The main idea behind that build is to spam merchants for massive trade generation to gain energy, consumer goods and unity with the Trade League economic policy.
Merchant spamming is possible due to the Mercantile tradition Commercial Enterprise, which makes Commercial Zones provide 1 Merchant Job each.
To gain access to the Trade League policy, you obviously need a trade league - meaning that you need at least 6 tradition picks in two different tradition trees to get the combo rolling. That costs about 2360 unity in total.
With a unity focused build you can do that within 6 years, maybe even faster if you go all-in on unity production.
Setting up a trade league can be a hassle and is largely dependant on luck if you do it with AI neighbours.
However, you can do it even without AI participation by doing this:
- create a colony that is not a direct neighbour to your territory
- turn the colony into a 1-system sector
- release it as a vassal
- give it independence
- raise acceptance by any means with the new neighbour so you can invite it to a federation
- create a trade league
- Adopt Trade League policy
If you time it just right (and have luck with your habitable planets placement) you can get the colony up and running at the same time as The Federation tradition finishes.
The end result is one (or three with Void Dwellers) colony with as many merchants as you have Commercial Zones plus one.
That means a single, specialized 10-pop base habitat can easily generate more than 250 trade value ... which equates to 125 energy, 62 consumer goods and 62 unity.
To reach this happy place, there are several ways. An obvious one being this build:
Origin: Void Dwellers
Government: any
Ethics: Fanatic Xenophile (for trade and envoy bonus), Spiritualist (for unity bonus)
Civics: Merchant Guilds (+1 merchant for capital buildings, +2 unity per merchant), Functional Architecture (+2 building slots on habitats!?!? is all you need)
Race: Lithoid (to avoid food buildings occupying building slots)
Traits: Thrifty, Intelligent, Traditional, Unruly, Slow Learners
There are quite a lot variations you can play with and still make this strategy work. For example, this combo doesn't rely on technology at all, so you can skip the Intelligence trait for something else. You can play a Megacorporation and boost your early game production by unemploying your bureaucrats because of your increased admin cap - that's more powerful than it sounds because merchants. Pick catalytic processing and go on hydoponic farms star base spam, because void dwellers get that tech for free.
Also, there is an additional void-dweller/merchant tweak you should do very early:
- move one worker pop from energy habitat to mining habitat
- upgrade administration building for +1 merchant job and the other customary bonuses
After the upgrade finishes, you could shuffle 2 pops back to the energy habitat, but it depends on how strapped you are for influence points, so use your own judgement.
Build at least 4 science vessels from the start and explore the space around you so you can quickly locate a planet for your trade league partner. Remember: you must be able to create a sector! Either colonize a planet far enough away or make sure there is a gap between colony and homeworld!
Start surveying after you located the planet. Also send at least two ships out to explore for alien empires because you want the influence points from the first contact event chains.
Traditions:
Either take Mercantile first for early rewards or Diplomacy first for early trade league. In an ideal situation, I am not sure which approach yields better results, but if you have trouble finding a suitable planet, Mercantile first is the better choice.
Ascension perks:
Within the first 20 years you will get to pick two ascension perks. The obvious choice is Voidborne for the two extra building slots. I mean, look at this:
Second one? Your choice, I picked One Vision for this game.
For my test game I went Mercantile first and this is how the economy developed over the span of 20 years. Played on Grand Admiral, Iron Man, large galaxy, 4 fallen empires, everything else default.
The first 8 columns show raw income without automatic trades.
The Gross National Income column is simply the sum of the base market values of all commodities, market fee included. It serves well enough as a key economic figure.
After year 15 I set up a consumer goods/alloy trade with the Alpha Refuge fallen empire, which explains the shift in alloy/goods production. Got lucky there, since other AI empires don't trade alloys as readily as in earlier versions of the game, it seems.
From year 2 to year 4 you see a drastic increase in gross income. This is first due to the upgraded capitol building on the mining habitat, then due to unlocking the Commercial Enterprise tradition and finishing the construction of several Commercial Zones and thus the creation of several Merchant jobs.
At year 20, unity is generated mostly by trade (137), then by 18 merchants(63) and 4 administrators (22).
Also, since the combo is already rolling, unity is not that important anymore and you can ditch merchant guilds for something else later. You'll lose 1 merchant per colony and the +2 unity per merchant, but there are plenty of civics that are better suited for the late game. Heck, maybe the Shadow Council is finally useful!
Between year 8 to 9 there is another gross income jump. That is solely due to adapting the Trade League policy.
From that point on, I proceeded in a more or less "normal" manner, playing horribly peaceful with everyone.
In this game I didn't have any luck with the starting ruler and governors ... but the location of my empire put me in a very safe place, so I could neglect my defense without worries.
The bad leader rolls also made this game a better benchmark to judge it's effectiveness.
Maybe I'll do a federation-first with the same empire later, just to figure out which way is better.
Disclosure: Got the trade league idea from the youtuber Montu Plays and tested out several variations of it. The unity rush version speeds things up quite a bit.
So, what do you think?
Same empire, but going for trade league first.
Here's the result, and it's not worth it. Go Mercantile first!
View attachment 761374
