Market Overhaul

nemuritor98 wrote:

let's not forget, the tax serves no purpose and shouldnt exist at all

It's imaginary money that is collected by no one! The only possible thing it could be doing is decreasing the amount of the limited money in each game (see previous changes from long ago) held by the players - as if that money limit is to small for smaller economies to have any when bigger economies hold it all. In that case, the solution is not to tax the market (which the bigger economies don't need to use anyway) out of existence - it is to remove the artificial money limitation!

BMfox wrote:

Even though I don't always agree with Bytro they have a valid reason for the new diplomacy. To many players were multi accounting to have more resources. For this reason you can only trade with your coalition or with the market. This makes perfect sense.

The answer, of course, is nothing. It makes no sense, it does nothing to stop multi-account trading, it only encourages the behavior - because now they have even more advantage (because they can coalition and trade, and the only other players who can trade are other coalitions, leaving everyone else with NO ability to trade(!)).

BMfox wrote:

From tactical point of view, why would you send resources to a player that is not in your coaliton?

Playing along with an alliance in exhange not to be exterminated and attacking other players or alliances with 4 players is not really fairplay.

To induce them into wanting to form or join a coalition - without destroying them.

To aid them in fighting an enemy you would rather not face - who only has them to hold them back.

To have a non-public coalition which serves many useful game purposes, and is entirely realistic.

To cooperate with another coalition when taking on a third, more powerful, coalition.

To get a resource you need and they have, in exchange for a resource they need and you have.

To secure peace after a conflict that does not wipe out both opponents (gasp! I suggested that warfare doesn't have to result in total destruction - like in reality).

To induce a player to leave a coalition and join yours.

To induce a belief that you are friendly and helpful, thus dropping their guard against you.

To prevent a stronger player from attacking you, so that you can attempt to strengthen your defenses.

For no other reason, but, to set up a sense of good will between yourself and another player.

To find out what resource another player might need, so you can exploit that weakness.

Shall I continue?!?

Note: CoW is NOT a TACTICAL game... I believe it call STRATEGIC for a reason!

Note: "Fair play(?!?!?!) ... tell me you are to young to have ever heard the well known axiom - "All's fair in love and war." Otherwise, I am afraid I will have to think the worst of you.

BMfox wrote:

Well obviously you play soft style and I play hard style so we will never agree. If someone offers me peace for resources I well accept, declare war again and continue attacking. Why? Well because I can

OneNutSquirrel wrote:

BMfox wrote:

You can't take over an entire country in less then 48 hours even if it's AI. If you play well it will take longer.

As East Amazonas, I took over Ecuador (AI) in 17 hours from start to finish And I'm sure I could have done it faster.. It's possible. On the other hand if you don't know what you're doing... you will keep arguing that it's impossible.

Anyway... I'm into Day 4 of 1939 map.

Market still dead. Not a single sell order since day 1.

That averages 1,25 countries in 24 normal speed hours.

A moderator should not state wrong things as facts, just because he doesn't know (yet). New players will take a moderator's word for it and think he is right being a moderator. Newbies will not imagine that a moderator could be wrong on game issues (even though a certain moderator quite often is, despite 'being trained so well by his elite alliance' and 'already' playing the game for a year...)

But that is mildly off topic... What I wanted to point out:

In my newest Historical 25 player map, the market is still dead after 17 days.

The effect of this is that I am terribly short of goods to do country development AND build troops.

The result of that is that I have been doing NOTHING but slowly produce goods and then invest everything I have available in in goods production.

After a full week of doing NOTHING (oh well... I conquered Belgium in that week..yeah!) that even remotely looks like a strategy game (more like a very very slow farming game), I AM SUPER BORED with that map.

But not just me...

Of the 13 other actives a week ago, now only 6 remain...and it is a question of time and than I will be alone, because we have nothing to do!

I will thus win the map (because naturally I am the biggest nation with the largest economy and most points, despite the boring situation)

... but I will not win the map by strategy nor tactics ...

... I will win because I will be the last active player who is clicking 'the button of dead map death' in the newspaper.

And as it is, this will be the way games are going to be played IF THE MARKET IS NOT REVIVED.

And if this is the way maps are to be played - since the BAD CHANGES killed the market - I really don't need to play this game ... and neither will others who play CoW for the strategy game IT ONCE WAS.

The death of of the market slows the slow game to such a snail pace, it is becoming totally uninteresting.

Alphared wrote:

The allies during world war 2 "gave" their entire forces over to American military command

U.S. gave supplies, and allowed recruits to join, England during the Battle of Britain

U.S. sent supplies and "advisors" to the USSR to use on the Eastern front (in both world wars(!))

