Improving the trading mechanic.

[wraitii]

EDIT: trac ticket.

Another post in the (somewhat long) list of "stuffs that don't really work in 0 A.D."

On the menu today: trading.

Trading is OK. The intent of trading is that it replaces the gathering in the late game when ressources become scarce and units need to grow more specialized to be cost-effective. But it doesn't really work.

What makes trading wrong?

It's quite simple, really. If you've played any MP game, you'll notice that after a while you just need to pump traders. The best players end up with around 100 traders in a straight line between two markets as far apart as is humanly possible. This is bad for several reasons:

• It looks ridiculous
• It's a pathfinding nightmare
• And it's slow overall, not only on pathfinding
• Distance matters too much
• You need to kill your early citizen soldiers to free pop for traders.
• It's both too hard to raid effectively (too many traders), and too easy to destroy: just raze the market.
• Conceptually is wrong: traders shouldn't create the value, markets should.

But how could we fix this?

I have a simple proposition: switch the resource creation aspect from the traders to the market.

The revamped Market

Markets right now serve only to barter and create merchants and research trade techs. In real-life, markets were often the heart of the economy, something which is just not reflected.

To reflect it, I propose the following changes:

• Markets create resources, with the ratio defined by the trading %. They stockpile those inside themselves, you can't access those resources (but you might loot them, I guess).
• Markets' resource creation rate can be improved by technologies and garrisoning workers inside. This means your early gatherers will not need killing, just move them.
• This resource creation rate is naturally "capped" by the garrisoning and techs required. You need several markets for full efficiency.
• Markets cannot be built too close to each other (<80 meters? 100 meters? Need testing here). This means that having a good trade will require some space.
• Going further, we could have markets' resource creation rate be affected by buildings around: say houses gives +5% (up to +20%), docks give + 50% (but you can't trade at docks, so you need a market next to them - possibly even for sea trade), we could even have specific buildings here: a woodworker, a jeweler... This opens up a ton of interesting economic possibilities, makes it more realistic, and will give your cities a more "live" feeling. It'll feel a lot more like city-building.

The new traders

Traders would have a simpler use:

• They pick up resources at your markets (removing them from your market)
• They trade them at other markets with a multiplier based on distance (and trading with yourself or allies) - but not too big.
• They can still be raided.
• They still don't have a max capacity.

This means that you won't need nearly as many traders: 10/20 at most would be enough to leverage the full efficiency of your markets. The rest of the population will be the workers garrisoned inside the markets. And the rest is free for military units (and/or women working the fields.)

Garrisoning in the market, promotions, and citizen soldiers

One of the thing we wanted in 0 A.D. was give the feeling that citizen soldiers start out as "just a random man of age" that can improve at warfare until he becomes skilled. This doesn't really happen right now. I'm not going to go into the military aspect here (it is interesting and necessary, but for another day).

However, we could make it so that units garrisoned inside the market will "promote" to another type of units when they stay there long enough, to reflect them being better traders/artisans. We could call that unit a "craftsmen" or something, and female would become some variant of that (in some civs, I guess).

"Craftsmen" units would basically be rubbish at attacking and defending (may even not have an attack) but would be more efficient at improving the resource creation rate of the market.

Possibly those would be able to build the special "craft" buildings I mentioned above, and only those. It might need a tech to unlock that, so that only in the late-game will those start appearing. I'm just snowbaling here.

I believe we would need to improve the GUI slightly here, but that should be possible.

Overall

This should have a few simple effects. Players would need to build more markets, making both raiding slightly easier and completely destroying the economy harder. We'd have less of this "straight line caravan" non-sense. It would feel more organic and realistic. It'd be better for gameplay. And we could have interesting new mechanics.

As usual in these kind of posts, I await your thoughts, criticisms and remarks.

[Stan`]

I have a thought linked to a patch on trac.

http://trac.wildfiregames.com/ticket/3424 'Clean up of Looter.JS' (Already reviewed by fcxSanya)

http://trac.wildfiregames.com/ticket/2732 'Loot resources that killed enemies carried'

Using this, and the fact merchants carry resources from market, we could use cavalry to raid traders, and get part of the resources they carry.

Another thought. It would be nice to be able to use multiple markets in the tradeline if it was to stay as it is. For now, if you have to go from A to B the traders won't avoid dangerous areas, making trading impossible sometimes. If we could use multiple markets as way points that problem would be gone.

