Market Suggestion

Leo

Looks like you have not met with the toxic Thardferr community yet. That behaviour you despise is the reality around here.

Nolio

Leo I've played since round 2. I've seen everything good and toxic this game has had. I also believe that the good people can overpower and overrule the toxic, especially when they are people like The Keeper and Thane who have the power to change things to prevent much of the toxicity.

I believe you want the same thing that I want, a game that works, that's fun, and doesn't have exploits. Something fair that requires skill, and that has cool features. We may not agree on what those features are, or how they should be implemented, but I believe as long as they add fun, are fair, and balanced, then we all win.

Leo

Nolio

Basically you want market to be faster in trade. Enter the market buy/sell whatever you want at a reasonable price for you. Nothing wrong with that. Best way is to have a wider playerbase and let the supply/demand do its thing.

But, there are people out there making a living through market only because of the low numbers of offers using arbitrage. That is kinda fun also. We see and feel the effects of wars and such reflected on the market in a stronger way.

Secondly, you would only get penalized if your pricing is way too far off and no one wants it.

The problem with this is conditions change overtime. There is no exact way to tell 1 iron is worth x gp. Demand from a big human province wagging war can make iron prices x2 over a day. I'd like us to have the option to list our prices predicting such fluctuations. When prices go up people looking for gold (for example to start and expensive tech) would build more mines and sell. Enough people selling will make the prices decline. Vice versa.

So I disagree that the resources don't move.

"Fast moving consumer goods" is a term. I used it to address group of products that usually have a considerably short shelf-life that you need to sell them quickly. For example milk, cheese, packaged food.

Nolio

Leo I think anyone who uses the market would want it to be faster and more convenient. And by reasonable I don't mean for me. I mean for the market. I think that's a great point about the player base, and once there is a much larger amount of people using the market, prices will change and do it's thing. I think that you're probably right that given enough time, people will eventually start pricing things reasonably because if they don't, they won't be able to buy or sell anything.

Leo The problem with this is conditions change overtime. There is no exact way to tell 1 iron is worth x gp. Demand from a big human province wagging war can make iron prices x2 over a day. I'd like us to have the option to list our prices predicting such fluctuations. When prices go up people looking for gold (for example to start and expensive tech) to build more mines and sell. Enough people selling will make the prices decline. Vice versa.

I think that's an excellent point, though we do have an idea of what they are worth given that we've played in many rounds and the prices tend to stay very similar, while still fluctuating during times of war. For example, I remember wood going from anywhere between 10:1, up to 25:1. But it usually stayed within that range. Of course that is something that can change, and the prices will be what they will be, but there is precedent and data history to show how it's been relatively consistent.

But I do agree that you should be able to price however you want and try to predict trends.

Leo "Fast moving consumer goods" is a term. I used it to address group of products that usually have a considerably short shelf-life that you need to sell them quickly. For example milk, cheese, packaged food.

My point here is that the shelf life of a resource in a game becomes quick with good pricing. Milk, cheese, and packaged food will not sell if they are way overpriced. But I agree with the term

Leo

Nolio

Old game may only be a start point to take as a reference. Because, the economy in this game have significant differences and we sure don't know how it will play out in a long round when crime rates are 25 for instance.

For example spell sucess is as per game guide. So, not many people running schools other than elves because you can't self-cast triple God Bless, Bless, GC and keep it running 24/7.

I "feel" we produce more gold than before but less resources.
Max pop is 1.5x of optimal where it was 1.6x
Food is a big issue now, more with the lack of GC
Battles destruct more buildings here (40% vs 20-25%)

I can keep going on but you got the idea.

The reason you feel market is unreasonable is currently i2g is messing with the market. It is only 1-2 casters creating inflation. Thus prices increase. Soon the vendor will be bought. Putting a max cap conversion rate or making it a S curve will fix the market faster than all above you proposed.

Cora

Lord Thane I used 600 wizards and generated 621 MP. First time I’ve tried it. Will see if it continues to be almost equal.

Nolio

Cora What's your School ratio?

Cora

Nolio 1:1

Lord Thane

Cora does that 600 wiz use feel like 60k gp would be a good deal? Trying to get a feel for what MP is worth lol. I was fine paying 100 gp, as long as my current success rate keeps working 😇

Cora

Lord Thane it worked this morning with 10:1 and I used 6:1 for natural growth testing using less numbers. I’m wondering if using too much has a negative effect?