China received from the allies "volunteers" to fight for them (Look up the Flying Tigers(!))

China gave equipment and hundreds of "advisors" to North Korea during the Korean war.

The USSR gave equipment, and sent "advisors to Vietnam

The US did the same during Afghanistan

Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and India put their full military at the disposal of the allies in both world wars.

Italy "lent" troops to ALL of their allies during both world wars

Nearly every ally of Napoleon gave troops for service in his military

EVERY SINGLE (!) feudal lord raised troops from their subjects to be used by their liege whenever that liege required them.

The advisors didn't fight, they trained all in the effort against communist threat

For the other countries sending supplies and advisors to train the army is quite common. Trading an army, not so much.

Australia, Canada, New Zealand, India were all part of the Brittish Common Wealth and were all fighting for the Brittish crown.

Italy flipped sides twice

Allies of Napoleon and their occupied nations were obligated to draft men to serve in the army.

Every feudal lord was obligated to have a standing army of his trained subjects. The king could muster the army, still the subjects would fight for their lord.

All in all pretty weak examples, never have entire armies been traded permanently like we could in the game. I for one, I'm glad that it's over as there were too many cheats.

Alphared wrote:

The answer, of course, is nothing. It makes no sense, it does nothing to stop multi-account trading, it only encourages the behavior - because now they have even more advantage (because they can coalition and trade, and the only other players who can trade are other coalitions, leaving everyone else with NO ability to trade(!)).

Alphared wrote:

I am sure you must have many friends around here. But, then I believe you have only played 28 games, with 14 wins. Given the lower ranks, I am sure you have chased away many a new player with your playing style (and wallet). You should explain to us why everyone must play the way you do! And how it would totally okay, if the rules had been changed a different way; for instance, if they had made it impossible to attack anyone without an actual declaration of war.

Alphared wrote:

Note: "Fair play(?!?!?!) ... tell me you are to young to have ever heard the well known axiom - "All's fair in love and war." Otherwise, I am afraid I will have to think the worst of you.

_Pontus_ wrote:

OneNutSquirrel is right. Taking over a county in 24hrs is peanuts after a certain number of days and doing the right things. Just took Mauritania, Maroc, Algeria, Libya and Egypt in within approx 24 hrs in a 4x speed.

That averages 1,25 countries in 24 normal speed hours.

_Pontus_ wrote:

A moderator should not state wrong things as facts, just because he doesn't know (yet). New players will take a moderator's word for it and think he is right being a moderator. Newbies will not imagine that a moderator could be wrong on game issues (even though a certain moderator quite often is, despite 'being trained so well by his elite alliance' and 'already' playing the game for a year...)

But that is mildly off topic... What I wanted to point out:

BMfox wrote:

You deflect to irrelevancies when shown examples

You find it incredulous that a coalition of two is a thing (as is a coalition of one, four, and five), and that such a coalition could be used to cheat since coalitions, in your mind, can only be a three.

You think it is reasonable that we believe that you are so good (without serious help of one type or another) that out of 28 games you have scored wins in half of them by brute force and a will to succeed, and when the obvious "help" is pointed out, you claim you are being personally "attacked".

And, you also believe reminding a moderator of the influence they have on newer players, with the words they say, is also a personal "attack".

You have confirmed what I believed.

From my perspective Call of War is no historic simulation but a strategy game. As such all discussion about what happened in his story is somehow pointless.

What matters to me is the game experience and the variety of options one have to achieve victory. I guess I am not the only one. To limit options equates to limit the game experience. And that has exactly happened with the recent update.

Again I propose to make the market rules and the limitation to trade troops an option on map creation. Then the players can decide which flavor they prefer. And Bytro can collect statistics which flavor suites their needs best.

BMfox wrote:

The allies were badly organised after the defeat against the Germans and gladly accepted the American help. As a fact only one can lead and when multiple countries work together.The advisors didn't fight, they trained all in the effort against communist threat

For the other countries sending supplies and advisors to train the army is quite common. Trading an army, not so much.

Australia, Canada, New Zealand, India were all part of the Brittish Common Wealth and were all fighting for the Brittish crown.

Italy flipped sides twice

Allies of Napoleon and their occupied nations were obligated to draft men to serve in the army.

Every feudal lord was obligated to have a standing army of his trained subjects. The king could muster the army, still the subjects would fight for their lord.

I don't see how your reply makes the examples you are referring to invalid. Allies leading foreign armies, Italy sending troops to Germany, USA to China, China to North Korea etc etc… All of those were real events.

