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BattleMaster => BM General Discussion => Topic started by: egamma on January 30, 2013, 05:27:47 AM
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Our current trading system doesn't work because there's little incentive to trade. There's food, and there's gold. Most realms have an amount that is close to break-even, and won't trade with others. The realms that do have a surplus aren't likely to sell much of it in case of another Great Drought (or war, or regular droughts, or simply because they don't like the price).
We need to add Metal. Once lords need to buy metal to outfit the recruits from their recruitment centers, or for their smithies, then we have more trade dynamics. Lords will be able to post food for metal trades, metal for food, metal for gold, gold for food. Traders will be able to combine a metal to food sale with a food for gold sale and a gold for metal sale. Mountain regions like the Divide range will suddenly become more valuable, and war for those resources will ensue--or surrounding regions will be bought off with favorable trade agreements.
Later, we can add wood from our woodlands. Wood is consumed daily in cities and townslands to cook food; it's also needed to build palisades, construct siege engines, and ships (yes, those are on the to-do list still).
The problem with Trade is the gold is boring. We all have gold. But metal and wood would provide a new incentive to trade.
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Our current trading system doesn't work because there's little incentive to trade. There's food, and there's gold. Most realms have an amount that is close to break-even, and won't trade with others. The realms that do have a surplus aren't likely to sell much of it in case of another Great Drought (or war, or regular droughts, or simply because they don't like the price).
We need to add Metal. Once lords need to buy metal to outfit the recruits from their recruitment centers, or for their smithies, then we have more trade dynamics. Lords will be able to post food for metal trades, metal for food, metal for gold, gold for food. Traders will be able to combine a metal to food sale with a food for gold sale and a gold for metal sale. Mountain regions like the Divide range will suddenly become more valuable, and war for those resources will ensue--or surrounding regions will be bought off with favorable trade agreements.
Later, we can add wood from our woodlands. Wood is consumed daily in cities and townslands to cook food; it's also needed to build palisades, construct siege engines, and ships (yes, those are on the to-do list still).
The problem with Trade is the gold is boring. We all have gold. But metal and wood would provide a new incentive to trade.
All trades should stay, resource for gold, or gold for resource for simplicity, IMO. Also, I believe things have been considered like this but the key thing that was decided was not to make it necessary, but beneficial. Necessary isn't going to help the atmosphere towards trading as you are adding penalties, not benefits, which generally works a lot better.
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I already spend more time worrying about food across all my characters than I do about any battles. And you want to add other materials to that as well? No thanks.
What BM needs is an extremely simplified trade system that requires little to no interaction from most of the players(I'm looking at you, carts. You were so simple once set up).
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I think Tom said, some time ago, that he liked the suggestion of having three resources: food, materials, and goods.
It was my suggestion, at least. To keep things simple: having a million resources puts too much of a focus on the trading game which many people hate. My suggestion at the time was also that the resources not all work exactly the same: I don't think the lack of materials should drop production to 0 and prevent all repairs, but maybe it could cap production at 50 and make repairs more expensive. I could see every region needing a certain number of materials according to population, and if it only has 50% of those materials, then the region would be capped at 75% production. After all, people can improvise, recycle, and replace missing parts with what's available (though it's likely to cost more, be less effective, and not last as long). If it had an overabundance of materials, perhaps it could allow the region to go slightly above 100% productivity. As for goods, I could see it working the same way, or perhaps its own way. Perhaps every realm could produce its own kind of goods, to trade with others, which provide morale bonuses according to the diversity and the distance from which the goods come. For example, if Morek got a lot of goods from Corsanctum, it'd get a little bonus, but if it had goods from Corsanctum, D'Hara, Barca, and Grand Duchy of Fissoa (in the same regions), then it'd have a much better bonus. This dynamic has two advantages: one, it doesn't force anyone to pay more attention to the trading game, because there's no (or small) penalties for not having the resource, while two, it helps traders out by giving them more to do, as food is have/have-not dichotomy: either you have food and you'll be fine regardless of the amounts you have, or either you don't and you'll be in big trouble regardless of the amounts you'd need. Having resources with (non-linear) scaling bonuses would give traders more to do, because a lot more people would be interested in trading with them (without being forced to).
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You're absolutely right, egamma.
Unfortunately, this isn't news to the dev team.
Adding another resource will require a lot of thought and planning—not just because it'll require code changes in various places to make the other resource matter, but because we need to find just the right balance where it matters enough that people care about it (so they will actually be willing to buy it, and even go to war for it in extreme circumstances), but not too much, so that, as Chénier says, it causes the entire realm to break down when there isn't enough.
We also recognize that there is a certain amount of truth to what LilWolf says. We do intend to add more automation to the current system (at a bare minimum, automatic sell orders), but not enough so that one person can set up a system that works for a realm forevermore into the future, without ever being looked at again. That would be tantamount to just removing resources from the game altogether.
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That would be tantamount to just removing resources from the game altogether.
Which, honestly, we just might do. I'm not saying I plan to do it, but it's an alternative. Many things in BM have always been and will always be experimental to some degree, and if they don't work out, if they don't add to the game, we will remove them again. It wouldn't be a first.
Still, I think food is important and should stay, and if we have food, then we need trade because otherwise the forum will be full of complaints when the first drought hits and people wonder why they can't simply buy or steal food somewhere else.
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but not enough so that one person can set up a system that works for a realm forevermore into the future, without ever being looked at again. That would be tantamount to just removing resources from the game altogether.
That was never the case in any of the realms I was in. There were always special circumstances that demanded manual intervention(drought, looting etc.). In my opinion that's how it should be with resources. Once set up, things chug along nicely until something goes wrong. Only then is player attention needed.
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Currently, trade exists to facilitate the exchange of food. Food is justified, because it makes cities dependent on rural regions, which counterbalances the importance of cities. Without food, cities would be self-sufficient regions, capable of supporting all economic structures, potent fortifications and able to produce large amounts of gold. That would be detrimental to gameplay, hence why food exists.
What you are asking, is the introduction of a new resource, not for the sake of balance, but for the sake of trade itself. As I demonstrated, trade is a supplementary feature, the role of which is to facilitate the exchange of food. Trade currently fulfils this role, fully, and so there is no point in adding to it.
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That was never the case in any of the realms I was in. There were always special circumstances that demanded manual intervention(drought, looting etc.). In my opinion that's how it should be with resources. Once set up, things chug along nicely until something goes wrong. Only then is player attention needed.
And I think that this is probably around the place we would like things to get back to, too. Maybe it won't be exactly the same, but I don't believe the intention with the changes to the food system has ever been to increase the minimum complexity for the players: only to increase the maximum complexity—that is, to offer more options for those who really want to dig into them.
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I was thinking about this the other day. Part of the food/gold situation now is good - it creates conflict (huzzah). But it also eats up a lot of time (boo).
One nice thing about the old system was that you could dedicate one or more regions' surpluses to a particular place; 'this rural feeds this city.' But this didn't create any conflict.
Historically, medieval lords were not concerned with day-to-day movements of bushels of food. Their stewards might be aware of it but they'd only be concerned if they were saving up for a siege, since it was sieges and long winters that granaries were for. Starving during the summer or autumn was unusual, though not unheard of.
Sieges were a huge part of medieval war but they aren't represented in BM. For so long as that's true, it doesn't make any sense to build a food system around just winter and sieges. But in the long run, it might be beneficial to consider an alternative to the 'everybody rushes the walls on the first day' such that a) lords are really only concerned with emergency stores, not day-to-day stores, and b) those emergency stores are really important.
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A more hands-off system is definitely a bonus. As Scarlett says, lords should only be concerned with exceptions, not mundane daily concerns. That's part of the reason for the idea behind auto-sell orders that lords could use, and the possible addition of a "Let the banker manage my food" option.
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I am seriously weeping with joy over the very promising comments I've read in this thread.
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It seems like people are complaining about having lords being given the burden of setting up trade offers. I've also heard people complain about the lack of usefulness of the trader subclass. Is there a way to move lord's responsibilities to the realm's traders? Maybe let region lords set a percentage of 'sell/buy' for their region and let the finances of it be set by the traders? There are probably better approaches, but this is just what came to mind.
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Trader is indeed an unattractive subclass, as it is only beneficial in the unlikely circumstance in which a region finds that it has no prospective trade offers open to it. As food-consuming regions and food-producing regions are spread out fairly evenly in most cases, and because global food production is always at a surplus, it is seldom the case that a merchant, who's abilities are only modestly superior to a Lord's, is able to make use of his or her trade in a productive manner.
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The trader class would be lots of fun if there were a larger number of offers out there, and less price-coordination by buyers and sellers.
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The trader class would be lots of fun if there were a larger number of offers out there, and less price-coordination by buyers and sellers.
This is something of a chicken-and-egg problem.
Regions must be fed. Therefore, realms work out ways to ensure that they are fed—without traders, because most realms don't have active traders.
If there were traders in the mix, it would be much easier for realms to just put up the offers (buy and sell) and let the traders handle the brokering. But, by and large, there aren't.
It's possible that this could be changed, at least somewhat, by removing or reducing the unit penalty for traders. If people could just hang onto the Trader subclass on the off-chance that there would be a use for it, without being penalized for that in their military capabilities, I think a lot more people would do it.
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It would be nice if a trader could see all of the deals at least in their realm, irrespective of the trade distance restriction.
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Which, honestly, we just might do. I'm not saying I plan to do it, but it's an alternative. Many things in BM have always been and will always be experimental to some degree, and if they don't work out, if they don't add to the game, we will remove them again. It wouldn't be a first.
Still, I think food is important and should stay, and if we have food, then we need trade because otherwise the forum will be full of complaints when the first drought hits and people wonder why they can't simply buy or steal food somewhere else.
Can we even steal food anymore, now that caravans are gone?
Currently, trade exists to facilitate the exchange of food. Food is justified, because it makes cities dependent on rural regions, which counterbalances the importance of cities. Without food, cities would be self-sufficient regions, capable of supporting all economic structures, potent fortifications and able to produce large amounts of gold. That would be detrimental to gameplay, hence why food exists.
What you are asking, is the introduction of a new resource, not for the sake of balance, but for the sake of trade itself. As I demonstrated, trade is a supplementary feature, the role of which is to facilitate the exchange of food. Trade currently fulfils this role, fully, and so there is no point in adding to it.
