[Mod idea] Profitable Caravans / Regional Trade / Economy

[Holvr]

What started as a generally interesting idea by AngleWyrm in this thread, turned into another one that came up in the thread. In particular, I mean the idea of selling items at a higher value and buying at a lower one when trading from a caravan. It's a good idea to encourage caravaneering some more, however all this gave me an idea for a mod, but since I'm not a programmer, I'll post it here, hoping that mayhaps someone would like the idea enough to make it happen.

The idea is to create demand and supply lists for each biome with some additional modifiers of which I'll talk in a moment. The supply and demand lists would govern the prices in any given biome, based on what would logically be in abundance and what would be scarce in any given region. A couple of examples:

- Temperate biome would be the closest to "vanilla" or "base price", since it technically has a bit of everything a colony might need.
- Mostly/permanently cold biomes would pay more for furs and warm clothing, weapons (for hunting) as well as most crops. If it's a treeless tundra or an ice sheet, wood might be in demand.
- Tropical and moderately warm biomes would have cheaper food due to the longer/year-round growing season. All sorts of medicines, penoxycyline etc. would be in high demand, due to increased disease risk. Wood would be rather cheap in tropical forests.
- Arid shrublands and desert biomes would demand wood and food, but due to the problematic storage (spoiling food) they'd prefer livestock and long-lasting food above anything else. Gold and gems would be cheaper there.
- Orbital traders could count as a "biome" themselves, having glitterworld tech and high-tech in general slightly cheaper than what you'd find on the planet's surface.

As for the "modifiers" mentioned before: Those would be just slight variations in prices based on many different things that aren't biomes. Examples:
- Less profitable (for the player) trade depending on roads. A village deep in a forest would have significantly fewer traders than a town located by asphalt highway. So no road = good prices, then dirt road, then stone, then asphalt and then highway).
- The more mountainous the area is, the higher supply of gems, stone, steel etc. and the higher demand of wood and food (smaller farmable/forest area).
- Flat areas would demand mineable resources more.
- Riverside and coastal areas would generally have higher supply of food (due to [currently imaginary] fishing and better soil).
- Tech level also matters: Tribes would generally have more basic demands like food/livestock/clothing/weapons and industrials would demand art and joy-related things (TVs, telescopes etc.) while being able to spare some industrial tech and weaponry at an acceptable prices. Orbitals would want mostly precious metals and gems (since they take it back to glitterworld which I personally view as a decadent society that has all its needs satisfied so they waste money at jewelry and other useless stuff).
- An area with lots of neighbouring towns and villages would naturally both buy and sell things at a lower price, due to the abundace of traders.
- The more dangerous an area is, the more willing its people are to pay more for stuff, due to the fewer traders. By "dangerous" I mean an area with raider bases nearby. The more raiders, the more people will pay the traders, especially for weapons and armor, turrets and mortars etc. Naturally, they'd sell weapons and armor at higher price as well, since they wouldn't want to part with those (if they'd sell them at all).

A note regarding biomes: The "distance to biome X" should also factor in, by which I mean that a village in the desert that borders with a tropical forest tile-to-tile should't pay for wood and food as much as a village in the middle of a damn desert, far far away from everything. In that case players would be able to abuse the system to the extreme (find 3 neighbouring biomes and you're basically set with a trade route).

And that's the idea, basically. I have no idea about how hard would it be to code and if anyone would ever like to undertake this, but there you have it. I hope you enjoy the idea.

[Distman]

+1

[AngleWyrm]

It's a good idea to encourage caravaneering some more ... The idea is to create demand and supply lists for each biome Can we imagine such lists without reliance on money? The trouble with installing silver as a tweak-able variable is that it invites the nerf via expense trolls into the control room, and all they ever do is look for a big red button to push. So for example, maybe expressing demand as a need for some amount of product, or some amount of product per season. And then supply as the ability to provide for need in the same way. Counting demand as a usage rate then makes the stream of products (and maybe eventually services too) the subject. So a colony might be well-suited to raising crops because the nearby faction bases are in a biome that increases their consumption of those imports. Or maybe they won't buy much crops because their usage is small, but they'll take all the medicine you can produce.

[jimthenoob]

I like that supply and demand idea much better then the straight silver. it could even be tweaked possibly so that if you dump a years worth of food on a settlement with a freezer (probably don't even need to go that deep, just make sure they are at the tech level for a freezer) that they aren't going to want buy food at good prices for a while (why would they, you just fixed their problem for a while) same could be done with pretty much any good and weighted differently depending on what kind of good it is.