And apart from that, in real world, countries - allied or not - sell arms and technology to each other all the time. You can't do that in CoW, but you could trade units. Well, fair enough.

Now you can’t and it have nothing to do with realism.

BMfox wrote:

All in all pretty weak examples, never have entire armies been traded permanently like we could in the game. I for one, I'm glad that it's over as there were too many cheats.

No one is talking about trading entire armies.... And no, you couldn’t do that in the game, as it was limited to only small part of your army, as you surely know.

Oh, and yeah - the best solution for all features: BAN them - if nobody can use it, nobody can abuse it. Just great.

Going back to the topic of this thread, Hans hit the nail on the head when he said,

Hans A. Pils wrote:

Removing trade outside coalitions and the 20% tax on the market have killed diplomacy, trade and free unit choices (because now the resources in your core provinces take that desicion for you).

To sum it up, this change removed strategy.

And now all you revert is that tiny detail which nobody complained about / which wasn't a problem?

You've lost me now. I can't imagine I'll start a game again until you make playing outside a coalition possible again.

nemurito...

Your market looks alive and well....

I guess the issue is that all these Game perceived issues were addressed using the WORST POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS imaginable.

Hiding $$ in Market

This could have been solved by voiding all Offers a player has on market if their capital gets taken over, then any RSS or $$ the victor would get as spoils would be in the Losing players hands when those calculations begin and nothing gets hidden.

Trade

Trade Embargo already covers situations where trade with a certain nation needs to be restricted. If intent was to prevent "backstabbing" by preventing trade with Coalitions, then have an automatic Trade Embargo between members belonging to different coalitions while retaining trade with players and AI's NOT in a coalition AND/OR at peace with each other even if one party is in a coalition. Game mechanics are already in place for such settings.

Trade Tax

I'm trying to think of a time when there was a transaction fee comparable to this, I can execute an unlimited $$ transaction in my stock portfolio for $4.99.... which considering my average trades of $5-25,000 translates to less than 0.0001% AND LESS of the Transaction... not 20% which is ludicrous. Add to that the fact that such commissions are paid when transaction is completed not when it's placed.. As is, this 20% tax ruins any semblance of realism or reflection of any kind of market that has existed in the last 100 years. The HIGHEST Historical fees for stock market trade were in the late 1960's, when they reached an ASTONISHING HIGH of 1%

Trading Units

There was already a limit on how many units one could trade away in any given day... you could have simply reduced it from 10% to 1 unit per day... those units did not receive upgrades by new owner so they were already buffed. Could have even put a limit on how many transferred units a player could have in his army. For example, set a limit at 5, and one can not accept any more unit transfers above that number from anyone.

Minimum Prices

Free market should rule... why impose limits on any trade... other than the Trade Embargo's already mentioned above.

Automatic Orders Filled

Recently a change was added to the Market System where orders are Automatically Filled if there are Offers for that resource at a better price and the best price is paid. For example. If there is a Buy order for Food at 10, and I put Food on market at 9, that order will automatically be filled at 10, with any excess Food that is above what the existing Buy order needed, getting posted to the market at 9. This too is an unneeded/unrealistic addition. This is the Devs babysitting players who are not paying attention to what they are doing... if going rate for food is 10, and I put it on market for 1... why should I be saved by automation (which did not exist in the WWII Era)... and If I spot a deal on the market, should I not be the one benefiting from it? Why "baby" fools like this. Pay attention to what you're doing... If you don't scout a route for you convoy... you don't get reimbursed for losing the convoy to subs, if you walk troops blindly to capture enemy territory, there is no protection for running into a stack that was unseen by Fog of War... why add this protection.... It deprives those who are paying attention and rewards laziness.

Switching Coalitions

Set a limit on new members to a coalition, they can only trade with other members of a coalition after being members for 24 hours. Their time of joining coalition is already recorded and visible in the Coalition Members into, simply prevent "Full Coalition Member Status" for a period of time to prevent jumping around and trying to avoid the fees.

Multi Accounts

Attempting to fix this by IN GAME mechanics is a lazy way out by the Dev team. There are other, better way to address this, to which using in game stats or adding a "Suspect Report" feature would be more credible and would not punish those who are not violating these rules. Have an account verification proton set up so it multiple accounts are from same IP, they must be verified with different emails, (siblings playing from same home), but those accounts can never be in a RATED game together.

All these solutions address the claimed issues in a realistic manner that is directly related to claimed "Problems that need to be addressed".

OneNutSquirrel wrote:

nemurito...

Your market looks alive and well....

How about this...

1) Trade between coalition partners and shared map allies has no tax's paid. (This will allow for improved for trade between allies.)

