trade agreement is a painful scam XD

[Baal91248]

Hi everyone,
Maybe the topic has been already treated, but i have a huge problem.

I have done a trade agreement, I monthly buy 22 alloys for 40 credits (in the beginning of the game) for 30 years, it still has about 24 years and...
I noticed the other stopped to supply me the 22 alloys but i still continue to pay him my 40 credits and that's make me feel i have been scamed xD

Does someone know what i can do except going into bankruptcy to not pay him or declare him war (i'm not ready for that and he will be usefull to secure my borders)? xD

Many thanks

[tempest.of.emptiness]

Is there a chance that you accidentally traded 40 energy per month for 22 alloys, instead of trading 40 energy per month for 22 alloys per month? The game will allow you to make a mistake like that, and there's no early way out of the bad deal other than war. (Bankrupting yourself will have negative consequences for you that are worse than just paying 40 energy per month for nothing, and in addition may not actually prevent the other empire from getting the 40 energy... because Stellaris takes the kind of mathematical shortcuts that can result is something coming from nothing.)

Edit: Most or all of this is wrong, see below.

[PlutonArioch]

Originally posted by tempest.of.emptiness:

Is there a chance that you accidentally traded 40 energy per month for 22 alloys, instead of trading 40 energy per month for 22 alloys per month? The game will allow you to make a mistake like that

Will it? If I try, I always get a -1000 acceptance modifier saying something like "they do not want to trade resources over time for immediate resources", or the other way around. So, I assume such deals are only possible with player controlled empires. Any time I want resources over time from an AI for my own surplus resources, I have to offer those over time to make the deal possible. The same the other way around. If I want resources right now, I can not pay them off monthly. If I want both, I have to make two separate and separately balanced trade deals.

Originally posted by tempest.of.emptiness:

Bankrupting yourself will have negative consequences for you that are worse than just paying 40 energy per month for nothing, and in addition may not actually prevent the other empire from getting the 40 energy...

It will end the deal. As soon as you can not pay your end of a deal in full at the end of a month, the trade agreement is broken, and ends. They will get a negative opinion modifier (broke trade deal), and to reinstate it, you have to make a new deal.
The same goes for the AI, if they can not pay their end, the deal ends, you get a notification "Trade deal ended, They lack resources." and you get the opinion modifier for them.

This is probably why the AI is supposed to not accept mixed trade deals. Because you could deliberately offer more payments monthly that you can pay consistently, and basically scam the AI out of their resources.

@OP: Are you sure they have stopped their alloy deliveries? And if so, are you using any mods that could have interfered with the trade deal system? And are you sure the deal is actually still on, and your energy is not being traded for market deals, or for a different deal with another empire? Could you share screenshots of your monthly energy/alloy flow, or the save file?

If it is as you say, you should report it as a bug. I would guess it is a rare one though, since I don't remember ever seeing this happen in my games.

[GONDAL]

A bit semi-off-topic but trade deals are by far not a scam. If you have huge surplus of materials you can use them to get favors from other nations and use them to make the other nation more likely to accept proposals (ie: vassalization) or vote in your favor in federations, galactic community, etc

Otherwise I don't think they're worth pursuing unless you're playing obscenely tall, as you can always just colonize more systems or bulk up industry

[Baal91248]

Originally posted by tempest.of.emptiness:

Is there a chance that you accidentally traded 40 energy per month for 22 alloys, instead of trading 40 energy per month for 22 alloys per month? The game will allow you to make a mistake like that

I thought too, but i checked in the AI faction government's relationship and the trade deal mentioned they should give me that 22 alloys, which do not appear in the ressource report

Originally posted by PlutonArioch:

Originally posted by tempest.of.emptiness:

Bankrupting yourself will have negative consequences for you that are worse than just paying 40 energy per month for nothing, and in addition may not actually prevent the other empire from getting the 40 energy...

It will end the deal. As soon as you can not pay your end of a deal in full at the end of a month, the trade agreement is broken, and ends. They will get a negative opinion modifier (broke trade deal), and to reinstate it, you have to make a new deal.
The same goes for the AI, if they can not pay their end, the deal ends, you get a notification "Trade deal ended, They lack resources." and you get the opinion modifier for them.

Good to know, I did not try to get into bankruptcy, but if it will worsen my relationship whith them I'd rather to pay for nothing
And I did not get this message

Originally posted by PlutonArioch:

@OP: Are you sure they have stopped their alloy deliveries? And if so, are you using any mods that could have interfered with the trade deal system? And are you sure the deal is actually still on, and your energy is not being traded for market deals, or for a different deal with another empire? Could you share screenshots of your monthly energy/alloy flow, or the save file?

If it is as you say, you should report it as a bug. I would guess it is a rare one though, since I don't remember ever seeing this happen in my games.

