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    Your Elvenar Team

Cross trading

BrinDarby

Well-Known Member
To be clear, the ratio suggested by the tournament costs is that you should pay TWO gems for ONE plank!
Shocking isn't it , well not really ... because unlike other games where
to make T2 it takes T1 , or to make T3 it takes T2 and/or T1 .... then
you're really going more on the current norm , space issues.....

Soggy's #s were generated by tourn , so as a Spire caterer... I know
as I progress there's a std ratio it asks for. That has always been my
benchmark for production so that every cater in Spire has basically
the same cost to me. Because I'm not CH5 , the Spire currently doesn't
ask me for T3 yet.

Long ago, I just accepted that it used to be 1:4:16, now its 1:1.5:2.25...
yet I personally believe the menucha discussions long before I got here
about actual "cost per tile" after everything possible is factor'd in, are
the most correct way to value goods, but too many ppl I guess cannot
or don't wanna have to do simple basic math. Therefore other than
supply/demand overall, all we can use is the 1:1.5:2.25 .....

(sarcasm) as a good little Elvenite....lol.... I try to keep balanced cities.
So, if the Spire and Tourn basically ask for more like 2 : 1.5 : 1 , then
thats the ratios I'll produce.....

Enevhar, is also right ... there are a vast # of combinations of stuff
different players/cities have, thus the "actuall" cost to each player
is vastly different....... Now Not only does this effect Tier differences
it also goes to the heart of the whole 1:1 or nothing mentality.

Unless there's an algorythm that computes , output per % pt
of city used, you can't compare 2 cities apples/apples... when you
can't do that, you also cannot compute a correct 1:1 ratio between them.
 

BrinDarby

Well-Known Member
@Killy- ,
take Marble ....
If I upgrade from lvl 13 -> lvl 14 , and my increase is lets say
ohhh 100 pop and 150 culture..... for +75 more goods ....
Yet I might be able to upgrade (2) in the 2x2 catagory
for less pop/cul and get as much or more goods.

sometimes its "cheaper" to have more space used by manuf
rather than to add more pop/cul to be able to try and save space.
overall both ways use up more space, just differently.
 

SoggyShorts

Mathematician par Excellence
the game still needs a base-line trade ratio that applies to the players with zero event buildings or the ones not in fellowships, who thus do not do any tournaments, etc.
I disagree. I see zero need for a ratio catering to such players.
I mean zero event buildings and no FS and no tournament? No offence, but who cares about them then? If they aren't playing in a FS then their FS can't possibly care what trades they post, right? If they aren't playing the tournament then their tournament costs are rather unimportant, right?
the average player should not be punished
indeed, although "baseline" players are by no means "average". Every player eventually experiences an event- They are nearly constant.
Regardless, the bigger factor is the demand (from the game) for goods, and that is universal.

Soggy's #s were generated by tourn , so as a Spire caterer...
I don't have the patience for that, perhaps @Iyapo1 or another spire caterer could check it?
Enevhar, is also right ... there are a vast # of combinations of stuff
different players/cities have, thus the "actuall" cost to each player
is vastly different....... Now Not only does this effect Tier differences
it also goes to the heart of the whole 1:1 or nothing mentality.
indeed, so even though the current ratio is 2.5:1, and the game demands closer to ~1:2 there will never be a "perfect" ratio.
There is a simple solution though: everyone balances their own city by tier, and we just don't cross trade.;)
 

Enevhar Aldarion

Oh Wise One
indeed, so even though the current ratio is 2.5:1, and the game demands closer to ~1:2 there will never be a "perfect" ratio.
There is a simple solution though: everyone balances their own city by tier, and we just don't cross trade.;)

And of course, probably 95% of all the discussion about cross-trades revolves around standard goods. Switch over to discussing sentient goods and it all goes crazy again. My active cities are chapter 16 and 19 and I doubt I placed a single cross-tier standard good trade in either after around chapter 8 or 9. And that was in my Beta city that I was advancing as quickly as I could.
 

BrinDarby

Well-Known Member
1646939325719.png


.......................... (T1) 1.294 : (T2) 1 .............................................(T1) 1.333 : (T2) 1

Just to show scaling per city and intangables , ( yes both on same encounter
the 9th enc in Stage 2 )

So to make all choices equal, I need to produce about 30% more T1 than T2.
 

