construction, Microchips, Steel, and a technology level greater than 15. Scholars - Increases population income +$3.00. Requires a literacy rate greater than 90%, Lumber, and Lead. Steel - Reduces infrastructure cost -2%. Lowers all navy vessel purchase cost -15%. Requires Coal and Iron. Moon/Mars wonders' resources Basalt - Mined from Martian surface. +3 happiness if nation has Automobiles, –5% infra upkeep if nation has Asphalt, –5% infra purchase cost if nation has Construction. Calcium - Mined from Lunar surface. Increases population income by $3.00 for the resources Rubber, Furs, Spices & Wine that your nation has access to. Magnesium - Mined from Martian surface. +4 happiness if nation has Microchips, –4% infra upkeep if nation has Steel. Potassium - Mined from Martian surface. +3 happiness if nation has Fine Jewelry, +$3 citizen income if nation has Scholars, +$3 citizen income if nation has Affluent Population. Radon - Mined from Lunar surface. Increases population income by $3.00 for the resources Lead, Gold, Water & Uranium that your nation has access to. Silicon - Mined from Lunar surface. Increases population income by $3.00 for the resources Rubber, Furs, Gems & Silver that your nation has access to. Sodium - Mined from Martian surface. +2 happiness if nation has Fast Food, +2 happiness if nation has Beer, Decreases GRL by an additional 50% (75% total) if you have Radiation Cleanup. Titanium - Mined from Lunar surface. Increases population income by $3.00 for the resources Gold, Lead, Coal & Oil that your nation has access to. Discrete Resource Commentary Basic Resources Aluminum - Great, it gives 7% infra cost reduction and is needed for Construction and Beer. Coal - Average, some like it because it's part of Steel , Automobiles and Fine Jewelry. Fish - Great. Should be included in any trade build. Furs - Poor, but part of the Affluent Population build. Gold - Poor, but it's good for tech dealers, part of Microchips and Fine Jewelry. Gems - Great, best income booster. Iron - Great, part of Steel and Construction. Lead - Poor. But is useful in industrial trade sets Lumber - Great. Useful to everyone, part of Beer, Construction and Scholars. Oil - Average. It gets you Asphalt and Microchips Pigs - Average. It's a pop booster, and it's part of Fast Food. Rubber - Poor. Not a very good resource if you don't have Oil and Construction. Then it becomes average. Silver - Great. Solid income booster, needed to get Fine Jewelry. Spices - Poor on it's own, but decent in a Fast Food set. Sugar - Great, try to get Fast Food with it. Uranium - Good. But a tough one to keep trades with, however. Needed for nukes and has a very nice income with peaceful use setting. Water - Great but not necessary, Beer is the deciding factor to get it. Wheat - Great. Try to get Beer with it. Wine - Great income booster, needed for Affluent Population. Bonus Resources: Affluent Population - Good bonus if you commit completely to a Luxury trade package. Asphalt - Decent, but a great way to get Automobiles. Automobiles - Gets you a nice happiness boost if you are going for an Industrial trade package. Beer - Terrific bonus with great base resources. Construction - Best bonus resource in the game. Fast Food - With its base resources it is a powerful population booster. Fine Jewelry - Good income booster. Microchips - Only good for tech dealers. Radiation Cleanup - Don't build to get it. But if you are carrying Gold and Lead then it's nice for nuke battles. Scholars - If you are stuck with native Lead then Lumber never hurt a nation. Steel - Fair, but Coal and Iron are decent resources. Primary Trade Blocs
To get the best resource set a player needs to look at his base pair and determine which trade set would best fit his native pair and also find trade partners interested in trading similar resources. The latter is usually determined by which Primary Trade Blocs his native pair is closest to. There are three Primary Trade Blocs in the game: Industrial; Growth; Luxury. Industrial - The group of resources that provide the Steel, Cars, Construction, and Asphalt bonus resources. A player needs Aluminum, Coal, Iron, Lumber, Marble, Oil, and Rubber to obtain this base set. Growth - The group of resources that provide the Fast Food, Construction, and Beer bonus resources. A player needs Aluminum, Cattle, Iron, Lumber, Marble, Pigs, Spices, Sugar, Water, & Wheat to obtain this base set. Luxury - The group of resources that provide the Fine Jewelry and Affluent Population bonus resources. A player needs Coal, Fish, Furs, Gems, Gold, Silver, and Wine to obtain this base set. Resource Discussion
Taken individually, some of the resources and bonuses can be either good or bad, but it is your collective set that really counts. Take the much hated lead resource. Even the bonus resources that need it are not the best you can get. Yet having lead, microchips, radiation cleanup, and scholars together never slowed down any nation from growing. Combined they offer an average income increase of $9 per citizen (happiness, straight income, and environment), saves you some money buying tech, and really helps you fight strong battles. Given that all the other resources that you needed to get the bonuses that are lead based are strong in themselves, the lead properly surrounded with these other strong resources turns out to be a reasonably useful resource.