Yes, they stopped
No mod

Screenshots will be in French, I can translate if you want
I think there's all the screenshot needed to you to check

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2449971914
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2449971996
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2449971938
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2449971954
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2449971979
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2449972031

Originally posted by spaciousspace:

A bit semi-off-topic but trade deals are by far not a scam. If you have huge surplus of materials you can use them to get favors from other nations and use them to make the other nation more likely to accept proposals (ie: vassalization) or vote in your favor in federations, galactic community, etc

Otherwise I don't think they're worth pursuing unless you're playing obscenely tall, as you can always just colonize more systems or bulk up industry

I did not try it like that, it could be a powerful option, but I m not sure that's so worthy in the beginning, am I wrong?
I don't have enough population to bulk up industries for now, and as I told my fleet is not powerful enough to make war, even if I bulked up my border's stations, if you check my screenshots i think you will have an idea of my position (I m black territory, yellow is the one who stopped the deliveries, in my federation, and the other hate me and are in the same federation, so if I attack one of them i'll encounter a coalition of 4 AI, and the yellow will not vote up for war)
So that's why I really need this alloy

[PlutonArioch]

Originally posted by Baal91248:

Screenshots will be in French, I can translate if you want
I think there's all the screenshot needed to you to check

Well, I don't speek french, but I don't think translation is necessary. It looks to be in order from what I can see.
You seem to be trading 40 energy for 22 minerals per month, and 30 energy for 4 alloys per month. Your alloy flow indicates that you gain 14 per month from monthly trades, and you are buying 10 per month from the market.

So it looks to me like you accidentally made a trade for minerals, instead of alloys as planned.

[tempest.of.emptiness]

Originally posted by PlutonArioch:

If I try, I always get a -1000 acceptance modifier saying something like "they do not want to trade resources over time for immediate resources", or the other way around.

I checked and I get the same -1000 acceptance and the deal won't be made. I'm going to blame brain fuzz, but regardless of the reason I was wrong.

Originally posted by PlutonArioch:

It will end the deal. As soon as you can not pay your end of a deal in full at the end of a month, the trade agreement is broken, and ends.

I'm not in a position to easily test this quickly, but since I was wrong about the other part I'm going to bet that I'm wrong about this too.

Thanks for the corrections.

[Elitewrecker PT]

Originally posted by PlutonArioch:

Originally posted by Baal91248:

Screenshots will be in French, I can translate if you want
I think there's all the screenshot needed to you to check

Well, I don't speek french, but I don't think translation is necessary. It looks to be in order from what I can see.
You seem to be trading 40 energy for 22 minerals per month, and 30 energy for 4 alloys per month. Your alloy flow indicates that you gain 14 per month from monthly trades, and you are buying 10 per month from the market.

So it looks to me like you accidentally made a trade for minerals, instead of alloys as planned.

Yep, looks the same to me.

[NuclearSnail]

Sounds like a bug

[Azor]

Originally posted by LunarSail:

Sounds like a bug

everything sounds like a bug until OP realizes that he really just got confused and mixed things up
Which he obviously did
always assume OP is confused or did something wrong, and only then consider whether it's a bug

[Baal91248]

Originally posted by PlutonArioch:

So it looks to me like you accidentally made a trade for minerals, instead of alloys as planned.

Damned you're right
I'm stupid --'
Ok men, sorry for that post and many thanks

[GONDAL]

Originally posted by Baal91248:

I did not try it like that, it could be a powerful option, but I m not sure that's so worthy in the beginning, am I wrong?
I don't have enough population to bulk up industries for now, and as I told my fleet is not powerful enough to make war, even if I bulked up my border's stations, if you check my screenshots i think you will have an idea of my position (I m black territory, yellow is the one who stopped the deliveries, in my federation, and the other hate me and are in the same federation, so if I attack one of them i'll encounter a coalition of 4 AI, and the yellow will not vote up for war)
So that's why I really need this alloy

Favors are most useful for ramming through authoritarianism into your federation. Naturally, everyone will be opposed to things like status change, challenges, war, and diplo weight voting. The best way to bend others to your will is through favors.

However, most of the time you won't have enough stockpile to actively get a good amount of favors from nations until the midgame or endgame depending on how well your nation has fared in the run.

I have no doubt the mechanic will be more important in nemesis when you will probably need lots of favors to convince egalitarians to agree to the formation of the imperium.

[Baal91248]

Originally posted by spaciousspace:

Favors are most useful for ramming through authoritarianism into your federation. Naturally, everyone will be opposed to things like status change, challenges, war, and diplo weight voting. The best way to bend others to your will is through favors.

However, most of the time you won't have enough stockpile to actively get a good amount of favors from nations until the midgame or endgame depending on how well your nation has fared in the run.

I have no doubt the mechanic will be more important in nemesis when you will probably need lots of favors to convince egalitarians to agree to the formation of the imperium.

Ok, many things interesting there, as I bought the game recently, I did not discover all the game mechanics. Thank you
So in fact, in the beginning, we should get as many favours as possible in the aim to prepare the mid/end game? I did not get so far in a game yet so I don't know what's waiting for me x')