Author Topic: Resources and Trade  (Read 3445 times)

Nosferatus

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Resources and Trade
« Topic Start: October 23, 2018, 06:35:28 PM »
I know this idea has been around for a while in BM and we have more then enough feature requests already, but I am bringing it up anyway.
(Actually we had parts of this half implemented and visible on testing under economy region tab. Now we have Economy: N/A in main region page)

Resources and Trade

Summary:
Certain region produce certain types of resources like: Wood, Metal, Stone, Jewellery, Craft/Produce based on region type.
Production of these resources is allocated to estates like tax income.
These resources can be sold for gold on the local markets for a price based on supply and demand recently, or to trader class characters who can set their own prices.
Estate owners can choose to hoard their resource shares, driving the local prices of this particular resource up to sell it later for a higher price.
Estate owners can also sell it to a trader for an above local market price, who can go to regions with little to no type of this resource and sell it there for even more profit.
Resources, apart from trading, can only be spend on investments, estate owners can invest in their region with a set of different resources to increase their resource income.
Since every region type produces its own (set of) resources, there always has to be resources traded in order to get the set of resources needed to make these investments.


Details:
Buying and selling/trading resources for gold can work a bit like trading food using marketplaces: Trader class characters can trade at the markets of any region their at with the same range as it can trade food. Estate owners can only trade their resources on the market of their estates region.
Basically: the actual resources, once collected go to the estate, not the owner, the owner does not carry them around like gold, only traders can carry around resources from market to market and trade them where ever they go.
Investments are temporary and not permanent, to keep production up to its full potential one has to keep trading in resources in the form of buildings needing repairs for example.
Every level of investment has an increase of cost and variation of resources required, making the first investment available for a simple combination of any of two or three different resources.
Adventurers can be included by giving them the ability to break down (certain) common items into resources and sell them on the local markets as well like traders but obviously dealing with far smaller quantities, however trading cleverly could still yield a significant income for advies, making this part of the game also more interesting.


Benefits:
This will create a whole new trade game in BM with only basic features and make the Trader class worthwhile.
The trader will be essential in making the greatest profits possible for everyone by travelling from area to area with different supply and demands.
The trader is the key to more income for everyone because most likely he will be needed to make investments to get more resources and also able to pay more then the local market for your estates resources.
Without traders, estate owners have to relay on trade chains of local markets (where traded resources usually end up in the regions with the least income of this resource since the price is higher), profits will be less and getting all the resources for investments will be more difficult but still possible.
It also gives knights something to work towards, something to invest in and potentially make lots of extra income, something that takes actual decisions instead of just following orders all the time.
It also gives those BM junkies with already way to much positions a whole other thing to rule in since every noble is basically an estate owner except for the ruler and pathetic landless nobles.

Possible Downsides/Exploits:
Hard to balance, gold income potential could either be overpowered or too little to be interesting at all.
A balanced resource allocation per region might also be challenging and all in all alot of work.
Tweaking local market pricing to create a balanced system might also be challenging, also to prevent massive 'exploits' like taking alot of resources away and putting it back in the local market to abuse price fluctuation.
However since resources are only traded for gold and do not influence other mechanics directly its effects are simply limited to gold income.
« Last Edit: October 23, 2018, 06:39:21 PM by Nosferatus »
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JeVondair

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Re: Resources and Trade
« Reply #1: October 23, 2018, 07:11:18 PM »
I am really very much in favor of this. Especially if the possession/accumulation of resources can substitute some existing in-game options like Palace construction. I think this would have a lot of positive trickle-down effects for gameplay both at the local lord level (which could really use some more additions anyway) and inter-realm interaction (let's face it, having nothing material to trade or fight for but grain and gold has always been boring.)
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Anaris

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Re: Resources and Trade
« Reply #2: October 23, 2018, 07:46:42 PM »
Not any time soon.

Once I have had the chance to implement my vaguely-planned overhaul of trade, which should (if I get it right) ensure that players don't have to worry too much about the day-to-day management of these resources if they don't want to, I will be more interested in this sort of expansion.
Timothy Collett

"The only thing you can't trade for your heart's desire...is your heart." "You are what you do.  Choose again, and change." "One of these days, someone's gonna plug you, and you're going to die saying, 'What did I say? What did I say?'"  ~ Miles Naismith Vorkosigan

Chenier

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Re: Resources and Trade
« Reply #3: October 23, 2018, 07:58:27 PM »
To reiterate what was said on the discord, I remember a discussion a while back, about a simplified resource system that would add a bit of the opportunities of the past iteration, while being somewhat simpler.

It involved adding, on top of Gold and Food, two new generic resources: Materials and Luxuries.

Both would be tradeable and perishable, like food. Having a large surplus of materials would offer various buffs, such as: cheaper repairs, quicker repairs, cheaper wall repairs, cheaper infrastructure cost, better RC consults, and/or quicker RC replenishment. Having a large surplus of luxuries would result in increased control, morale, and loyalty for regions and/or troops. Both would have decay and diminishing returns.

These generic resources would allow to address many of the goals of previous iterations, while bypassing the complexities of balancing a large number of resources (such as wood, metal, stone, etc.).

