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[Telgin]

I can figure out how much stuff a relatively friendly NPC empire has, because I go to "demand" and ask for more and more until they suddenly have -1000 for the offer. That means they literally do not have that much.

I was actually wondering if that was a way to cheese it to find out.  Admittedly, I've only ever offered a trade deal exactly once, which was to give away a lot of food I didn't need to a neighbor who had treated me nicely in the past, in exchange for an active sensor link.  They told me to shut up, so I haven't bothered to try trading since.

[Persus13]

I can figure out how much stuff a relatively friendly NPC empire has, because I go to "demand" and ask for more and more until they suddenly have -1000 for the offer. That means they literally do not have that much.

I was actually wondering if that was a way to cheese it to find out.  Admittedly, I've only ever offered a trade deal exactly once, which was to give away a lot of food I didn't need to a neighbor who had treated me nicely in the past, in exchange for an active sensor link.  They told me to shut up, so I haven't bothered to try trading since.

I usually use trade to give away a surplus resource I have for a resource I need (usually energy) to buy something, and that usually goes pretty well.

In regards to the AI asking for food, what's happening is (as usual) the AI doesn't know how to build enough farms somehow. I actually have no clue how this still remains an issue with the AI considering how easy it is to get food and the fact that your own sectors spam it so much.

So as its population starves (which, by the way, is the only reason an AI empire will ever fragment), it has to look for external sources. So it sees you have tonnes of food, as you should. When you give it food for all of its money, this causes it to ignore the food problem even more, causing it to need even more food which makes it ask for more, etc. etc. It will never actually build more farms.

I guess the Stellaris devs read too much Dead Aid and White Man's Burden.

[Rolan7]

I can figure out how much stuff a relatively friendly NPC empire has, because I go to "demand" and ask for more and more until they suddenly have -1000 for the offer. That means they literally do not have that much.

I was actually wondering if that was a way to cheese it to find out.  Admittedly, I've only ever offered a trade deal exactly once, which was to give away a lot of food I didn't need to a neighbor who had treated me nicely in the past, in exchange for an active sensor link.  They told me to shut up, so I haven't bothered to try trading since.

I usually use trade to give away a surplus resource I have for a resource I need (usually energy) to buy something, and that usually goes pretty well.

Yeah same, which is probably why people are trading away food so much.  Except that I don't mind keeping a food surplus, personally, since it's a nice way to slightly boost my empire (population growth) without micromanagement.  It would be really nice if mineral and energy surpluses had similar minor benefits, if only to let me relax about them

Instead of stacking 1:2 trader enclave deals, and desperately offering my bounty to other realms for research treaties or whatever.  I just hate seeing it flat-out wasted.
It's usually energy, since minerals are easy to blow on ships or habitats.  Policies are not enough of an energy sink ):

In theory I guess I should just go way over my supply limit until my energy budget is balanced, but bluh, and diminishing returns.

Re generously offering food for a sensor link:  Sounds like an issue with their government type, I would guess.  I seem to recall Honorbound Warriors for example refusing or resisting a lot of objectively good deals, due to their principles.  Maybe not a bad thing, since it supports their supposed character with actual mechanics.

[Telgin]

That's entirely possible, but if I recall correctly the acceptance chance was rated above 90%.  90% isn't a guarantee, of course, but I was still surprised.

I probably should trade for energy more often, especially mid game when it just starts to become feasible to terraform planets but where it's prohibitively expensive to do on more than one at a time, and barren worlds are usually too expensive.  Energy is considered pretty cheap by the AI, from what I can tell.

[Dunamisdeos]

Trading with other empires is *way* better than trading with enclaves, at least in cost/gain ratio.

Empires will always give better than 1:2. End game I usually have trader deals, though, because they are low-maintenance.

[BurnedToast]

In regards to the AI asking for food, what's happening is (as usual) the AI doesn't know how to build enough farms somehow. I actually have no clue how this still remains an issue with the AI considering how easy it is to get food and the fact that your own sectors spam it so much.

So as its population starves (which, by the way, is the only reason an AI empire will ever fragment), it has to look for external sources. So it sees you have tonnes of food, as you should. When you give it food for all of its money, this causes it to ignore the food problem even more, causing it to need even more food which makes it ask for more, etc. etc. It will never actually build more farms.

From what I understand it's more complicated than that. It's not that they don't build enough farms directly, what happens is they get a spike of unrest from something - for example a fallen empire demanding a pop or whatever. Pops keep working the farms (which was specifically added to help the AI, btw) but they stop working in the mines so the AI runs out of minerals.

But since they are still working farms, pops keep growing until the current farms can't support them, at which point they start starving which increases unrest even more. But the AI has no minerals to build more farms, since the unrest shut the mines down, and since pops can't actually starve to death the problem won't fix it's self and the AI can't deal with it and enters and unrecoverable death spiral.

Side note - you can abuse this. If you gift the AI a large amount of food it won't build more farms (since it has food income), it's pop will grow, then once you stop gifting the food it quickly starts starving. It won't work every time, but there's a decent chance it will send their empire into an unrecoverable death spiral.

[Dunamisdeos]

Give a man a fish, and you'll annihilate his economy.

[Rolan7]

Teach a man to fish, and he'll DEUS VULT the galaxy via Morganite economics.

Aside:  I don't suppose the recent changes to Civilization Beyond Earth are, at all, a proper continuation of SM: Alpha Centauri?
It's a pretty high bar.

Apologies for somewhat off-topic, but I spend time on the /vg/ /civ4g/ thread which is mostly Stellaris.

Edit:  Link added, because it's... a wild ride.  Lots of unfiltered anger, heh.  Yet it provides perspective.
My stance is still that this is a game with potential, which I already had quite a bit of fun with.
...CWAL for the pop rework.

[Teneb]

And so it was the we figured out how to weaponize food to dominate the galaxy. Forget making a stronger fleet, just pump out farms and hand out food before cutting them short, waiting for their death and culling the splinter states.

[pisskop]

They never got around to making a AE:AI sequel, spiritual or otherwise . . .

[ZeroGravitas]

the dribble continues

[Descan]

That's entirely possible, but if I recall correctly the acceptance chance was rated above 90%.  90% isn't a guarantee, of course, but I was still surprised.

That's not acceptance chance, that's how much of a loss-deal they're willing to take. 100% means they'll accept 1:1 trades (or what they think is a 1:1 trade), 50% means you need to offer them twice as much to get them to accept, and 90% means you need to offer them a liiiittle bit more to get acceptance.

If you balance the trade so that the number in the middle is a green 1, that's literally a guarantee that they'll accept the trade.

Spoiler: Google Image of a trade screen, the number here is a 30 but you want it at 1 to get the best deal possible that they'll definitely accept (click to show/hide)

[TalonisWolf]

You know, I like the idea of having an alternative to using the hyperspace lanes that you could use... it just might drive your entire fleet insane. Or throw them 200 years into the future. Or turn your ships into space amoebas...

So you want someone to mod in a Probability Drive (as seen in the Hitchhikers Guide of the Galaxy)?

[GiglameshDespair]

You know, I like the idea of having an alternative to using the hyperspace lanes that you could use... it just might drive your entire fleet insane. Or throw them 200 years into the future. Or turn your ships into space amoebas...

So you want someone to mod in a Probability Drive (as seen in the Hitchhikers Guide of the Galaxy)?

Closer to a Warp Drive than anything else.

Hope your Gellar Field's working!

[Trekkin]

I'd be happy with a way to stop calling Hyperlane Breaching "speculative" after centuries of using it safely and start using it on military ships.

Alternatively, a Colossus that served as a mobile Gateway would be cool.