viable trade build in the current game?

[Average AMD neanderthal]

I have tried a ringworld with a thrifty and rapid breeder species using merchant guilds and masterful crafters.
i teched up on some basic resource and speed up techs, keeping an eye out for important ones to eventually ascend, building trade hubs on my stations, etc. Around 2250 i had gotten my economical and political traditions done to maximize income and finally got my neighbour to enter a trade federation after lots of pampering.
But i only had like 55 pops and 650 ish trade value by that time. As far as i can tell, that's not as fast as it used to be in older versions of the game. Any other ideas? Non megacorp 'if' possible.

[cswiger]

Megacorp is the obvious approach to a trade-heavy build, but you can obtain a serious amount of trade value (> 1000) if you simply get the Caravan Numistic Shrine.

That's not an entirely unmixed blessing, however-- piracy will be a problem unless you pay attention to your trade routes and patrol them or build enough starbases.

[arronax06]

I found masterful crafter not to be great for trade builds, since you'll get your consumer goods from your trade policy and will have close to no factory on your worlds. Same things for ring worlds, they won't do much for you until you can repair them. On the other hand, going anglers + catalytic processing had a better trade value in my experience and ocean paradise works well with it. Also getting some trade habitats can help :) .

[Passive Extremist]

Originally posted by arronax06:

I found masterful crafter not to be great for trade builds, since you'll get your consumer goods from your trade policy and will have close to no factory on your worlds. Same things for ring worlds, they won't do much for you until you can repair them. On the other hand, going anglers + catalytic processing had a better trade value in my experience and ocean paradise works well with it. Also getting some trade habitats can help :) .

you don't need to repair a ring world for good trade since the damaged one provides +2 trader jobs and +1 cg job per district.

[jodnus]

I've been toying around with a nonmegacorp trade build with overtuned.

I start with thrifty, budding, and preplanned growth for traits (functional architecture and genesis guides for civics)

Then, once the infrastructure is built up and pop levels are where I like them I swap out functional architecture for merchant guilds, and preplanned growth with fleeting excellence.

This automods trade jobs to double dip with another 25% TV trait that stacks with the 25% you get with thrifty.

[Garatgh Deloi]

If you just want maximum trade value then i think a normal merchant guild empire is better then a Megacorp (You get merchants and a council position that increases trade value from traders, Megacorps don't have access to any council positions that good for trade).

For me the main reason to instead choose Megacorp's is their branch offices.

[climbingeastofwinter]

I'm curious about this too. I'm not sure when exactly it happened, but I'm having a really hard time keeping up with the AI tech-wise, even when I start with 8 labs on the homeworld and my nearest AI neighbor has 2. How does a trade build stay in the tech/unity game?

[Average AMD neanderthal]

Meh, so far i have struggled to get anything that really is able to kick off before 2300. Tech nerfs aren't helping the process either.

[BigTurnip]

Megacorp's destroy non-megacorp trade builds due to advanced cyborg governments.

+1 living standard trade is just too good especially when you factor in resort worlds + pacifism culture workers.

Voiddweller is great too since they can stack -100% empire size from colonies meaning all there habitats will cost 0 empire size.

[Merlin Pharmakeus]

Originally posted by BigTurnip:

Megacorp's destroy non-megacorp trade builds due to advanced cyborg governments.

+1 living standard trade is just too good especially when you factor in resort worlds + pacifism culture workers.

Merchant guild gives +0.4 per level for traders it is far more powerfull with buffs that can be properly stacked on a few worlds. Just with oligarchy you are already at +1.2 for a level 1 when you open the seat... Main power of Megacorps is branch not trade, Executives give only +5, managers + 2 they are irrelevant if you want to focus trade. When trade was OP the merchant guild was the way to go not megacorp and it is still true.

Megacorp wants massive trade on their branches not really in their empire. You want some trade for the OP trade league policy but it is not really mandatory for a megacorp. The best way is agressive conquest to realease Merchant guild vassals or steal all branches from an other megacorp. 55 pop by year 50 is insanely low any build would suffer.

Trade build can be more diverse than never before with machine and the new origins. Viable mainly depends of your settings, skills, RP vs min max.

[Average AMD neanderthal]

Originally posted by Merlin Pharmakeus:

Originally posted by BigTurnip:

Megacorp's destroy non-megacorp trade builds due to advanced cyborg governments.

+1 living standard trade is just too good especially when you factor in resort worlds + pacifism culture workers.

Merchant guild gives +0.4 per level for traders it is far more powerfull with buffs that can be properly stacked on a few worlds. Just with oligarchy you are already at +1.2 for a level 1 when you open the seat... Main power of Megacorps is branch not trade, Executives give only +5, managers + 2 they are irrelevant if you want to focus trade. When trade was OP the merchant guild was the way to go not megacorp and it is still true.

Megacorp wants massive trade on their branches not really in their empire. You want some trade for the OP trade league policy but it is not really mandatory for a megacorp. The best way is agressive conquest to realease Merchant guild vassals or steal all branches from an other megacorp. 55 pop by year 50 is insanely low any build would suffer.

Trade build can be more diverse than never before with machine and the new origins. Viable mainly depends of your settings, skills, RP vs min max.

the 55 pop is mostly due to a ringworld start. 1 trade district is decent value but not so big that it fixes the '1 planet' issue. Ofc machines can cheese it but i insisted on a humanoid species. i guess ringworld trade isn't what it used to be.

[mss73055]

My current trade empire Ring World + Sol X and 4 enclaves is great, but not the best.
With Corporate Protectorate I got spawl down to 40%.
24 research segments make 9k research.
Branch offices and Trade make up each 20% of my income.

This is enough to rule the galaxy, but nowhere near my previous Rogue Servitor game.

[Tojaskukac]

Just do ringworld + virtuality, if you rush virtuality while building up the trade districts, you should have around 1k+ (per ring section) trade value by 2240. Had around 2k+/section by 2300, for other 1-2 planets you can build ecumenopolys or one more ring maybe.

adaptive frames + trading algorithms
Ringworld
democratic robots, merchant guild, parlamentary system
you can very easily rush virtuality with Marketplace of Ideas

[mss73055]

^just did that, and got a ring segment with 13.4k trade.

https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198078719195/screenshot/2502391165206469071/