I figured out what is wrong with Trade...and how to fix it

[Chenier]

The stats page illustrate the problem rather well: on the market, there are 118 buy offers, vs. 4 sell offers.

To those arguing that we should allow to hike prices in order to stimulate trade... the stats say otherwise. At the time where there are the least sell offers for the most buy offers, the prices are at their lowest. There's no clear direct correlation, but it would almost suggest that the more the buyer:seller ration is high, the lower the average sell price. I'd assume that this is a result of the fact that the less sell offers there are, the greater the proportion of discount intra-realm trade is. The only times the price goes below 20 gold per 100 average is when there are way more buyers than sellers.

[Scarlett]

I would also not discount the capacity of rural lords/stewards' desires to check in once a week, match a bunch of buy offers, and then return later. Put up a sell offer and it may or may not go anywhere - match a buy offer and you don't have anything to worry about.

The difference of 10 or 20 gold is not that much incentive to change behavior as gold is pretty easy to come by these days.

[dustole]

well, 11,200 per week. And I doubt that you can sustain it at 25%. 20% would be the highest that you could really sustain. At that rate, you'd be getting 2,240 total. The lord can't get more than, say, 60% of that, I think, so 1,344. Then subtract out all your expenses. And don't forget to pass out gold to all your knights.

It took work, but I was able to keep Golden Farrow at 25% tax rate for a long long time.  I had to stay in the region, but so long as I stayed in Golden Farrow I could keep it at 25%

I was a high skilled priestess and an ambassador plus I was ruler.   So I got ruler bonus while being in the region and I could use priest skills to increase morale and ambassador skills for increasing loyalty.  Then whenever I had to increase control I would throw in a harsh court.

[Penchant]

It took work, but I was able to keep Golden Farrow at 25% tax rate for a long long time.  I had to stay in the region, but so long as I stayed in Golden Farrow I could keep it at 25%

I was a high skilled priestess and an ambassador plus I was ruler.   So I got ruler bonus while being in the region and I could use priest skills to increase morale and ambassador skills for increasing loyalty.  Then whenever I had to increase control I would throw in a harsh court.

In other words, you could do it but you were an exception not the rule, and even then it took plenty of work.

[Psyche]

I've run regions at that tax with those conditions as well as other class combos.  The main things are that you'll likely spend a lot of time in your region, and you have to beware other factors causing trouble.  It's very possible to maintain and even bounce back by yourself, but the perk of the high taxes is that you can ideally afford to pay knights to keep your (and their) income high.

I know one of my characters is in a crippled realm, and he and other people do almost nothing but regional maintenance so people can run insane taxes.

Hell, I remember running a 99% tax in a region once when it was possible.   It took some big hits on regional stats, but nothing that made you freak out about revolt before tax day.  I've even ran trades to give negative thousands of gold- destroying all infrastructure and giving everyone negative income.  Like everything, you live and learn..... and drink vodka.

[Gustav Kuriga]

And you are once again talking about an exception. I and most others don't want to play Maintenance-Master.

[Chenier]

And you are once again talking about an exception. I and most others don't want to play Maintenance-Master.

And shouldn't. There should not be any significant incentive to sit in your region, that's not what meant to be done or what makes the game fun.

[Kwanstein]

Umm, what the majority of players would want to do does not matter, as this all comes back to me saying what I'd do if I had the region, which was a matter of egotism. Furthermore, whether players want to or not, they end up sitting in the same region for months on end regardless of their capacity (usually it's the capital). With such a drought in wars, there is nothing else to do. So your idealism is misdirected, it should be aimed at generating more wars not disparaging the ruthless economic exploitation of peasants.

[Gustav Kuriga]

I don't see how me not sitting in a region all day is idealism... that would be more like me saying not having to worry about food at all for a city if we wanted to talk about idealism.

[Chenier]

Umm, what the majority of players would want to do does not matter, as this all comes back to me saying what I'd do if I had the region, which was a matter of egotism. Furthermore, whether players want to or not, they end up sitting in the same region for months on end regardless of their capacity (usually it's the capital). With such a drought in wars, there is nothing else to do. So your idealism is misdirected, it should be aimed at generating more wars not disparaging the ruthless economic exploitation of peasants.

Encouraging the ruthless exploitation of peasants discourages war, because war forces lords away from their regions, prevents knights from doing civil and police work, and looting hurts production and morale direction. War is bad for the economy, when peace allows ruthless exploitation of the peasants and war does not. It makes people think that they should make peace a bit to amass funds for a later war, but then the peace can always be stretched on, indefinitely, because there'll never be enough funds stacked up for a future war.

[Anaris]

Encouraging the ruthless exploitation of peasants discourages war, because war forces lords away from their regions, prevents knights from doing civil and police work, and looting hurts production and morale direction. War is bad for the economy, when peace allows ruthless exploitation of the peasants and war does not. It makes people think that they should make peace a bit to amass funds for a later war, but then the peace can always be stretched on, indefinitely, because there'll never be enough funds stacked up for a future war.

There's actually been some discussion of ways to slowly cycle realms between a state that rewards war and a state that rewards peace.

[Dishman]

There's actually been some discussion of ways to slowly cycle realms between a state that rewards war and a state that rewards peace.

The peasantry already have an opinion of other realms, so I could imagine loyalty issues for realms not engaged in war against a realm the peasantry hate. Maybe find a way for it to kick in only after peak production/population hits?

[Anaris]

The peasantry already have an opinion of other realms, so I could imagine loyalty issues for realms not engaged in war against a realm the peasantry hate. Maybe find a way for it to kick in only after peak production/population hits?

Apparently you haven't seen the relatively common region report message, "the peasants cannot understand how you can be allied with Evilstan".

[Kwanstein]

Encouraging the ruthless exploitation of peasants discourages war, because war forces lords away from their regions, prevents knights from doing civil and police work, and looting hurts production and morale direction. War is bad for the economy, when peace allows ruthless exploitation of the peasants and war does not. It makes people think that they should make peace a bit to amass funds for a later war, but then the peace can always be stretched on, indefinitely, because there'll never be enough funds stacked up for a future war.

Who's talking about encouraging it? As I said before, this discussion harkens back to me saying what I'd do if I had the region. The replies I'm getting are complete non sequiturs.

[Dishman]

Apparently you haven't seen the relatively common region report message, "the peasants cannot understand how you can be allied with Evilstan".

I actually don't think I've seen that. Not to hijack the thread topic, but does it effect region loyalty very much? Does the peasant loyalty actually suffer if you aren't engaged with a hated realm?