DeletedUser
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I want to expand on an idea that was submitted on the beta forum:
I love the idea of scaling the fee with distance from your frontier! The only change I would add is that it ought to work both ways. In consideration of this, I would be happy with FEE=DISTANCE*0.20.
I would also remove the limit on # of trade partners and replace it with a limit on total number of trades displayed in the Trader interface, filtered by value ratios. There are 9 goods to be traded for in 72 different pairings, and each player is allowed up to 60 trade offers. With the current limits theoretically maxed out, some lucky (or unlucky) player might open up the trader to find 200*60=12,000 trade offers sprawling over 1500 pages. Even 40 or 50 pages would be more than most of us ever see. Limit the trade listings to 800 total offers, with the least advantageous (for the buyer) being the first to be omitted. Any trade that would display at worse than the wholesale ratio would automatically be omitted.
Praetor said:We all know that the trader is a big issue, the deleted inactives did not solve the problem neither.
Although I didn't see any official statement about the "maximum 200 trading partners", I read that at several posts, so i believe there is that limit.
What I propose is, change the trader fee system, which currently applies a constant fee for all undiscovered cities. Instead, make the fee dependent on the distance.
First of all, remove that limit of 200. We will limit the number of trading partners some other way.
Think my discovered area as my borders, and in order to determine the fee, look at the distance between the trading partner's city and my closest border to them. The fee might be (distance * 10%).
Since we have eliminated the 200 limit, we don't want the trade list to be infinite (well, maybe we do ), so we still need some limitation. That might not be a certain number, but let's say 10 units of distance which means 100% fee.
This might be still improved by the ability to upgrade the trader building, or some research on trading, both of which are suggested in other threads as well. The coefficient of 10% per distance might be decreased and/or the maximum allowed distance might be increased based on the level of the trader building and/or research.
Any ideas, improvements, changes, additions on this?
I love the idea of scaling the fee with distance from your frontier! The only change I would add is that it ought to work both ways. In consideration of this, I would be happy with FEE=DISTANCE*0.20.
Example: PlayerA wants to make a trade with PlayerB 12 hexes away on the map. PlayerA has explored 4 hexes in PlayerB's direction. PlayerB has explored 5 hexes in PlayerA's direction, leaving a 3 hex frontier in the middle that neither has uncovered. The trader would display a markup of 60%, or 1.60*COST vs. the offered trade.
An astute player sitting in that 3-hex margin could take advantage of the situation by accepting complimentary trades from both PlayerA and PlayerB (at no mark-up) and re-offering them for PlayerB and PlayerA to accept (at no mark-up), keeping some of the trade volume the Trader Fee would have consumed.
An astute player sitting in that 3-hex margin could take advantage of the situation by accepting complimentary trades from both PlayerA and PlayerB (at no mark-up) and re-offering them for PlayerB and PlayerA to accept (at no mark-up), keeping some of the trade volume the Trader Fee would have consumed.
I would also remove the limit on # of trade partners and replace it with a limit on total number of trades displayed in the Trader interface, filtered by value ratios. There are 9 goods to be traded for in 72 different pairings, and each player is allowed up to 60 trade offers. With the current limits theoretically maxed out, some lucky (or unlucky) player might open up the trader to find 200*60=12,000 trade offers sprawling over 1500 pages. Even 40 or 50 pages would be more than most of us ever see. Limit the trade listings to 800 total offers, with the least advantageous (for the buyer) being the first to be omitted. Any trade that would display at worse than the wholesale ratio would automatically be omitted.