The point of that example was that you need to work with your native set of resources and add the correct complimentary ones to arrive at a strong composite. You should see all the potential bonus resources your native set of two are a part of and see which other resources are needed to get those combos. You will likely find you will need another half dozen added to your original two to get those bonus resources. At this point you will have room for several more resources. You will also need to factor in your additional trade slot that you obtain when you get a harbor as well. With these few remaining slots, you should see if there are any more decent bonus resources immediately available to compliment your first batch with a minor addition of a couple more resources. Should you get to the point where no more quality bonus resources are in reach with your initial set then you should fill any remaining trade slots with quality basic resources. When you are new to the game, you should enlist the help of several players with more experience to show you several potential strong combinations based on your native set of two. Always get help with your trade plans if you are inexperienced!
Now that we've discussed the basic theory of picking a resource set we shall show you some well proven combos that have proven themselves to be beneficial. Popular Resource Combinations
Note that these sets are based on having the extra trade slot a harbor provides. Also note that popular doesn't necessarily mean good. Read the descriptions carefully first. There is a list of good combinations following these first popular ones. The Magic Eight - (Aluminum, Coal, Gold, Iron, Lead, Lumber, Marble, Oil, Rubber, Water, & Wheat) (Industrial) - Bonuses: Steel, Construction, Asphalt, Automobiles, Radiation Clean-up, Microchips, Beer, Scholars --- So called because you will eventually get 8 bonus resources, albeit the Scholars takes a very long time. It is proclaimed as the best by some and vilified by others who love to optimize certain aspects of their nation. In reality it is merely a very strong and very well rounded set that helps nations all along their growth path from new to ancient. Other sets may perform certain aspects better (income, cost savings, population growth, or military), but this set covers all of those aspects quite well. You will note that the set only contains 11 out of a potential 12 to get all the bonus resources. You should consider this last slot as breathing space to help obtain the others. However, that last resource still should be one of the better unused resources. Always try to have 12 good resources! Personally, I'd recommend fish be uranium. The Golden Eight - (Aluminum, Coal, Gems, Gold, Iron, Lead, Lumber, Marble, Oil, Rubber, & Silver) (Industrial) - Bonuses: Steel, Construction, Asphalt, Automobiles, Radiation Clean-up, Microchips, Fine Jewelry, Scholars --- A variant on the Magic 8 combo that replaces Beer for Fine Jewelry. A resource combo that pays some nice income and still has all of the "industrial" benefits of its cousin. Again this combo has one free slot. Better choices are population boosters like cattle, fish, pigs, or wheat. You could also get water as well, but is less valuable in this particular trade set. However, if you forgo water then be scrupulous about keeping your population density below 50 to avoid serious ill effects with your nation. Land of Plenty - (Cattle, Coal, Fish, Furs, Gems, Gold, Pigs, Silver, Spices, Sugar, Water, & Wine) (Luxury) - Bonuses: Fine Jewelry, Fast Food, Affluent Population --- The goal of this combination is simple. Increase cash flow by boosting happiness or income directly. It also is a great population and a decent land booster as well. But it comes with a negative aspect. It offers almost no military benefits and nothing in the way of reducing infrastructure