Megacorps and Trade Value vs Technicians

[Pattata]

I was a bit curious since most of the Megacorp guides I've found are a year+ old, but how exactly should Trade be valued at compared to a job such as Technicians for Megacorps? I can certainly understand pumping up the trade value of Branch Offices to get massive returns on energy, but how does, say, a world/habitat dedicated to trade compare to one dedicated to energy with grids, capacity subsidies, etc? Is it always preferable to go for trade value instead of energy as a megacorp, or are energy worlds still a good investment if needed? I understand trade value can give consumer goods/unity as well, but just from looking at it, I would think the technologies, capacity subsidies, energy nexus, etc would make technicians have a far higher return when looking at purely energy.

Also a side question since the subject is Megacorps - do branch office jobs give *you* jobs or does it essentially take over a few of that planet's population to give you resources instead?

[Ryika]

Originally posted by Pattata:

Also a side question since the subject is Megacorps - do branch office jobs give *you* jobs or does it essentially take over a few of that planet's population to give you resources instead?

Neither. Most branch office buildings give jobs to the planet that produce resources for the owner, and some raw resource production from the building itself or empire modifiers that are given to you.

[Half Phased]

Megacorps and trade value can rival energy production of technicians… but only if you really go all in on it.

Going all in on trade value can get you clerks producing ~6 trade each, before being multiplied by trade boosting affects (stability, ethos, civics and the like). However, the true money is in the merchant ruler jobs, will will get ~14 trade value per pop. Before trade value modifiers. Which can be somewhere between +50% to +70% very quickly. This is substantially better than technicians early game which won’t be reaching than 8.4 energy credits until you’re a tech and a building down the tech tree.

But the true power comes from getting a trade league federation, which gets you a special trade policy that converts trade into energy credits, consumer goods and unity. It essentially wraps up 3 resource production into one nice bundle. All told, a well managed megacorp can easily rush the mercantile and diplomacy tradition trees and get an early federation and start rolling in the cash.

And dealing with piracy is relatively easy. Early game corvette patrols can keep it down, or you can build relatively dense empires and use starbases strategically to keep it in check. Lategame, gateways solve the issue entirely.

[Astasia]

A trade value focus wins in energy if you are making full use of commercial pacts. Otherwise technicians generally have better raw energy output with tech and supporting buildings/policies.

Commercial pacts are more relevant in a federation where the trade you are creating is helping your AI allies suck less, or in multiplayer where your human allies are doing the same trade focus.

Trade policy is also an important factor, if you aren't just after energy then the trade policies from being in a trade/holy federation can make trade value much more useful.

[BigTurnip]

a cyborg zombie clerk has a base output of 7.5 trade and 0 upkeep.
a cyborg merchant has a base output of 18 trade
a numistic cyborg merchant can get a base output of 22, you can hit over 70 trade.

The true power of trade comes in the form of commercial pacts inside the trade league.

However you don't get the benefit but instead your friends do in the case of the 70 trade output merchants above each of your partners is getting 7 trade per merchant in your empire. if you have 4 partners then your 70+ merchant is creating another 28 trade for your alliance.