My play group has found a loop hole to negotiating trades. I am curious if the loop hole is intended or not.

During the action phase opponents who do not neighbor will initiate trade agreements that will execute during the Poltical Phase. The negotiation will go like this during the Action Phase; “During the political phase I will give you X trade goods if you perform Y action during your action phase”.

I am not sure if this is even a legit game play, maybe some one can clarify....

Can you initiate a trade in the action phase but execute the trade in the political phase? Then if yes, can you initiate a trade during the action phase with some one who is not a neighbor?

If you can do this type of trading what are your thoughts on how this impacts your game play? Is that how the rules were intended?

This seems perfectly legit to me.

It is legit. However, any such promise made IS non-binding. So by the rules, you don't HAVE to pay said Trade Goods. People will probably have a hard time trusting any future deals from you if you don't pay but still...

My issue with this is that it makes Hacan promissory note useless.

Also their racial ability is a bit under powered and only for maybe two turns until Mecitol Rex is conquered.

Thank you you both for the clarification. While I appreciate the rule confirmation I really think it breaks the spirit of the game to allow this type of negotiation with non-neighbors.

The rule is very strict and clear and the design very intentional.

Players can only make transactions if they are neighbors , the only exception is during a Vote as specified by rule 83.6

This means that if you are not neighborhoods you cannot exchange anything during the Action phase.. period.

So if you decide on an transaction during your action phase .. aka I will pay you X trade good for you to do Y action during your action phase. The exchange of goods still can only happen during the Agenda phase which as already mentioned puts it under the non-binding agreement, aka, they can but don't have to pay you anything or vice versus can take your money and not take the promised action.

The desired effect here is quite simple, you can obligate your neighboors to honor agreements, you can't obligate people who are not. Sure they can still pay you, but by the rules they are not obligated to (non-binding agreement).

The spirit of the game is to create lots of ways for people to interact with each other, different ways having different benefits and drawbacks. The Hacan Promissory Note is not useless at all, in fact its super powerful. Note that it does not say "with the hacan", it applies to any non-neighboor. So by getting a promissory note from the Hacan by extension you get their racial ability applicable to all of your non-neighboors.

It means you can have binding transactions with any non-neighboors. Another words you can tell a non neighboor (even if its not the hacan), hey if you take X action I will pay you Y trade goods and its a binding transaction if they agree (you make the trade right then and their as if you where neighboors). No one else in the game can do that of course except the Hacan who have this as a racial ability, which again is super strong. The ability to reach across the table and make binding deals is kind of a big deal, especially for the Hacan who can trade action cards during that process.