[Holvr]

The trouble with installing silver as a tweak-able variable is that it invites the nerf via expense trolls into the control room, and all they ever do is look for a big red button to push. So for example, maybe expressing demand as a need for some amount of product, or some amount of product per season. And then supply as the ability to provide for need in the same way. Counting demand as a usage rate then makes the stream of products (and maybe eventually services too) the subject. So a colony might be well-suited to raising crops because the nearby faction bases are in a biome that increases their consumption of those imports. Or maybe they won't buy much crops because their usage is small, but they'll take all the medicine you can produce.

Very constructive input - I like where this is going. However, if I understood your post correctly, you mean that the only real effect of high demand would be that, quote "they'll take all the medicine you can produce", and that's it. No higher price involved? This is the way I interpret your words and correct me if I'm wrong, but just in case I'm not, let me say this:

I understand where you come from and that approach is generally ok, but it only takes player's actual production into account. This system of supply and demand is ok when you - as a player - are producing specific goods that the nearby settlements want to purchase in high amounts - then you can use said good to just trade for whatever they produce and sell. This is all fine, but it nullifies any sort of trade.

If the price multiplier would be like it is in current vanilla or the one you've presented in your thread, the player would be unable to make actual profit as a caravaneer merchant, because if you buy medicine at a settlement that produces it for, let's just say, 20 silver, and then go to the settlement that has high demand for medicine and will buy all of it for 20 silver or less, then it's far from profitable (again - fine if you produce and sell, terrible if you buy and sell somewhere else). Value of the trade goods should still vary in different settlements for the trade to be profitable.

[AngleWyrm]

Very constructive input - I like where this is going. However, if I understood your post correctly, you mean that the only real effect of high demand would be that, quote "they'll take all the medicine you can produce", and that's it. No higher price involved?

The unintended consequences of attempting to focus on and alter unit price:

Shearing a muffalo produces enough wool for four T-shirts per year.

200 muffalo wool/year	= 600 silver
4 T-shirts/year	= 480 silver

Using instead counts of product consumable per season by the purchaser directly measures their need, and shows how much the player can spend of their pawn's time and resources producing any given resource.

Production and consumption, a clear and simple model for caravans shipping goods about.
Get yours today, while supplies last!

[Holvr]

I told you already - I understand this part and I very much agree with the fact that this model will make producing more profitable.

However, it does absolutely nothing to make actual trading viable. If one village sells 500 corn per year, which you buy and then transport to another village that buys 500 corn per year and sell it to them for the exact same (or lower) price you bought it at the first village, then good for you being a philantropist, but you won't gain anything. And the very point of my idea is to make wayward trading a viable source of income.

[AngleWyrm]

However, it does absolutely nothing to make actual trading viable. ... the very point of my idea is to make wayward trading a viable source of income. The use of the term trading seems a point of confusion; what I see is a middleman who is neither the producer nor the consumer, both of whom can perform caravan transportation. What value does this middleman contribute? If the answer is 'nothing' then to give them any credit is a disservice to the concept of value. And if the answer is 'something' then what is the measure of that credit?

I suggest the credit under consideration is the cost of transportation, a type of overhead that applies to the shipment rather than the items within it. The time away of pawns taken off the roster to make the trip, the risk of loss, and the efforts a player may take to reduce that overhead by making one large trip instead of many smaller trips.

[Holvr]

The use of the term trading seems a point of confusion; what I see is a middleman who is neither the producer nor the consumer, both of whom can perform caravan transportation.

Point is that not everyone is (or shouldn't be, at least) capable of running caravans. You need animals for trasnporting cargo, people to help with it and to ensure caravan's safety, you need food for all of them and (probably most imporant) you'd need all those people away from your settlement for a long time, during which they could for example produce stuff etc. So naturally not every tribe or village should be able to regularly send caravans to their heart's content.

What value does this middleman contribute? If the answer is 'nothing' then to give them any credit is a disservice to the concept of value. And if the answer is 'something' then what is the measure of that credit?

Based on humanity's experiences from real life, the only measure that was ever important was "how much is the buyer willing to pay" - have I brought that oh so needed salt to a place where it's scarce? Let's haggle for a better price! If the buyer can either take it or be left without something they need, they'll likely pay more.

I suggest the credit under consideration is the cost of transportation, a type of overhead that applies to the shipment rather than the items within it. The time away of pawns taken off the roster to make the trip, the risk of loss, and the efforts a player may take to reduce that overhead by making one large trip instead of many smaller trips.

Which would basically be just a higher markup for selling from a caravan. At least in the simple version of the system.

Otherwise we'd need to think about a larger system that would need to track in which settlement was each item bought, and then apply the distance from that settlement to the settlement we'd sell the item in, to calculate bonus from the distance travelled. That would be closer to what you're all about, it seems, but the system would still be flawed. For one it'd be far less realistic than people paying more for what they need. And two: it'd be exploitable as well, by purposefully travelling to the farthest accessible settlement to artificially pump the value.