Edited November 23, 2015 by stanislas69

[Lion.Kanzen]

My propositions : If we explore rare resources features from Rise of Nations. Too give additional boost to the stockpile and giving cheap prices for technologies and units.

I agree with you, but... May be we need less caravans and bigger maps ( the caravans are symbolic and historical accurates).

Caravans betten cities.

Attach buildings and citizen units

I like the idea craftsmen Wraitii you are thing to possibility to get attach building to improves or expand the functionality from a building.

I play grand ages Rome, they have many industry many kind of farming, they creates anforas and sell wine for example. Or with a trader, in the forum for example you get slaves, may be slaves and special civil units cost 0 pop but have limit( you can see this in AOE 3 with mercenaries and the mod Delenda est with Romans.

Rare Resources

Control a marmol mine to give boost to stone and reduce temple and civic building.

You can trading wine ( food boost vs gold= metal boost) or jewelry from India, so you must control a rare recourse and exchange for Carthaginian glass. The jewelry can represent metal or a bonus and the glass is related to Hp bonus like loom. Or related to food or related to discount some tech like festival.

http://riseofnations.wikia.com/wiki/Rare_resources

There are resources and buildings from GAR( Grand Ages Rome)

http://strategywiki.org/wiki/Grand_Ages:_Rome/Walkthrough

Edited November 23, 2015 by Lion.Kanzen

[wackyserious]

Rare Resources

Control a marmol mine to give boost to stone and reduce temple and civic building.

You can trading wine ( food boost vs gold= metal boost) or jewelry from India, so you must control a rare recourse and exchange for Carthaginian glass. The jewelry can represent metal or a bonus and the glass is related to Hp bonus like loom. Or related to food or related to discount some tech like festival.

http://riseofnations.wikia.com/wiki/Rare_resources

There are resources and buildings from GAR( Grand Ages Rome)

http://strategywiki.org/wiki/Grand_Ages:_Rome/Walkthrough

Just sharing some ideas. (0AD resource scheme is fine in my opinion, a little lore-breaking sometimes, but is simple and very convenient.)

Best game resource scheme, in my opinion, and also fits 0AD timeline (This game is Spartan:Gates of Troy by Slitherine Games, somewhat a predecessor to the Total War Series, IMO. The game Legion, also from Slitherine Games, is a Roman period counterpart of Spartan and is also part of the franchise)

Resources:

Gold: Gathered in gold mines, required for building temples and some important structures, (very profitable when traded)

Grain/Food: Gathered in farms, used in training units, also consumed when maintaining standing armies.

Iron: Gathered in iron mines, used in training specific units

Bricks: Produced in brick factories, required in constructing buildings, essential in maintaining structures, buildings deteriorate when not maintained

Horses: Bred in stables, used in training cavalry units

Marble: Gathered/produced in marble pits, required in construction of specific buildings.

Copper: Gathered in copper mines, very essential, required in training units

Wood: Gathered in lumber mills, required in several buildings and units

Silver: Gained from taxes, essential in trading, used/consumed to pay/maintain standing armies

Trading is very crucial in this game, say for example, you have plenty of silver due to a high pop, but your brick factories cannot sustain your city, you will resort to trading to balance/meet the ends.

[elexis]

I like the idea of markets generating income too and this should be done imho. We can decide on the balancing later.

Notice if you want to prevent creating more than N traders, it may not be incentivized to produce more. Currently having women on fields in late-game is useless usually as trade generates income faster.

[WhiteTreePaladin]

I like the idea. Kind of like the persian palace, but requires garrisoning. Sounds like a good way to keep civilians useful in the late game.

[Lion.Kanzen]

Is as I said we need specialize our villager.

[Loki1950]

Is as I said we need specialize our villager.

When he becomes a town/city dweller as in garrisoning selected cits to various buildings to increase those building efficiency(workers).

Enjoy the Choice

[Pedro Falcão]

Nice idea. I had thought of something that would somewhat improve it's lore-friendliness... Maybe: The market receiving a percentage of every worker turn in nearby (let's say 1%), and a bit less for houses nearby. This way, the player would be encouraged to have a market as soon as possible, and to build it next to houses and dropsites. Then, those resources could be either traded with another market for profit based on distance or used in emergencies (though would trigger a cooldown and would be very costly for not getting profit over these slow-generating resources).

