Traders Feedback

[Darksun]

As a Duke and a trader for a while, it was fun. I was very miffed though that even when a profitable trade was possible via brokering, I could not execute it because the sizes were mis-matched. This usually lead to me just buying the food from one region and then selling it back out of my own granaries. It worked, of course, but I don't think it improved my character's trading skill like brokering did.

I'll revisit the class once there does appear to be a better weighting of supply and demand.

[Ig]

Coming from a Trader without any access to insider trading (ie. not a steward/lord), I'm not too sure about the new system. I've traveled all over a route of ~580 miles (with most of that added onto again by my trading distance) for quite a while since the trading changes and have yet to broker a single deal, or at least one profitable enough to recall ( >= 5g).

There are always sell offers up, but buy offers are almost as rare as sages (at least now; towards the beginning I think I recall an abundance of poorly-priced buy offers being the norm). And on top of that, supply/demand balancing makes sure that even if I do find a reasonable buy offer, I won't be able to fulfill it unless the Astroist church collapses with a concurrent declaration by the Zuma Daimons that they are, in fact, human, all under the coinciding brilliancy of the three bloodstars.

• I can't buy/broker for no gain or a loss, in the case that there's urgency for such.
• There's no visible metric for volumes transferred each day, so I can't tell if it's just a bad fishing spot or a global problem.
• The little guy no longer has the ability to have a personal store for either taking advantage of seasonal demand or holding good deals until an opportunity for sale arises.

This might all be due to production/consumption disparities while Tom and the devs are testing the system and these concerns/complaints might be invalid when things balance back out to "normal," but my experiences coming from a little less than a quarter of Dwilight have not been enjoyable so far.

[Tom]

There are always sell offers up, but buy offers are almost as rare as sages

Yeah, that's the part I really don't get. Everyone seems frightened over food leaving the realm, so much that bankers hand out very detailed trade order, and nobody seems to understand that simply putting up buy orders would solve that problem completely. I've seen city lords ask for food, but not put up a buy order. I just don't get it. Why is that happening?

[Indirik]

In Astrum we are not managing our food at all. It is pretty much a free market. I put up buy offers, and they get filled pretty quick. We are all sitting on multiple thousands of bushels each.

[fodder]

i've seen the odd 1 or 2 buy offers in my walk abouts in asylon

but the price is too low compared to the sell offers.. so no point. basically... too much food around. in dwi anyway

[egamma]

Yeah, that's the part I really don't get. Everyone seems frightened over food leaving the realm, so much that bankers hand out very detailed trade order, and nobody seems to understand that simply putting up buy orders would solve that problem completely. I've seen city lords ask for food, but not put up a buy order. I just don't get it. Why is that happening?

City lords traditionally "lord it over" rurals, and by forcing the rurals to put prices out, city lords can drive down prices by only buying from the rural offering the lowest price. If City lords were to put out buy offers, then the rurals would get to choose which city to sell to, driving prices upward.

[Eithad]

City lords traditionally "lord it over" rurals, and by forcing the rurals to put prices out, city lords can drive down prices by only buying from the rural offering the lowest price. If City lords were to put out buy offers, then the rurals would get to choose which city to sell to, driving prices upward.

As they should, food is a rural commodity. If cities don't want to pay for it they can starve.

[Eithad]

Yeah, that's the part I really don't get. Everyone seems frightened over food leaving the realm, so much that bankers hand out very detailed trade order, and nobody seems to understand that simply putting up buy orders would solve that problem completely. I've seen city lords ask for food, but not put up a buy order. I just don't get it. Why is that happening?

Most of that is because of an excess of food, all buy offers are filled quickly because of how much food is floating around. The part about lords asking for food and not putting up buy offers is just people still having the old mindset of getting food given to them for nothing.

[Tom]

Strangely, the statistics don't show that much of a surplus.

[vonGenf]

Yeah, that's the part I really don't get. Everyone seems frightened over food leaving the realm, so much that bankers hand out very detailed trade order, and nobody seems to understand that simply putting up buy orders would solve that problem completely. I've seen city lords ask for food, but not put up a buy order. I just don't get it. Why is that happening?

Speaking as a Lord of two regions, one with a surplus and one with a deficit, this just comes naturally to me. My rural Lord checks his books once in a while and puts the stockpiled food on the market. It's just not a big deal if there is a delay, so the city Lord buys the food whenever he wants to. On the other hand, my city Lord checks his food once in a while and, if there is need for more, buys some immediately. There is no need to put a buy order since there is always food available right there and then, and at least I know exactly what I'm getting.

There may be more of an incentive to put up buy orders when delays proportional to distance are implemented. Then, when you are far away from your own region, it may be faster to put a buy order and hope to have it filled by a neighboring region than to buy food from where you stand. The way it is done now, putting a buy order just adds uncertainty.

[egamma]

Strangely, the statistics don't show that much of a surplus.

D'Hara has over 15,000 bushels between the markets and granaries. We just get tired of putting the excess on the markets because hardly anyone is buying. And if we have that much food, how much does everyone else have?

[Indirik]

A LOT more. Any time I post a Buy offer, it's gone within two days, max. I know that Gelene has been buying food like crazy. And not just a little eccentric, crazy. We're talking tinfoil-hat-with-mashed-potatoes-in-your-underwear crazy.

[Eithad]

A LOT more. Any time I post a Buy offer, it's gone within two days, max. I know that Gelene has been buying food like crazy. And not just a little eccentric, crazy. We're talking tinfoil-hat-with-mashed-potatoes-in-your-underwear crazy.

Thats because I keep selling to you cuz no one else puts up buy offers.

[Indirik]

<3

[Foundation]

Strangely, the statistics don't show that much of a surplus.

Oh... man... you'll love this, Tom.

On Dwilight, there are 3 realms that produce less food than they consume right now, with -10%, -40%, and -43% respectively.

The other 15 realms produce more food than they consume right now, with 2 producing more than double their consumption, 5-6 producing more than 60% and the rest producing 2-42% more than they consume.

So... couple all this surplus with existing huge food stores, you get no real need for buy orders.  :-\