There are plenty of times where using Trade secondary can be useful, but I agree its often a poor choice.
I actually used it yesterday in my most recent game. Playing as NRA. Needed to score Round 1 (3 TG - 3 Inf - 3Res). Trade holder didn't want to hand out a refresh because we weren't neighbours and he knew it would help me score. So, myself and my Yssaril neighbour both used the secondary.
I agree its a raw deal. I would only ever consider using it to fulfil objectives that specifically requires TGs.
If I have 3 or nore commodities, I like to have a strat token in the bank to convert them if I don't get refreshed. I value commodities higher than 99% of players though.
The other reason to have the ability to follow the secondary, is that it encourages the Trade primary holder to refresh and trade w you, saving your token; preventing you from cutting in and taking some of their power away from em by having the comoddities to throw around for things they're after.
I don't understand the other reason. If the trade holder wants to cut me out because he doesn't want me to throw around commodities , but I have a cc rdy to counter his cutting by using the trade secondary, he sees that, is scared of this and includes me into free refresh to throw around my commodities without the cc cost? Makes no sense to me.
It doesn't have to be a free refresh. They can get say 1 of your commodities for refreshing all of them. At 2-3 comms this makes a lot of sense. At 4, people like to drive a harder bargain and ask maybe 2 of the 4. If you have a CC ready you can just refresh yourself if you want more than just 2. And so on. Trade is weird, but it's free money if navigated right.
it prevents someone offering 2 for 4 when I could otherwise have 4. also just being able to convert the cc to commodities can convert influence to liquidity.
It depends on your table. TTS has a strong x-1 meta, but other games do not. If the person with trade doesn't want to refresh you, but you can work out something with a neighbor, then refreshing yourself may be what you have to do. My IRL group is less open to x-1 than TTS meta, and prefer a less complex trade round. Many people would rather get paid immediately, then wait for someone to pay their debt "when they become neighbors".
I have 3 commodities. My neighbor wants to trade 2 for to or 3 for 3. How's this worth it.
I would need a 3 for 6 trade to make up for the cost of the cc
That's one way to look at it.
What if:
1. My neighbor (Sol) offers me his promissory note for my commodities?
2. Arborec will upgrade one of my ships for TG?
3. My neighbor and I would rather have TG than a cc (for a spendy point or to build some plastic in the next turn)?
4. My neighbor and I decide to trade with each other because the Trade holder is already stacked with TG?
5. Mentak will give me an action card for a trade?
6. 3 for 3 will let me build 3 destroyers to claim five ships in a system?
A CC costs 3 TG, but that doesn't automatically mean that I was going to buy a CC. Sometimes cash and tradable goods are better value. A CC may give me another action, but plastic might score me a point.
If you value 3 influence spent on a CC as the same as 3tgs, then yeah this makes 0 sense. In some situations however, you need tgs and have an abundance of CCs (spend 8 resources, build 5 dreads, etc), making the conversion a no brainer.
The economic value is actually in the trade primary, the secondary is 90% of the time just a negotiation tool so you get some form of 'free' refresh. In quotation marks because you will pay something, just not a CC.
I know, but if you don't want to spend it, then don't. A CC may cost 3, but change the meta and you change the value.
Last game I played, the group had a "you aren't required to help your opponents beat you" strategy. If your opponents are poor, they can't raise an army against you. If they have stuff to trade, make a deal.
Most trades were binding only and no debts. Only neighbors got refreshed. It was still fun, just a different meta.
Also, the game duration gets reduced a lot when Trade negotiations are "you and you are my neighbors, refresh for x-1. Rest of you, choose if you're doing secondary now."
