The idea is interesting! It got me thinking on how it might change the game.
Increasing trader fees in steps to 50% (for example 10%;30%;50%) based on distance instead of a flat % if you have not discovered the player on the map.
I take it that the idea is that you want to make distant trade more viable and thus increase the redistribution of goods to balance spare amount of trading in a player area.
Since there is a limit on with who you can trade anyway. We can assume that limiting trade is a core game design decision by the game developers. How has the amount of trades in total and per (active) players changed and is the system working or not is hard for us to say without having access to games economic statistics. Let’s assume that the amount of trade has decreased to do not having enough active viable trade connections (other reasons are also viable). Then your idea could be a solution to the problem.
More lucrative trades (still with a downside) outside your scouting range would give you more viable trade connections. Thus (A) increase the movement of goods. (B) (probably) also increasing the outflow of goods from the server’s economy.
A) Easier access to goods seems like a good thing. Then again making something easier usually decreases the fun factor in the long term. Sparsity of materials (goods, supplies, coins, troops, KP, etc) forces you to make decisions about your city layout. Sometimes these decisions are hard. From a game design point you want to get a nice balance of hard decisions. Too little and the game seems to easy. To many and it seems too hard and feels like a pay to win game. The game designers must think about the current game balance and take that also in to account.
B) I’m not a game developer so I don’t have access to Elvenar trade statistics, so I must make some educated guesses. Also, I don’t know what balance of inflow and outflow of goods Elvenar team is aiming for on a server. I’m guessing a small surplus over a long period to compensate people moving up ages and needing more goods.
a. If we assume that currently only a small amount of trade is moved with a trade fee and implementing the above-mentioned changes would increase it. Goods that would have stayed put in one players hand now start to move between players and trading is more viable. Some of these goods get taken away by a trader’s fee. For simplicity let’s say 15% on average. That would mean that although goods are moving faster between players also more goods would be taken out of the server economy. Not 15% as fellowship trades and scouted players trades are still free. But N amount of goods would still be moving out of the market. Depending on the amount of goods moving out of the economy this way it might decrease the amount of goods on the server on the long run enough to decrease the amount of available for trading thus not achieving the desired affect of making trading easier. It might even be a reverse case. If currently a decent amount of trades is done with a trader’s fee as players are desperate for goods. Then implementing the changes would increase the number of trades but reduce the amount of goods flowing out of the server’s economy as people are paying less as on average on trader’s fees.
b. Blooming trader guild already is a way to reduce trader fees and increase Your viable trade reach. Building and levelling a wonder to get the most out of it is a strategic hard choice as you must give up land and KP to do it. By implementing the above-mentioned changes would nerf the wonder and take away the choice as the wonder would not be as viable as before. From the past this has happened already. In 2015 ancient wonders was released and Endless Excavation gave you relics. This was before the tournaments feature. By increasing the number of relics, you would get from completing provinces was a valid bonus as obtaining relics was not as easy as it is today. In 2016 Inno introduced tournaments to Elvenar. Today you get most of your relics from tournaments (if you do them) and the value of bonus relics from a wonder is almost useless.
If there is a problem with flow if goods between players and into and out of the server’s economy, then this change could improve it. But it might also bring on changes that are not desirable. All in all, it is an interesting idea that is worth a consideration by the game designers assuming that there is the problem it tries to fix.
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