costs. For nations looking to be alliance banks this is a solid choice. At high levels this makes a poor combo for aggressive Infra buying. But for nations who wish to ease off the Infra at higher levels this combo will always fill your coffers. Clone Factory - (Aluminum, Cattle, Coal, Fish, Iron, Lumber, Marble, Oil, Rubber, Sugar, Water, & Wheat) (Industrial) - Bonuses: Steel, Construction, Asphalt, Automobiles, Beer --- The goal of this combination is simple, it reduces your infrastructure costs and boosts population aggressively. At levels over 3000, infra becomes very costly to buy and maintain. At levels over 4000 and 5000 they become downright insane. Larger nations looking to really boost Infra and population will find this combo a great way to boost that population count. The Optimizer - (Aluminum, Cattle, Fish, Gems, Iron, Lumber, Marble, Pigs, Spices, Sugar, Water, & Wheat) (Growth) - Bonuses: Construction, Fast Food, Beer --- A very strong combo loved by math addicts everywhere. It's another well rounded set that focuses on the base resources instead of bonus resources. It balances population, income, and infra reduction quite well. Super 3 - (Aluminum, Cattle, Iron, Lumber, Marble, Pigs, Spices, Sugar, Water, & Wheat) (Growth) - Bonuses: Beer, Fast Food, & Construction --- The basic trade set that gives the Growth Trade Bloc. It has 3 terrific bonus resources. Needing only 10 resources to complete, it is a great combination for those nations with one or two poor native resources. If you have one of the resources already on this list as native then adding Coal would be a great addition to get you the Steel bonus as well. Any leftover slots should be spent on premium resources providing your native resources don't take the last two slots. The Warlord - (Aluminum, Coal, Gold, Iron, Lead, Lumber, Marble, Oil, Pigs, Rubber, & Uranium) (Industrial) - Bonuses: Steel, Construction, Asphalt, Automobiles, Radiation Clean-up, Microchips, Scholars --- Contains all the resources and bonuses known to boost military capability in your nation. A decent set that also reduces Infra costs quite well. It provides modest population and income bonuses too. This set only has 11 resources. Thus a nation can add a nice income or population boosting resource to the mix. Atlantis - (Coal, Fish, Furs, Gems, Gold, Iron, Lead, Lumber, Oil, Silver, Wine) (Luxury) - Bonuses: Steel, Fine Jewelry, Affluent Population, Microchips, Scholars --- High Income, good population, fair Infra discounts and cheap technology. A fine way to utilize a lot of less popular resources and still get a great trade set. This set has an open 12th slot best used on a quality resource that either boosts population or discounts Infra. Look or Wheat or Marble to really make this set shine. Other Known Good Combinations:
Aluminum, Coal, Fish, Furs, Gems, Gold, Iron, Lumber, Silver, Water, Wheat, Wine
(Steel, Fine Jewelry, Affluent Population, Beer)
Aluminum, Coal, Fish, Furs, Gems, Gold, Iron, Lumber, Marble, Silver, (Water or Wheat), Wine
(Steel, Fine Jewelry, Affluent Population, Construction)
Aluminum, Coal, Gems, Gold, Iron, Lead, Lumber, Marble, Oil, Silver, Water, Wheat
(Beer, Fine Jewelry, Scholars, Construction, Microchips, Radiation Cleanup)
Aluminum, Coal, Fish, Furs, Gems, Gold, Iron, Lead, Lumber, Marble, Silver, Wine
(Steel, Fine Jewelry, Affluent Population, Construction, Scholars)
Aluminum, Coal, Fish, Gems, Gold, Iron, Lumber, Marble, Silver, Water, Wheat, Wine
(Steel, Fine Jewelry, Construction, Beer)
Aluminum, Coal, Gems, Gold, Iron, Lead, Lumber, Marble, Oil, Rubber, Silver, Wheat
(Steel, Construction, Asphalt, Automobiles, Fine Jewelry, Radiation Clean-up, Microchips, Scholars)
Aluminum, Cattle, Coal, Fish, Gems, Iron, Lumber, Marble, Oil, Rubber, Water, Wheat
(Steel, Construction, Asphalt, Automobiles, Beer)
Aluminum, Cattle, Fish, Iron, Gems, Lumber, Marble, Pigs, Spices, Sugar, Water, Wheat