I don't quite agree... Food makes trade necessary, but not quite "worth it". It's like if your well water was toxic, and the only solution you had was to buy a 2 million dollar filtration system. Without the pure water, you'd die. But does it really justify a 2 million dollar filtration system? Adding resources is basically the equivalent of giving your 2 million dollar filtration system other uses (water for exports, filtration for irrigation, juice filtration, etc.), so that you can better get a return on the investment.
This is something of a chicken-and-egg problem.
Regions must be fed. Therefore, realms work out ways to ensure that they are fed—without traders, because most realms don't have active traders.
If there were traders in the mix, it would be much easier for realms to just put up the offers (buy and sell) and let the traders handle the brokering. But, by and large, there aren't.
It's possible that this could be changed, at least somewhat, by removing or reducing the unit penalty for traders. If people could just hang onto the Trader subclass on the off-chance that there would be a use for it, without being penalized for that in their military capabilities, I think a lot more people would do it.
And many realms don't have traders because there just aren't enough food on the markets to make it any fun. It's a vicious cycle, really. There's not enough trading to do to incite people to become traders, and as such there aren't enough traders around to do the trading that is required. Hence why I think we should try to make being a trader more interesting, without making them any more necessary.
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Can we even steal food anymore, now that caravans are gone?
Yes. It should be transferred directly to your region, if you have an estate or a Lordship. (Otherwise it just gets destroyed.)
I don't quite agree... Food makes trade necessary, but not quite "worth it". It's like if your well water was toxic, and the only solution you had was to buy a 2 million dollar filtration system. Without the pure water, you'd die. But does it really justify a 2 million dollar filtration system? Adding resources is basically the equivalent of giving your 2 million dollar filtration system other uses (water for exports, filtration for irrigation, juice filtration, etc.), so that you can better get a return on the investment.
So are you saying you support the idea of removing food entirely? (Just trying to unwind your analogy :) )
And many realms don't have traders because there just aren't enough food on the markets to make it any fun. It's a vicious cycle, really. There's not enough trading to do to incite people to become traders, and as such there aren't enough traders around to do the trading that is required. Hence why I think we should try to make being a trader more interesting, without making them any more necessary.
Yes, exactly. Sorry, that was the other half of the chicken-and-egg problem that I forgot to articulate ;D
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Currently, trade exists to facilitate the exchange of food. Food is justified, because it makes cities dependent on rural regions, which counterbalances the importance of cities. Without food, cities would be self-sufficient regions, capable of supporting all economic structures, potent fortifications and able to produce large amounts of gold. That would be detrimental to gameplay, hence why food exists.
What you are asking, is the introduction of a new resource, not for the sake of balance, but for the sake of trade itself. As I demonstrated, trade is a supplementary feature, the role of which is to facilitate the exchange of food. Trade currently fulfils this role, fully, and so there is no point in adding to it.
Well, Food trade benefits rurals. Wood trade would benefit woodslands, and metal trade would benefit mountain regions. Right now there are 4 region types that people care about: rurals for food, and strongholds/townslands/cities for gold. There are other region types, they just get ignored by the current trade system, and don't get a share of the gold that cities spend on food.
Can we even steal food anymore, now that caravans are gone?
Blackmarket doesn't work, but the loot food option does.
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I went trough D'Hara, Corsanctum, Morek, and Swordfell, and only very briefly spotted a single sell offer the whole time.
Not much of a surprise hardly anyone bothers with becoming a trader. There are just a heap of buy offers everywhere, you never need to go anywhere to sell food, if you have any, and if you are looking to buy, there's none on the open market.
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The Trader class would be greatly improved by recognising that these aren't mere merchant adventurers but powerful magnates trading food across hundreds of miles.
It makes sense that merchants would have warehouses and manufacturies in the regions they deal with, the way priests have shrines. These could be used to store food separate from granaries and also generate modest amounts of gold based on some notion of market reach. Likewise they would be taxed, putting gold into the region coffers.
Traders then go from being a dull class with little impact on the game to being a very desirable addition to a realm.
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The Trader class would be greatly improved by recognising that these aren't mere merchant adventurers but powerful magnates trading food across hundreds of miles.
It makes sense that merchants would have warehouses and manufacturies in the regions they deal with, the way priests have shrines. These could be used to store food separate from granaries and also generate modest amounts of gold based on some notion of market reach. Likewise they would be taxed, putting gold into the region coffers.
Traders then go from being a dull class with little impact on the game to being a very desirable addition to a realm.
None of that helps if traders are looking to buy and there's no food on the market.
Besides, the fact that lords ship food remotely kinda suggests that already.
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It would be interesting if traders with warehouses got the rotten food thrown out of the local food stores. Being able to sell rotten food would be almost as good as giving traders the black market back. The regional reports wouldn't notice it right away, so the trade wouldn't be flagged immediately. Also, it could be resold before being found out; possibly making it look like one realm is selling garbage to a starving ally.... possible wars over tainted food!
If not that, perhaps bring back the random profits for traders. Either gold, unique items, or scrolls. Even a random chance of acquiring contacts who have also traded with your trading partners within the past 2 weeks or so could be useful. Maybe even let them meet with sages and wizards? Heck, you could also let them broker unique items.
There's many possibilities for traders to exploit without bringing new resources for others to be burdened by.
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My original suggestion for "luxury goods" was that it be a resource that incurs no penalties if lacking, but morale bonuses if present and higher profits if the trader shipped it from far away. Heck, it could be completely independent of the lords: it could be a resource that the traders sell and buy from lower nobility and the bourgeoisie, that non-traders would never need to concern themselves with.
Perhaps enabling trader/adventurer interactions would give traders more to do, as well. Maybe adventurers could use a few things that only traders can move around and/or supply? Perhaps traders could "manage" marketplaces which sell and buy all kinds of goodies (as well as gear) for the adventurers?
I agree we shouldn't give another resource as important as food for realms to manage. But as someone pointed out, badlands and woodlands are being largely left out of the trading game, because they don't produce anything of particular interest to anyone (they don't need to buy food, but they don't produce all that much to sell either). Giving more to do in the trader game need to result in a significant increase of the trading burden on non-traders and realms overall. Food is a "no bonus"/"everything goes to hell" kind of resource as for as "have"/"have not" goes.. At worst, I propose that new resources be "bonus"/"slight penalty" or "slight bonus"/"no penalty".
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Perhaps make them minor resources that get picked up by traders in specific types of regions that can be itemized for one time actions- which can be traded.
For example;
You just traded with the lord of a mountain region and also picked up 6 units of ore.
You already acquired 94 units of ore in previous trades, and the 100 units can now be traded as 1 rare metal.
If you construct a RC while in possession of a rare metal, you have better chances of greatest equipment values. The item is automatically applied, and is exhausted after one use.
Perhaps the same with wood, except it is automatically applied if it is a ranged RC, and will boost the new RC range.
Maybe those badlands had a rare hops to make great ale. Spend your kegs to give a one time boost to either regional or troop morale.
I'm not keen on the idea of food being more empowered, but I suppose you could have an item that makes the harvest one level better than the weather (drought = average, average = good).
Most of all I like the idea of mechanics that increase the interaction and things to do for traders and advys in one swoop.
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You are thinking backwards. The game shouldn't be changed to facilitate traders; traders should be changed to facilitate the game. Otherwise you wind up with a myriad of extraneous features, complicating the game for the sake of a class which exists solely for it's own sake.
As a reminder, the trader class' raison d'etre is that it serves to facilitate the exchange of food; food serves to curtail the independence of cities; cities serve to complicate fundamental matters of strategy, leading to deeper gameplay for all classes. The best improvement one could make to the trader, would be to strengthen it's bond in this relationship.
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I've only been playing as a trader for a few weeks, but so far I've just seen a strange imbalance of supply and demand. There will be 10 sell offers going for 40 gold per 100 bushels, but 2 buy offers going for 20 gold per 100. There have been a few times that the prices will match up reasonably, and I'll make 10 gold here and there, but it seems like people aren't setting realistic prices.
It may just take time for an 'invisible hand of the market' to take shape. As long as people aren't using the market as a "rot-free zone" or some other meta-game trick, I'd imagine eventually people will start to balance things out.
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I've only been playing as a trader for a few weeks, but so far I've just seen a strange imbalance of supply and demand. There will be 10 sell offers going for 40 gold per 100 bushels, but 2 buy offers going for 20 gold per 100. There have been a few times that the prices will match up reasonably, and I'll make 10 gold here and there, but it seems like people aren't setting realistic prices.
It may just take time for an 'invisible hand of the market' to take shape. As long as people aren't using the market as a "rot-free zone" or some other meta-game trick, I'd imagine eventually people will start to balance things out.
I don't think that's necessarily a reasonable assumption.
At this point, I think that by and large, realms have achieved the equilibrium they desire. This has nothing to do with an equilibrium that is beneficial to traders. Indeed, for many realms, having food that is put on the market and not specifically destined for a particular region or small set of regions within their own realm is considered to be a security risk, or otherwise a bad thing.
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The marketplace is not a rot-free zone. Food put up for sale that is not sold is subject to rot when it is returned to the warehouse.
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Indeed, for many realms, having food that is put on the market and not specifically destined for a particular region or small set of regions within their own realm is considered to be a security risk, or otherwise a bad thing.
Is there a way to sell to own-realm only or allied realms? I'm not too savvy on the actual putting up buy/sell offers.
The marketplace is not a rot-free zone. Food put up for sale that is not sold is subject to rot when it is returned to the warehouse.
So food is subject to retroactive rot if it is not sold? How about if it is sold?
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Is there a way to sell to own-realm only or allied realms? I'm not too savvy on the actual putting up buy/sell offers.
When an offer is put up, the Lord has the option of making it unrestricted, restricted to allies, or restricted to the realm.
However, I know for a fact that some realms intend certain offers to be for specific regions.
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When an offer is put up, the Lord has the option of making it unrestricted, restricted to allies, or restricted to the realm.
However, I know for a fact that some realms intend certain offers to be for specific regions.
That wouldn't ever happen to be possible to restrict to a certain region by the way?
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You are thinking backwards. The game shouldn't be changed to facilitate traders; traders should be changed to facilitate the game. Otherwise you wind up with a myriad of extraneous features, complicating the game for the sake of a class which exists solely for it's own sake.
