Market Overhaul

Citizenkane wrote:

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.

I handed over some garrisons to my ally under attack. So I was not forced to join the war which would have ruined the morale of my provinces. And these days aiding an ally by counter attacking his enemies decreases your popularity too.

helmuth.moltke wrote:

Citizenkane wrote:

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.

There are more use cases indeed. Another practical sample from the 100er map.

I handed over some garrisons to my ally under attack. So I was not forced to join the war which would have ruined the morale of my provinces. And these days aiding an ally by counter attacking his enemies decreases your popularity too.

Also...

When the U.S. entered the second world war the allies (except the USSR) put all their armies in Europe under the U.S.'s command. After the war, of course, those armies reverted to their home countries control. We don't get to see the "after the war" part. We only get to see the western allies putting their troops into a pool controlled by the U.S.

OneNutSquirrel Hit the Nail on the Head when he said:

"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%"

These trade restrictions don't reflect the reality of free world trade in human history ... Nations will trade with one another regardless of what regulating minds want- and even when totalitarian nations try to do this (like colonial Spain and the old defunct Commie Block), buccaneers, smugglers, and black markets will spring out ... I just thank God that whoever thought of this baloney can not impose his way of thinking on the modern world ...

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.

Today I saw something play out in a 4x speed event map - which I entered when half full - and here the unit and other trading limitations played out in a horrific counter-productive way...

This concerns yet another example of event-mobbing by an Alliance, which profited heavily from the trade limitations.

When the map was half full there were 2 members of an alliance present in the list. Nothing wrong with that.

As the map filled up, the number of players from that alliance increased to 6-7 and possibly more.

Keeping an eye on it, I saw the various members of that group form 2 or 3 coalitions with other players, all over the map. So far so good, though I warned a few players that this might just be a trick (which ofc no one understood).

So wars are started and won or lost and only 3 major alliance members survived, the rest perished... almost. These exterminated members, however, received a province from a coalition and Alliance member in a safe place. Not so weird yet either.

Until the already feared moment of truth and them all banning together to mob the map with 1 or 2 collaborators (those simply hoping to survive).

Now, at the more advanced stage of the map, these 1-province alliance members joined another alliance member in a coalition, suddenly revived with a number of provinces in peripheral war zones and armies they could never produce.

The other players on the map were forced to join in a coalition too, but these ofc consisted of only 1 player that mattered and 0.5 that had tagged along with the one that mattered and then some cannon-fodder.

Long story short:

Event-mobbing or Map-mobbing alliances clearly profit enormously from the new trading and diplomatic limitations, while other (non-aligned) players are now limited in their possibilities to help another player.

Joining an event-map will now become a game itself; something of the very last moments, so one can see whether a mob is present or not. But that is what the mob did too....the majority joined last moments.

Concluding:

Bytro tried to eliminate some minor issues - which did NOT bother anyone really and hardly ever influenced the map outcome - and introduced a number of BAD CHANGES, therewith clearly creating much worse problems, which DO significantly influences a map outcome.

I am very curious if and how this game changing effect will be dealt with.

OR ...scary thought...is it actually the intention to favor alliances over non aligned players?

(PS: this is the 3rd time I noticed an event-mobbing, on a total of 91 games joined, which is a significant percentage of games, especially when counting only event maps. Probably a far higher percentage than the 'perceived 'problem' with resource and troops trading addressed by the BAD CHANGES, which solely aim to prevent insignificant and none-game-outcome changing occurrences.)

(PPS: placed this too in the BAD CHANGES thread)

^Yeah, this is the thing – alliance members, groups of experienced friends playing together etc. will always find the way, but such limitations hit mostly lone players or those who aren’t playing in packs. Thus, the majority of the community…

This ban neither fix anything or make the game more realistic. Calling this a solution is just pathetic.

Mistake in trade overview:

A previously good deal (especially early game) was possible:

- someone selling grain at 5.3 that can't trade with a certain buyer for whatever reason (war, embargo)

- a certain buyer, willing to pay 6,7 for grain

Previously I could have made a 1,4 profit. Since the sales and buy offer both go in the 1000s, I (or any other player that sees the opportunity) could have netted some 4000 cash (1400 per 1000 ton).

After the BAD CHANGES the situation is this as proven by the test trade depicted above:

- someone selling at 5,3 but apparently I paid not 530, but 583 and while the receiver only gets 478 (2x10% commissions)

- a certain buyer is paying 6,7 (plus incurring 10% costs = 7,4), but I received 6,7 -/- 10% = 6,03

However, the executed orders tab give me wrong information.

- the buying is depicted correctly as 5,3 +10% extortion fee = 5,83 x 100 grain for the test = 583 paid by me

- the selling is complete balony though! I sold at 6,7-/-10% extortion fee, thus I received 603, but the overview says I received 737... ??? As if I got 10% extra....liars...sigh...

