Traders-related mechanic: Barter rates in market reflected in traders revenue.

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

Hello everyone!

I had an idea that would be easy to implement and might make traders a more interesting and less predictable economic unit to use.

At a given point in the game, the resources available for barter in the market have different values. Most often metal is by far the most valuable, but this appears set to become less extreme in a25. In alpha 23 traders were not even considered in 95% of games due to the fast paced gameplay and need to be ready for fighting at all times. In a24 barter rates immediately slam to value metal, further disadvantaging people without metal mines. This seeks to bridge the gap and make market gameplay a big improvement on both.

If traders got more resources for each pass when they were trading for the most valuable resource, this would (maybe) make some economic sense because traders would want to take more value on each trip and this would be found in the most scarce resource. For example's sake (the values can be changed) a trader gets 100 of each resource when barter rates are equal 100:82. This is the default setup when no one has bartered, I call it the equilibrium rates. If someone barters all their resources for metal, the value of metal goes way up and now each resource is 100:1 with metal (maximum disturbance), this means the trader will get 100% more metal than before.

Ideally, each addition of disturbance past equilibrium rates has a smaller and smaller affect on the traders. This is so that the effect is both tangible on small to medium price fluctuations, and not insanely profitable for large price deviations. The relationship would be proportional to a curve like the example attached where the x axis is a measure of barter price disturbance for a scarce resource and y axis is profitability of the scarce resource in barter trade. I chose the curve as an example just to show the behavior Im looking for. 

Possible benefits of the mechanic:

1. sometimes rewards for the risk of putting metal into traders around 15 minutes instead of upgrades or champions or siege
2. grants flexibility in strategies
3. requires some micromanagement/ at least paying attention to prices.
4. lessens the problem of certain resources being overvalued.
5. I remember some civ has a trade advantage, this could be a little trick that they are good at.
6. Serves to counterbalance barter rates and allow them to reach equilibrium sooner. 
7. Makes market decisions much more complicated.
8. Do I barter everything to get traders so I can use the good trade rates I created? No, because you wont have a short term army and someone with excess metal may use the barter rates you created to trade their metal for other resources to mount a huge short term attack against you. 

I think this mechanic would be super dope. I don't see any downsides to it that can not be eliminated by adjusting relationship values. I feel this will make trade economy less hands off and more interactive and skill based.

I am excited to hear what you guys think!

 

 

[fales]

If "paying attention to prices" is to have greater importance for the gameplay, I would suggest to include some information about it into the general info displayed all the time. The top left corner with resources count could for example mark those resources which are currently (very) unbalanced (if you have a market already).

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

This is a good consideration, perhaps some kind of color change on the market icon is good. It should not be too easy to adjust, but then again, the most scarce resource may not be the one the player wants.

The main thing I want to know is if people think this is a good gameplay mechanic that should be implemented or tested in a mod.

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

A couple other considerations:

Maybe the relationship should be a more simple LINEAR relationship: if wood is maxed out in the barter-market, wood trades for 5x as much value as the default amount and the other resources are all 1/5 of their original rates. This sounds extreme, but its intended purpose is to make people weigh the benefits/problems of: floating resources, bartering excessively, and what units they should make from their trade revenue. It will also make it harder to manage a full-trade economy. This will also introduce a risk/saftey spectrum to trading, do you want to spread out your trade income across 2-3 resources or go all-in for a particular resource because it is valuable at the moment.

Another cool feature that would limit/complicate this mechanic could be if traders can only react to a change in the trade resource choices once they reach the next market, because they can't just drop their current stock. If a player changed their resources based upon a sudden change in barter values, then it is possible it could change by the time the trader is able to pick up the next round of stock at destination/origin market. If a trader is in transit, then the values of what they carry still apply, so the traders could lose some value of what they carry even if the value was high when they picked up their stock at the last market.

The goal of these changes would be to revolutionize the way trading is done in 0ad, going from a boring extreme-late-game mechanic to a a variable economic strategy with risk and reward beyond the cost of traders unit training costs. I could even see trade being chosen at earlier times in some games if players anticipate extreme barter rates that can happen as people gear up for the big P3 fights.

@Dizaka@Player of 0AD@Palaiogos @chrstgtr@ValihrAnt

What do you think of the idea? 