As a reminder, the trader class' raison d'etre is that it serves to facilitate the exchange of food; food serves to curtail the independence of cities; cities serve to complicate fundamental matters of strategy, leading to deeper gameplay for all classes. The best improvement one could make to the trader, would be to strengthen it's bond in this relationship.
I disagree. The suggested new resources would help trading, but much more than that, they make mountains and woodlands actually have a purpose. Adding resources makes traders more useful as it allows more trade to happen. If you are referring to some suggesting traders to deal with npcs, I disagree with that too as traders should be trading with players not the game. Traders facilitating unique items isn't a bad idea though as there is supposed to eventually be a way to publicly sell unique items. Traders doing things with advys is a idea that would need to have more details for anyone to really have a valid opinion on it.
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That wouldn't ever happen to be possible to restrict to a certain region by the way?
No. The most restricted you can make it is to your realm.
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I'd imagine eventually people will start to balance things out.
That will never happen. Food trading is a simple chore which most people don't put much thought into, so you end up with what you've observed; people determining their prices on a whimsy, rather than through careful speculation. In order for prices to be appropriate with supply and demand there must be competence, and that is simply something that we don't have. Not to mention that the price range is heavily restricted and production and consumption are, for the most part, fixed.
I disagree. The suggested new resources would help trading, but much more than that, they make mountains and woodlands actually have a purpose. Adding resources makes traders more useful as it allows more trade to happen. If you are referring to some suggesting traders to deal with npcs, I disagree with that too as traders should be trading with players not the game. Traders facilitating unique items isn't a bad idea though as there is supposed to eventually be a way to publicly sell unique items. Traders doing things with advys is a idea that would need to have more details for anyone to really have a valid opinion on it.
All regions have a purpose, even the less important ones.
As for trading with adventurers, there is no need for that, so it would be a pointless addition.
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My character has been sought out on more than one occasion to help brokers trades because of his range. Trader has become a 'building influence' position. However, I don't enjoy it nearly as much as I did under the old system.
The simplest way to give Traders value is to give them food. I'm sure the peasantry hold back certain things from the rulers, and a Traders influence may be able to unlock those (food storage). If there was some sort of system were a Trader had a small stash they could draw upon (50-100 units?) then this makes the Trader suddenly very important to regions in deficit. This stash could be calculated daily and be based on their trading skill.
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The trading game right now, at least on EC, is pointless. I would venture that it is pretty much the same on FEI and Dwilight. Food for sale on the open market is few and far between, and usually priced very high, whereas buy offers are very low.
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You are thinking backwards. The game shouldn't be changed to facilitate traders; traders should be changed to facilitate the game. Otherwise you wind up with a myriad of extraneous features, complicating the game for the sake of a class which exists solely for it's own sake.
As a reminder, the trader class' raison d'etre is that it serves to facilitate the exchange of food; food serves to curtail the independence of cities; cities serve to complicate fundamental matters of strategy, leading to deeper gameplay for all classes. The best improvement one could make to the trader, would be to strengthen it's bond in this relationship.
Yes and no. The trader game already exists and is justified by the existence of food. But food alone is not enough, imo, to make the priest game be on par with the rest.
This line of reflection does bring us to par with Tom's thought: is the existence of food in the game justified? Because food is just as justifiable as any other tradable resource.
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Removing food removes a source of great impact, especially during war. It's a strategic resource.
If buy orders are few, then there is too much food. Atamara is pretty lively and I can do multiple trades daily if I wanted to, though this may be war driven.
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The simplest way to give Traders value is to give them food. I'm sure the peasantry hold back certain things from the rulers, and a Traders influence may be able to unlock those (food storage). If there was some sort of system were a Trader had a small stash they could draw upon (50-100 units?) then this makes the Trader suddenly very important to regions in deficit. This stash could be calculated daily and be based on their trading skill.
Second.
This isn't what is being worked on with the black market, is it?
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I don't think we have given it any real thought - the doctrine conversion is required to do anything and it's a lengthy process.
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The trading game right now, at least on EC, is pointless. I would venture that it is pretty much the same on FEI and Dwilight. Food for sale on the open market is few and far between, and usually priced very high, whereas buy offers are very low.
Yeah, I don't know about EC and FEI butt that's definetly true for Dwilight. D'hara's traders aren't really meant to broker trades but to run around the continent to buy food for the realm. I have had one instance where I brokered trades for Terran and then they sold me there extra for helping them out but that is about the only time my brokering ability actually mattered.
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Removing food removes a source of great impact, especially during war. It's a strategic resource.
If buy orders are few, then there is too much food. Atamara is pretty lively and I can do multiple trades daily if I wanted to, though this may be war driven.
Adding a resource would also have an impact, especially during war. Food is every bit as justifiable as "materials" (or metal/wood/stone).
Also, on Dwi, buy offers aren't the problem. It's sell offers. There are a whole lot of lords who just couldn't be arsed to put their excess food on the markets, and as such ridiculous amounts of food are wasted to rot, just because a whole lot of people couldn't be arsed and didn't care for extra profits.
And while I get that it was intended that some people might want to hold back food to hurt others, all of the people who hold back food just because they can't be arsed to give a damn are being a real drain on the trader game.
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Two words: Exploding Donkeys
I understand where you are coming from, I had that issue when the new system was put in place. It took quite a bit of effort, I had to work with each individual Duke to get the food on the market, but in the end, it did.
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Adding a resource would also have an impact, especially during war. Food is every bit as justifiable as "materials" (or metal/wood/stone).
Also, on Dwi, buy offers aren't the problem. It's sell offers. There are a whole lot of lords who just couldn't be arsed to put their excess food on the markets, and as such ridiculous amounts of food are wasted to rot, just because a whole lot of people couldn't be arsed and didn't care for extra profits.
And while I get that it was intended that some people might want to hold back food to hurt others, all of the people who hold back food just because they can't be arsed to give a damn are being a real drain on the trader game.
I disagree with this sentiment partially, at least for Dwilight. There is not a bunch of surplus. Morek, the nation that has generally been considered the richest in food, is having food issues. Half of Dwilight it seems is in a drought. At the same time though, I have heard of several lords who would sit on a thousand or more bushels and just let it rot because they said it wasn't worth it, regardless of price so your not completely wrong.Two words: Exploding Donkeys
I understand where you are coming from, I had that issue when the new system was put in place. It took quite a bit of effort, I had to work with each individual Duke to get the food on the market, but in the end, it did.
The issue is these lords are in realms with a surplus of food so those of the realm don't care that they are wasting it. It's everyone else trying to buy food from that realm that gets !@#$ed over it.
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Adding a resource would also have an impact, especially during war. Food is every bit as justifiable as "materials" (or metal/wood/stone).
Also, on Dwi, buy offers aren't the problem. It's sell offers. There are a whole lot of lords who just couldn't be arsed to put their excess food on the markets, and as such ridiculous amounts of food are wasted to rot, just because a whole lot of people couldn't be arsed and didn't care for extra profits.
And while I get that it was intended that some people might want to hold back food to hurt others, all of the people who hold back food just because they can't be arsed to give a damn are being a real drain on the trader game.
In that case, it would be prudent for the banker and judge to step in and start fining incompetent Lords. Or better yet, simply kick out the looters and replace them with people who can do their job. That is one major issue with players, I find -- they simply do not care about competence, not even the slightest bit. Minor mistakes can be let slide, but for crying out loud, when a Lord has had 1,000 bushels rotting in his granary for the past month it is time to kick him out!
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I have heard of several lords who would sit on a thousand or more bushels and just let it rot because they said it wasn't worth it, regardless of price so your not completely wrong.
What does it require to put up sell offers? I can understand not wanting to waste gold/hours on buy/sell offers that won't get touched, but if they feel like an extra 50 gold isn't worth a single click then they need to be bumped down to knight in a poor region where 50 gold means something.
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In that case, it would be prudent for the banker and judge to step in and start fining incompetent Lords. Or better yet, simply kick out the looters and replace them with people who can do their job. That is one major issue with players, I find -- they simply do not care about competence, not even the slightest bit. Minor mistakes can be let slide, but for crying out loud, when a Lord has had 1,000 bushels rotting in his granary for the past month it is time to kick him out!
Again, its generally in realms with a major surplus so incompetence in that department is not an issue for the realm in the least though I agree, not only for this but in general people don't care if someone has power but is incompetent as long as its not affecting something important. (If a lord had a thousand bushels and wouldn't sell while a city starved, I can definitely see them being fined until he sells) What does it require to put up sell offers? I can understand not wanting to waste gold/hours on buy/sell offers that won't get touched, but if they feel like an extra 50 gold isn't worth a single click then they need to be bumped down to knight in a poor region where 50 gold means something.
if they have been at peace for awhile with a lords pay, gold becomes almost irrelevant.
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I disagree with this sentiment partially, at least for Dwilight. There is not a bunch of surplus. Morek, the nation that has generally been considered the richest in food, is having food issues. Half of Dwilight it seems is in a drought. At the same time though, I have heard of several lords who would sit on a thousand or more bushels and just let it rot because they said it wasn't worth it, regardless of price so your not completely wrong.The issue is these lords are in realms with a surplus of food so those of the realm don't care that they are wasting it. It's everyone else trying to buy food from that realm that gets !@#$ed over it.
If half the realm is in drought while the other half lets it waste away, this should be a reason for war.
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As much as I love the old trade system, and even to a degree the current, it just doesn't do what it should. If you have a neighboring realm that has a surplus of food out the ears while you're starving... you shouldn't complain that they aren't selling it. You should DEMAND it, or go to war over it. Food should be a competitive resource worth fighting for. After all, food curbs starvation, and that which goes with it: loss in morale, control, loyalty, and lives. Even if that neighbor is your dearest ally, if they are withholding food from your starving realm they are inactively contributing to your ruin.
It's not the fact that lords are incompetent when it comes to selling food, it's that diplomats, rulers, and the armies are too incompetent to GET the food. You CAN loot for food, or even take the regions with the production and stockpiles. Hell, if you want to be nasty about it, you can do both so that your people are well fed while their own people take a turn at starvation. That would quickly teach them a lesson, and also impact their abilities to fight you back.
