So, right now the Black Market is an infinate well of resources, with a slight reaction to trade volume, a little volatility... but basically just noise on top of buying resources for 4.5, selling for 2.5.
What if the market was really a market.. a closed system for resources?
Have all the independent planets producing resources and selling continuously, according to planetary resources available. This would ultimately limit supply. As players take over the map, and no independent systems remain, the supply would be limited to what players are producing and actually selling. It would tighten things up.
The system attempts to adjust prices up and down to maintain a steady volume of transactions. Players buy, prices go up. If the amount the "market" has on hand is over a certain amount, prices drop until they equalize. If the amount on hand is low, prices go up until it equalizes. There could continue to be a "markup" amount between buy and sell -- this would eat up the extra credits that the planets are constantly generating and help control inflation.
The system could keep track of the total number of credits in circulation, and adjust the "markup" accordingly. The market would be an entity that attempts to control the amount of resource in its possesion, and the number of credits in circulation. All trade passes through it, so there is no need for players to use the bid system if they don't want to. Just buy and sell, and let the market do the work.
What you would get is genuine and realistic economics. The best part... the interface doesn't change AT ALL... everything is behind the scenes. Maybe add a volume window to show the amount of each item the "market" entity has on hand. Despite this lack of interface change... a whole new element of strategy opens up. The game gets less RTS like and more 4x like.
Control 80% of the crystal mines out there... well... the price goes sky high and players have a hard time buying it. Use your crystal markets as a cash cow, or restrict availability? Your choice. Certainly opens up some diplomatic options. Resources are interchangable still, but only to a certain extent. You have to think before dumping all that metal on the market... will it get bought up and used against you? Maybe you have tons of credits. Do you buy a huge amount of metal to restrict other players from getting it, or to drive up the price?
We just found a new use for LF's (they don't need crystal)... you could even have a couple new ship types with similar stats but different resource requirements. Also, maybe producing a unit while short on crystal reduces its shields, short on metal... reduces its hull. Techs to control the magnitude of this effect.
Totally changes the port/refinery situation. Much more dynamic decision. If everyone builds ports, we see an excess of credits in circulation, the prices of resources goes up... so refineries get favored. If everyone builds refineries, resource prices drop... now people need to get credits directly with pop and trade improvements, since EVERYTHING has a base credit cost. Since all three resources are directly useful, they simply fluctuate in value against eachother.
Also, you don't build your economy just to spam ships and techs... after all, if you burn lots of resources, the prices go sky high. Makes the unit quantity/quality trade off more dynamic strategically. Materials are expensive... well, then tech up to make more efficient use of them... materials are cheap? Well, build massive fleats. To enhacne this, it is even conceivable that only credits (or mostly credits) get used for research instead of material (afterall, information economies use fewer raw materials, more labor == credits).
Implimentation would be a simple control system.. programming is easy -- you'd have factors for markup, inflation, and price elasticity of metal and crystal. Tune those four numbers, and you should get a stable system.
Think of the diplomacy factor... you don't want to tear down that militarily weak economic empire, because destroying his mines hurts everyone, the supply of everything gets affected. Instead, you take him under your wing and protect him, in exchange for him transfering metal to you instead of dumping on the market. It's cheaper than killing him, taking territory, and rebuilding all that infrastructure. Alternatively, maybe you have a good supply of crystal mines, and want to take out a militeristic empire... but rathat than attacking him directly, you attack someone else, just to tear up his mines, to restrict your enemy. There would be genuine REASONS for diplomacy. Nothing artificial. Also, there would be balance between war and peace -- just like in the real world, where tearing down your neighbor's economy has a cost that must be weighed. Players even have some incentive to prevent expansion into neutral worlds that they aren't currently prepared to redevelop... you could sign peace treaties with individual neutral worlds.
I emphasize again that you get all this additional strategic depth with no additional player complexity -- the existing market window and an explaination of what is going on underneath it suffice.
One more thing... the "lost" metal and crystal from mines with poor allegence? Put that into the "market" as well to be bought or sold by other players. After all... we can assume people still work, but just don't pay their taxes far from the capital. Those resources go somewhere.
one word....
