Trading

There are two ways to move goods between realms: the Trading Market, and a trade deal.

The Trading Market

You can put any of your goods on the market and set your own price. The market is open: any realm on your planet can see what is listed and buy it, and you can buy from any of them.

Goods you list leave your hands at once. They are held for the buyer, and you are paid when someone buys them. You still pay upkeep on them while they wait, and pirates can raid them, so do not list more than you mean to sell.

Trade deals

A trade deal is an offer to one realm. You put goods and gold in it, and you may ask for goods and gold in return. The other realm reads the offer and accepts or refuses it. You need a treaty with that realm to send one.

A trade deal costs a fee for each day you send it for, from 2 to 10 days. The more you ship, the higher the fee. A deal also needs carriers to move the goods. How many depends on what you are shipping. As cargo, one carrier holds a thousand troopers or turrets, a hundred jets, five thousand tanks, or a hundred thousand gold. Food, bombers, agents and carriers take no room at all. A Protective Trade treaty with that realm makes the fee cheaper.

The days you pay for are how long the offer stands. What you put in the deal leaves your realm the moment you send it. If the offer is accepted, the other realm gets it, and you get what you asked for. A refusal, a deal nobody answers before its days run out, and a realm that falls before it replies all cost you the goods. Send to someone who is playing, and give them enough days to get to it.

Deals to another planet

In a league game the InterPlanetary Operations menu sends a deal to a realm on another planet. It works differently from the one above, so read this before you use it.

You cannot ask for anything back. The goods are a gift, and the realm you send them to has no say: they arrive and are added to what that realm holds. There is no offer to accept or refuse, so nothing is ever returned to you.

You pay once, not per day, and you need no treaty with the realm or its planet. The fee depends on what is in the deal, and it is shown before you confirm. You cannot send to a realm that is still under new-realm protection, and you cannot send to your own planet — for that, use the deal above.

Getting the most from trade

Trade matters most when several realms work together. A few ideas:

Specialize, then supply your partners. Your industry can specialize in one unit type. It then builds more of that unit and fewer of every other. If you specialize in tanks and a partner in turrets, each of you makes more of what the other needs. Trade the extra, and both realms come out ahead.

A cheap listing is taken by whoever gets there first. Anyone can buy it, so a price meant as a gift to an ally may end up arming a rival. To be sure the goods reach the realm you mean them for, send a trade deal instead.

Trade is bigger between planets. In a league, whole planets specialize, and an ally's market is often the cheapest place to buy. See the Allied Markets topic.