Some people, like me, tend to climbing the ages and not camp at a low age. This requires a riddicolous amount of goods, especially in the Space Ages. Not to mention, that the new GBs from SAT and SASH also require quite a hefty amount of goods to level them further than only 10. Having then a quest line, that forces you to spend practically all the goods, that you just aquired, tends to frustrate people. Should normally be logical.
I admit to camping in FE on my main world (not Beta) for a lot longer than any reasonable person would have but I was one of the people who just double-clutched on leaving for the "futures." Once I made my mind up a couple of years ago I went for it and just made SASH about 6 weeks ago. I'm not much of a negotiator but I do it for quests when fighting isn't an option and I'm prone to giving away goods to younger era players, donating approximately 15-25K per BG season to my treasury (multi-eras), and buying vastly unfair trades to help my guildies build their GBs ahead of schedule, i.e., SAT & SASH and I still have more than 80K of each SAT good & about 50K of each SASH good. My goods from OF and up are in excess of 60K and all of my goods below are around 30-50K of each of the era's five goods. I don't "hog my goods" so I honestly cannot fathom how it is that people cannot afford to negotiate. My only guess is that people are leveling up eras so fast they aren't stocking up ahead of time for all of the expenses to navigate the tech tree, etc. for their next jump.
It's either that or people who are running out of goods are doing a couple of things I can think of...
~Habitually abandoning negotiations rather than paying diamonds for extra turns OR farming by negotiation after they can't fight any longer
~Small/single guild members building in battlegrounds
~Selling goods
~Not setting up trades on a regular basis to obtain needed goods
~Advancing on the cMap by negotiating to gain expansions
to name just a few that pop into my mind.
I'd recommend a few things to those who haven't already maxed out eras as follows:
~Only negotiate in battlegrounds for Space Carrier or event/challenge quests/tasks. Don't be afraid to spend a few diamonds if you are not keeping a steady income of your current & previous era's goods. You should make enough diamonds in GE and in BG to afford to spring for an extra turn from time to time to save on goods until you can hit a comfortable par.
~NEVER negotiate in GE unless it's for a quest/task. EVER. Better to abandon the fight and restart it, manually if necessary, as units are quite often much easier and much cheaper in game resources to replace/produce.
~Don't farm using negotiations in BG. EVER. If you are still running out of goods because you are farming to get more loot, clearly you have passed your PoDR. Sometimes you have to stop and start all over again to find out what your budget "really" is.
~Set up trades on a regular basis and if you don't have time for that, BUY them regularly! Who cares if they're unfair? Keep your goods spread out for a few eras below and definitely move goods upwards so you have enough stockpiled. For what? You should have every good you'll need for your tech trees AND your side quests BEFORE you level up your era. Why cripple yourself in a new era by "living paycheck to paycheck?"
~Don't sell goods unless you can actually sell less than what you actually make! You can always get more forge points but goods are stupidly hard to acquire and are far more time consuming to acquire. (Case in point: I can drop extra Forgotten Temples into my city to stack my 20% FP collections but as far as I know there isn't a way to do the same for goods outside of Blue Galaxy boosts). Track your collections for a period of time and don't forget to track what you're actually spending! I would never spend more than 25% of what I earn in a day and I don't sell goods at all).
~Don't negotiate on the cMap unless required by a task/quest. Fight it until you can't and then just sit on it until you can beat it. (If you're not using the extra expansions to increase your goods income along with other income, then what's really the point to having so much land in a low(er) era? If you're hunting FPs with all of that land then you should be able to level up your fight GBs to negate the need for negotiations in GE/BG. If you're looking to expand to increase your attack stats then you shouldn't need to negotiate. Negotiations=wasted goods. Avoid negotiations at all costs for regular game play).
As for speed leveling eras: DON'T. What's the hurry? You don't have to camp but planning your advancement in eras is as important a strategy as, well, anything else in this game! They're old adages but they've stood the test of time in success but they used to say 'don't move up in eras until you can fight all the way through level 4 in GE' (and I'd argue that you need to fight through level 5 now since negotiations on L5 are ridiculous!) and (as stated above) don't negotiate in GE.
Last but certainly not least, FIGHT. Build up your attack/defensive stats across the board. Negotiations should always be a last resort!