CyberPtra

Cora

Definity has a negative effect... you wasted more gold/potion/time/opportunity cost

Nolio

CyberPtra You are correct in that it's less efficient use of supplies, however that's not what @Cora was referring to.

And no, it does not seem to have a negative effect to use a larger ratio. Using 10:1 and failing is the most amazingly bad luck, or you in particular had a bug.

Nolio

@Lord Thane I think you did a really great job at the Market, and I will say that my thoughts on having a market anchor seems to be not required.

I do think that having a timed auction for each resource could be a fun addition!

But either way that goes, congrats on the excellent work!

Lord Thane

Nolio thanks, I appreciate that!

I think there's some merit to the auction/timer idea. It could be used as a clever way of cleaning the market of stale orders, and also discouraging ridiculous buy/sell orders, guiding the market to find the true value of resources faster.

Maybe something like after 12 hours an order loses 10% of its remaining value. We can call it "theft" or "corruption" or "market fees". After 24 hours it loses 20%. After 36 hours it loses 50%. Then at 48 hours expires worthless. Or maybe just after 12 hours it loses 1% every tick.

We could put lower losses for now while the player base isn't as big and the market isn't as busy, and increase it later when there's more players.

We can make cancellation of orders also cost a % fee.

That should get prices more realistic faster, and make price manipulation less attractive.

I don't want it to be too restrictive either tho, more market activity is fun. What does everyone think would be a fair balance of these ideas and fees?

Jets

I would like to state that, I like that the market will never run out of supplies. However, as a strategic aspect, I won't sell too or but from my enemies. I'd rather pay 2x the price to the market of Thardferr. So, could we reduce the unlimited supply to 50gps vs 99?

Nolio

Jets I don't think that any set number would be correct as the market fluctuates with time. As Kingdoms get larger prices will go up. But I do think that you touch on something I agree with which is that the Market Price is still out of touch.

Cora

Jets he stated in an above comment that he will probably lower the prices once the real round starts.

Cora

Nolio same comment as above

Nolio

Lord Thane Love the thoughts behind it. I agree a cancellation fee! That's a great idea. On the other side though, I'm hesitant to put restriction on the market. Rather than lose value, what if the price incrementally dropped over time. So if I posted a lot of wood at 50 gps and no one buys any in x hours, it drop to 49, and keeps dropping for every X hours there are no sales.

Lord Thane

Nolio ooOoo that's an interesting one, drop the sale price by 1 per tick, increase the buy price.

Well, dropping the sell price would be easy, but increasing the buy price would be difficult since we would need more gp from the buyer on buy orders. I guess we could reformulate the buy orders ratio to make the adjustment, so a buy order for 10 iron at 20gp might change the next tick to 9 iron at 22gp... That'd be kinda tricky to figure out, but it's doable.

I'm gonna put the cancellation fee in for now, and let the price timing thing stew for a while. I kinda wanna put a stiff 10% cancellation fee to start, but I will prolly just go 5% and then we can see how sellers/buyers adjust their orders based on that.

Nolio

Lord Thane It might not be necessary to change the buy price. That one doesn't really seem to affect people all that much, and considering how it may be difficult given what you said about the requirement of the gold from the kingdom, I would stick with the sell price. At least to begin testing.

CyberPtra

Lord Thane

I've been using the market as a placeholder for my gold while saving up for techs. Sometimes, people sell when they're desperate for gold, and I'm okay with picking up discounted resources in those moments.

That said, I'm a bit concerned that fewer people might post gold offers if there is a fee for cancelations. Buyers could just wait for the right price instead of risking their gold.

There's a natural spread between buy and sell prices, and we're seeing that in action right now—different price points for the same resources depending on how urgently a kingdom needs to buy or sell throughout the day.

I'm unsure about the timer system—especially the idea of reducing the price by 1 gold per hour. That seems steep and risky. Imagine expecting to sell iron at 15, only to wake up and see it sold for 7. If a price reduction system is implemented, something like 1 gold every 12 hours would be more reasonable. Still, that could just encourage buyers to wait it out. Personally, I’d rather see people naturally adjust their bids and asks as needed, based on demand and supply.

Overall, I actually like the current system. However, perhaps we could limit the number of active bids to 1–2 per category. Depending on the situation, I like the idea of market arbitrage—when a kingdom has extra gold or resources and some downtime between techs, it's a fun way to stay engaged.