It's BATTLEMaster. Diplomacy and RP aside, situations like what's been mentioned are a perfect cause for war. (Yes, I didn't join the bandwagon by using the over-used Latin term "casus belli" in the middle of a sentence composed otherwise entirely in English. Errr.).
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*High fives Azerax*
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In that case, it would be prudent for the banker and judge to step in and start fining incompetent Lords. Or better yet, simply kick out the looters and replace them with people who can do their job. That is one major issue with players, I find -- they simply do not care about competence, not even the slightest bit. Minor mistakes can be let slide, but for crying out loud, when a Lord has had 1,000 bushels rotting in his granary for the past month it is time to kick him out!
You missed what Penchant said: these lords come from heavy surplus realms. What do the ruler, judge, and banker care for other realms' food situation?
As much as I love the old trade system, and even to a degree the current, it just doesn't do what it should. If you have a neighboring realm that has a surplus of food out the ears while you're starving... you shouldn't complain that they aren't selling it. You should DEMAND it, or go to war over it. Food should be a competitive resource worth fighting for. After all, food curbs starvation, and that which goes with it: loss in morale, control, loyalty, and lives. Even if that neighbor is your dearest ally, if they are withholding food from your starving realm they are inactively contributing to your ruin.
It's not the fact that lords are incompetent when it comes to selling food, it's that diplomats, rulers, and the armies are too incompetent to GET the food. You CAN loot for food, or even take the regions with the production and stockpiles. Hell, if you want to be nasty about it, you can do both so that your people are well fed while their own people take a turn at starvation. That would quickly teach them a lesson, and also impact their abilities to fight you back.
It's BATTLEMaster. Diplomacy and RP aside, situations like what's been mentioned are a perfect cause for war. (Yes, I didn't join the bandwagon by using the over-used Latin term "casus belli" in the middle of a sentence composed otherwise entirely in English. Errr.).
Going to war for food is suicide. Let's set aside that the food-surplus realms are among the strongest and best-surrounded realms on the continent, the quantities one could loot is just ridiculously insufficient. You can't feed a realm on loot. And doing so would alienate a great potential seller. And it will also make every other food-surplus realms on the continent mistrust you and fear your aggressiveness. Meanwhile, other food-seeking realms are likely to exploit this and side with the food suppliers to eliminate a competitor for food sales. In other words, going to war for food is total and utter suicide.
While in theory, yea, it's nice that some regions may have surpluses and others deficit, and that it can create conflict. But it's misguided to assume that it can provoke wars for the sake of stealing food. Warring for food is not a viable strategy.
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You missed what Penchant said: these lords come from heavy surplus realms. What do the ruler, judge, and banker care for other realms' food situation?
Going to war for food is suicide. Let's set aside that the food-surplus realms are among the strongest and best-surrounded realms on the continent, the quantities one could loot is just ridiculously insufficient. You can't feed a realm on loot. And doing so would alienate a great potential seller. And it will also make every other food-surplus realms on the continent mistrust you and fear your aggressiveness. Meanwhile, other food-seeking realms are likely to exploit this and side with the food suppliers to eliminate a competitor for food sales. In other words, going to war for food is total and utter suicide.
While in theory, yea, it's nice that some regions may have surpluses and others deficit, and that it can create conflict. But it's misguided to assume that it can provoke wars for the sake of stealing food. Warring for food is not a viable strategy.
Perhaps, but then no one can say that Traders are broken because players choose to horde food. (The actions of players can not cause a specific class to be broken)
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In some stances it might be true that food suppliers are often big, but not always.
The point still stands though, that things CAN be done to put pressure on these realms. Even if you don't outright war them, think of how bad it can look in some situations if you publicize to your peers in other realms how this other realm in your federation, or whatever your current stance is, is just sitting by idly and watching you starve. Will you always get sympathy to where they second your call for trade? Maybe not. Will the other realms look at that food giant as a less dependable ally? Most likely.
If you were the leader of such a realm, would you see to it that your friends are taken care of, or show that you don't give a damn about your relations with them and anyone else listening? Ignoring such public calls on your dependability as a friend can be just as suicidal.
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What does it require to put up sell offers? I can understand not wanting to waste gold/hours on buy/sell offers that won't get touched, but if they feel like an extra 50 gold isn't worth a single click then they need to be bumped down to knight in a poor region where 50 gold means something.
The lord that was doing it felt that the satisfaction of watching others starve was worth more to him than the gold that selling the food would have brought in. In fact, I think he did eventually sell a lot, by demanding that the duke that wanted the food send him extra bonds, on top of the 50/100 sale price. I'm not sure, but I think he ended up getting the equivalent of 100/100.
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Good for him. Supply and demand. He got lucky they didn't just take it.
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You can't take food from your own realm.
And no, I don't know why they didn't just ban him. (Well, they eventually did, but not for that.)
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Perhaps, but then no one can say that Traders are broken because players choose to horde food. (The actions of players can not cause a specific class to be broken)
But it's not choice, it's not action. They don't chose to hold it back, they just can't be bothered to give a damn. It's apathy, inaction. A lot of people just don't want to bother with food. And since automatic deals were removed, and that deals can no longer last more than 14 days, a lot of people just decided "to heck with it". As such, to Tom and the Devs, they see huge surpluses that they need to crush. Which results in massive starvations elsewhere. Not because people are intentionally trying to starve others, but because the players don't see a reason to bother putting any time into it and OOC decisions by Tom and the Devs result in other realms hurting. Morek's apathetic rural lords didn't starve D'Hara, Tom did. D'Hara was doing quite fine before the food production values and warehouse stocks started to be toyed with.
I'm not whining about Tom's decision, but you cannot say that this is the result of choices by the players. It's the result of purely OOC factors: 1) the food game being too onerous to a large part of the player base and 2) this apathy skews statistics and make it seem, theoretically, that the trade game is suffering from an imbalance in a supply/offer ratio and 3) that the apathy for food is mistakenly believed to be purely a result of its overabundance.
There were many starvation episodes in the South that were not the result of OOC action. And some OOC action that helped reduce or prevent them (population rebalance). But for the trader game to be viable, you need a buyer and a seller. Need creates the buyer, sure. But greed was seriously overestimated, and laziness seriously underestimated. Since the birth of D'Hara, in many realms, the greatest barrier to trade from important producing realms never seemed to be ill intent, but outright apathy. It's surprising how many people don't care to turn food rot into profit. Who are the buyers to trade with if most of the sellers don't care for profits and thus, don't care to sell their food?
Save a few exceptions, only formal realm-to-realm seems to be a real source of trade deals. Traders, on their own, have a tough life. And a not very rewarding one at that.
In some stances it might be true that food suppliers are often big, but not always.
The point still stands though, that things CAN be done to put pressure on these realms. Even if you don't outright war them, think of how bad it can look in some situations if you publicize to your peers in other realms how this other realm in your federation, or whatever your current stance is, is just sitting by idly and watching you starve. Will you always get sympathy to where they second your call for trade? Maybe not. Will the other realms look at that food giant as a less dependable ally? Most likely.
If you were the leader of such a realm, would you see to it that your friends are taken care of, or show that you don't give a damn about your relations with them and anyone else listening? Ignoring such public calls on your dependability as a friend can be just as suicidal.
You assume that one only ever needs to buy from allies. Sure, you can scorn them if they watch you starve... but then again, good luck without allies. However, in most cases, they can't supply enough. Are you seriously saying that when D'Hara starves, it should go declare war on Morek? You speak in general terms that have no practical application. And in any case, a realm that is starving is a realm unable to wage war.
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The lord that was doing it felt that the satisfaction of watching others starve was worth more to him than the gold that selling the food would have brought in. In fact, I think he did eventually sell a lot, by demanding that the duke that wanted the food send him extra bonds, on top of the 50/100 sale price. I'm not sure, but I think he ended up getting the equivalent of 100/100.
What are the odds that the price cap could be raised to 100/100? In many cases, it seems like 50/100 is underselling. I don't see any reason as to why it's so low.
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What are the odds that the price cap could be raised to 100/100? In many cases, it seems like 50/100 is underselling. I don't see any reason as to why it's so low.
If you think 100/100 is remotely viable, there is something wrong. 50/100 already uses a lot of gold. For example, with Golden Farrow (rough estimate) half of the city's tax income would go purely to food. That is a ridiculous amount and should never be that high. The Morekian duke who did that had lots of gold stored up but long term that would bankrupt him. As Indirik said, he should have been banned for that especially when compared with that realms demand 10/100. The solution to this problem is not just make lazy rural lords willing to sell because they get ridiculous amounts of gold. In what way is 50/100 underselling?
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I actually spend nearly my entire income on food, and that's at 40 gold/100 bushels
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As IRL, food cannot simply be totally put up on the free market without any restriction or control. The market helps get a maximum price for what people are willing to pay for for any given resource, but in the case of food, everyone needs it, and so everyone will pay whatever it takes to get it. In consequence, those who need more, or aren't as rich, will be unable to pay for market price, and will starve. Food isn't a consumer good, nor a luxury, it's a necessity for all. Hiking the food price limit, combined with the new food scarcity, will not do anything to help Dwi or any other continent, starving realms. Traders from needy realms, instead of facing the lack of sell offers, will only find sell offers they cannot afford. It wouldn't make anything better.
I wouldn't really mind if food became a lot less scarce, as it is IRL.
I actually spend nearly my entire income on food, and that's at 40 gold/100 bushels
I remember I put Paisly bankrupt by buying too much food, at 35 gold per 100 average I believe, one week. I was cutting it close for a few weeks, but that week was too much, and I lost over 6000 gold's worth of infrastructure and militia. Wouldn't be as bad today, but still. The point of the trade game is not to make food so rare and expensive that cities no longer produce any profits at all.
I've always argued that the trading game should be the least onerous possible to non-traders. Tom seems to oppose "set and forget", but I really think that if we want resources in this game, they all need to be "set and forget" for the lords. Not for the traders, but for the lords. Or bankers, or whoever is in charge. "sell all food in excess of X threshold for Y price" and "buy all food to reach X threshold for Y price". The new system, by making use of bonds instead of region income, makes this more complicated (while preventing bankruptcy as well), but forcing every deal to be made manually by at least 2 people (if not 3) and putting an expiry date of a meager 2 weeks was not a good change, imo.
