Gripe and Bemoan the Horrors of (BAD) Cross-tier (ALWAYS)

[NightshadeCS]

I don't know how other players feel when they see these types of trades, but they show so rarely for me that I do not touch them. I always worry that the player posted them by accident and I do not want to be the one who takes them. I am not a greedy player.

In the current setup, I would take these, as they are probably taking the advice of the forum (or those in their FS who are passing this info on). If you are overly concerned, a message to the person in question could clear it up for you. Of course, if it extremely rare and you don't see them cropping up regularly, it is probably not worth worrying about.

@Count Mein , I certainly don't want you to go beyond your personal code, but sometimes just knocking 5 off of your ask-for amount will move your trades to the fist page of most people, so that your trades are seen first and accepted first by those that need those goods. so, not much loss for you and your trades get taken fast, which I would think is more important. Unless, of course, you don't mind them expiring, in which case...

 

[Risen Malchiah]

How much time do you guys spend in the trader? Serious question.

I probably only look in the trader every 2-3 days.

Multiple times per day at the very least, especially Friday night & Saturday morning when I will check every time I'm online for end-of-tourney trades. Half the reason I downloaded the mobile app was to be able to check if my fellowship needs goods while I'm away. (Realizing mobile visits are amazingly fast was a bonus.)

 

[Deleted User - 3932582]

I don't know how other players feel when they see these types of trades, but they show so rarely for me that I do not touch them. I always worry that the player posted them by accident and I do not want to be the one who takes them. I am not a greedy player.

One of my neighbours places a lot of T3->T2 trades at 1:1. This is not an accident, he does it on a consistent basis.

I do take those often

 

[Deleted User - 3932582]

I refuse to make in-tier trades 3 star. Just stubborn I guess. But cross-tier I have offered 10K T3 for 10K T2 and they have expired.

You're just not being consistent here. You're fine with posting T3->T2 at 1:1 (which is better than the current market rate), but refuse to do the same for in-tier? Why?

I always post same-tier at 1.1:1. Extra 10% means nothing, but you'd be surprised at how much faster your trades will be cleared. Plus, it's good for karma - my trading partners who benefit from this extra 10% pickup are the same players who later on pick up my cross-tier trades when I need them (usually big rebalancing around chapter transition).

Of course, if I can find something in the trader at 1:1 I'd take that first.

 

[DeletedUser20255]

You're just not being consistent here. You're fine with posting T3->T2 at 1:1 (which is better than the current market rate), but refuse to do the same for in-tier? Why?

Two things. 1 You say 1:1 T3 to T2 is better than the market rate. Interesting. Where might one find such market rates posted, please? And it would be lovely if all players were bound to accept such posted market rate. 1:1 is certainly better than Inno's standard 2 star rates but much of this thread is dedicated to the sad realization that these don't mean squat. The market rate is what traders available to me decide is the market rate. And in my area they have decided 1:1 is maybe ok if they are feeling generous.
2. I admitted to stubbornness on keeping in-tier trades at 1:1. It is based on the childlike belief that if we all produced our boosted and there is equal distribution throughout my trading neighborhood then these goods are equal and 1:1 trades benefit all and we all join hands and sing Kumbaya.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

2. I admitted to stubbornness on keeping in-tier trades at 1:1. It is based on the childlike belief that if we all produced our boosted and there is equal distribution throughout my trading neighborhood then these goods are equal and 1:1 trades benefit all and we all join hands and sing Kumbaya.

And you all are in exactly the same chapter and have built the exact same number of boosted factories and everyone always uses the exact same production times every day?

 

[DeletedUser20255]

And you all are in exactly the same chapter and have built the exact same number of boosted factories and everyone always uses the exact same production times every day?

Exactly!

 

[Deleted User - 3932582]

Two things. 1 You say 1:1 T3 to T2 is better than the market rate. Interesting. Where might one find such market rates posted, please? And it would be lovely if all players were bound to accept such posted market rate. 1:1 is certainly better than Inno's standard 2 star rates but much of this thread is dedicated to the sad realization that these don't mean squat. The market rate is what traders available to me decide is the market rate. And in my area they have decided 1:1 is maybe ok if they are feeling generous.

