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

[Penchant]

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.

[Indirik]

True, I suppose.

[Kwanstein]

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.

[Penchant]

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.

[Indirik]

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.

[Gustav Kuriga]

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.

[Peri]

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..

[Indirik]

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.

[Peri]

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?

[egamma]

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.

[Indirik]

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.

[egamma]

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.

[Indirik]

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.

[Indirik]

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.

[Peri]

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.