BrinDarby

Well-Known Member
Switch over to discussing sentient goods and it all goes crazy again.
What doesn't chg tho , is :
players going into sentient goods already should be @ 700% boost +
possible AW help beyond that.... its a more even playfield.... Versus
Standard goods where thats not the case.... its almost more often in
that senario for 2 players to be @ different boost % amounts.

therefore there should be a carve-out for Std goods, not to be
force fed @ 1:1 only....
 

Tehya1

Well-Known Member
I don't make a habit of doing cross tier trades unless I am really low on t1 and I have a lot of t2 or t3. I think my fss usually takes those trades when I post them.

So to make all choices equal, I need to produce about 30% more T1 than T2.
Yup. When I have to cater, I run out of T1 goods faster, and usually have a bigger stockpile of T3.
 

MaidenFair

Chef - Head Philologist
Versus Standard goods where thats not the case.... its almost more often in
that senario for 2 players to be @ different boost % amounts.
That's true, and yet I think that is probably less of an issue since the most recent tournament changes in October...or November, whenever that was. I was slowly working my way up and had somewhere around 350-400% boost for each good when they changed the tournament structure, and after that I was gaining several boost percentage levels per week from tournament alone. I think by the end of chapter 5, I had 700% boost in every standard good, and that could happen even faster for players who start out in this new structure where more relics are available.
 

MaidenFair

Chef - Head Philologist
@MaidenFair don't worry. Once you get a few more chapters along and you need to replace all those old tier 3-producing buildings with much more needed mana or divine seed-producing buildings, and you start to need tons of tier 3 for research and upgrading, all that balance will shift. In my chapter 19 city, tier 3 goods have been my lowest of the nine goods for several chapters now.
Okay, thanks for the heads-up. I figured I'd need more of them at some point but in the mean time, they sure are piling up, lol. I'll be interested to see how it balances out with my semi-experimental setup.
 

ajqtrz

Chef - loquacious Old Dog
hello fellow gamers. I have long wanted to put this out but I know a lot of people will get crazed about it but I am going to do it anyway because I see it as a huge pitfall. While everyone thinks its easier to cross trade and sees it as an equal trade I don't know if people realize that they are loosing goods when you accept Tier 3 goods for T1 and T2. It takes more goods especially for T1 goods to equal T3 so its really not an equal trade. :)

There are two important numbers to consider in each transaction: cost and benefit. The cost is the production cost of the goods, including space, coins, supplies, time, energy, your anticipation of demand, etc. In other words, the cost is not just the production cost in terms of the measurable things. It must include, in addition, what it means to NOT have those goods, coins, supplies, etc. available AND it must also include the negative perceptions you might have of NOT having those items. For instance, if you have 1000 of this or that when you are used to 10,000 of it, you may hesitate to make a trade out of sense you can't because you are "running low" on that particular good. So cost has "intangibles" and each player may, in all kinds of ways and circumstances, measure them differently. The only time he/she might be hurt by this is if he/she doesn't take the time to ponder/consider/plan etc, his or her trades. I've done it myself. Started clicking on things offerered until suddenly, unexpectedly, I find I don't have enough to pick up that 10 marble trade -- I'm out of marble!

The second term "benefit" works in the same way. While the star system is measuring what can be measured and giving a rough estimate of what can be traded for what and at what ratio, it's only based upon measurable costs. And it therefore, list the benefit of the trade in those terms. But, as we can see, the perception of the value of a thing resides in the player, and some players have decided T3 are more valuable to them, so the produce T3. As they trade T3 for T2 they find eventually, there aren't as many who feel as they do and thus the shift happens as they move their production to another of the three options or to a more balanced, approach.

In my part of the world most of the middle tier players are producing T3 and trading for T2 (sometimes in very short supply) or T1 (a little more abundant but still short). This is an opportunity for anyone having an abundance of T1 or T2 (which is all I produce), and if you are inclined you can make a small but reasonable profit offering T2 or T1 for T3.

In the end, as I've argued elsewhere, using the star system as more than a rough measure will cause some to give more for their goods than necessary and to perhaps ask less than they can get. All of which underscores the need to train our people to look at the value of the trade as they perceive it, not the ratios and costs alone, and to use the star system as only a rough guideline since it represents the value of the goods as Inno perceives them -- when they don't play the game, I must add.


