Message #65580

[Thunthorn]

Title:

Introduce massive food deteoriation whenever food is removed from market without being sold.

Summary:

I believe that whenever food is removed from market without being sold whether this is because if the timelimit of the offer expires or because that the seller withdraws it from the market a large part of it should be destroyed. This to deal with the massive exploits in all realms on all continents at this time where Lords puts food on  the marketplace at max rate to protect it from deteoriating only to reclaim it when needed.

Details:

Exact rate of deteoriating to be tweaked and balanced but it should certainly be higher than the deteoriation in a normal granary. Possibly as much as 25% or even higher. Food that is sold should not suffer deteoriation at all.

Benefits:

Main benefit is to keep Lords from using the marketplace as granaries as stated above.

A nice side benefit is that it would strengthen the buyer position in trade. Today the market works poorly because buyers are vere dependent on having food to buy whereas sellers are not dependent on the income at all and can really starve a city until it pays up, whereas income from food is seldom more than a minor part of a Lords income. This makes it a matter of national security which in turns leads to governments regulating the market. This change would at least make it less interesting for Lords to put up lots that have so high prices that no one takes them up unless desperate.

Possible Exploits:

None as I can see. Its meant to remove exploits rather than add any.

[Tom]

it's already marked as TODO in the code, but we had to add a counter first to correctly calculate the amount of rot to apply.

Rot will not be "massive", however. It will be slightly above what would rot in a granary.

[Indirik]

This to deal with the massive exploits in all realms on all continents at this time where Lords puts food on  the marketplace at max rate to protect it from deteoriating only to reclaim it when needed.

I have to say that I really don't think this problem is as massive as you say. I have three lord characters, on three separate islands: FEI, Dwilight, and EC. Not only have I not seen food squirreled away in this fashion on any of them, I haven't really seen *any* food on the market at all! (Except on EC, where Armonia is selling food, but the rates are not anywhere near the max price. And apparently they are purchased.)

Anyway, I do think it's a good idea to rot food on the market. One of the ideas put forward in one of the trading threads was that food sales brokered by a trader would be subject to less/no rot. Perhaps a three-level system could be put in place. Rot rates from lowest to highest: Brokered trades < bought by lord/steward < expired offers.

In any case, the actual mount rotted should also depend on the amount of time the offer was on the market. A deal expiring after the minimum 5 days should not rot as much as food expiring after the max of 14 days.

Perhaps this could also somehow be related to the size of the warehouse in the region.

[Thunthorn]

I perhaps have had bad experiences. I'm extrapolating from a very few realms.

Those offer would almost always be realm only though and not visible to furrinners.

[Zakilevo]

This will discourage people from posting sell offers. People will mostly likely only accept buy offers...

[Foundation]

I don't quite understand why on the market should have more rot.  We have few enough sell offers as is.  Even if people are using the market as a way to avoid rot right now, they still have to sell at most at 50 gold per 100 bushels, which is still possible to buy.

Yes, there should be rot, but why not just the same as in the granary? :-o

P.S. I too, have never seen the market used to avoid rot.

[Zakilevo]

I don't quite understand why on the market should have more rot.  We have few enough sell offers as is.  Even if people are using the market as a way to avoid rot right now, they still have to sell at most at 50 gold per 100 bushels, which is still possible to buy.

Yes, there should be rot, but why not just the same as in the granary? :-o

P.S. I too, have never seen the market used to avoid rot.

There is one in Sirion, posting food at 50 gold/100 to avoid people from buying his food.

[Bael]

There is one in Sirion, posting food at 50 gold/100 to avoid people from buying his food.

If that were Dwilight, they would be gone within a few hours lol.

[Indirik]

Yeah, no kidding. I know LOTS of people that would snap up thousands of bushels at 50/100.

[Bael]

Having said that, I used to have a trader in Ibladesh who once bought a whole lot of food from Sirion for under 10/100! Crazy stuff.

[fodder]

you cannot prevent people from buying your food.. you just make it expensive.

if there's any food in dwi for 50/100... i'll be told to buy it pronto before anyone else grab it. obviously... won't really apply once spring arrives...

[Tom]

Note: Food rot is now in testing, you should get messages about how much food would have rotted, please report here if the values seem ok to you. They should be a bit higher than rot in the granary for the same amount and time. They may seem high because they are accumulated, i.e. in the granary you see a few bushels rotting away every day, on expired market offers you'll get the entire rot for a week or whatever in one large deduction.

[Tom]

Yes, there should be rot, but why not just the same as in the granary? :-o

Because granaries cost gold to buy and should provide some benefit.

But it really isn't that much more. Just enough that the market place is not a good place to store food that you don't actually intend to sell.

[Ehndras]

50/100? On Dwilight?!

And here I was selling food for 25 or 30 per, no wonder it disappeared so damn fast.

[egamma]

Note: Food rot is now in testing, you should get messages about how much food would have rotted, please report here if the values seem ok to you. They should be a bit higher than rot in the granary for the same amount and time. They may seem high because they are accumulated, i.e. in the granary you see a few bushels rotting away every day, on expired market offers you'll get the entire rot for a week or whatever in one large deduction.

won't this make it even harder for traders to match buy/sell orders?