New Trade System Feedback

[Gustav Kuriga]

Please use the bugtracker for bug reports, not the forum!

Technically this isn't a bug report, just a question about trade.

[egamma]

It most definitely doesn't. Point me to where something is written in such a way that it can be misunderstood.

I see you found it.

[Tom]

I see you found it.

I'm not sure how that could be read as an endorsement of bug reports on the forum, but as you already pointed it out back then, it could be worded more clearly, so I did.

Now let's hope we have this episode behind us and we've all learnt something from it. Sadly, I have learnt that pragmatic exceptions don't work, they have a tendency to stick around.

[Indirik]

Is there any way we can get the ability to post multiple offers at once? Having to set up a dozen or so duplicate offers is just tedious.

[egamma]

Is there any way we can get the ability to post multiple offers at once? Having to set up a dozen or so duplicate offers is just tedious.

Why not post larger offers?

I agree, it would be nice to either have a "post this many" dropdown, or at least fill in the fields with the last offer.

[Telrunya]

You can't fulfil partial offers. You need to do the entire offer or nothing. So putting up multiple offers will make it easier to buy and sell smaller quantities of food instead of selling it all in one go to one region.

[egamma]

You can't fulfil partial offers. You need to do the entire offer or nothing. So putting up multiple offers will make it easier to buy and sell smaller quantities of food instead of selling it all in one go to one region.

True. But with the glut of food on the markets, I think larger orders are possible to fulfill--cities should have enough food that they can wait for rural supplies to build enough to meet them.

[Indirik]

Many cities need to buy food from multiple rural regions. If your duchy has 5 rurals feeding it, that means you need at least 5 buy offers to get the food from them. And who really wants to just set up 5 buy offers for 1,000 bushels each and hope someone wants to stock up 1,000 bushels to fill them? That's just silly. The idea behind the new system is ease and flexibility. Allowing people to quickly establish the number and type of buy/sell offers they want just makes sense. The glut of food won't last forever.

[Eithad]

Many cities need to buy food from multiple rural regions. If your duchy has 5 rurals feeding it, that means you need at least 5 buy offers to get the food from them. And who really wants to just set up 5 buy offers for 1,000 bushels each and hope someone wants to stock up 1,000 bushels to fill them? That's just silly. The idea behind the new system is ease and flexibility. Allowing people to quickly establish the number and type of buy/sell offers they want just makes sense. The glut of food won't last forever.

This is a traders job, and I assume part of the design decision to not allow offers to be filled in part.

[Tom]

You can't fulfil partial offers. You need to do the entire offer or nothing. So putting up multiple offers will make it easier to buy and sell smaller quantities of food instead of selling it all in one go to one region.

Traders can broker deals.

Right now, there is enough food all around that nobody is starving. Why don't you test out if putting a few larger offers (I'm not saying just one big one, but instead of 8 orders of 100 bushels each, how about 2 of 300 and one of 200?) - and see if it works out and traders take care of getting your order sorted out?

[Chenier]

Why not post larger offers?

I agree, it would be nice to either have a "post this many" dropdown, or at least fill in the fields with the last offer.

Because traders can only take all or nothing.

Which forces lords to post smaller offers. Which is tedious. And which spams the market page.

Traders can broker deals.

Right now, there is enough food all around that nobody is starving. Why don't you test out if putting a few larger offers (I'm not saying just one big one, but instead of 8 orders of 100 bushels each, how about 2 of 300 and one of 200?) - and see if it works out and traders take care of getting your order sorted out?

Larger offers means accumulating wealth. Which is fine for some, but a pain for warring realms that tend to keep little extra gold on hand for these things.

I finally got able to use the markets...

And I would REALLY, REALLY, but REALLY want standing buy offers that I don't need to continuously renew. No longer being able to say "buy everything at X price" is a huge step backwards, as it now forces every single lord to bother themselves with food, something that most people do not find in any way enjoyable. And it would help ease down on the "offer spam" that results from lords breaking down their offers into smaller chunks.

And making the priest/trader combo available would be an idea too...

[egamma]

Because traders can only take all or nothing.

Which forces lords to post smaller offers. Which is tedious. And which spams the market page.

Not exactly. I can match a single buy offer for 1000 bushels, with several smaller sell offers (200, 300, 400, 100).

Larger offers means accumulating wealth. Which is fine for some, but a pain for warring realms that tend to keep little extra gold on hand for these things.

It's the same amount of gold either way, whether it's spread across several offers or one.

I finally got able to use the markets...

And I would REALLY, REALLY, but REALLY want standing buy offers that I don't need to continuously renew. No longer being able to say "buy everything at X price" is a huge step backwards, as it now forces every single lord to bother themselves with food, something that most people do not find in any way enjoyable. And it would help ease down on the "offer spam" that results from lords breaking down their offers into smaller chunks.

The only way to do an automatic offer with bonds, would be an automatic offer taken from your taxes, which would be terrible to code.

Not every lord has to bother with food. Cities and rurals, yes; but many of the other regions run so close to 0 that there's no need to buy or sell food at all, maybe once every 3 months or so they would either empty their granary or fill it up.

I do agree that the food reports should be tweaked, maybe a daily summary, rather than instant notifications for offers and transactions.

[Chenier]

Not exactly. I can match a single buy offer for 1000 bushels, with several smaller sell offers (200, 300, 400, 100).
It's the same amount of gold either way, whether it's spread across several offers or one.

Admitedly, I only got to test things as a lord, not as a trader. But if I am traveling to buy food, and only have 150 gold on me, while I could have normally bought up to 300 bushels at 50 gold per 100, if the offer was only for 500 bushels then it would mean that I'd have to continue on and the lord would have missed an opportunity to sell (theoretical example). And when food is low, you usually don't have the time to wait to accumulate a bunch of gold for a large shipment: you just want to get your hands on food right away, no matter how little.

The only way to do an automatic offer with bonds, would be an automatic offer taken from your taxes, which would be terrible to code.

But necessary, imo. And I'm not convinced it would be that hard to code. It might be, but it doesn't sound awfully complicated to me.

Not every lord has to bother with food. Cities and rurals, yes; but many of the other regions run so close to 0 that there's no need to buy or sell food at all, maybe once every 3 months or so they would either empty their granary or fill it up.

That's not my experience. Most regions I've seen tend to either eat a lot of food, or produce a lot of food. Except for badlands and mountains, which are not the majority of available lands.

I do agree that the food reports should be tweaked, maybe a daily summary, rather than instant notifications for offers and transactions.

That too, but that's not what I meant. I meant that on the markets page, I now see half a dozen of offers for just one region. If I was in a region that was more central, in a realm surrounded by many others, I can't begin to immagine how dreadfully long the ads on the market place would be.

[Indirik]

If you count the ten I just posted in Libidizedd, I can probably see at least 25. And almost all of those are Buys.

[egamma]

I like the fact that I can sort sells and buys. actual filtering would be even better--most city lords don't care about seeing buy offers, and most rurals don't want to see sell offers, and most people don't want to see offers they can't respond to (restricted). It would be nice to be able to save a view as standard--I don't know what sort of storage space that would require on the back-end.