2) Open market trade outside the alliance/coalition and tax those trades, this will also be collected if a trade is cancelled. ( This will still prevent people hiding resources.)

3) Code the Elite AI so that their excess resources end up as market offers. ( This will increase trade activity.)

4) All taxes collected get proportionally turned into gold and go as a bonus to the winning team/player.

That about fixes it.

Ivan Dolvich wrote:

BMfox wrote:

No one is talking about trading entire armies.... And no, you couldn’t do that in the game, as it was limited to only small part of your army, as you surely know.

Oh, and yeah - the best solution for all features: BAN them - if nobody can use it, nobody can abuse it. Just great.

Citizenkane wrote:

How about this...

1) Trade between coalition partners and shared map allies has no tax's paid. (This will allow for improved for trade between allies.)

2) Open market trade outside the alliance/coalition and tax those trades, this will also be collected if a trade is cancelled. ( This will still prevent people hiding resources.)

3) Code the Elite AI so that their excess resources end up as market offers. ( This will increase trade activity.)

4) All taxes collected get proportionally turned into gold and go as a bonus to the winning team/player.

That about fixes it.

BMfox wrote:

You could trade 10% of your army, on a 100 player map in mid or end game 100 or 200 troops are common. Imagine you fight an enemy and all of a sudden he has from each friend/account 10% troops and that daily if they please. That is what Bytro tried to counter.

How many players complained about such unfair trade practices, and how many players are not pleased about limiting the game features. If I were Bytro I would be very concerned about these numbers.

I need to reiterate myself, the disputed removal of features should get options on map creation. And if Bytro sets the defaults to there best guess it is acceptable as long players with command control? / heeresleitung could create maps that support different flavors.

BMfox wrote:

Ivan Dolvich wrote:

BMfox wrote:

No one is talking about trading entire armies.... And no, you couldn’t do that in the game, as it was limited to only small part of your army, as you surely know.

Oh, and yeah - the best solution for all features: BAN them - if nobody can use it, nobody can abuse it. Just great.

You could trade 10% of your army, on a 100 player map in mid or end game 100 or 200 troops are common. Imagine you fight an enemy and all of a sudden he has from each friend/account 10% troops and that daily if they please. That is what Bytro tried to counter.

Citizenkane wrote:

How about this...

1) Trade between coalition partners and shared map allies has no tax's paid. (This will allow for improved for trade between allies.)

2) Open market trade outside the alliance/coalition and tax those trades, this will also be collected if a trade is cancelled. ( This will still prevent people hiding resources.)

3) Code the Elite AI so that their excess resources end up as market offers. ( This will increase trade activity.)

4) All taxes collected get proportionally turned into gold and go as a bonus to the winning team/player.

That about fixes it.

This is the most constructive answer I have seen so far. Good thinking @Citizenkane, that would be a very good compromise.

Citizenkane wrote:

How about this...

1) Trade between coalition partners and shared map allies has no tax's paid. (This will allow for improved for trade between allies.)

2) Open market trade outside the alliance/coalition and tax those trades, this will also be collected if a trade is cancelled. ( This will still prevent people hiding resources.)

3) Code the Elite AI so that their excess resources end up as market offers. ( This will increase trade activity.)

4) All taxes collected get proportionally turned into gold and go as a bonus to the winning team/player.

That about fixes it.

The "market" is a commodities market, NOT a stock market, and should operate as such. Trading is the alternative to warring... some people call that diplomacy and whether BM understands it or not the allies (in both world wars) won because their enemies discovered several thousand troops suddenly appearing from someone else's army (in this case America's(!)). He might have hated playing Germany in 1944, since England had American, Canadian, Anzac, Polish, (Free) French, Indian, Norwegian, and of course English troops appearing overnight at Normandy - But, at least the real life Germans didn't feel a need to constantly point out how unfair the English were being.

@ Alphared,

I like your point about troops, but functionally if you trade an army they don't teleport to that country in COW. I gain control of the troops where they are currently on the map.

Unless i'm missing something, and thats possible, the only benefit to trading the army to an ally is so they can control that army instead of you. I'm all for keeping players active and I guess it's selfish of me to think that I would rather control these troops than the payer getting the ass handed to them.

Now to a practical example. Some time last year I was on a 22 map, I was south USA. and a player in Europe was getting his butt kicked, so he moved his army out to sea and started trading it down to me. I used the army to counter attack and beat a player that had a large advantage at the time war broke out. Not going to lie, it was fun. But was it fair? Did I use game mechanics to rip off another players chance at victory?

Not trying to say there is an easy answer here.