You're correct saying that your market rate depends on traders available to you. You will get more trading partners and better deals as your FS/NH expand. Having said that, I am yet to see wide-spread reports that crosstrades at 1:1 are not being taken, at least after some time. Maybe in really crummy neibourhoods?

As a personal anecdote, just a couple of days ago I had no problems moving T3->T2 and T1->T2 at 2.5:1 ratios. It wasn't millions, but a reasonable amount of 200-300K worth of T2. All cleared in less than 24 hours, both in and outside of my FS. This is not an isolated incident, I do this on a semi-regular basis (about once a month). So there is that.

2. I admitted to stubbornness on keeping in-tier trades at 1:1. It is based on the childlike belief that if we all produced our boosted and there is equal distribution throughout my trading neighborhood then these goods are equal and 1:1 trades benefit all and we all join hands and sing Kumbaya.

Um, well, if Kumbaya is a goal, then it is hard to argue with your approach

 

[Ashrem]

Not specifically, no. Goods are just not a constraining factor (haven't been in a long time), so I don't pay too much attention to balances. And there are limits to how low I can go in terms of production. If I only have 2 manufactories per tier, I can't effectively reduce production by 10% - I can only reduce it by 50%, and that's too much.

You can reduce it by around 10% simply by altering your production runs. Possibly going from 9/3/3/3/3 to 9/9/3 or from 9/9/3 to 24 or from 24 to 48.

One of my neighbours places a lot of T3->T2 trades at 1:1. This is not an accident, he does it on a consistent basis.

I do take those often

And thhis is where the glut of T3 is spilling over into the shortage of T2. along with people who have excess T3 making the mistake of thinking that they can just go further in the tournament to burn it off. First they burn more T2, without actually having more, then they end up trying to recover some of their T2 by trading down from their excess T3

 

[Deleted User - 3932582]

You can reduce it by around 10% simply by altering your production runs. Possibly going from 9/3/3/3/3 to 9/9/3 or from 9/9/3 to 24 or from 24 to 48.

Oh, I can reduce production by arbitrary amounts if I simply idle manufactories with specific intervals. It won't save me any space though, and that is the only thing that matters. The cost of actual production is not material. So reducing production like this means I simply get lower amounts of goods - and don't get anything valuable in return (like space).

I only care when I can reduce production by freeing up some space that can be used for something else. In my relatively lean setup, this is hard to accomplish.

 

[Ashrem]

I only care when I can reduce production by freeing up some space that can be used for something else. In my relatively lean setup, this is hard to accomplish.

You could tear down a high level factory and replace with a smaller, lower level one. It would be a lot work to save a few squares, though.

 

[Deleted User - 3932582]

You could tear down a high level factory and replace with a smaller, lower level one. It would be a lot work to save a few squares, though.

Fair enough, but this is rather hardcore way of saving. I am usually not that hard pressed for space - hence why I really don't touch much production facilities much as long as they provide sufficient goods. I simply wouldn't build it up to the max in the first place, that I do quite often.

Also, I haven't checked a lot but even with that approach the production jumps can be quite significant. E.g. L19 magic dust manufactory from Orcs is 20 squares and 775 production (+boosts etc). The previous smaller size would be from chapter 4 (!) at 12 squares and 173 production. That's quite a hit.

You can downgrade levels of manufactory without saving any space on the manu itself, and potentially save some squares on required residences/culture, but again, these are pretty extreme measures. Usually, there are better options for space management.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

@Nonchalant Antipathy , and others here not into Chapter 12+ yet, you do not know the true horrors of cross-tier trades until you reach Chapter 14 and unlock the third set of sentient goods in the Trader. At that point there are now 18 different goods that can show in the Trader for you. Now imagine opening the Trader and seeing almost 100 pages of trades being offered, with easily 75% of them cross-tier, including the sentient goods. And the sentient goods trades that are not cross-tier? They are either 1-star or 0-star trades because people are either do not know how to post them or are intentionally posting, say, 5000 platinum and asking for 10k or 15k or 20k of moonstone, both of which are in the same tier of goods. Now you all know why some people at the minimum want a separate tab for the sentient goods trades.

