Shutting down enemy trade routes in your territory?

[Ertosi]

Is there any way to shut down, stop, or outright block enemy trade routes going through your territory?

The only option I've found is to let the system fall to piracy, but that means despite owning the system I can't do anything with it.

Frankly, the idea that different enemy nations can have trade routes connecting to each other through my territory feels absurd, especially when we all have closed borders to each other. Seems like when enemy trade routes go through your territory, you should have an option to actively act like the pirates and use your own fleets to directly steal from the enemy's route.

[makromate]

You mean economy pacts between AI ? No, you cant block that...but they cant block your pacts either... if it moves through enemy territory.

[Nightmyre]

Why do you assume that their trade routes go through your territory?

You can easily verify this isn't the case by just having an enemy occupy a territory blocking your own trade route. You'll quickly see this is exactly what happens - if a system in your trade route is occupied, it breaks that route.

I'm fairly sure this applies regardless of whether borders are open or closed, though I haven't tested that.

[Meewec]

Originally posted by Nightmyre:

Why do you assume that their trade routes go through your territory?

You can easily verify this isn't the case by just having an enemy occupy a territory blocking your own trade route. You'll quickly see this is exactly what happens - if a system in your trade route is occupied, it breaks that route.

I'm fairly sure this applies regardless of whether borders are open or closed, though I haven't tested that.

you can look on your trade route map setting and see trade routes going through your space sometimes. i have one using a wormhole in my territory to then use a gateway somewhere else in my territory.

seems that closed borders doesn't affect that but war probably would.

[tempest.of.emptiness]

Originally posted by Nightmyre:

I'm fairly sure this applies regardless of whether borders are open or closed, though I haven't tested that.

I believe you are correct that it applies in both cases. I've tried to path a route though territory controlled by one of my vassals and was not able to do so.

[tempest.of.emptiness]

Originally posted by Meewec:

you can look on your trade route map setting and see trade routes going through your space sometimes. i have one using a wormhole in my territory to then use a gateway somewhere else in my territory.

seems that closed borders doesn't affect that but war probably would.

Is this something that you have witnessed post 2.3? It used to be possible to pass routes through someone else's territory, but they removed that ability to prevent odd problems like pirates popping up in one empire's territory because of another empire's trade routes.

[Meewec]

Originally posted by tempest.of.emptiness:

Originally posted by Meewec:

you can look on your trade route map setting and see trade routes going through your space sometimes. i have one using a wormhole in my territory to then use a gateway somewhere else in my territory.

seems that closed borders doesn't affect that but war probably would.

Is this something that you have witnessed post 2.3? It used to be possible to pass routes through someone else's territory, but they removed that ability to prevent odd problems like pirates popping up in one empire's territory because of another empire's trade routes.

my current game has a few systems with the white skull and crossbones on it and i know i'm not generating them as i'm playing a driven assimilator.

i remember seeing it and then going "oh, it must be these ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, i'll have to kill them sometime"

[tempest.of.emptiness]

Originally posted by Meewec:

my current game has a few systems with the white skull and crossbones on it and i know i'm not generating them as i'm playing a driven assimilator.

i remember seeing it and then going "oh, it must be these ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, i'll have to kill them sometime"

If you send a fleet to one of those systems and wait for the piracy to drop to zero, the skull should go away. Once that happens, you should be able to leave the system and the piracy shouldn't return, because what you are seeing ought to be residual piracy from when that system was controlled by someone else and there was a route through the system.

If that doesn't work - if the piracy returns - then there is still a route through the system and the problem isn't as fixed as I believe it to be.

[Ertosi]

Originally posted by Meewec:

Originally posted by tempest.of.emptiness:

Is this something that you have witnessed post 2.3? It used to be possible to pass routes through someone else's territory, but they removed that ability to prevent odd problems like pirates popping up in one empire's territory because of another empire's trade routes.

my current game has a few systems with the white skull and crossbones on it and i know i'm not generating them as i'm playing a driven assimilator.

i remember seeing it and then going "oh, it must be these ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, i'll have to kill them sometime"

Yeah, same situation for me as I'm playing a Devouring Swarm and thus literally cannot have trade routes of my own. As an Assimilator, Exterminator or Devouring Swarm, you don't even have access to the trade route UI button down in the bottom right of the screen. Yet I can still see a little bread crumb trail of trade/piracy skulls playing connect the dots through my space between the various enemy systems.

[Meewec]

Originally posted by tempest.of.emptiness:

If you send a fleet to one of those systems and wait for the piracy to drop to zero, the skull should go away. Once that happens, you should be able to leave the system and the piracy shouldn't return, because what you are seeing ought to be residual piracy from when that system was controlled by someone else and there was a route through the system.