...Then I realized just how complicated it is, and how it would benefit the player who has more resources at his disposal (the winning player would have another bonus just for being in the lead). Well, leaving it here anyways, maybe someone may get some useful idea out of this.

[mimo]

Another thought. It would be nice to be able to use multiple markets in the tradeline if it was to stay as it is. For now, if you have to go from A to B the traders won't avoid dangerous areas, making trading impossible sometimes. If we could use multiple markets as way points that problem would be gone.

You can already use waypoints when defining the trade route, i.e. click on the first market, then shift-click on the several points you need to define the route, and then on the second market.

[Stan`]

Oh didn't know that. Nice ! Would be better to use markets as waypoints with an improved situation.

Edited November 24, 2015 by stanislas69

[Lion.Kanzen]

Oh didn't know that. Nice ! Would be better to use markets as waypoints with an improved situation.

we evolve to much compared with AoK. The game have very micro features.

[ffm]

On current markets: Most of my team games go to age 3 and the market is a key factor to win. In general trading has a higher profit than gathering resources, if your trade route has a higher profit than 36 resources (more or less depending on upgrades). I find it hard to explain a newcomer all tricks of trading, mid game.

Let's say you have 2 team members left and right. The best trade route is to trade between left and right, and even better if traders of middle player use it (because both team members get a share). But as the middle player you can't tell fresh spawned traders to use that route. AFAIK the only way is to spawn traders without route, track them as idle worker, and set origin and destination market.

On changes: I'd like changes too, games tend to a similar behavior now. The game shouldn't become too complex and a manual for trading would help newcomers. If you go to age 3 and build only in the territory given of your first cc you end up with a high structure density and adding more buildings to the game makes the situation worse.

I imagine first the city first evolves in a gathering manner and in age 3 your city would evolve in a crafting manner and you might have to delete old structures to set market next to craft buildings and rearrange everything for a higher profit.

A bit off topic:
I'd like a technology to see the resources of my team mates. And spectators could see resources of all players.

Even more off topic:
I'd like a technology in the Corral enabling the auto-micro for hunting dangerous animals, since you dont have the necessary apm to hunt, when your city is big.

[wraitii]

On changes: I'd like changes too, games tend to a similar behavior now. The game shouldn't become too complex and a manual for trading would help newcomers. If you go to age 3 and build only in the territory given of your first cc you end up with a high structure density and adding more buildings to the game makes the situation worse.

I imagine first the city first evolves in a gathering manner and in age 3 your city would evolve in a crafting manner and you might have to delete old structures to set market next to craft buildings and rearrange everything for a higher profit.

That's definitely what I'm envisioning: it fits the theme of city expansion, since smaller cities are more agrarian/primary sector and big cities are mort about craftsmanship and "industry" in the original sense.

[av93]

My idea: one market allowed per civic center. 5 traders allowed per market.

So there should be a tweaking of profit gains, but IMHO trade should be a complement, not a substitute to the economy. This way trade isn't allowed with a single town (you need an ally or another population center), and there's no crowded commercial rute (and related lag)

Edited November 24, 2015 by av93

[tau]

Generally agree that trading can be improved, especially on the fact that a market shouldnt have "infinite stock".

Killing citizen soldiers, however, is a complex issue and trading flaws arent the only or primary reason for this: those who dont trade would kill them too to make more champions instead. Garrisoning idea in itself looks interesting, but the useless citizens problem should be considered in the first place in other aspects which are offtopic.

[mimo]

While I fully agree that we need some limition on the number of traders, I've the impression that the proposed way will lead to too much micro, going too much towards a Caesar-style game, and probably also to a proliferation of markets. Futhermore, there is a lack of consistency: why would market resources be per market, while all others are global (for example resources collected at a dropsite are global).
I would then modify your proposition to make it much simpler and more in the spirit of the current game: keep the trade basically as it is now, but add a TradeCapacity which would be global to the player (not per market) and would reflect the economy level of the player. Then each trader starting a travel would substract a fixed amount of tradingCapacity, and when not enough tradingCapacity, the trader would have to wait for it to regenerate before starting its route.
Then to regenerate this tradingCapacity, some structures can be a TradeTrickle. Civcenter, markets and docks are obvious candidates, but we may also have smaller contributions from farmstead, storehouses and maybe others. We could even envisage that some structures have a negative regeneration, to reflect the fact that they are a burden to the economy (fortresses could be of this kind). If we want to favor more diversified armies in endgame and not only champions, we may even have the amount of workers as part of the tradingCapacity regeneration, while the number of non-workers (champions) would have a negative contribution.
Finally, while this proposition put less emphasis on the number of markets, we may still have some kind of market or dock proliferation if their TradeTrickle are high enough, and in that case a limitation of the number of markets and docks per civcenter could be needed.