 

[DeletedUser20951]

Now imagine opening the Trader and seeing almost 100 pages of trades being offered, with easily 75% of them cross-tier, including the sentient goods.

No, no, no, no-no-no-NO-NO-NO!!! *plugs ears* La la lalalalalala, I CAN'T HEAR YOU. Whoa, that was weird. There was a bunch of static and- Oh.

C'mon, Inno! FOR THE LOVE OF THE GODS, free these advanced players from their torment! Before I reach the same chapter and have to endure the same suffering. Add a couple filters, for cross-tier and sentient goods! Or tabs! Either would be a significant improvement! I don't wanna be one of those rick players that only post trades! I swear I don't! Don't make me a worse person.

*sighs and bows head* Amen.

 

[DeletedUser20951]

*plods back from Trader*

(-_-) <----Eerily Accurate Representation of Current Expression

So, in the neighborhood of my other city, several more players are now copying the cross-trading ways of the higher level brethren that have been maintaining this practice for over a year, and in this one, while there are now less cross-traders overall, there is a special cookie (ranked eight hundred and something in the world) who has started placing many tiny identical cross-tier trades... I really didn't need to have my top two trading pet peeves combined into some unholy spawn of patience ice-picking. Yeah, really didn't need that.

 

[Vergazi]

*plods back from Trader*

(-_-) <----Eerily Accurate Representation of Current Expression

So, in the neighborhood of my other city, several more players are now copying the cross-trading ways of the higher level brethren that have been maintaining this practice for over a year, and in this one, while there are now less cross-traders overall, there is a special cookie (ranked eight hundred and something in the world) who has started placing many tiny identical cross-tier trades... I really didn't need to have my top two trading pet peeves combined into some unholy spawn of patience ice-picking. Yeah, really didn't need that.

Didn't you hear what the new trend is in trading? All the kewl kids are doing it. You demolish all of you tier 1 factories and then other players who aren't so kewl and l33t don't, but have to supply all of their tier1 in return for "free tier3 goods" that their various building sets cough up on a daily basis. If this isn't the case I would love someone to disabuse me of this notion.

 

[DeletedUser12171]

This is how I handle my trader

On average I check once or twice a day. I don't post trades every day, only when I need to balance goods, so most of that checking to to accept trades. When I open the Trader, I:

1. Turn on FS filter and accept all trades that I can for my boosted goods
2. Turn off FS filter and run through the list of all 9 non-sentient goods. Pick up anything 2-star that is not cross-tier and where I can spare the goods for
3. If I'm in the mood, check sentient trade offers and pick whatever is 2-star and not cross-tier.

All of that takes about 5 min. All cross-tier I auto-ignore and very occasionally I accept in-tier 1-star trades to help out if I see it's a small player. It's very easy to just ignore all the cross tier, they don't get more than a passing glance from me

So I am mildly irritated with the cross tier trades but mostly I can't be bothered about them.

 

[DeletedUser20255]

They are either 1-star or 0-star trades because people are either do not know how to post them or are intentionally posting, say, 5000 platinum and asking for 10k or 15k or 20k of moonstone, both of which are in the same tier of goods. Now you all know why some people at the minimum want a separate tab for the sentient goods trades.

I haven't reached tradeable sentient goods yet so I'm coming from a place of ignorance. but that hasn't stopped me before so..... Don't the 1 star and no star trades come at the bottom of the list as they do with basic goods and therefore easily ignored?

 

[DeletedUser20255]

Didn't you hear what the new trend is in trading? All the kewl kids are doing it. You demolish all of you tier 1 factories and then other players who aren't so kewl and l33t don't, but have to supply all of their tier1 in return for "free tier3 goods" that their various building sets cough up on a daily basis. If this isn't the case I would love someone to disabuse me of this notion.

OK. I'll take a shot. I think "have to supply" overstates the case. You still have the right not to click on any trade you don't like.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

I haven't reached tradeable sentient goods yet so I'm coming from a place of ignorance. but that hasn't stopped me before so..... Don't the 1 star and no star trades come at the bottom of the list as they do with basic goods and therefore easily ignored?

Yes, but all the 2 and 3-star sentient trades are mixed in with all the other trades. So you still have to scroll past them to find what you want.