Crystal shortage

[Magvenar]

Our Fellowship is extremely light on crystal, but not willing to get rid of anyone to try to fill the spot with crystal boosted players. None of our neighbours are picking up the many crystal trades we post. So is it worth it for me to build crystal even though it’s not my boost? I’m pretty sure I know the answer (nope) but have to pick the knowledgeable brains of this forum, hoping for advice and possibly a solution.

 

[Aritra]

I would only if the situation is really that bad and truly holding you back (not just impatient). As a temporary solution, I'd just build one, and not very far--just enough to take the edge off.

Another solution that some might suggest, and is probably better, is changing fellowships. Find a fellowship that has a better balance of what is needed and cares about meeting the needs of the group. If you have made good friends there, you can still message within the game world. Do what is best for you and your city.

[update later in thread: traveling merchants!]

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

What are you offering to get the crystal? If it is scrolls, then that is part of your problem, because large parts of the US worlds have too much scroll production. You may need to have your silk producers build more factories and offer that in trade for crystal or build more of your tier 1 boosts and trade marble, steel, or planks for crystal. And if that does not work, instead of building non-boosted factories, look for the little tier 2 goods merchants in crafting. For anyone not boosted in crystal, they will make crystal.

 

[Gladiola]

You could look around at your discovered neighbors to see who (if any) have crystal factories and send them a mail to see what it would take to get them to sell you crystal.

Depending on your relic boost it might make sense to trade for crystal at the wholesaler. If you faithfully do the first trade for coins, supplies, and your boosted good, particularly if many in the fellowship are doing it, then it would likely be more efficient than building a non-boosted factory. Use the space to build a residence, workshop, or boosted manufactory to pay for the wholesaler trades. In the long term there is also an AW that will make your wholesaler more efficient.

Thanks for bringing the wholesaler to mind ... I just unlocked my t2 boost and forgot I can use coins and supplies to buy my non-boosted t2s now!

Edit: I am crystal boosted (not big enough to be helpful to you), so I guess I will only trade for silk at the wholesaler. I don't need to summon any more unwanted scrolls into existence.

 

[Magvenar]

All very good points, thank you! Our fellowship is ranked 52, real good bunch of people, so we are doing ok overall. My growth has not been impacted by the crystal shortage yet, but I see others struggling with it and I’d really like to help. I realize scrolls suck, nobody needs them, that is what most of us offer. I never thought of offering T1 boost. Will try that. And I’ll snoop around neighborhood and see who has crystal, reach out to them.

Much appreciated

 

[Sprite1313]

Like @Enevhar Aldarion said, I would probably build a couple of traveling merchant II before I built non-boosted manufactories. You will consume a lot of population and culture, to say nothing of supplies and gold for very little production with non-boosted manus.

 

[Crow Last Elf]

Is the entire fs aware of the problem? Some players might not be aware and don't conserve crystal or bring crystal in from neighbours when they can.

Avoiding catering when crystal and silk are part of the cost and fighting instead saves a lot of goods. I use to open provinces by catering for a change of pace. But when it requires T2 goods, I fight if they are easy or medium to save on T2 usage.

Are crystal producers waiting to take trades in order to keep trades in the fs, or are they posting crystal trades that can be taken by neighbours? Not everyone keeps a deep reserve of goods and can wait to replenish, some need to replenish daily. But if they can find a way to build up their goods inventory, they can wait and take only fs trades.

In fs that work together, I found that crystal producers who can will add an additional manu above what they think they need. If cross tier trades are allowed, they are effectively substituting a T2 manu for a T1.

 

[SoggyShorts]

Is the entire fs aware of the problem? Some players might not be aware and don't conserve crystal or bring crystal in from neighbours when they can.

This is important.
You can set up a system where players post trades trying to get crystal from outside and label them as such by making them 10,001 : 10,001 trades so that your FS member don't take those trades "trying to help out"

 

[Torcuato]

All very good points, thank you! Our fellowship is ranked 52, real good bunch of people, so we are doing ok overall. My growth has not been impacted by the crystal shortage yet, but I see others struggling with it and I’d really like to help. I realize scrolls suck, nobody needs them, that is what most of us offer. I never thought of offering T1 boost. Will try that. And I’ll snoop around neighborhood and see who has crystal, reach out to them.

Much appreciated

I'm sure you have considered this, but when scouting, I check which neighbors are active on trade offering what I need. My fellowship is short on steel, so I expanded to reach some active players with whom I trade steel now. If your fellowship is active, that's 25 players who can expand in different ways to reach crystal.

 

[jesikrey]

Is the same thing with silk in my FA. I have a neighbor that is good at taking my scrolls trades for silk but because we have so many with silk boosts I see a lot of scrolls for silk trades. I need to bring this up and see if we can come up with a fix like @Crow Last Elf mentioned, perhaps not all of us are aware there is an issue.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

I'm sure you have considered this, but when scouting, I check which neighbors are active on trade offering what I need. My fellowship is short on steel, so I expanded to reach some active players with whom I trade steel now. If your fellowship is active, that's 25 players who can expand in different ways to reach crystal.

