I posted a link earlier in this thread to show you guys that there is a new update coming on 06/27/2012, that will help you guys with the trading issue. I do not know if you actually looked at it though so I will post what Checkered Jester posted about merging, and guild trading here:
Neighborhood Merging
To increase the activity in the neighborhoods and to improve trade we have implemented a solution that will let us merge existing neighbourhoods together.
Neighborhood Merging Info:
Every Monday at 3 AM neighborhoods will be merged if possible.
All Tournaments are stopped between 2 PM and 8 PM on Sunday, and start again after merging has been completed, around 8 AM monday morning.
Neighborhoods with similar average points will be merged to add up around 80 active players.
"Similar points" means that the average points of Neighborhood 1 may not be higher/lower then 40% of the average points of Neighborhood 2. (neighborhoods with roughly the same points will be merged together).
Example: If neighborhood 1 contains 23 active players, neighborhood 2 contains 20 active players and neighborhood 3 contains 33 active players, and all these have the approx. same average score, they will be merged together.
Neighborhoods can only merge up to 80 active players.
If your friends are active you will not be merged away from them. All active players will be kept together in the same neighbourhood.
If an inactive player comes back, he will come back to the merged neighborhood where he will find a few familiar faces, this will happen even if the neighborhood already has 80 players.
Inactive player: Someone who does not play or login to Foe for a period of time.(Stone and Bonzeage: 3 days, All other ages: 7 days)
Guilds
Guild members may now trade between each other for free(no forge points required). Guild member trading is not restricted by neighbourhoods anymore. All trades have a trading restriction ratio ( must be between 0.66 and 1.5) to avoid exploits. A setting in the auction house allows you to view offers from your guild members(shield icon).
It is now possible for Guild founders to demote each other.
We added some missing translations in the Guild forum overview.
The guild forum lock thread tool now clearly display if it is enabled or not.
The guild forum can now be opened in a new tab so that you can play at the same time.
Added a bunch of new guild flags to chose from.
Give it some time, and do not quit, all the trading problems will be solved soon enough.
Thanks for playing FoE.
Note that the word," now," in this post refer to when the update is added, and not literally now, thanks.