BRILLIANT!
this idea would tie in so very well with Diplomacy... Devs, lets get er done!
this system is so simple, yet opens up so much more potential for the game. I love it! great idea!
My vote is for it.
bon chance.
I thought they implemented a volatile market and people bitch and complained so much they stabalized it.
Anyhoo, I support this idea.
The problem is that many maps (particularly random maps) have resource imbalances. There may be lots of volcanics or very few ice, or the neutrals might come up one way or another. The result may be that everyone will have a huge amount of excess of one resource and a deficit of others. If this happens, the black market feature is effectively shut down, because everyone is selling the same resource and buying the other.
Consider the case in a 3v3 if only one player ends up with a good crystal supply. If he doesn't put it on the black market, no one can buy crystal. The result is that his team can still receive crystal by tribute, while the other team is crippled and unable to utilize their resources effectively. It's unduly unfair, and wouldn't work out in practice.
The current black market system isn't perfect, but it ensures if you have a gross excess of one type of resource due to map imbalance that you can always correct this. The problem currently is that the black market enables you to pursue an exclusively trade-driven economy and to simply focus on credit production. I'd support brainstorming to try and punish over-use of the black market with massive credit production, but if that leads to players suffering due to resource imbalances in their start location it's no good.
i thought they were changing the rules for feeding in diplomacy. in addition, i know so many complaints have been made about map imbalances. couldnt they address this with a balance patch?
i really like this idea. sounds like it would really add another dimension to an already great game. and i dont think it will be abused like darvin thinks, especially in bigger games, where the net effect will be neutral. and, if it so happens that an imabalance occurs, then you have another way to win the game! eco win could be the new thing.
edit: thought of something else too. feeding could be directly tied into the market. like, aliies have to buy resources from each other, but at a greatly reduced price. this would necessitate another menu, in case a player doesnt want to feed (just syaing it as a possibility)
Perhaps only being able to trade metal for crystal and vice versa on the major black market but still being able to pay credits for the metal/crystal other players can place on the black market?
A direct metal for crystal trade would actually be nice, as very often early game you have a shortage of one and an excess of the other, and you're stuck getting gouged twice by the black market, once on the sale and once on the purchase.
What if there was no limit on the amount of crystal or metal available, but the price fall off was just very slow, or non existant.
This way buying lots of crystal would result in crystal costing 1000 or so, quite expensive.
Currently I never even look at the prices, as they rarely leave the 400 - 500 range. It just doesn't matter.
Hmmm.....
I think the direct metal, crystal trading is a good idea. Combine that with the OP's ideas, and then balance the random map generator.... that could work.
I think many of the trade inbalances could be fixed with a little more map balance. Then a more closed system could be used.
With a little refining, this idea would be golden. Fix imbalance in randomness, adjust a few things, and throw in a crystal=metal trade, and this idea has my vote.
Congratulations on developing an idea for making the black market much more in-depth without overcomplicating anything.
I agree that the basic idea sounds quite promising, but I also thought along darvin's lines that your propsed suppliers may well not suffice. you could maybe put some multiplicator in it or have base levels in the market depending on map size that are always generated, but that would again weaken the system again.
the other idea, to allow prices to fluctuate more, wider boundaries, would also be worth looking into. the price range is just not that extreme, on the buying end it goes to what? 500? 550? it could be a lot higher, depending on how much it is demanded. likewise, sell price could go lower if there really is such an abunance. actually, that would be a good contribution in any case, provided the extreme prices only do come to pass with extreme transaction volumes.
edit: on afterthought, I have thought of something that just might fit in a little bit. what if the base resource pool for the market is determined not only by the production of those independent planets, but also by all or a fraction of the players upkeeps? in a way, it could make sense. it's money and resources that cannot go directly in ships, but land in administration, bureaucracy and the general economy. thus, it would not be wholly illogical that these resources are there to be traded by private entrepreneurs who compose the market.
this would solve two problems: 1) that the pool would get smaller as more worlds are conquered and 2) that resource hunger typically grows in the course of the game. more ships and larger battles mean more resource consumption and higher upkeep would mean higher availablity. that would actually make you think twice before being overly militaristic and getting a huge fleet, knowing that you supply your potential enemies with more resources to use against you. irony, not only do you lose them, but may deliver them to the enemy even.
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