[wraitii]

probably also to a proliferation of markets

While "yes", this is why I want a minimal distance between markets (I'm thinking around 200 meters give or take 50), and also use garrisoning: multiplying markets without pop inside would be mostly useless.

Futhermore, there is a lack of consistency: why would market resources be per market, while all others are global (for example resources collected at a dropsite are global).

I get where you're coming from and you don't need to change my proposition above otherwise. You could make all markets create resources from a global "pool" between markets, or add some sort of "trade power" resource. But overall I don't think it's necessary and I don't think it's much simpler or logical. You trade between markets, it makes sense to me that this "trade power" is per market.

Then to regenerate this tradingCapacity, some adeTrickle. Civcstructures can be a Trenter, markets and docks are obvious candidates, but we may also have smaller contributions from farmstead, storehouses and maybe others. We could even envisage that some structures have a negative regeneration, to reflect the fact that they are a burden to the economy (fortresses could be of this kind). If we want to favor more diversified armies in endgame and not only champions, we may even have the amount of workers as part of the tradingCapacity regeneration, while the number of non-workers (champions) would have a negative contribution.

You're just trading a tiny bit of micro (in my above description) for a huge PITA of macro.

The system I described above is very limited in micro: you just garrison some workers in there, and you leave them there for the rest of the game unless your market gets destroyed. Couldn't be simpler. It's mostly intuitive, since you can just go to the market and check the creation rates out (something which is harder with a global trade power)

Finally, while this proposition put less emphasis on the number of markets, we may still have some kind of market or dock proliferation if their TradeTrickle are high enough, and in that case a limitation of the number of markets and docks per civcenter could be needed.

See above with distance limits. And pop.

[niektb]

You know, most of these propositions sound really fun to try out in a mod! Trade Mod Contest anyone?!

Edited November 25, 2015 by niektb

[mimo]

wraitii i guess everything depends on what we understand by micro, which is certainly subjective. For me, having only one global counter which tells me what amount of trade i can do, instead of having to manage it by market is not increasing micro.

Then i should not have detailed the different ways of computing this regeneration because they have nothing to do with the idea, which is just having a global counter based on your economy which tells you how much trade you can do, and each trade you do takes a bit of this trade counter.

All the rest is details of how we want to implement it, and I only quoted some possibilities. But still in the cases i mentionned, having to choose to build more champions which are better for fighting but could decrease your trade capacity, or rather produce some citizen, which can improve this trade capacity but are weaker, is not micro, but strategy. And if I mentionned it, it is simply as an example to show that we can keep the choice between champions and citizen up to the end of the game even if the gathering has a very small impact on the economy, while now, as soon as trade is dominant, we are better with just building champions.

[wraitii]

Yeah but I don't see how your system is clearer than simply garrisoning units in the markets. Making champions means your eco will be lower (assuming pop cap is reached) as you'd have to kill citizen soldiers. Same mechanism, really. Also I think making citizen soldiers relevant in the late game is also up to making them efficient counter units (I'll definitely plop another thread on that later).

I'm OK with a global "trade power" though, that doesn't sound too bad.

[ffm]

My idea: one market allowed per civic center. 5 traders allowed per market.

territory is not tiled to CC's, classical approach would be to have a minimal distance to next building (like CC,fort and tower)

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Here is yet another approach.

Basic idea in short:

More traders on one tradeline makes less profit per trip. This makes it more attractive to trade all around the map. No hard limits, but smooth transitions.

Lets assume you got a team of 3 players in a rectangular triangle (Germany, France, Turkey). In the old trade mechanic you would send all traders along the hypotenuse (France - Turkey).

old and kept:

Basic Ideas:

-The more Traders you got, the higher the profit.

-The further the distance between 2 markets, the higher the profit.

Explanation behind it (afk): The product variety is gains with the distance. (Oranges - Tangerines - Lemons ... - Apples).

Explanation in game: The longer the trade line, the more risk on the route. You need more map control and are easier to invade.

Its unrealistic that trade is only happening between France and Turkey. Whats missing is inflation.

new Basic Idea: competition between traders on a route.