@BrinDarby The forum already had a conversation about the definition of the word arbitrary. Just because you dont like the values used to calculate the ratio does not make the ratio itself arbitrary. There are hundreds of post here and on beta debating the criteria and mathing incessantly over the current ratio. It is based on the amount of space it takes for a base player to produce each good in their city.
[/QUOTE]

I believe it was Soggy who corrected my use of the word a long, long time ago in the same discussion. I used it in the technical sense of "decided by an arbiter" vs the more correct in this context and general, "a decision made without regard to reason, logic or evidence." My use of the term implied Inno did not base it's measure on anything because to most people the latter definition is what they think of when they think of "arbitrary.'" It was just bad "audience adaptation" on my part. So, depending on how Brin intended it's use, he could be right....and so could you.

Isn't language fun?!

In addition, when you say "just because you don't like...." you are needlessly straying from the point being made. Guessing a person's motivations and then limiting them to one-- which is what "just because" does -- only opens doors to offense and side tracks the discussion. After all, your argument that the use of "arbitrary" is well made and makes the point without the need to tell us why Brin came to his conclusion. Perhaps you could, in the future, try to consider this in your comments? Just a suggestion and Lord knows I could be wrong.

AJ
 
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Killy-

Well-Known Member
You are completely ignoring the production output and the coin and supply cost for manufacturing each good. Literally there are hundreds of posts where this was mathed to the heavens over the course of several years. 1:1.5 was as close to even as it can be.

You just have to normalize t3, t2, b3 and b2 and then it is not ignored but still the same linear equation. You can add another constant for coins and supply costs on each side if you care about those and it is still the same result.

@Killy- ,
take Marble ....
If I upgrade from lvl 13 -> lvl 14 , and my increase is lets say
ohhh 100 pop and 150 culture..... for +75 more goods ....
Yet I might be able to upgrade (2) in the 2x2 catagory
for less pop/cul and get as much or more goods.

sometimes its "cheaper" to have more space used by manuf
rather than to add more pop/cul to be able to try and save space.
overall both ways use up more space, just differently.

That might be correct (I am way too lazy to check numbers) but again that would depend on what pop and culture buildings you own and wonders etc.
 
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Myne

Oh Wise One
People really overthink this process.....
if you need something put it out there....if you want something pick it up.....if you don't like what you see don't look at it...eventually it will go away.
It doesn't hurt to send a newbie a message explaining how the trader works if they are putting out zero star trades.....obviously it hasn't been explained or they have gotten away with it and they will do what they want....or maybe they are helping someone they know
It has nothing to do with space or factory's or anything else.......it's a trade period.
It's your choice

What the tiny t-rex person said. Done thinking about this. Tylenol didn't work

Edit: Thank you @SoggyShorts for proving what I suspected about the T1 goods. The table made me faint so I didn't look.
 

SoggyShorts

Mathematician par Excellence
Switch over to discussing sentient goods and it all goes crazy again
Absolutely- The dumbest thing is to have 2-3 of each T4,5,6 while saving up for a 300,000 T6 tech and everything else just rots away at 10% each night.
Personally, in chapter 15 I ran 6xT6 factories and just (cross)traded 1:1 for whatever tech I was working on. When I finished the chapter I traded 8:1 for anyone who wanted "free stuff"
Decaying goods are a different beast IMO.
Standard goods where thats not the case.... its almost more often in
that senario for 2 players to be @ different boost % amounts.

therefore there should be a carve-out for Std goods, not to be
force fed @ 1:1 only....
The vast majority of standard goods are traded by fully boosted players.
More importantly though: eventually, everyone gets 700%, so if some little player has a slightly harder time producing due to a 500% boost eventually they'll be on the other end of such trades and it evens out.
Imagine the difficulty in trying to arrange even trades with FS members based on boost % :oops:
 

Iyapo1

Well-Known Member
After all, your argument that the use of "arbitrary" is well made and makes the point without the need to tell us why Brin came to his conclusion. Perhaps you could, in the future, try to consider this in your comments? Just a suggestion and Lord knows I could be wrong.
Did you just suggest that I should use words more economically to avoid straying from the point or causing offense?

I would say more but i am pretty sure the point is well made.
 

ajqtrz

Chef - loquacious Old Dog
Did you just suggest that I should use words more economically to avoid straying from the point or causing offense?

I would say more but i am pretty sure the point is well made.

Nope, didn't say that. I said you should not use words that stray from the point -- which would naturally make you use less words. I think you have it exactly backwards. The goal isn't to use less words, it's to use words that stick to the subject at hand, no matter how many that might take.. As for offense, if a point isn't about the subject at hand AND causes offense, then those words should have been dropped.

It's not the amount of words you use, it's for what and how you use them.

AJ
 
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