Selective Automatic Trade Offers

[Indirik]

Restricted trade to this level reduces the utility of Traders and reduces some of the risk involved in the food game. I prefer the current system where you either keep complete control and use ox carts, or you enter the market and take risks.

This.

[cjnodell]

Sheesh....

Have the buyer use manual Buy orders, so that he only buys what he can afford. If you only want to buy 100 bushels this week, then set a manual Buy order for 1000 bushels. That way you don't have to worry about buying too much food.

Is setting up a Buy order once a week too much trouble? Then appoint a steward to do it for you!

But seriously, is the possibility of someone selling you *too much* food really that much of a worry? I wish I had to worry about that...

Even a manual buy order does not accomplish this. In the end I only want our regions to be able to freely sell to mine. It is not about getting too much food but about not losing money to outsiders. We are strapped for cash as a rule and while I am glad to give it to our nobles in exchange for food I do not want a single coin leaving the realm unless I specifically choose to have that happen.  If I set a manual buy offer for 1000 then ANY caravan from any place can stop buy and take our gold. Sure I get food but that is not what I want. I want food from internal regions and I want them to get my gold.

[cjnodell]

Perhaps my perspective on this is off. It seems no one else cares where their food comes from or where their gold goes. To me it is like buying products made in the USA when you live in the USA. Sure Barca will want to sell food to outsiders but even then we want that food to be going to specific outsiders. Not just any guy who sees a buy offer and happens to get his caravans there first.

I would like to hear some good reasons why this is such a bad thing and why...

[Indirik]

If you want such precise control of exactly who goes where, with what, and how much they get, then you will have to do a lot of manual work to make it happen. The game is not intended to be played in the manner where we each play in our own little sandboxes, and lock everyone else out of our own private little world.

[cjnodell]

I am not at all sure how this request results in me playing my own mini game in my own private sand box.

I thought that this was a team game and my goal was to make operation within my team (realm) more effective. I am not sure why it would be a bad thing to be able to set up automatic food purchasing/selling within my realm (team) without also being forced to offer the same to the rest of the continent.

"Warehouse, purchase all food offered to us by region X but no other when we have less that XXX food at a price og XX gold per 100 bushels," does not seem all that crazy or exclusive to me. If anything it simplifies ones ability to work with their team (realm). However, it seems that I am the only one who cares where my food/gold comes from or goes to. So be it.

[Tom]

What people have said already:

If you want to have fine-grained control over trade, you need to do it manually or with Traders. That is why that character class exists.

There is a system behind the madness. We have three methods of trade in the game:

• automatic caravans
• manual caravans
• traders

As listed, these are in increasing order of flexibility and control - and also in increasing order of complexity and decreasing order of convenience. All of that is intentional. Don't expect us to add code to automatic caravans that would make manual trade superfluous, or traders. All of these things have their place.

[cjnodell]

Makes sense. I can live with that.

[fodder]

Even a manual buy order does not accomplish this. In the end I only want our regions to be able to freely sell to mine. It is not about getting too much food but about not losing money to outsiders. We are strapped for cash as a rule and while I am glad to give it to our nobles in exchange for food I do not want a single coin leaving the realm unless I specifically choose to have that happen.  If I set a manual buy offer for 1000 then ANY caravan from any place can stop buy and take our gold. Sure I get food but that is not what I want. I want food from internal regions and I want them to get my gold.

not if you are really micro-ing the thing and set it to go live when the caravan arrives only. thing about trade offers listed in the caravan page.. is that the ones listed, i think, is either the auto or manual offers only (don't know which one). so in essence, it would be a bit of a guess work as to when your markets will be opened.

furthermore, if you are desperate not to let others sell to you, then make prices sky high and you send out caravans to buy. ie... others can buy the food that is earmarked for you, but only at a premium. really clunky and problem with having to send caravans out early to make sure they are heading back filled once harvest is in..

my problem with auto trading (or manual trading) is that it's in general geared towards food producers sending caravans out to sell to food consumers

[Chenier]

Correct. One of the regions would have to have an open warehouse, and the other would send the caravans.

Indeed, but does the buyer really care where the food comes from as long as he gets the amounts he wanted at the price he wanted?

[egamma]

True but then we run the risk of some caravan stopping buy and selling me food that I do not want and I would then be short gold I do need. That was option two that I listed above.

Or, you can set limits. You can set a rule like this:
Buy for 50 gold as long as we have less than 200 bushels stored.

That would guarantee that your region spends no more 100 gold at a time on food. Adjust as needed.

[De-Legro]

Really what he needs is either traders, or to co-ordinate the arrival of the auto/manual caravans, and place EXACTLY the food required up for sale (or exactly the amount to buy) just as they arrive. This way nobody can ninja your offers. I have done this before, its a fair bit of work but then it should be when what you are effectively trying to do is control the market.