There is a danger to this though, if you are not already in chapter 8. There are two ways to get blocked from scouting too far if you do not have access to the green orcs. One is scouting too much in general. If you say within the rings, you can complete 222 provinces without needing orcs to negotiate. If you scout in weird directions, you can hit this barrier when you scout a province that is at least either 12 or 13 rings away from your city. Number of provinces completed does not matter if you go too far away first.

 

[Aritra]

Yes! Traveling merchants. How did I forget? Until very recently, I have recrafted one of each tier each new chapter (two of T1 for a while there). They don't solve the problem you're having, per se, but can likely help a bit. Those served me well and I don't regret using them for so long. One of the things I liked was that it helped me not rely on my trader 100% (without the expense of factory, which I did consider at times). I have a good fellowship, and several helpful traders in my neighborhood, but sometimes it comes down to timing of people being around to take/give the trades when you need it. It doesn't cost anything to run and has a small footprint (it doesn't make a lot but it is still helpful). Facepalm for forgetting, haha. They're not very expensive and frequency will vary, but watch for them in your MA.

 

[Lelanya]

@Aritra
The Travelling Merchants come more often when there is an FA starting. On that note, no news in Beta.

 

[Henroo]

@Aritra
The Travelling Merchants come more often when there is an FA starting. On that note, no news in Beta.

Really? I have never heard this. I assumed it was just random chance what shows up in the MA.

 

[Lelanya]

I notice it comes up when there is going to be demand for goods. So at the very start of an event, and then prior to and during FA. Me, I'd like to stock up on items that I need, like troop buildings, while making Arcane Residue badges, 9 Vision Vapor, right? No it's TMs

 

[Magvenar]

Like @Enevhar Aldarion said, I would probably build a couple of traveling merchant II before I built non-boosted manufactories. You will consume a lot of population and culture, to say nothing of supplies and gold for very little production with non-boosted manus.

Didn’t think they were worth it, ok I’ll look into that.

 

[crackie]

If you don't get a lot of bites on crystals in your trader, then it's easy to keep an eye on who IS biting. You could then look them up on Elvenstats or ask them directly if they are low on whatever it is they've been trading for the crystals. Sometimes, even though what you're looking for may not be the player's boosted good, their fellowship may have loads of it. Then you can be the middlemen moving trades in wholesale quantities for the fellowships. I was in a fellowship with a plank shortage, but I found a neighbor in a fellowship with a silk shortage. Even though he is steel/scroll boosted and I am steel/crystal boosted, we were moving tons of planks and silk for our respective fellowships. Alternatively, you can also use the crop circle method to help get your message out.

 

[Lelanya]

By the way - still no news on Beta but Travelling Merchant just showed up in the building recipe spot in Crafting.

 

[ajqtrz]

Some possible "solutions" (or at least helps).

1) Sell scrolls for a lot less than the "official" value. When I sell them, I sell them for 20% discount. Or did when, as a scrolls boosted player I sold them. I generally don't sell them now because I've adjusted my output so the place where the amounts I have are stable. But selling at a discount will work. You may have to go 25% but if you think about it, there are silk and crystal boosted players and they do need scrolls so they buy scrolls.

2) If you do have any scrolls boosted players have them put their scrolls in storage and use the space more T3 or T1 production. Then cross tier trade with them for the scrolls they need. The point is, it may be cheaper for them to buy scrolls than produce them and the space can help in other areas. I have 9 steel plants and no scrolls because I can trade my surplus of steel for silk and crystal. The idea is to use your space to produce that which has enough value to get you crystal.

3) Find a fs with a suplus of crystal. We did when we needed silk. If they have a shortage of something you produce in abundance, arrange a scheduled trade with them. Then we arranged bi-weekly large trades of 500,000 silk for what we had at the time in surplus -- scrolls, I believe. Now we don't need silk because we've adjusted our methods pretty much balance it. Then we would "send" a member there after tournament, they would pick up the silk and drop off the scrolls. They they'd come back. This was before the Spire so there was time. Not sure how it would work with the Spire unless they start the Spire a bit late.

4) Keep regularly posted something for crystal trades up. We used to put 109,000 ("9" being our note for "foreign" trades to be left for our neighbors). By keeping them up all the time and adjusting the price to make them attractive you will find you get your crystal. When we found we needed crystal (it was crystal at the time) it took a few days before our trades started moving and we built a surplus.

5) Have a surplus. Sounds a bit counter-intuitive but by having a surplus the "hurt" of being short doesn't happen as much. Combined with #4 it works. I keep a surplus of 2 million crystal and silk on hand and seldom does anybody in my fs have a problem with not being able to get those goods. I do this for all the goods and this minimizes the impact of short term shortages. You still have to address the underlying low production problem, but it definitely makes things easier.

Those are my suggestions, some of which others have made, above, of course.

AJ

 

[Aritra]

View attachment 9503

aaahhh I want to write on the lawn, too! Next time I'm between settlements, I'll have to play a bit.