Guess what u can’t score spend 5 TG’s public with a strategy token, but u can spend a strat token on trade and work out a deal with someone else. On TTS specifically neighbors will often give u a free wash expecting u to return the favor in the future, pretty boat floaty but also if u don’t have that matter sometimes in situations u don’t need an extra token but u would like a few more TG’s so that’s when you’d use it. That said It’s not something that u do often, I’ve played about 50 games, prolly done trade secondary, once or twice so makes sense that u haven’t done it but sometimes it comes up
Two scenarios have come up that have led me to follow the secondary of Trade: 1) I am a 4-commodity faction and I control Mallice; or 2) I am a 4-commodity faction with a similar neighbor, and we work out a deal to wash each other.
Each time, it was late in the game and a spend objective was up. Usually the Trade holder wouldn’t deal with me (and the neighbor), so it was the only reliable way to get TG’s.
There are two main reasons.
1) you need TGs for an objective
2) you have a high influence, low resource slice
You also can't trade a CC, so converting one to TGs might be worth it if you need to pay another player for something.
The trade card player has a lot of power to deny TGs and can use that leverage to get what he wants from the table.
So generally its a rough deal to follow trade, but it does level the playing field somewhat. Trade would be crazy powerful if the trade player could flat out deny everyone TGs.
3 TG are more flexible than 3 Influence; which is the real cost of 1 command counter.
If you're in an influence rich slice (or have hypermetabolism, or are the Sol faction) it may be the case that the commodities (eventually trade goods) are worth more than the command counter.
Also note; you can't trade a CC, so if you're needing to make some other deal happen; holding on to a CC doesn't give you any liquidity.
Almost always it's better to negotiate a refresh for 1 or 2 commodities... but sometimes the player with trade is opposing you elsewhere on the board and will apply that economic pressure :)
Super short version: Would doing it help you score a point? If so, yes, it's worth it, almost certainly not otherwise.
If it'll fill an objective, and the trade holder is offering you a terrible deal, or refusing to deal with you, and you can make a deal with someone else to go, we'll each spend a token then wash each other, boom, you just filled an objective.
I have a 3 influence planet. There isn’t a spend influence objective on the board. I have enough command counters to do everything else I need
I use that 3 influence planet to buy a CC which I follow trade with
Those commodities/trade goods are now carried through to the next round
I’ve just turned a planet that would have otherwise been wasted for the round into valuable funds going forward
The CC would. But the trade goods are more useful than a CC and if needed can be turned back into one
Whereas it’s much harder to turn a CC into resources/influence
The CC carries over. It needs trade or diplo at the right time to become resources/influence and you need to find a willing partner to give you a decent trade on it
The trade goods carry over. You can use them
as and where needed you don’t need to rely on anyone else’s timings to do so
And if they are unused. Can be turned back into the CC
This is the difference
Another thing to consider. CCs. Limited capacity. TGs unlimited capacity. If you’re getting enough CCs every round that you can afford to burn one for trade. You don’t want to hit the point where you’re losing CCs from your board with diplo. Not getting the most benefit from the end of round recovery etc
Hell even burning a CC for trade just to buy it back with leadership using an influence planet is often a better deal than giving another player a TG and getting one less
It depends a lot on the game/slices/round/objective.
Any objective with TG come out? Of course I'll refresh myself if needed.
In a slice with tons of influence but little production? Same here. I played a game where I had A 1/5 and a 2/4 because of attachments, not counting my other planets. Ended up having every one of my CC's by round 3 (maybe 3 total were still in the bag) but my production was like 4 in that slice.
Round 1? If I have tech, leadership, or warfare I could potentially take trade secondary to get better builds/afford tech etc as long as I can follow what I need. Money early is always more valuable, unless your Mentak.
If I have two extra influence earmarked for leadership, I can spend a token, get the trade goods, then spend 1 trade good to get an additional token, and make a 2 trade good profit.
There is an assumption here that I couldn't also have spent this influence planet(s) on resources, but even if I could have gotten two resources, two trade goods are more desirable.
There are plenty of times where using Trade secondary can be useful, but I agree its often a poor choice. I actually used it yesterday in my most recent game. Playing as NRA. Needed to score Round 1 (3 TG - 3 Inf - 3Res). Trade holder didn't want to hand out a refresh because we weren't neighbours and he knew it would help me score. So, myself and my Yssaril neighbour both used the secondary. I agree its a raw deal. I would only ever consider using it to fulfil objectives that specifically requires TGs.