It'd be understandable if the current roadmap is already too burdened, though.
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Nosferatus

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Re: Resources and Trade
« Reply #4: October 24, 2018, 09:20:04 AM »
Not any time soon.

 which should (if I get it right) ensure that players don't have to worry too much about the day-to-day management of these resources if they don't want to,

This is important which is why i'd say we should limit these resources to trading only, as described in this feature request.
Perhaps for building a better decorated palace or to give ones estate a bit more flare, maybe for an extra fame point or something but nothing essential like building RC's, recruiting troops, repairing buildings or troops or even increasing production or food/gold income.
Not only would it make things to complicated, it would also take over the entire game.
Also it's important to balance the possible income from resources (even though it will heavily depend on how its traded), in order to give players the ability to ignore resources altogether or barley do anything at all with it (if resources stocks stack up in a certain estate one could be given a message and simply sell it off once in bulk for cheap).
Perhaps resources can also use granaries called warehouses for example to be able to keep things in stock without rotting/deteriorating to prevent massive build ups.

Basically we can use many already existing in game mechanics to make tradable resources work especially from the way food works and is traded.
I am not sure if this is practical at all for the devs, but to me it looks like we can 'copy' much of these mechanics to apply them for resources and trade, significantly reducing the work needed.
If unfinished mechanics are already there for resources and resources allocation then that seems to be another convenience.


Also as mentioned by Jevondair, the role of realms and politics/war could be significant.
Realms could even be given the option to put specific taxes on owning resources or the trade of resources as well as closing borders for trade with certain realms (making it illegal like looting with fines and notifications).
But even without wars, this creates a whole mini game for players with 'normal' characters, knights that ussually just follow orders.
Formerly playing the Nosferatus and Bhrantan Family.
Currently playing the Polytus Family in: Gotland, Madina, Astrum, Outer Tilog

Chenier

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Re: Resources and Trade
« Reply #5: October 24, 2018, 01:32:57 PM »
Not having to manage additional resources if they don't want to was also the core line of thought behind the proposed simplified system, that makes them generate small passive bonuses.

With say a 10% consumption every day, a logarithmic scale could grant a 0-5% production buff every day (that can go above pop cap) for materials, and a 0-3% morale+loyalty buff.

Useful to recover devastated regions, but otherwise, nobody suffers from not delving too much on them.
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Anaris

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Re: Resources and Trade
« Reply #6: October 24, 2018, 01:44:41 PM »
There's no way in hell I'm implementing such a complex expanded system of trade if it's not going to be strategically important. The trader class just doesn't matter nearly enough to implement something like this just to justify its existence.
Timothy Collett

"The only thing you can't trade for your heart's desire...is your heart." "You are what you do.  Choose again, and change." "One of these days, someone's gonna plug you, and you're going to die saying, 'What did I say? What did I say?'"  ~ Miles Naismith Vorkosigan

De-Legro

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Re: Resources and Trade
« Reply #7: October 24, 2018, 11:08:52 PM »
If anything I would prefer to see the class removed entirely. Leave such matters to the Merchant class after all. No matter what we do with trade people won't find it "engaging" unless it is a large and complex system, in which case it will take up too much dev time to create maintain and build upon. I am not against the idea of having some more variety to resources or small passive buffs from them, just I think that having a class related to trade is a lose/lose situation. Make bankers more integral to the resource system if we need some sort of player input/control.
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Nosferatus

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Re: Resources and Trade
« Reply #8: October 26, 2018, 09:25:53 AM »
If anything I would prefer to see the class removed entirely. Leave such matters to the Merchant class after all.

Trader class, even with the features described here would perhaps be a bit too much of the same and, unless you just like hoarding lots of gold and things, not interesting enough to keep altogether.
This does make me think of a special character type like advies for the trading game or Merchantmaster adding lots of other features. :)
However i think this would just make things bigger and more complex to implement and potentially taking away the whole strategic importance of resources depending on how it works in realtion to the normal characters.
Because even without direct influence on other mechanics, tradable resources will dramatically change the strategic importance of owning certain regions or having friends own it.
The way supply and demand works on well spread resources will make resources very profitable in case one has excess to the markets in different region types/areas.
Realms will target specific region types based on their needs instead of just the richest regions, because the excess to those markets will eventually make more gold then the extra gold gained from taking the richer region instead.
Wars will be fought over a part of a mountain or forest that at first had no strategic importance because of their little food/gold production or strategic location.
Friendships or alliances could be formed over a mutual interest in sharing each others markets until they discover that one of them benefits more then the other (trump vs china anyone? :P).
Realms wouldnt be able to ignore resources, but individual lords or knights can if they don't care, however if they do choose to trade they will be able significantly increase their income.
The fact that this works on every level(realm or knights) and especially that it makes those specific regions more interesting that are now absolutely not, creates many opportunities in the game and new dynamic locations of importance(as region shifts ownership or certain resources are traded more or less, strategic importance changes).
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Tourmaline

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Re: Resources and Trade
« Reply #9: March 13, 2019, 08:32:59 PM »
Would this really add more fun? It seems neat or cool, but I'm struggling to see how it would actually be fun.