[Saxon]

Again, some very helpful information. Let me summarize and see if I am missing anything.

1. The games isn’t really set up to handle trading. After all, it is 4X, not 4X and 1T.
2. You need to be on good terms with other races, trade alliances as a minimum level of relations.
3. That is ok, if you are trying to be a peaceful trader, you want this sort of thing anyway.
4. Trading ships for other ships, then analyzing them seems more effective than just trading technology.
5. If you go for tech trades, you need to keep track of what you are doing. More of those bits of paper next to the computer that my girlfriend hate…
6. The computer will give you the lowest tech they have in a Category, you then have to keep trading to get their better stuff in that Category.
7. Thus, if you are going to be a trader, do it early, otherwise you will spend many turns getting to something useful.
8. AI researches Construction, Intelligence, Chemistry and Industry pretty early, you should research other things and trade for those.
9. You can cheat like a very evil person, offering things like systems you don’t own. This clearly suggests a Ferengi shipset.
10. An allegiance subverter or ship insurrection could be quite useful, as you get more ships to trade, often ships that you don’t really want anyway. As they still look the same as the enemy, I have a nasty habit of looking past them and letting them get wiped out in unfriendly systems.
11. The more races you are on good terms with, the more trading you can do and the more trade alliances you gain from. This is a more viable strategy in large galaxies with lots of races.

A couple of things stand out in this. One is that the income I get from trade always seems pretty low, you need a pretty big economy on the side to do this. No Hong Kong’s with zero resources but lots of trade. Maybe some of the mods allow this, but not in the regular game. Another is that it is a neat role playing opportunity, though not one the game is too inclined towards. I can see doing it for a while in some galaxies, where a long period of relative peace is occurring and you are building up your infrastructure. In a violent galaxy, you are less likely to get the ships home to analyze and you are likely to be on bad terms with several of the empires you need to trade with.