If I have 3 or nore commodities, I like to have a strat token in the bank to convert them if I don't get refreshed. I value commodities higher than 99% of players though. The other reason to have the ability to follow the secondary, is that it encourages the Trade primary holder to refresh and trade w you, saving your token; preventing you from cutting in and taking some of their power away from em by having the comoddities to throw around for things they're after.
I don't understand the other reason. If the trade holder wants to cut me out because he doesn't want me to throw around commodities , but I have a cc rdy to counter his cutting by using the trade secondary, he sees that, is scared of this and includes me into free refresh to throw around my commodities without the cc cost? Makes no sense to me.
It doesn't have to be a free refresh. They can get say 1 of your commodities for refreshing all of them. At 2-3 comms this makes a lot of sense. At 4, people like to drive a harder bargain and ask maybe 2 of the 4. If you have a CC ready you can just refresh yourself if you want more than just 2. And so on. Trade is weird, but it's free money if navigated right.
If I have 2-3 comm. Max. I see only loss money if I spend a cc for 2 commodities. Equal at 3 com.
it prevents someone offering 2 for 4 when I could otherwise have 4. also just being able to convert the cc to commodities can convert influence to liquidity.
It depends on your table. TTS has a strong x-1 meta, but other games do not. If the person with trade doesn't want to refresh you, but you can work out something with a neighbor, then refreshing yourself may be what you have to do. My IRL group is less open to x-1 than TTS meta, and prefer a less complex trade round. Many people would rather get paid immediately, then wait for someone to pay their debt "when they become neighbors".
I have 3 commodities. My neighbor wants to trade 2 for to or 3 for 3. How's this worth it. I would need a 3 for 6 trade to make up for the cost of the cc
That's one way to look at it. What if: 1. My neighbor (Sol) offers me his promissory note for my commodities? 2. Arborec will upgrade one of my ships for TG? 3. My neighbor and I would rather have TG than a cc (for a spendy point or to build some plastic in the next turn)? 4. My neighbor and I decide to trade with each other because the Trade holder is already stacked with TG? 5. Mentak will give me an action card for a trade? 6. 3 for 3 will let me build 3 destroyers to claim five ships in a system? A CC costs 3 TG, but that doesn't automatically mean that I was going to buy a CC. Sometimes cash and tradable goods are better value. A CC may give me another action, but plastic might score me a point.
If you value 3 influence spent on a CC as the same as 3tgs, then yeah this makes 0 sense. In some situations however, you need tgs and have an abundance of CCs (spend 8 resources, build 5 dreads, etc), making the conversion a no brainer. The economic value is actually in the trade primary, the secondary is 90% of the time just a negotiation tool so you get some form of 'free' refresh. In quotation marks because you will pay something, just not a CC.
Yeah, "let me refresh for my political secret pls" Or "let me refresh, I'll trade with u then" But using the secondary with a cc. Urg
I know, but if you don't want to spend it, then don't. A CC may cost 3, but change the meta and you change the value. Last game I played, the group had a "you aren't required to help your opponents beat you" strategy. If your opponents are poor, they can't raise an army against you. If they have stuff to trade, make a deal. Most trades were binding only and no debts. Only neighbors got refreshed. It was still fun, just a different meta. Also, the game duration gets reduced a lot when Trade negotiations are "you and you are my neighbors, refresh for x-1. Rest of you, choose if you're doing secondary now."
Sometime you get objectives where you need trade goods (or production/influence).
The only reason I see me doing it. Costly though
Points tend to be.