(Construction, Beer, Fast Food) + Gems
Aluminum, Cattle, Fish, Iron, Lumber, Marble, Pigs, Spices, Sugar, Uranium, Water, Wheat
(Construction, Beer, Fast Food) + Uranium
Cattle, Coal, Fish, Gems, Gold, Iron, Pigs, Silver, Spices, Sugar, Water, Wheat
(Steel, Fine Jewelry, Fast Food)
Cattle, Fish, Gems, Gold, Furs, Pigs, Silver, Spices, Sugar, Water, Wheat, Wine
(Fast Food)
Aluminum, Coal, Gems, Gold, Iron, Lumber, Marble, Oil, Rubber, Silver, Water, Wheat
(Steel, Fine Jewelry, Automobiles, Beer, Construction, Asphalt)
In the end, you have to work with the native set you are given. Getting Uranium as a native resource may be hard on your nation's growth as many players only want it for a short period of time to buy nukes. You need to work difficult resources to your advantage somehow. In the case of the hapless Uranium owner, he should capitalize on the fact that big rich nations need his resources for a set period. Perhaps making a point to have one trade slot less committed and offer its use for a sizable fee to these rich nations. Then he can use this windfall to boost his nation a bit and perhaps bribe a smaller nation to commit to a long term trade. He could also become a dedicated warrior nation for an alliance with the understanding they will give him boosting money periodically if he holds "The Warlord" trade set for long periods of time. Or he could take another tack and try to use the "Magic Eight" trade set with Uranium replacing the Fish. He will just need to accept that he needs to be more vigilant about replacing lost trades and be prepared to bribe smaller nations for a set trading time. In all cases, the player needs to work with his native set to his best advantage.
There are also game calculators to help you decide if you wish to examine a potential trade combination:
Resource Bonus Calculators Redacted as these have been allowed to expire on the web Getting Trades
Seems hard? Trust me, everything before this point was the easy part! Getting trades, especially the right ones can be very frustrating and time consuming work. You can easily spend several hours a day for a week simply trying to work the proper trade candidates. You need to be prepared to commit to this type of effort if you want your nation to grow large, fast, and strong. Less than serious effort dooms you to the lower caste of CN.
So how do you get these trades?
Once you settle on a trade strategy, you need to go to the bottom of your nation page. You will see the all-purpose nation finder. You will use the drop down menu in the first block, called Search, and choose the Team + Resources option. In the block to the right you will type your team color, a space, one desired resource, a space, and the second desired resource (ie: purple oil gold). You can also enter a single resource as well.
Then you will be given a list of nations that fit your criteria to trade with. The order of the nations listed is in the order of recent nation activity. Since active nations are your best bet, the top of the list should be the best to trade with in terms of likely being around. If you only entered one resource then you can also look at the collective groups to see which trade combos are most common. The game has a nasty habit of grouping certain resources together. It is supposed to be purely random, but that is never the case. You also have the additional factor of time involved. Many nations have dropped out of the game and the survivors have thrown off the random balance even further. You might need Coal, Iron, Wheat, and Water. You might discover that Coal and Iron together is rare, but Coal and Water is not. So you might try to get these resources by hunting for one nation with Coal and Water and then getting the next trade with Iron and Wheat. Learning the combo frequency will help make your task a bit easier.