-The higher the trade frequency to a specific region, the less gain per trip.

Explanation: Trader Bob arrives in Turkey and comes from France. Just seconds ago there where already 4 traders from France.

So Bob should get less barter efficiency for his product.

Mathematic relation:

if(Time_the_last_trader_was_here > 15seconds) Time_the_last_trader_was_here = 15seconds; #limiter

Gain= DistanceToOriginmarket*Time_the_last_trader_was_here *arbitrary_Faktor;

Difference in products (tangerines and oranges)

A easy idea now would be, just put 2 markets to France and Turkey. This can be prevented, by av93's mentioned method above, but i would do it differently.

new Basic Idea: Market competition.

-The frequency of other traders from other regions affects the profit negative, but less with increasing distance to the competitor.

Explanation: Bob arrives in turkey with tangerines from France. Turkey already bought a lot of oranges from Germany recently and is not really interested in tangerines and Bob don't get much profit.

At least bob didn't came with oranges, the profit would be even worse.

Mathematic relation:

Relative_Distance_1 = distance_origin_destination/distance_origin_competitor_1; #put competitor in relation

if(distance_origin_destination > distance_origin_competitor_1) Relative_Distance_1 = 1;

Time_the_last_trader_was_here_replacement = 1/ ( 1/Time_the_last_trader_was_here_from_origin + (1-Relative_Distance_1)/Time_the_last_trader_was_here_from_competitor_1);

Gain= distance_origin_destination*Time_the_last_trader_was_here_replacement *arbitrary_Faktor;

The code would be a bit harder, since you have to keep track who came when from where.

I hope i could explain my self good enough.

end of this approach

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btw: Tradeing on sea is already limited by the size of the boats. If you spam too much Boats, they start to block each other.

Building effect on traders:

I like this one:

Civcenter, markets and docks are obvious candidates, but we may also have smaller contributions from farmstead, storehouses and maybe others. We could even envisage that some structures have a negative regeneration, to reflect the fact that they are a burden to the economy (fortresses could be of this kind).

The traders inside a radius near this buildings could have a different walk speed.

Edited November 25, 2015 by ffm

[niektb]

What you propose, ffm, is not so fundamentaly different from wraitii's proposition. Wraitii's mechanic about market's stockpile does more or less the same thing (when the stockpile is empty there's no trade gain <- is also a way of competing between traders)

[wraitii]

Agreed, my idea introduces concurrence fairly nicely imo. It actually does all bar one of ffm's points:

> "The more Traders you got, the higher the profit"

Not technically but if you have more traders, the flow will be more continuous and it's less risky since losing one trader will cost you less.

> "The further the distance between 2 markets, the higher the profit"

Kept as is, since I'd give traders a multiplier based on distance.

> "The higher the trade frequency to a specific region, the less gain per trip"

Yes because traders steal from each other, and also because of distance. This is why I don't like the idea of a global "trade" power: if the resources are per-market, you need to trade between several markets, which reduces the "straight line" effect, increases raiding risk...

> "The frequency of other traders from other regions affects the profit negative, but less with increasing distance to the competitor"

Not sure I understand that one actually, but it seems too complicated.

I think on the building bonuses we should go on a "trade power" bonus more than a bonus to traders as it'd feel more natural. But we can still have a somewhat high level of detail here.

---

On the idea of trade power: If we go with a global "trade items" resource, we could either go global or local. Either way, I think it'd make more sense if traders carried this "trade items" as a resource, which when looted would add to your own "trade items" which you could then trade for resources. Traders would take away from your "trade items" resource and on arrival at a market exchange those for resources.

But we could do it with resources directly.

Edit: there is one side effect to my system: the only easy way to make it work would be that only the owner of the destination market gets the resources (though we could artificially give some back to the owner of the trade). So if another player trades with you, it's exactly the same as if you traded with them. Traders become sorta player neutral. This could be adjusted, obviously, but I sorta like it.

[ffm]

What you propose, ffm, is not so fundamentaly different from wraitii's proposition. Wraitii's mechanic about market's stockpile does more or less the same thing (when the stockpile is empty there's no trade gain <- is also a way of competing between traders)

You got 4 markets in a square. In wraitii's proposition, you would send all your traders diagonal (longest line and all ressource sold). In my proposion, traders would try go from all markets to all other markets. Like a square with diagonals (just some more on the diagonals, than on the sides, since it is the longer way).

Edited November 25, 2015 by ffm