To me it seems possible and potentially a really fun gameplay mechanic. Also this is a good way to make trading less of a guaranteed way of getting metal since otherwise it would be too easy to spam mercenaries from trade (in a24 mercenaries are the cheapest unit to get from trade).

Edited May 21, 2021 by BreakfastBurrito_007

[chrstgtr]

3 hours ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

A couple other considerations:

Maybe the relationship should be a more simple LINEAR relationship: if wood is maxed out in the barter-market, wood trades for 5x as much value as the default amount and the other resources are all 1/5 of their original rates. This sounds extreme, but its intended purpose is to make people weigh the benefits/problems of: floating resources, bartering excessively, and what units they should make from their trade revenue. It will also make it harder to manage a full-trade economy. This will also introduce a risk/saftey spectrum to trading, do you want to spread out your trade income across 2-3 resources or go all-in for a particular resource because it is valuable at the moment.

Another cool feature that would limit/complicate this mechanic could be if traders can only react to a change in the trade resource choices once they reach the next market, because they can't just drop their current stock. If a player changed their resources based upon a sudden change in barter values, then it is possible it could change by the time the trader is able to pick up the next round of stock at destination/origin market. If a trader is in transit, then the values of what they carry still apply, so the traders could lose some value of what they carry even if the value was high when they picked up their stock at the last market.

The goal of these changes would be to revolutionize the way trading is done in 0ad, going from a boring extreme-late-game mechanic to a a variable economic strategy with risk and reward beyond the cost of traders unit training costs. I could even see trade being chosen at earlier times in some games if players anticipate extreme barter rates that can happen as people gear up for the big P3 fights.

@Dizaka@Player of 0AD@Palaiogos @chrstgtr@ValihrAnt

What do you think of the idea? 

To me it seems possible and potentially a really fun gameplay mechanic. Also this is a good way to make trading less of a guaranteed way of getting metal since otherwise it would be too easy to spam mercenaries from trade (in a24 mercenaries are the cheapest unit to get from trade).

I'm fine with the way trading works now. It reflects demand insofar as players actually use it--less desired resources fetch a low trade-in value, high desired resources fetch a high trade-in value, less desired resources demand a low purchase price, and high desired resources demand a high purchase price.

 

I'm also fine with the way traders work now--they are a long-term investment that is very expensive on the front end but ultimately very efficient at generating resources. I would like to see the speed tech comeback as there doesn't seem to be any good reason to take away player choice, but that is another matter. 

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

Yea. As I was thinking about it I was wondering whether it would be more a fun mechanic or just an economic frustration. Also, I am thinking that someone could re-inforce their income by bartering for metal to make traders, thereby increasing their revenue. If players have 50-60 CS on wood, then they could float wood, and continually barter wood to keep metal super expensive, and then earn a ludicrous amount of metal from only 10-15 traders which they could use to buy a lot of mercenaries. 

@chrstgtr thanks for the feedback.

Edited May 21, 2021 by BreakfastBurrito_007

[Freagarach]

One could also just tax traders with coin and let the player use that coin to buy resources at the market?

[Dizaka]

@BreakfastBurrito_007 I like @Freagarach idea.  

@Freagarach what happens if everyone has a lot of coin?  Inflation?   Rush on the market.

 

@BreakfastBurrito_007 when you were describing the second idea I was thinking of traders being "reactionary."   For example, if someone is trading for metal, and 1 metal costs 100 food/wood/stone then traders are actually able to carry more metal than current max X (like 2x,3x,4x,5x, etc).  

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

14 hours ago, Dizaka said:

@BreakfastBurrito_007 I like @Freagarach idea.  

@Freagarach what happens if everyone has a lot of coin?  Inflation?   Rush on the market.

 

@BreakfastBurrito_007 when you were describing the second idea I was thinking of traders being "reactionary."   For example, if someone is trading for metal, and 1 metal costs 100 food/wood/stone then traders are actually able to carry more metal than current max X (like 2x,3x,4x,5x, etc).  

yes, this is how it would go. I think it could create some bad gameplay results, but I still think it would be nice to have some relationship between barter rate and trade incomes for resources.

[Dizaka]

@BreakfastBurrito_007.  I like the idea.  Maybe even have traders impact the market rates?  For example, traders being the devices used to "correct" the market rates or maybe even skew them more.  I agree, there's a lot of angles to this and could result in unexpected gameplay.  But it would be interesting to have a traders "micro war" based on what your traders trade for.