How does commerce work?

[The Jeff]

How exactly are commerce rates figured out? Is there any advantages to helping a surrendered civ as far as commerce is concerned? Like if I were to give a couple bases back to them would my commerce increase?

[Flubber]

I don't know "exactly" but generally you will have commerce income with treatied and pacted parties on a base for base basis.

So if you are pacted with Morgan and he only has 3 bases, YOU will also get commerce income with MORGAN in only 3 base. Your treaty with the Gains may yeild commerce in 6 bases.

The matchup seems to be "best" base to "best" base, although I am not certain of the exact criteria .

AS for amounts of commerce, key points

economic techs increase commerce
Econ ratings affect commerce
The governor gets some extra commerce


So, yes, there are benefits to giving bases to a surrendered faction to generate additional commerce in some of your bases

[Adalbertus]

There is a fairly complete description of commerce in the Datalinks. The only thing I have observed which behaves differently is that crawled energy is not included in the commerce calculation. In this case, working an energy-rich square within the base radius is better than crawling it.

Usually, giving a base to a surrendered faction is less efficient than personally taking care of it. Sure, you'll increase commerce in another of your bases, but by making the base specialist-heavy, you'll get more lab and econ output.

[RedFred]

I 'think' bases are ranked by worked tile ec production only and matched with the same rank from a different faction. I was once told on these boards that base size was a factor in the ranking but I no longer believe it.

The key thing is that your science base(s) have more pre-crawler energy than any other bases. Do whatever you can, including building an extra borehole within the base radius, to ensure the right bases get all that extra trade income. In some cases I've had to cut back on my specialists in my science base because another base turned out to have more energy rich sea tiles.