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If you think 100/100 is remotely viable, there is something wrong. 50/100 already uses a lot of gold. For example, with Golden Farrow (rough estimate) half of the city's tax income would go purely to food. That is a ridiculous amount and should never be that high. The Morekian duke who did that had lots of gold stored up but long term that would bankrupt him. As Indirik said, he should have been banned for that especially when compared with that realms demand 10/100. The solution to this problem is not just make lazy rural lords willing to sell because they get ridiculous amounts of gold. In what way is 50/100 underselling?
I could see 100/100 being viable in extreme cases, such as that of a drought or other shortfall. If a duke is bankrupted in such a scenario, that is no problem. After all, the game isn't meant to be easy and predictable; the possibility of something going seriously wrong serves as an incentive for players to play better. Smart dukes could seek out ways to acquire additional food-producing regions, or levy more control over the market, in order to keep the cost of their food down. Incompetent dukes wouldn't do anything, and so they'd be forced into bankruptcy and possibly even starvation. Higher prices, better rewards and larger potential losses would lend more weight to trading and encourage a more meritocratic system than what we have now, which basically neither rewards merit nor punishes lack of it, leading to very apathetic gameplay, which a lot of people don't even bother with.
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I could see 100/100 being viable in extreme cases, such as that of a drought or other shortfall. If a duke is bankrupted in such a scenario, that is no problem. After all, the game isn't meant to be easy and predictable; the possibility of something going seriously wrong serves as an incentive for players to play better. Smart dukes could seek out ways to acquire additional food-producing regions, or levy more control over the market, in order to keep the cost of their food down. Incompetent dukes wouldn't do anything, and so they'd be forced into bankruptcy and possibly even starvation. Higher prices, better rewards and larger potential losses would lend more weight to trading and encourage a more meritocratic system than what we have now, which basically neither rewards merit nor punishes lack of it, leading to very apathetic gameplay, which a lot of people don't even bother with.
Bull!@#$. Gustav is already spending his entire income on food and you want him to pay more. Cities didn't waste all their gold on food like you expect them to. A lord spending all of his tax income on food is an extreme case. You ignore that I didn't say it bankrupted a duke short term, but long term because they never make any money in your scenario. Also, bull!@#$ on the no loss part considering with the current prices I have heard of lords letting their city starve because it wasn't worth it. 500 gold is plenty and any who want that much need only not be lazy as I can sell my food for that much anytime since I am not lazy. With your plan, your making margrave of a city a position no one would ever want.
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I could see 100/100 being viable in extreme cases, such as that of a drought or other shortfall. If a duke is bankrupted in such a scenario, that is no problem. After all, the game isn't meant to be easy and predictable; the possibility of something going seriously wrong serves as an incentive for players to play better. Smart dukes could seek out ways to acquire additional food-producing regions, or levy more control over the market, in order to keep the cost of their food down. Incompetent dukes wouldn't do anything, and so they'd be forced into bankruptcy and possibly even starvation. Higher prices, better rewards and larger potential losses would lend more weight to trading and encourage a more meritocratic system than what we have now, which basically neither rewards merit nor punishes lack of it, leading to very apathetic gameplay, which a lot of people don't even bother with.
You are confusing competence with opportunity. Dukes don't decide who go to war, rulers do. Rulers don't decide how large they can expand, noble count do. There aren't always the nobles to acquire more food-producing regions, and often, there are no additional food-producing regions to be acquired. High gold prices are only fair if the need to pay them is rare. If you must buy food all the time, then it's another story. And if every city had to buy food at 50 gold per 100 bushels, I'm sure all of them would go bankrupt. I doubt any single city can, at full population, afford to buy all of their food at 50 gold per 100 bushels. Much less at 1 gold per bushel. In reality, though, you'd have a few realms with insane surpluses that'd have their lords sell to their cities for cheap, and every other realm on the continent would go rogue due to starvation. That's the scenario you propose.
Your magical thinking that dukes can simply work everything out if they work hard enough is utter bull!@#$. Incompetent dukes will starve more often no matter what, but no amount of competence with compensate for circumstance.
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You are confusing competence with opportunity. Dukes don't decide who go to war, rulers do. Rulers don't decide how large they can expand, noble count do. There aren't always the nobles to acquire more food-producing regions, and often, there are no additional food-producing regions to be acquired. High gold prices are only fair if the need to pay them is rare. If you must buy food all the time, then it's another story. And if every city had to buy food at 50 gold per 100 bushels, I'm sure all of them would go bankrupt. I doubt any single city can, at full population, afford to buy all of their food at 50 gold per 100 bushels. Much less at 1 gold per bushel. In reality, though, you'd have a few realms with insane surpluses that'd have their lords sell to their cities for cheap, and every other realm on the continent would go rogue due to starvation. That's the scenario you propose.
Your magical thinking that dukes can simply work everything out if they work hard enough is utter bull!@#$. Incompetent dukes will starve more often no matter what, but no amount of competence with compensate for circumstance.
Dukes can pressure rulers into going to war. Realms that go to war often tend to have surplus nobles. There are always regions to be acquired. I didn't say that cities would have to pay 50/100 for food. Why would every realm go rogue?
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Didn't read the entire thread... tl... However, I made several sales for more than 50 gold per 100, before the cost cap, when the buyer could decide how much the food was worth to him/her.
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Dukes can pressure rulers into going to war. Realms that go to war often tend to have surplus nobles. There are always regions to be acquired. I didn't say that cities would have to pay 50/100 for food. Why would every realm go rogue?
"Realms that go to war often tend to have surplus nobles"? Seriously? Where on earth do you get that from? Because that's not my experience at all. What, you simply declare war and, poof, 20 nobles appear? It doesn't work that way. When you have almost as many nobles as you have regions, no, there are not "always regions to be acquired". When the regions at your borders already suffer from anarchists due to distance from the capital, no, there are not "always regions to be acquired".
I don't know where you play, but you must always consider that food affects the different continents very differently. Some continents have only realms with surpluses, or just about, while in others, very few realms have steady (although significant) surpluses. On Dwi, basically you have a few realms which really need food (D'Hara, mostly), a bunch of realms that pretty much break even (surplus is so small they don't like the risk associated with sales), and a few realms with have so much surpluses that nobody really needs to bother with the trading game at all and that very little can convince them to actually care.
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"Realms that go to war often tend to have surplus nobles"? Seriously? Where on earth do you get that from? Because that's not my experience at all. What, you simply declare war and, poof, 20 nobles appear? It doesn't work that way. When you have almost as many nobles as you have regions, no, there are not "always regions to be acquired".
When the regions at your borders already suffer from anarchists due to distance from the capital, no, there are not "always regions to be acquired".
Realms that go to war tend to be exciting. Exciting realms tend to attract players. On Dwilight, the realms with player shortages are all very peaceful, while those with large surpluses are all very warlike.
If a realm is so big that it cannot expand, then it can consider dividing it's lands so that it can.
I don't know where you play, but you must always consider that food affects the different continents very differently. Some continents have only realms with surpluses, or just about, while in others, very few realms have steady (although significant) surpluses. On Dwi, basically you have a few realms which really need food (D'Hara, mostly), a bunch of realms that pretty much break even (surplus is so small they don't like the risk associated with sales), and a few realms with have so much surpluses that nobody really needs to bother with the trading game at all and that very little can convince them to actually care.
If the realms on Dwilight are unwilling to sell their surplus food, then increasing the price cap on trade would be a good way of encouraging them.
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I've always argued that the trading game should be the least onerous possible to non-traders. Tom seems to oppose "set and forget", but I really think that if we want resources in this game, they all need to be "set and forget" for the lords. Not for the traders, but for the lords. Or bankers, or whoever is in charge. "sell all food in excess of X threshold for Y price" and "buy all food chto reach X threshold for Y price". The new system, by making use of bonds instead of region income, makes this more complicated (while preventing bankruptcy as well), but forcing every deal to be made manually by at least 2 people (if not 3) and putting an expiry date of a meager 2 weeks was not a good change, imo.
Excellent ideas:
1. Automatic sell offers
2. change from 2 weeks to 4 weeks
Here's one more:
Change all offers over 100 into sell lots of 50 bushels. When a lord puts up a sell offer of 200 bushels, have the game automatically make that into 4 separate offers. That way, it's easy to buy a little and it's easy to sell a lot.
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Excellent ideas:
1. Automatic sell offers
2. change from 2 weeks to 4 weeks
Here's one more:
Change all offers over 100 into sell lots of 50 bushels. When a lord puts up a sell offer of 200 bushels, have the game automatically make that into 4 separate offers. That way, it's easy to buy a little and it's easy to sell a lot.
I like it.
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Excellent ideas:
1. Automatic sell offers
2. change from 2 weeks to 4 weeks
Here's one more:
Change all offers over 100 into sell lots of 50 bushels. When a lord puts up a sell offer of 200 bushels, have the game automatically make that into 4 separate offers. That way, it's easy to buy a little and it's easy to sell a lot.
Without major changes to the interface, that would make accepting any offers (buy or sell) much more of a hassle. Instead of accepting one buy offer for 300 bushels, I'd have to accept six separate offers for 50 each. And each of those offer acceptances would be a click on a "trade" button that would then reload the page. (It would also thereby increase the load on the server.)
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It would also flood the interface with zillions of orders. It's already bad enough when someone floods it with ridiculous offers. Like 20 public buy offers of 10/100, for 100 bushels each.
The trader game on EC simply doesn't exist right now. The only way to go is lord/steward, and just buy whatever you can, and then resell to know buyers later. The free market will only work with large numbers of both buy and sell, and traders that have significantly longer range than lords.
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The trader game on EC simply doesn't exist right now. The only way to go is lord/steward, and just buy whatever you can, and then resell to know buyers later. The free market will only work with large numbers of both buy and sell, and traders that have significantly longer range than lords.
...and I believe the only way that is likely to happen naturally is if there is a large area of the map that is chronically short on food, but rich, and another area of the map, of comparable size, that is chronically short on gold, but has plenty of food surplus.
Not only does that not happen given our current maps, any realm in the former area would fall apart due to starvation before the food would be likely to be brokered to them, and any realm in the latter area would not have enough money or nobles to withstand assault by a richer realm that wants the breadbasket for itself.
