I just got Shards of the Throne Exp and played one game with it. Got to say - BRILLIANT EXPANSION

However the Trade III secondary ability seems pointless. With it you can break a trade agreement, but the primary ability lets everyone make agreements and instantly get trade goods for them. So whoevers agreement you break just remakes it and still get the goods. Have I missed the point somewhere or is the secondary ability just pointless.

If Im right Im instigating a house rule more in line with the old trade agreement rules.

Off the top of my head I can see that the Trade III secondary might come in handy in at least two instances (if I remember it correctly):

1: If you are in desperate need of the trade good you gain for breaking up another players Trade Agreement.

2: If you plan on taking Trade III yourself next turn. The Active player still have to approve all new Trade Agreements and that way you can hinder the secondarily targeted player from reforming his/her former Trade Agreement (and maybe be allowed to get that coveted 3 Jol-Nar trade yourself...). Also remember that you can, at any time, break one of your own Trade Agreements for whatever reason you choose (the other player did a nasty attack against an already weakened opponent / you don't like the look of his/her face-equivalent / he/she voted differently from you in the last galactic council etc. etc.). Except if said Trade Agreement is with the Emirates of Hacan, of course. (But why you would want to break off a 3 Trade Good income is way beyond my comprehensional skills though.)

[Edited for rephrasing]

Are you sure they still need to be approved? It said that explicitly on the original trade card, but doesn't say so on the trade III card! If thats true then there is a little sense to it.

However I think I may go back to the "you cant get trade from newly formed contracts" rule, but use it with the new card

Oh lord

I thing that you are missing the part of rules that say that at FIRST you are dealing with primary ability and only after that every player may choose to use secondary ability. So when someone decides to breake trade agreement it is done after the trade negotiations, so noone will have (in that turn) chance to make agreement after it is broken.

Then (what you can read on page 20 in SotT rule booklet) all trade agreements have to be approved by the acting player and the hacan is immune to the secondary ability of that card.

Yes, as Jervon points out, the secondary is done after the primary is finished, so the trade agreement that is broken will remain broken for at least one turn (longer if you or someone working with you can keep control of the Trade SC and deny the affected players the right to reform it.) Even if you can't do that, though, there are times when breaking such an agreement for just one turn can be enough to deny the victim a PO.

Also, IIRC (and as long as Trade III doesn't do this differently), trade goods are generally awarded before new trade agreements are formed, at least as far as Trade I goes. I don't own Shards yet, so forgive me if Trade III does it the other way around.

Jervon said:

I know this. my point is that you can, in effect, only break an agreement for one turn , which seems pointless, As everyone gets their trade goods as part of the primary (unlike the original card which required you to activate the secondary) I cant see much damage being done, unless you are taking the Trade Card next turn, of which there is no certainty. I just think that you would be better off holding onto your strategy allocation.

I missed the fact that it still has to be approved by the holding player. Thats useful

Just wanted to bump this thread as a help for user Doomslayer.

Fnoffen said:

You can break a trade contract for any reason, but it must be done during the status phase

Gicih said:

This is an oversight on the card, but it is still the rule for Trade III (aka trades must be approved by the player who activates the card (p20 of the rulebook as mentioned above). Hence the denial of trade agreements still functions the same way, but is less effective in Trade III because if a new trade agreement is created by those players in the following round they are paid immediatly rather than a round later.

Still there is significance to the mechanic in the scope of the game, though noteably the effect is considerably less in a 4 player game where each player gets 2 strategy card. But though canceling 2 specific contracts you are in essence forcing one of those players to take the trade card instead of another card they might prefer to "re-create" those contract, which can in the same action be canceled again putting them into a cycle of taking the card each round if they need those trade goods. I noted that in our games when the trade card didn't end up in the hands of one of the players who's contracts where canceled the motivation to approve such a transaction (by the owner of the strategy card for that round) is considerably lesser creating a whole seperate negotiation (what will you do for me if I approve this, or what will you do for me to not cancel your agreement) kind of a thing. It also becomes a fire back mechanic. Aka the first player cancels your trade agreement so you fire back by canceling his.

The Trade III card has created a new way in which the aquisition of trade goods are made along with the significance of holding onto trade goods (remember that useless mentak ability?), its far less automatic as the previous cards. The cards significance as a result is brought more into the political forum where players negotiate and politically screw with each other via canceling, re-aquiring and approving (or not) contracts, which again strengthens the Hacans position which can neither have their contracts canceled or require approval. This of course is coupled with the fact that players have to hold on to trade goods to upkeep their mercanries, which again adds to the tension.

Wether you like the mechanic is a whole other story, I personally do, but noteably because of how the mechanic works with Mercenaries. The canceling, negotiations and approvals coincide with the upkeep of mercanaries. When timed you can really screw with people and kind of force them into taking the trade card if they want to maintain those mercanaries (coincdenly you can cancel their agreements and their is not much they can do about it).

But thats the jist of it.