Generally your aversion to gaining profit from caravaneering is odd to say the least. Buying goods in a place where it's in abundance and selling where it's scarce at a higher price was the base of world's economy at its beginnings. Merchants from around the world were gaining their riches from doing exactly that - being a middle man. There wouldn't be a single merchant in our history if everyone was somehow bound to buy and sell always at the same price, which is basically what dburgdorf tried to explain to you in this post to which you've responded with just being a dick, and that, my friend, is far from constructive.


To wrap it up - I propose a system that would basically be a hybrid of mine and yours, which in short could be described like this: Any given settlement would pay more for goods they are in need of, but it'd also be governed by their seasonal/annual need for said product. In this case merchants would still make their profit from the trade, but wouldnt' be able to drain all medicine-producing settlements and pump 10k of medicine in the one settlement that needs it and pays more for it if said settlement will only ever buy 500 of medicine per season.

[AngleWyrm]

Which would basically be just a higher markup for selling from a caravan. At least in the simple version of the system.

I disagree with the notion of establishing per-unit price to cover transportation costs, and consider it an inappropriate inversion of measurement. It is possible but not useful to say that if I shipped 500 corn, then transportation cost adds shippingCost/500 to each unit of corn, but it is an error to claim that corn should get a shippingCost/500 markup.

Transportation costs (the value of transportation) should be kept as a separate overhead. That overhead is currently represented in the service fee for calling on a trade caravan.

A plausible improvement to the detail of that system would be inclusion of a distance metric in calculating the service fee for calling a trade caravan, and a faction event offering that fee for delivery of goods for which they have an unmet need.

[TheAvatar3055]

I think that may be too many bells and whistles. If anyone were to try their hand at this they should just start off by seeing if they could do some sort of trade value per biome kinda thing. I think that's more or less the core idea.

[Holvr]

I think that may be too many bells and whistles. If anyone were to try their hand at this they should just start off by seeing if they could do some sort of trade value per biome kinda thing. I think that's more or less the core idea.

It is, indeed, and that would be a simple but sure start for such a mod.

Which would basically be just a higher markup for selling from a caravan. At least in the simple version of the system.

I disagree with the notion of establishing per-unit price to cover transportation costs, and consider it an inappropriate inversion of measurement. It is possible but not useful to say that if I shipped 500 corn, then transportation cost adds shippingCost/500 to each unit of corn, but it is an error to claim that corn should get a shippingCost/500 markup.

Transportation costs (the value of transportation) should be kept as a separate overhead. That overhead is currently represented in the service fee for calling on a trade caravan.

A plausible improvement to the detail of that system would be inclusion of a distance metric in calculating the service fee for calling a trade caravan, and a faction event offering that fee for delivery of goods for which they have an unmet need.

And that post shows perfectly how divergent our opinions are. I'm talking about a genuine trade and merchants, and you're talking about... an on-call courier service, which is an entirely different thing. For this I propose we cease further discussion simply because I see there is no way to convince you that trade, which mankind has practiced throughout the history, is actually a thing, and "buy cheaper, sell high" is what has driven World's economy for a long time (hell, this - apparently arcane - practice still exists to this very day). You see no reason for such thing, and I respect that, but this is absolutely not what I meant proposing the title mod of this thread and I, as I mentioned before, I see no point in continuing discussion with you. Thank you for all your input, and have a pleasant day.

[AngleWyrm]

[saldog85]

This post got me to finally register since i am looking for a good trading mod.

What im thinking about is like the first post with the bioms, but also figuring up time of year as well. also as for the demand and supply part, demand is more along the lines of how much of that item they have and there for that would weigh heavy on the price (ex: the less they have the higher they are willing to pay and vice versa.) because im looking for something where i can run my settlement but have at least 1 guy go out and do some trading to raise funds but rather than just going to 1 place, being able to take a load to a said first target, then be able to buy something they are selling for cheap and move to another place to sell higher at other location and so on and so forth.

[RedMark]

the idea is good (and thanx for the link , missed that one!) ...

How about adding a reputation system , so it isn't a mere boring buy and sell with trade that goes from point A to B . Say like if you don't buy or sell your reputation doesn't change and stay zero . (also you could think of a system *dunno if its possible* that sell only X kinda of things , have an impact on your reputation) . So say you sell smokeleaf as your main trade (sorry not gonna use numbers , I hate them and they hate me) , if you trade often with the same kind of trader your reputation goes up +2 .

Of course , as your reputation goes up you could give it consequences . Like Y factions raise their prices or something against you . Or stop coming to trade with you . Or worse , you get raid .

It may not work with established factions (dont know if they can be edited since they are random?) but the mod can come with pre-made factions just for this system .

Anyway , just an idea .