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Yeah, that's quite possible. We really need some kind of set-and-forget management system for food. Being Margrave of a city is a never-ending hassle of begging for people to sell you food, running to marketplaces to post orders, and other scut work.
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...and I believe the only way that is likely to happen naturally is if there is a large area of the map that is chronically short on food, but rich, and another area of the map, of comparable size, that is chronically short on gold, but has plenty of food surplus.
Not only does that not happen given our current maps, any realm in the former area would fall apart due to starvation before the food would be likely to be brokered to them, and any realm in the latter area would not have enough money or nobles to withstand assault by a richer realm that wants the breadbasket for itself.
Doesn't really work either since traders need to be within range of both of these to work. Instead of lots of orders showing up like the current system, it should be changed so that multiple offers can be made but its listed as one with the option to choose how many you want to accept. So instead of there being 10 offers listed its one offer shown saying there are 10 and you just choose how many you would like to accept. Also, I don't like that it would automatically break it up as often prices will depend on how much is being bought/sold.
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YAFO: give the lord a checkbox to indicate whether or not an order can be partially filled. Then you don't need to bust orders up into penny packets, nor do lords need to individually post 20 duplicate orders. Gets rid of the need for traders to exactly match up buy and sell orders. Allows lords to post a massive 5,000 bushels order, and have it filled as food is available.
Also, make orders stick around for longer. (At least Buy orders, I can understand why Sell orders can't stick around forever.)
Allow the lords to set an option to auto-post buy orders based on a threshold "when less than 1000 in the warehouse, buy at 35/100 until we have more than 2000".
Etc., etc.
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YAFO: give the lord a checkbox to indicate whether or not an order can be partially filled. Then you don't need to bust orders up into penny packets, nor do lords need to individually post 20 duplicate orders. Gets rid of the need for traders to exactly match up buy and sell orders. Allows lords to post a massive 5,000 bushels order, and have it filled as food is available.
Also, make orders stick around for longer. (At least Buy orders, I can understand why Sell orders can't stick around forever.)
Allow the lords to set an option to auto-post buy orders based on a threshold "when less than 1000 in the warehouse, buy at 35/100 until we have more than 2000".
Etc., etc.
I don't even see why not have sell offers stick around either, they are subject to food rot after all when it comes back.
I don't really mind the new trade system, as opposed to caravans, where people ship food from a distance and with bonds (though I still find the use of bonds to be quite confusing and conflicting with the rest of the game). However, it's the changes that go around the market management that I don't like. Back with caravans, I had to send a bunch of caravans all of the time, sure. But at least the sellers could set and forget. Apathy was much less of a burden to the trading game, and starvation was much more the result of dukes not putting enough effort to feed their cities than the result of nobody caring to put sell offers. I understand that the newer system is much simpler and cleaner code, which is fine. Caravans don't need to come back. Even if it felt that my range and possibilities were much greater back then. But the set and forget, for at least sell offers, this is important...
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Would it be able to deposit food on the market at a set price and allow sales to be in amounts specified by the buyer, and the other way around? Like a text field such as the guilds use for treasuries.
Steward of Place has a sale offer of 300 bushels at 30/100 for a value of 90.
(Instead of just a little box to click to trade) How many bushels would you like to purchase? ____ *trade button*
Of course, since we have rot, a lord/steward would never be able to add to this sell offer. Instead they should start a new one with the rot factor still unique to the offer.
While I think part of this system was to get purchasers to spend some gold around to poorer income rurals with all or nothing offers, it does seem to make some less interested in having to front these big offers of which some will rot. The proposed way would still allow starving lords to purchase big amounts, but would still let selling lords have a steady income as others wither away at their sell offers. Buyers will still buy, at optimal levels to them, and sellers will still be selling.
This would also allow some to become rather wealthy trade moguls; buy up any offers you can cheap enough, and put them back on the market for more until the offer has sold down. Would actually encourage players to consider their local economies a little more.
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None of that helps if traders are looking to buy and there's no food on the market.
And there won't be food on the market whilst there are no traders. So that means the first thing to fix is the lack of traders, and that means introducing things traders can do.
The ability to build tangible and long-lived trade networks via warehouses and manufactories is one such option. Between the food stored and the gold generated there's a clear benefit without destroying game balance.
Further psyche's suggestion of being able to sell rotten food has potential, as would a return of the black market and side-profits based on distance of trade etc.
Traders could also find opportunities for profit or mischief from speaking with the same wealthy merchants that diplomats so regularly court. Indeed if there were a market share concept this would become a significant part of their daily routine.
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With your plan, your making margrave of a city a position no one would ever want.
You make that sound like it's a bad thing. If you think you get more power as lord of a rural... go for the rural.
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You make that sound like it's a bad thing. If you think you get more power as lord of a rural... go for the rural.
I do think its bad to intentionally make the game suck for a position.
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I'd be willing to become duke even without the monetary reward. The political power alone makes it appealing, asides from which are various side perks, like family fame increase and access to exclusive features, such as tournaments. Money has become pretty devalued anyway -- it's not like it's hard to achieve 200+ gold incomes, what with the character shortages.
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I'd be willing to become duke even without the monetary reward. The political power alone makes it appealing, asides from which are various side perks, like family fame increase and access to exclusive features, such as tournaments. Money has become pretty devalued anyway -- it's not like it's hard to achieve 200+ gold incomes, what with the character shortages.
Don't confuse dukes with margraves. And tournaments cost gold. As for the character shortages, it insures atrocious tax efficiency.
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I do think its bad to intentionally make the game suck for a position.
I can agree with the sentiment, but I don't think it is justified here. If the changes made to being a Lord suck, then it would be bad; but rearranging the relative interest of the region types would not be a problem.
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Hmm, yes I forgot that duchies and cities are now separate things. Still, I'd take the city even at a loss. It's a rare thing to rule a city in this game.
Also, after doing some calculations, I have to wonder how Golden Farrow is spending all of it's money on food? Assuming food consumption scales linearly to population, it shouldn't need much more than 100 bushels per day. That amounts to 700 a week, which, even when purchased at a premium, should only come to an expense of 350 gold. Golden Farrow produces 2,000 gold per week. The Lord wouldn't get all of that, of course, however he should be able to get between 40 and 60%. So... how come it's all going to food expenses? Is the tax rate really low or something?
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Hmm, yes I forgot that duchies and cities are now separate things. Still, I'd take the city even at a loss. It's a rare thing to rule a city in this game.
Also, after doing some calculations, I have to wonder how Golden Farrow is spending all of it's money on food? Assuming food consumption scales linearly to population, it shouldn't need much more than 100 bushels per day. That amounts to 700 a week, which, even when purchased at a premium, should only come to an expense of 350 gold. Golden Farrow produces 2,000 gold per week. The Lord wouldn't get all of that, of course, however he should be able to get between 40 and 60%. So... how come it's all going to food expenses? Is the tax rate really low or something?
You are assuming that I only buy just enough to sustain my region, rather than enough to cover the needs of the city despite two droughts in close succession, while having food left in case of an emergency or if I need to travel from the region. I got 600 gold last tax, out of 1617 taxes. By the way, Golden Farrow is not fully populated, so your theory of 2000 gold per week would only be true if I upped the tax percentage to 20%. Which I am not willing to do because I don't want to be sitting in the region all day long doing courtier work and telling tales as a hero. I have also provided gold for our traders to go out and buy food elsewhere, for our other regions.
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Money has become pretty devalued anyway -- it's not like it's hard to achieve 200+ gold incomes, what with the character shortages.
This is the real reason trading is broken. Lords that have food have no reason to seek buyers for their food. They have all the gold they need. The poorest lords are lords of regions that have no appreciable food surplus, so no real food to sell. The lords that have lots of food also have regions that have lots of gold from taxes. Letting food rot costs them nothing, as it's all make-believe food anyway. What do they need another 100 gold a week for?
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Hmm, yes I forgot that duchies and cities are now separate things. Still, I'd take the city even at a loss. It's a rare thing to rule a city in this game.
Also, after doing some calculations, I have to wonder how Golden Farrow is spending all of it's money on food? Assuming food consumption scales linearly to population, it shouldn't need much more than 100 bushels per day. That amounts to 700 a week, which, even when purchased at a premium, should only come to an expense of 350 gold. Golden Farrow produces 2,000 gold per week. The Lord wouldn't get all of that, of course, however he should be able to get between 40 and 60%. So... how come it's all going to food expenses? Is the tax rate really low or something?
You are using inaccurate info. The gold listed on region info is before pop rebalance and with full production which GF does not have due to low pop. I would estimate GF's income at 1400 with atleast 400 going to upkeep. With 30% of 1000 that's 300 gold + 5% of 700 which is 335 gold but you need to take away atleast 10% for dukes leaving it at 301 which makes him not able to afford 50 gold per 100 bushels. Lastly, because of militia it's much more like 770-800 bushels a week.
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The gold listed on region info is before pop rebalance...
The gold value listed on the region details page is the gold value for the region. There is no separate, hidden value that is used for calculations.
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The gold value listed on the region details page is the gold value for the region. There is no separate, hidden value that is used for calculations.
I haven't ever seen anything that actually suggests it is used as I have never seen one that is actually accurate but I don't have access to any code nor the tax rate it assumes.
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I have never seen one that is actually accurate
Please explain what this means.
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Please explain what this means.
I don't believe I have ever seen one be quite close tax incomes though I don't know the tax rate assumed as I said and I have also seen times where regions have perfect tax rate but have a tax income substantially less than posted on the region page.
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The gold value listed on the region page is not the tax income. It is, essentially, the economy value of the region, measured in gold per day. A gold rating of 1,600 means that, each day, there are essentially 1,600 gold coins of business transactions that you can tax, assuming a 100% production level. To figure out the actual taxes generated per day, you need to apply your tax rate to that value, then multiply by the production value. Like this:
GoldValue * TaxRate * ProductionValue = DailyTaxIncome
Multiply that by 7, and you get the weekly tax income generated by the region during one normal tax week.
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which means that Kwanstein is still incorrect...
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Just thinking about all of that gold makes my mouth water... 13,300 per week at 25% tax rate, would give me 3,325 coins, 2,000 of which would go to me. Militia expenses, food? Pshaw... that could be trimmed down. With that kind of cash at my disposal, I could reach the family wealth cap in less than 3 months. I could afford insane tournaments, with record-shattering prize pools. All sorts of stuff would be possible.