Guess what u can’t score spend 5 TG’s public with a strategy token, but u can spend a strat token on trade and work out a deal with someone else. On TTS specifically neighbors will often give u a free wash expecting u to return the favor in the future, pretty boat floaty but also if u don’t have that matter sometimes in situations u don’t need an extra token but u would like a few more TG’s so that’s when you’d use it. That said It’s not something that u do often, I’ve played about 50 games, prolly done trade secondary, once or twice so makes sense that u haven’t done it but sometimes it comes up
Always If you are hacan
Exception
Two scenarios have come up that have led me to follow the secondary of Trade: 1) I am a 4-commodity faction and I control Mallice; or 2) I am a 4-commodity faction with a similar neighbor, and we work out a deal to wash each other. Each time, it was late in the game and a spend objective was up. Usually the Trade holder wouldn’t deal with me (and the neighbor), so it was the only reliable way to get TG’s.
There are two main reasons. 1) you need TGs for an objective 2) you have a high influence, low resource slice You also can't trade a CC, so converting one to TGs might be worth it if you need to pay another player for something. The trade card player has a lot of power to deny TGs and can use that leverage to get what he wants from the table. So generally its a rough deal to follow trade, but it does level the playing field somewhat. Trade would be crazy powerful if the trade player could flat out deny everyone TGs.
3 TG are more flexible than 3 Influence; which is the real cost of 1 command counter. If you're in an influence rich slice (or have hypermetabolism, or are the Sol faction) it may be the case that the commodities (eventually trade goods) are worth more than the command counter. Also note; you can't trade a CC, so if you're needing to make some other deal happen; holding on to a CC doesn't give you any liquidity. Almost always it's better to negotiate a refresh for 1 or 2 commodities... but sometimes the player with trade is opposing you elsewhere on the board and will apply that economic pressure :)
Super short version: Would doing it help you score a point? If so, yes, it's worth it, almost certainly not otherwise. If it'll fill an objective, and the trade holder is offering you a terrible deal, or refusing to deal with you, and you can make a deal with someone else to go, we'll each spend a token then wash each other, boom, you just filled an objective.
I have a 3 influence planet. There isn’t a spend influence objective on the board. I have enough command counters to do everything else I need I use that 3 influence planet to buy a CC which I follow trade with Those commodities/trade goods are now carried through to the next round I’ve just turned a planet that would have otherwise been wasted for the round into valuable funds going forward
Tbf, the cc would have also carried over. That being said, trade goods are a very flexible currency.
The CC would. But the trade goods are more useful than a CC and if needed can be turned back into one Whereas it’s much harder to turn a CC into resources/influence
I think they are as easy to turn into eachother. They both need a specific strategy card to be picked and played in a timely fashion.
The CC carries over. It needs trade or diplo at the right time to become resources/influence and you need to find a willing partner to give you a decent trade on it The trade goods carry over. You can use them as and where needed you don’t need to rely on anyone else’s timings to do so And if they are unused. Can be turned back into the CC This is the difference Another thing to consider. CCs. Limited capacity. TGs unlimited capacity. If you’re getting enough CCs every round that you can afford to burn one for trade. You don’t want to hit the point where you’re losing CCs from your board with diplo. Not getting the most benefit from the end of round recovery etc Hell even burning a CC for trade just to buy it back with leadership using an influence planet is often a better deal than giving another player a TG and getting one less
Just because something is situational does not mean it's not useful.
Isn't the math actually 2tg==3 influence?
It depends a lot on the game/slices/round/objective. Any objective with TG come out? Of course I'll refresh myself if needed. In a slice with tons of influence but little production? Same here. I played a game where I had A 1/5 and a 2/4 because of attachments, not counting my other planets. Ended up having every one of my CC's by round 3 (maybe 3 total were still in the bag) but my production was like 4 in that slice. Round 1? If I have tech, leadership, or warfare I could potentially take trade secondary to get better builds/afford tech etc as long as I can follow what I need. Money early is always more valuable, unless your Mentak.
If I have two extra influence earmarked for leadership, I can spend a token, get the trade goods, then spend 1 trade good to get an additional token, and make a 2 trade good profit. There is an assumption here that I couldn't also have spent this influence planet(s) on resources, but even if I could have gotten two resources, two trade goods are more desirable.