Now that you have some target nations, you need to select one that is most likely to trade with you. New players are the easiest to get because they tend to have more open trade slots. However, these nations are more prone to not know how to trade with you and they may be short term players, thus sending you back to the trade boards again very soon to replace their lost trade. Older nations are better trade partners. But they are less likely to trade as they already have been working to get their own trade plans finalized. Compounding the problem is the inactivity factor I mentioned earlier. Some players only drop by every couple of days to play. This forces you to wait on them to accept or reject a trade offer. Finally, you have the issue of alliances. Some alliances are not friendly with others and refuse trade offers. Check with your alliance leaders to learn which alliances are more prone to be hospitable to you.
What you see in the above paragraph is an exercise in difficult fuzzy logic. You have several sliding scales to deal with at the same time. It only gets harder when you close out more of your trades and have fewer resource target options. This is why you need to be prepared for a lengthy trade hunt.
Yes, trading is a pain. Admin made it that way on purpose.
But it helps to be a better trader too. The key is to "sell" your trade. Look at the nation with the desired trade set and see if your resources would be better for their nation. Obviously, the better you know the resources and how they interact then the easier this becomes. You should even be willing to examine those nations with full trade sets. They might have a lousy one or have duplicate resources. Since trading and resource knowledge is hard, you use that to your advantage. Many players out there don't have a clue on how to get the best trade sets. So you help them. Find those people with lousy trade sets and show them how your trade makes them better. Of course, sometimes everything is just too tight on the trade market to find those people with bad trade sets that your resources can actually help. Then you REALLY need to pitch them to simply switch from their old bad set to yours that also isn't the optimum either. That's when you emphasize the negative of what they have and the positives of yours. When all else fails then you can use bribes to seal the deal. I don't try to use them as the prime reason to trade. In the long run you want them to want your trade all on its own. The bribe simply clears out any lingering doubt.
There is an Advanced Trade Finder program at CN if you have trouble with the basic nation search function. It allows you to break down the components a bit better. Go to your World Statistics link near the bottom on the left of your nation page to find it on the list given. But if you understand how to use the basic nation search function properly then you can get the same results without having to run through several links first. Try both and use the one that works better for you.
Advanced Trade Finder: http://www.cybernations.net/search_advanced_trades.asp
You may find that you simply have no perfect nation to trade with for a given resource set. When this happens you may need to simply pm several marginal candidates and attempt to negotiate a trade with them. I'll cover that aspect farther down in this guide. Send the real trade offer to the most likely candidate, follow it with a pm to encourage them to accept it, and then message several others as alternates and see who bites first.
Expect to need time and persistence too. Short of alliance war, nothing will consume more time on your nation than resource trading. I generally advise a player to take an off day and spend it on all the stuff I mentioned above so you can gather a wealth of data. Sure, try to lock down some trades as well then, but it's the data you want so you can spend your limited time in the following days focused on higher probability options. Be sure to visit your nation as many times a day as you can during your trade hunt. Global times zones play havoc with communication. You need to be around often enough to respond with alacrity.
You should look at alternate pairs if you get stuck hunting down hard to find resource pairs.
Say for example you currently need resources X and Y, but can't get it. So you mentally dump trade with resources A and B. So then you look for frequency of X/A; X/B; Y/A; Y/B. You do this on paper first before dumping the trades. Then if those combos don't look great then you switch to dumping D/E and go hunting for X/D; X/E; Y/D; Y/E. This shifting of resource pairs expands the number of permutations available to hunt for.
That's a frequent problem I see in many traders. When they get down to the last few pairs they start thinking linearly instead of the various permutations. Sometimes you even need to back up and examine the trades you have already locked down as well. The key is looking for pairs with higher frequency. Shuffle the cards around so that you find a lot of frequency for each combo. Secret and Off-Color Trades
Sometimes you simply cannot get your trades on your color team. Resist strongly going outside your color team for a trade as you lose the +1 happiness team bonus for each trade when you do. Getting 5 trades all on your color team means a solid +5 to your happiness rating and results in a sizable income boost. Only in the last resort should you look outside your color team. If you are forced to then first scan the no-color (gray) team for available trading partners. Perhaps you can even convince them to join your team color, and maybe even your alliance if you make an irresistible offer. Trade time is a great excuse to sneak in a bit of recruiting for unaligned players. If the gray color search is fruitless then move onto the other colors to find the trade.