And you complain about food prices... tut-tut.
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Just thinking about all of that gold makes my mouth water... 13,300 per week at 25% tax rate, would give me 3,325 coins, 2,000 of which would go to me. Militia expenses, food? Pshaw... that could be trimmed down. With that kind of cash at my disposal, I could reach the family wealth cap in less than 3 months. I could afford insane tournaments, with record-shattering prize pools. All sorts of stuff would be possible.
And you complain about food prices... tut-tut.
You still don't know what your talking about...
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The gold value listed on the region page is not the tax income. It is, essentially, the economy value of the region, measured in gold per day. A gold rating of 1,600 means that, each day, there are essentially 1,600 gold coins of business transactions that you can tax, assuming a 100% production level. To figure out the actual taxes generated per day, you need to apply your tax rate to that value, then multiply by the production value. Like this:
GoldValue * TaxRate * ProductionValue = DailyTaxIncome
Multiply that by 7, and you get the weekly tax income generated by the region during one normal tax week.
Thank you for clearing that up.
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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.
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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.
How did you get 11,200?
As for the tax rate, I have run regions at 25% indefinitely before, you just have to hold court every so often. Allison Kabrinskia's player said here, on this forum, that she always used to run Golden Farrows tax rate at 25%, when she owned it. So it's possible for someone with profit on their mind to do.
The sole knight of that region could be taxed 50% and still make more than he could spend.
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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.
Is 60% assuming a 50% lords share? Otherwise I am pretty sure that's not true either. How did you get 11,200?
As for the tax rate, I have run regions at 25% indefinitely before, you just have to hold court every so often. Allison Kabrinskia's player said here, on this forum, that she always used to run Golden Farrows tax rate at 25%, when she owned it. So it's possible for someone with profit on their mind to do.
The sole knight of that region could be taxed 50% and still make more than he could spend.
Allison also had constant work done to it IIRC, not holding court every once in a while. A lord of a stronghold in D'hara tried 25% and killed the tax rate doing.
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Wups... I thought it was a 1,600 gold region. It is actually 1,900, making the weekly economy 13,300. Still, you're not going to get 2,240 gold out of it, as lord. I'd be surprised if the lord could even get 1,600. And that assumes 0 expenses, and no knights. The capital city of the realm will have knights, and you're probably paying them at least 150 each. Two knights, militia, and expenses drops your actual income down to at least 1,200, tops, at 100% production. Anyway.... that's a discussion for a different thread.
Allison Kabrinskia's player said here, on this forum, that she always used to run Golden Farrows tax rate at 25%, when she owned it. So it's possible for someone with profit on their mind to do.[/qote]
Depends on many circumstances. To say that noble X did it, so noble Y can do it makes many assumptions, some of which are, I am telling you, wrong. 25% is NOT a tax rate which any region can sustain for long periods of time, without significant investment of time and effort from more than just the lord, even if it is possible at all.
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So I have been thinking, what do you think on allowing traders to have half range everywhere and full range at markets?
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Is 60% assuming a 50% lords share? Otherwise I am pretty sure that's not true either. Allison also had constant work done to it IIRC, not holding court every once in a while. A lord of a stronghold in D'hara tried 25% and killed the tax rate doing.
Yes. The lord's estate can be something like 10% for a city that size, at 100% efficiency. Then add in 50% of all the unallocated land.
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Yes. The lord's estate can be something like 10% for a city that size, at 100% efficiency. Then add in 50% of all the unallocated land.
thats 55% as a max not 60% then.
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True, I suppose.
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25% is NOT a tax rate which any region can sustain for long periods of time, without significant investment of time and effort from more than just the lord, even if it is possible at all.
Are you double-plus sure about that? I'm running a 19% tax rate on two regions and they both have perfect stats, without me performing any sort of maintenance at all. I haven't even been to those regions in weeks, and one had some monsters attack it in the meantime. Could a mere 6% difference really make it unsustainable? I'd have thought that, with two chances to hold court every day, it would be entirely possible for the Lord alone to offset the daily stat hits.
In any case, even if it's not possible to carry out my... aspirations... exactly as intended, it should still be entirely possible for a lord to turn a pretty penny even while paying for food -- even while paying for food, at a cost of one gold per bushel. I can't imagine a city running at a deficit without the addition of some hefty optional expenses.
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Are you double-plus sure about that? I'm running a 19% tax rate on two regions and they both have perfect stats, without me performing any sort of maintenance at all. I haven't even been to those regions in weeks, and one had some monsters attack it in the meantime. Could a mere 6% difference really make it unsustainable? I'd have thought that, with two chances to hold court every day, it would be entirely possible for the Lord alone to offset the daily stat hits.
In any case, even if it's not possible to carry out my... aspirations... exactly as intended, it should still be entirely possible for a lord to turn a pretty penny even while paying for food -- even while paying for food, at a cost of one gold per bushel. I can't imagine a city running at a deficit without the addition of some hefty optional expenses.
To your last paragraph, not really. The max possible assuming no expenses for a lord of GF to receive max income is 1460 but food costs lower that to 570 and that assumes no buildings and no militia.
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The tax rate a region can run is highly variable, based on many factors that, so far as I know, most people have not figured out. To say "I can run 19% here, so you should be able to run 19% there" is simply a fallacious argument, especially if the two regions are on different islands. In addition, the game considers 10% as normal. Your 19% is 9% over, whereas 25% is 15% over. And yes, it can make that much difference.
I'm not saying you can't run 25% in Golden Farrow, but I highly doubt you could do it for very long (more than a week or two) without serious, dedicated effort.
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And as I said, I'm not playing the game to have to constantly look after a city and stay in that region all the time, constantly worrying about it. That would burn me out of Battlemaster and I'd have to pause my characters to take some time off.
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Probably this was already mentioned, but I didn't really have time to go through the whole thread. In my opinion:
- trade could be cooler, but does not really need to. I think most would agree it's not a priority to make it better for the sake of itself.
- however, the moment someone can play the trader subclass, playing this class should be fun. At the moment I don't think it is. Simply put: no one sells food. Or if they do, is at insane prices. The amount of gold to be made simply doesn't justify the potential problem one would incur into if this is discovered, because the penalties of not having food are terrible. Additionally, traders can't even "break in" people's deals since lord to lord transactions are quite common, restricted to realm, rarely over distances such that a lord can't make it and anyway not anonymous.
- The black market option was really cool. I think many people enjoyed it, and it gave a good trader a usefulness to a realm on many sides. Moreover, it directly put a threat to lords stockpiling food like hell, as smuggling out of their region was ridiculously easy and cheap. (now there is just the hassle of the granaries). While I agree it is something devs are still thinking about and not easy to implement the trader class without the black market option is just meaningless..
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No, it is not meaningless, just less useful. A lord or steward serves the same purpose as a trader, with the exception of a trader's extended trade range. But even better, a lord can trade with effectively unlimited range, and isn't limited to matching the scarce orders.
Anyway, I don't see how we can really revamp the trade/food game to make traders a really enjoyable and viable career without really making traders required, and making rural region's income nearly completely dependent on selling their food. That would make food mean something to rural lords, and make it in their own best interest to sell it.
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That is probably correct, but it is still quite hard for me to clearly understand the central problem. What's your opinion on the system before the change? And do you recall Rob what was the ratio behind the change? Was it to make it more decentralized, am I right?
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1. Automated offers
2. Choice to buy/sell in either bonds or gold
3. Revamped interface.
Idea for interface:
I want to go to the market page and click "I want to buy food." Then, i want the total amount of food I can purchase put on a slider, from 20 bushels up to whatever the total amount within range and not blocked is. Then I want to be able to move the slider until either the desired amount of food is reached, or the amount I want to spend is reached. The slider would stick the cheapest food offers on the lower end--so that I buy those first--and the expensive offers at the upper end--so I only buy those if I have to. As I move the slider, the amount of food gets updated in real time, the amount of bonds, and the price per bushel, all get updated in realtime (or at least as I drag the slider). Then, I click "buy", and whatever I purchased gets bought.
The sell food interface is fine, I think, except that we need automated offers.
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1. Automated offers
Definitely a requirement for ease of administration.
2. Choice to buy/sell in either bonds or gold
Meh, I don't really care either way. I don't see any particular advantage of using gold instead of bonds. Bonds seem to me to be easier and safer.
3. Revamped interface.
Idea for interface:
I highly doubt anything so fancy/gimmicky will be implemented. If you want to buy the cheapest offers first, then click the "Buy Offers" button, and sort by price. Start buying from the cheap end, and keep buying until you get as much as you want. No need for anything fancy.
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I highly doubt anything so fancy/gimmicky will be implemented. If you want to buy the cheapest offers first, then click the "Buy Offers" button, and sort by price. Start buying from the cheap end, and keep buying until you get as much as you want. No need for anything fancy.
It would be nice if the sort actually worked, like it used to.
What if a filter was added to only show the cheapest sell offer and the most expensive buy offer? You click buy (or sell), and then repeat as needed.
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What's your opinion on the system before the change?
Slow, with a very complicated interface that a lot of people didn't understand.
And do you recall Rob what was the ratio behind the change? Was it to make it more decentralized, am I right?
The idea for moving to the current system was to stop nobles from being mules, who just shepherded caravans around. They are now intended to be brokers and facilitators, not caravan guards. Also, it was intended to simplify the interface, and make things more straight-forward.
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It would be nice if the sort actually worked, like it used to.
If the table sorters don't work, then please report it on the bugtracker so it can be fixed.
What if a filter was added to only show the cheapest sell offer and the most expensive buy offer? You click buy (or sell), and then repeat as needed.
I don't know the full extent of what is available in the way of filtering/sorting options. That's Anaris' (and maybe Foundation's?) area. However, I don't think that would be all that useful. There is no guarantee that you will be able to make a matched deal just from the offers at opposite ends of the spectrum. You could very well have to include stuff from the middle just to make a match, and they could be hidden. Might be almost more helpful to have two tables shown, one for buys and one for sells.
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The idea for moving to the current system was to stop nobles from being mules, who just shepherded caravans around. They are now intended to be brokers and facilitators, not caravan guards.