If that doesn't work - if the piracy returns - then there is still a route through the system and the problem isn't as fixed as I believe it to be.

went and grabbed a screenshot
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1777966078

nobody owned the system before i did, discovered wormhole transit and started grabbing the space over there. not that i care about it, it isn't affecting my empire in any way and no pirates are spawning. i'll bring them into my collective once i have borders with everyone in that federation.

[Ertosi]

Originally posted by tempest.of.emptiness:

Originally posted by Meewec:

you can look on your trade route map setting and see trade routes going through your space sometimes. i have one using a wormhole in my territory to then use a gateway somewhere else in my territory.

seems that closed borders doesn't affect that but war probably would.

Is this something that you have witnessed post 2.3? It used to be possible to pass routes through someone else's territory, but they removed that ability to prevent odd problems like pirates popping up in one empire's territory because of another empire's trade routes.

And yet that's exactly what's happening to me right now. Latest version of the game, no mods. I'm having pirates pop up in my territory because of the other empire's trade routes.

Personally, I'm leaving the pirates as they aren't affecting me, being in my junk systems, and seem to be the only way I have available of ruining the enemy's trade routes without outright wiping the enemies out.

Playing my first time as a Devouring Swarm and rather than completely destroying the enemy, I'm thinking more long term and leaving each enemy nation with a single system with the long term goal of letting them expand out again, letting me harvest their civilizations periodically. (playing it like the Wraith from SG:Atlantis)

The fact that they are able to link their little systems up with trade routes through my territory is unexpected and irritating. Their pops have been utterly subjugated, reduced to one or two systems each, and even completely nerve stapled; they've got no business being able to affect my territory, not even with something as small as a trade route.

[Ertosi]

Here's a screenshot example:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1777986033

That massive expanse of red encompassing all, that's my nation. We've got one subjugated nation on the left, another on the right (a little bigger because I've let them start expanding back out again, prepping them for another population harvest later). The trail of trade/piracy skulls can clearly be seen linking their little nations. A keen eye will pick up on the additional trade/piracy skulls leading away from them and off screen (towards other little nations' and their remaining systems).

As a Devouring Swarm, I can't have trade routes, so I know they aren't mine.

Originally posted by makromate:

You mean economy pacts between AI ? ...

Nope. I said trade routes as I meant trade routes. Had I meant economy pacts, I would have instead said so. Thanks though.

Originally posted by Nightmyre:

Why do you assume that their trade routes go through your territory?

Ain't no assuming to it. I have eyes and can clearly see trade routes which cannot be mine (again, devouring swarm here) crisscrossing my territory, linking all of the enemy nations' remaining systems to each other.

[Ertosi]

Originally posted by tempest.of.emptiness:

Originally posted by Meewec:

my current game has a few systems with the white skull and crossbones on it and i know i'm not generating them as i'm playing a driven assimilator.

i remember seeing it and then going "oh, it must be these ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, i'll have to kill them sometime"

If you send a fleet to one of those systems and wait for the piracy to drop to zero, the skull should go away. Once that happens, you should be able to leave the system and the piracy shouldn't return, because what you are seeing ought to be residual piracy from when that system was controlled by someone else and there was a route through the system.

If that doesn't work - if the piracy returns - then there is still a route through the system and the problem isn't as fixed as I believe it to be.

I'm thinking you have the right of it and that what I'm seeing must be left over from old enemy trade routes connecting worlds which I've since conquered and abandoned. I'll try your suggestion of sending a patrol through said systems and will report my findings.

If true, it would most likely be classified as a bug as the game should certainly be deleting the piracy effects of each stop of a destroyed trade route. Its oddity is only increased when playing as a race type which isn't supposed to have trade routes of any kind, like a devouring swarm.

[Ertosi]

@tempest.of.emptiness You were right and I was able to permanently remove these false trade route echoes by leaving a fleet in their location for a little while.

So it appears the real issue is a bug where systems inherit and keep their old trade/piracy route ratings when captured by a new empire. That's what's created this appearance of enemy trade routes in my systems despite being an empire type which cannot own trade routes.

[Nightmyre]

Originally posted by Ertosi:

@tempest.of.emptiness You were right and I was able to permanently remove these false trade route echoes by leaving a fleet in their location for a little while.

So it appears the real issue is a bug where systems inherit and keep their old trade/piracy route ratings when captured by a new empire. That's what's created this appearance of enemy trade routes in my systems despite being an empire type which cannot own trade routes.

This isn't really specific just to trade routes - there are many things that function similarly. I'm guessing they just decided it wasn't worth the calculation cost to have to recompute those things every time anything changes.

[tempest.of.emptiness]

Originally posted by Meewec:

nobody owned the system before i did, discovered wormhole transit and started grabbing the space over there.

Well, then I was wrong and it isn't fixed. That's disappointing.