Hi!

I have another newbie question...

Page 25 of the rulebook states that you can use Trade Goods as a 1-for-1 substitute for either one resource or one influence.

Page 23 states that you CAN'T buy votes in the galactic council with trade goods.

So I can buy influence for my Trade Goods but not use 'em for anything?

When does one spend/count influence in TI3 if not in a galactic vote?

rashktah said:

You can 'spend' TGs instead of 'spending' resource or influence.

When voting in the galactic council you are not spending your influence. You simply have votes equal to the influence value of your unexhausted planets, but the planets do not exhaust when you vote.

Influence does occasionally need to be spent (i.e. you need to exhaust the planets), such as for certain Public Objectives.

Yeah, thanks, I totally forgot about the objective cards.

Thank you very much!

The main things you "spend" Influence for, that I can think of off the top of my head:

- Some Public Objectives

- Logistics Strategy (or its SE replacement, Leadership)

- Touch of Genius Action Card

- Diplomacy II (SE) Secondary

There are some racial specific abilities that rely on trade goods as well.

You forgot the primary use of trade tokens!

Bribery!

You may not be able to buy votes... but you can certainly pay of a race to obstain from voting in an effort to push a Law through.

TrentL said:

Well, if you're gonna pay 'em, you can bribe 'em to vote your way, too. By "not buying votes", you just can't buy extra votes for yourself - but you CAN "convince" someone via monetary compensation to vote your way. (Of course, there's nothing binding if you give them the TGs and they decide to vote another way... best work something out to help prevent that )

TrentL said:

Erm... Bribery can't really be the primary use of trade goods as this relies on trade goods having some other function. If you couldn't spend TGs instead of resources/influence, qualify for objectives etc. no player would take them as bribes....

I never meant it as the only use of Trade Goods.

But our games have shown that having a large pool to bribe people can really help out... I've seen trade rich players support the war effort of another player simply for that players votes etc, but our outside bribery almost comes down to contracts like

"if you break this contract , you will sign over 1 dreadnought to the Hacan Emirates" and if agree'd on and the deal is later broken, one player removes a dreadnought and another player adds on on his home system.

I mean not all deals have this type of contract but we get right into the outside game of bribery to achieve our goals.

TrentL said:

Um, you can't make this kind of deal. Nothing in the rules allows you to scrap a ship except during the status phase, and nothing allows you to place a ship "for free" in your home system arbitrarily, even if another player "lets" you.

TGs are the only thing you can "give" to another player. You cannot give units, planets, Action Cards (except with Hacan's special ability), Political Cards, CCs or Space Mines to another player - there is no provision for doing so in the rules!

Also, keep in mind there is no provision in the rules to allow for "mandatory enforcement" of deals, agreements, and alliances. Two players COULD have a deal where if something happens, one player will compensate the other via Trade Goods. However, if that something happens, there is nothing that would FORCE the other player to actually follow through. All deals and agreements are non-binding. (Though it is important to note that if a player consistently breaks deals, other players will be likely to stop making them with him; perhaps that is a bit of meta-gaming, but when it comes to an untrustworthy player, metagaming sometimes DOES have to be taken into effect).

Especially important in my group's games is the "non-binding" part. Even if removing ships and giving them to someone else was allowed, you could bet money that I would sign such a deal and then, if i needed to break it, wouldn't be handing over a dreadnaught. I'd most likely say something along the lines of "you want it? Then come over here and take it, hot shot!"