I think they were much better brokers before, since they could see the amount of food stored and really go around and speak with the people, convincing who had a lot stored to sell, selling to those who were starving at higher price, smuggling out of large producing region the day after harvest and so on.. They had more opportunities..
Now it's basically a sit and wait until some is gentle enough to put a sell offer with a reasonable price without really matching directly any other buy offer.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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And you are once again talking about an exception. I and most others don't want to play Maintenance-Master.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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?
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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".
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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.
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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?
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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.
The profitability encourages it.
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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?
Not sure exactly what it does (morale or loyalty), but it does matter since the opposite is disagreeing with the war which when stacked, had massive effects on Aurvandil I believe.
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The profitability encourages it.
But as others have noted, no one other than myself and a few other weirdos are interested in nursing a region for an extended period of time.
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But as others have noted, no one other than myself and a few other weirdos are interested in nursing a region for an extended period of time.
Such situations are rare, but not exceptional. The number of lords who always stay in their regions, whether they achieve the same kinds of taxes that you did or not, is too great.
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Such situations are rare, but not exceptional. The number of lords who always stay in their regions, whether they achieve the same kinds of taxes that you did or not, is too great.
...really? This has most definitely not been my experience. It's not usually a complaint I hear in other areas of the game, either. It's like pulling teeth to get a liege to perform basic tasks like placing food orders or building a much needed workshop.
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...really? This has most definitely not been my experience. It's not usually a complaint I hear in other areas of the game, either. It's like pulling teeth to get a liege to perform basic tasks like placing food orders or building a much needed workshop.
Hey, hey, whoa, who said anything about actually doing useful work?
All Chénier was talking about was Lords sitting on their butts in their regions.
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Hey, hey, whoa, who said anything about actually doing useful work?
All Chénier was talking about was Lords sitting on their butts in their regions.
Good point.
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And I didn't say everyone did it, just that too many do.
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I've seen wars lost, or not started, because of lords running taxes too high and having to remain in their region to keep them under control.
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Have the judge fine them for neglecting military duty then. This is not a problem which needs to be addressed OOC. In fact, it is not even common. It's only on the forum that I occasionally hear stories of how Aurvandil had really high tax rates, or how Allison ran her city at the maximum tax rate. I've never actually seen any of this in the game, all of my lieges invariably set annoyingly low tax rates, far below what could be supported.
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Have the judge fine them for neglecting military duty then. This is not a problem which needs to be addressed OOC. In fact, it is not even common. It's only on the forum that I occasionally hear stories of how Aurvandil had really high tax rates, or how Allison ran her city at the maximum tax rate. I've never actually seen any of this in the game, all of my lieges invariably set annoyingly low tax rates, far below what could be supported.
what is your idea of normal taxes?
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I've never actually seen any of this in the game, all of my lieges invariably set annoyingly low tax rates, far below what could be supported.
Paging Lorgan to topic number 3778. Lorgan to 3778.
But seriously, there's a healthy subculture in BM of players who try to run 20-25% tax rates because it can be done. Doesn't mean it's smart.
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what is your idea of normal taxes?
Median Tax Rates
By continent
EC: 15
AT: 14
BT: 14
Col: 12
FEI: 14.5
Dwi: 14
By region type
City: 15
Town: 13
Stronghold: 15
Rural: 14
Woodland: 13.5
Badland: 13
For every region in the game: 14
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The averages are even lower. There is very little variation in these numbers within realms or even between realms. Takeaway: Your neighbor does not have some critical advantage that you are missing out on because you aren't committed enough. People need to stop treating the game like a simulator, attempting to squeeze every last ounce out of it. Do the tasks expected of your character's role and go battle/diplomacize/convert/trade something or someone.
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Actually, it's historically accurate for nobles to squeeze their peasants out of every last piece of gold, even to their own detriment. In fact, BM only allows one to scratch the surface of what was done to exploit the peasants. In order to simulate reality better there should, in addition to high taxes, be options to...
...1. implement antiquated laws that have long been forgotten, so that peasants would unwittingly break them and have to pay fines for atonement.
2. Ban a random economic activity; allow only those who purchase permits to partake in it. Fine everyone who does it without a permit and put a high price tag on the permits.
3. Initiate a phony war in order to necessitate phony war taxes.
4. Fix the value of currency (by threat of force) so that it is high when debts are large and low when revenues come in.
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Actually, it's historically accurate for nobles to squeeze their peasants out of every last piece of gold, even to their own detriment. In fact, BM only allows one to scratch the surface of what was done to exploit the peasants. In order to simulate reality better there should, in addition to high taxes, be options to...
...1. implement antiquated laws that have long been forgotten, so that peasants would unwittingly break them and have to pay fines for atonement.
2. Ban a random economic activity; allow only those who purchase permits to partake in it. Fine everyone who does it without a permit and put a high price tag on the permits.
3. Initiate a phony war in order to necessitate phony war taxes.
4. Fix the value of currency (by threat of force) so that it is high when debts are large and low when revenues come in.
Actually that is false. Nobles would ask their peasants for taxes, yes, but only a stupid or desperate one would do try to bleed them dry.
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Actually that is false. Nobles would ask their peasants for taxes, yes, but only a stupid or desperate one would do try to bleed them dry.
Not literally dry, of course, but there were, hum.... let's call them "clever" ways of raising money.
A particularly nasty example was given by Philip the Fair:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_IV_of_France#Expulsion_of_the_Jews
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which did not work, putting that under the "stupid" department of raising money.
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Those methods were commonly used. Also, I wouldn't confuse stupidity with ignorance. We, in modern times, are blessed with a level of understanding of economics that is unprecedented. While it might seem natural to us to avoid such methods, as they are (in some ways) self-defeating, medieval rulers were not so enlightened. Furthermore,these practices weren't entirely a means of acquiring finances; they were also intended to impoverish the lower classes, in order to make them easier to control.
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which did not work, putting that under the "stupid" department of raising money.
Oh, I'm not saying they worked! Only that they happened!
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Oh, I'm not saying they worked! Only that they happened!
I'm not saying they happened, just that it wasn't the only thing they did. most nobles at least knew enough to realize what would and wouldn't upset the peasants enough for revolt. Not because they were afraid of the peasants, but because peasants revolting would cause the kingdom he was a part of to have to concentrate their army on putting down the revolt. That would invite invasions from other nearby kingdoms.
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But as others have noted, no one other than myself and a few other weirdos are interested in nursing a region for an extended period of time.
I don't see there's anything weird in it. There's sufficient challenge in managing a region - especially in wartime - that it's easily as much fun as marching troops to battle.
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For you it may be fun... I'm bored sitting in Golden Farrow, trying to keep it supplied with enough food to feed it each week.
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Then perhaps looking after a city like Golden Farrow isn't for you?
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Or get a steward who handles food for you.
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It appears to me like you would preffer being lord of a dwilight rural region.
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For you it may be fun... I'm bored sitting in Golden Farrow, trying to keep it supplied with enough food to feed it each week.
"Poor me! I'm so unfortunate as to be the margrave of one of the richest cities on Dwilight. I was kidnapped from my family as a young lad, taken out of a life of pleaseant impoverishment and enjoyable hunger, and forced against my will to sit atop piles of gold."
That's what you're saying, right?
Also...I've seen the trade offers made by Golden Farrow (although this was Allison at the time; it's been a while).
Most lords don't have 500 bushels sitting around...try using the "F5 key" method to throw a bunch of 50 or 100 bushels out there.
Have you looked at the world statistics and contacted the realms that show a surplus, offering them 50 gold per 100 bushels for as much as they can sell you?
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Actually egamma, price has nothing to do with it. Iashular withheld shipment because of church politics for a short time. Besides which, we haven't been sitting around twiddling our thumbs, I just bought 500 bushels of food that our banker secured, while Asylon has also been trading with us (one of the conditions for the food from Asylon was signing the defensive alliance treaty with them in the first place).
So if you'll excuse me while you get off your high horse.
By the way, the 500 bushels was secured at over 50 gold per 100 bushels. So it isn't like we're being miserly.
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Now that I've had one character as a trader and one character as a steward for a week or so, I understand why the trader class is pretty much useless. Honestly, I think a simple fix would be a reworking of trade range.
If lords could only initiate trade within 50-100 miles (the regions around them) then traders would actually be useful in facilitating. Since trader's troops cost twice as much, I think it would be a fair exchange that they get 4 or 5 times the trade distance to lords. It still wouldn't solve much of the problems with supply/demand, but it would at least make having 1 or 2 traders per realm a great boon rather than a futile effort. The realm could still do without them, but they would have to trade in such a way to funnel food towards where they need it.
I still prefer the 'secret stash' option for traders, but nerfing lords trade range at least seems the easiest and least change to mechanics.
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Now that I've had one character as a trader and one character as a steward for a week or so, I understand why the trader class is pretty much useless. Honestly, I think a simple fix would be a reworking of trade range.
If lords could only initiate trade within 50-100 miles (the regions around them) then traders would actually be useful in facilitating.
Worth noting that 50-100 miles sometimes won't even get you to the region next door.
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Worth noting that 50-100 miles sometimes won't even get you to the region next door.
Yeah, I pulled that number out of my bowels...but after checking it seems like about 200 miles would be a good upper limit. That is the longest trek I've seen from my characters region to region(Dwilight-170 miles Nyusshi to Desert of Silhouettes). This still gives newbie traders over twice the range and gives the experienced traders a real edge on the market.
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Yeah, I pulled that number out of my bowels...but after checking it seems like about 200 miles would be a good upper limit. That is the longest trek I've seen from my characters region to region(Dwilight-170 miles Nyusshi to Desert of Silhouettes). This still gives newbie traders over twice the range and gives the experienced traders a real edge on the market.
200 miles, if only the devs could change it to that...O, wait they already did. A non-trader lord only has 200 miles for trading when in their region.
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I really need to pay more attention to what I'm thinking.
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That 200 miles only applies when there is no marketplace. If a non-trader lord is at a marketplace, they get a 400 mile range.
A trader gets an extra 100 miles, plus a skill-based bonus.
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Wish I could be a priest/trader/ambassador. :(
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You also have to remember that if we dropped Lord trading range to 200 miles, many realms would suddenly need traders.
That don't have traders.
And don't have anyone particularly interested in becoming traders.
So they start having regions starve. Just so that we can make traders viable.
This isn't the way. We need something more carrot than stick.