[Beck]

Actually coal isn't too bad, it is a component for five bonus resources. It's the uranium that is the source of your trade problems, not coal. Uranium has a number of negative side effects, chief being it's affect on a nation's environment (you don't see it, because it was changed and only the nations it's being traded to now suffer the effects). So it's very typical for a nation to trade for uranium, buy a bunch of nukes, then cancel the trade. If a nation does this, the maximum a trade would last is 21 days since they can only buy one a day and can have a max of 21. But most don't buy that many, so you're lucky if it lasts two weeks. There has been a lot of discussion about what to do about uranium and a number of other weak resources (like furs) to balance things against all the must have resources. So far, nothing has been done. Admin really needs to do something about this because there are now a growing number of players who start a nation, and if it doesn't have the resources they want, delete and start over until they get what they want. It does take time since you have to wait several days or so between attempts, but it shows the emphasis being placed on having popular resources, some probably being too good (popular). If you have iron, wheat, fish, marble, lumber or aluminum, you're in great shape particularly if you're really lucky and have two of that group. It really shouldn't have that much importance, they should have been balanced better.