Another reason to get trades off color is to avoid sanctioning should you be a current target for a color dominating alliance. Or you might be getting trade partners lined up because you are considering switching team colors.
You also have the option of secret trades. These trades are immune to sanctions from powerful team senators, but you suffer the loss of your +1 bonus if you accept this option. This rarely comes into play for the average player. Only famous (infamous as well) players tend to deal with this issue. It is a "last resort" option done in the face of strong antagonist alliance opposition. Avoid using this tactic until you are an advanced skill player. Negotiating Trades
Sometimes players don't wish to trade with you simply because you asked. They may be happy with their current set of trades. You may need to examine their current trades and see if yours might be a better choice based on nation bonuses for them. Knowing the resource game will give you an edge here as they might not have put the same effort in as you have. A well prepared note outlining how your trade is superior to some of theirs may be what it takes to convince them. You are working the greed factor here. Everyone wants their nation to be better, even if they don't wish to put the time into it like you have. Show them you are hand delivering all that hard work to their doorstep.
That extra information can also convince some lesser skilled players to realize you have something more to offer than just a simple trade. Tell them you would be happy to point out a better resource set for them to pursue. Newer players are generally happy to get free instruction handed to them. Many players would like to be better, but felt uncomfortable asking someone. Again this is yet another opportunity while trading to conduct a bit of recruiting. Closing out your trade plans and getting a new alliance recruit is quite the feather in your cap for all that hard work.
I mentioned greed as the motivator in the earlier paragraph. Sometimes you simply have to convince a potential trading partner to agree by offering cold hard cash. This game is filled with mercenary types. They want something from you because they know you need what they have. But unless you are a rich and older nation, don't go throwing ludicrous sums at them. Offer money, but don't specify the amount. Simply ask them how much and how long that buys loyalty. A couple days of your income is usually a fair offer. Note that I said your income and not theirs. It's really the only fair way in a bribe situation. A large nation has the potential to simply wow a younger nation with the right sum. Many an older nation has even paid enough to buy the young nation a harbor. But if that is not your income bracket then don't agree to it. The purpose of trading resources is to grow. Becoming deeply indebted to a nation for a resource trade is a ripe chance for abuse. Don't let them put you into a debt situation. Trade Circles
The finest kind of trading scheme is the Trade Circle. These are VERY HARD to get, but still worth pursuing. Usually done inside an alliance, 6 members with no common resources that add up to a very good resource set (like those listed above) combined agree to drop all their outside trades and become a complete interlocking trade set. Due to the alliance loyalty factor, a complete trade circle is an excellent way to ensure the trades will stay intact for a very long time. Strong and dependable growth is assured for all the members in this group.
Expect this to take time to develop. Start a trade circle thread and invite as many members as you can to sign up as well. Examine the aggregate resources and dismiss those who are duplicates or don't help to add up to a strong resource set. They can start their own trade circle scheme with others. Try to work up as close as a six person set as you can and then begin hunting through your other alliance teammates for the final pieces to the puzzle. Some players may not bother to initially sign up for a trade circle, but might change their interest once you point out they can finish the set for the entire group. Plan this early and expect this may take even weeks to complete the circle. Just be sure not to have everyone dump their trades during the search process. Only dump the existing trades once everyone has fully agreed to sign onto the plan and a target date is finalized where everyone can do it all at once so as to not lose any days of growth. Get Help
If the sheer size of this guide doesn't make your eyes bleed then you are either some kind of idiot savant or you simply have been playing a while. For the rest of you, while I still recommend you digest this guide repeatedly, you should get help learning to trade. Accept that you need to do the exhaustive work and pester more experienced players to assist you with a recommended resource set and tips on convincing others to trade with you. Form a relationship with one or more experienced players. And I really do mean experienced, not some 3K NS nation. People with many months in the game and over 10K NS. Every good alliance has a dedicated tutor(s) for nation growth or a mentoring program. Many have both. Use them!