So not only do I get robbed of 2x10% as well as the supplier and off-taker each 10% (so totally 40% of the cash involved disappears from the map economy...!!??), but I can't even see what the result of my trade was without using and old fashioned calculator and notepad besides my computer.

BAD CHANGES over-hurridly implemented can be easily recognized as BAD CHANGES by their bad implementation.

Now....

- if even the people implementing this BAD CHANGE don't understand the impact well enough to succeed in giving us a correct trading overview and

- that so many players feel robbed of a game option and/or extorted by the fees and

- that not a single problem this BAD CHANGE was supposed to tackle was solved or prevented as intended...

...what is stopping the devs from reverting this BAD CHANGE?

Freezy? You around? Maybe you can enlighten the community?

_Pontus_ wrote:

...what is stopping the devs from reverting this BAD CHANGE change?

Put me down too.

Add me in to the demand to revert to the old way ... Market restrictions and taxes are killing this game the way that Spanish Mercantilism and the old Commie Bloc Central Economy made suffer those that lived under those conditions! ...

Just another observation of ill prone market logic and the dead market.

1. * On the market there was no offer on supplies and no offer on oil.
2. I had surplus on oil, need on supplies
3. Another player had surplus on supplies, need on oil
4. As we were not allied we agreed to put our surplus on sale at certain point in time
5. Well none of us ever so the offer of the other, upon placing the order AI consumed the offers immediately

helmuth.moltke wrote:

5. Well none of us ever so the offer of the other, upon placing the order AI consumed the offers immedeatily

A new mechanic was put into place where offers are bought up automatically AT BEST PRICE if it can be fulfilled.

So if you have something to offer and put SELL OFFER on market for lower price than someone is willing to pay for it in a BUY OFFER... system will fill that BUY OFFER first, then if there is any product in excess.. it goes on SELL OFFER at price you put in..

If you want to trade with another player outside your coalition, you have to list at price HIGHER than any current BUY OFFER on the market.

So if there is a buy offer for 10,000 cargo @ 10, you have put up your SELL OFFER at 10.1 otherwise that existing offer will buy up the first 10,000 of your cargo SELL OFFER if you offer it at 10 or less.

The same with BUY OFFERS if there are SELL OFFERS on market for LOWER price.

(I made this point earlier... that 45 years before the advent of computer trading in RL.... Dev's have introduces automated trading to make the game.... "More Realistic"?)

OneNutSquirrel wrote:

So if you have something to offer and put SELL OFFER on market for lower price than someone is willing to pay for it in a BUY OFFER... system will fill that BUY OFFER first, then if there is any product in excess.. it goes on SELL OFFER at price you put in..

Well I have to say this isn't CoW finest moment, It is a bad choice it isn't Realistic at all some aspects are good but others are bad. CoW makes enough money so that may explain why they don't tend to listen to negative comments but they are trying and observing how the change's affect the game if it isn't good they can reverse it if good keep it.

Now we got to bare in mind these are skilled game developers they are doing their best to improve the game just because we don't like it who's to say that they won't implement something new that fights it back.

edited: was off topic. can be removed

_Pontus_ wrote:

kieran mcginn wrote:

remember people please be respectful to these amazing game developers.

Kieran, where do you see disrespect?BTW, there is never insult or disrespect in truth.

@Kieran, totally off topic then. For monitoring manners (note: not opinions) we have moderators. May I suggest to delete the message? I will do the same, so we don't clog a very important thread about very important issues.

kieran mcginn wrote:

kieran mcginn wrote:

Now we got to bare in mind these are skilled game developers they are doing their best to improve the game just because we don't like it who's to say that they won't implement something new that fights it back.

A game developer who can't accept feedback (both positive and negative), understand the issues presented, or is unwilling to revise based on that feedback - has no business being in the game development business.

Alphared wrote:

kieran mcginn wrote:

Now we got to bare in mind these are skilled game developers they are doing their best to improve the game just because we don't like it who's to say that they won't implement something new that fights it back.

As a game developer. I can assure you; game developers are not infallible. Game developers, not only NEED feedback, they need to allow that feedback to advise them of the effects of their development(s).

A game developer who can't accept feedback (both positive and negative), understand the issues presented, or is unwilling to revise based on that feedback - has no business being in the game development business.

Citizenkane wrote:

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.

- Poland "was getting her butt kicked", so she moved ships and troops anyway possible down to the UK, where the UK added ships and crews to the Navy, formed Polish squadrons (playing their part in the defense of the UK even in early phases of WW2) and Brigades (the latter being of extreme importance in the end phase of Operation Market Garden, mitigating assured Allied losses by heroic actions)

- Netherlands "was getting her butt kicked", so she moved ships, planes and troops anyway possible and started moving down to the UK, where in the UK they formed Dutch squadrons and Brigades

- Belgians, Norwegians, French and so forth... basically the same with tiny differences being assimilated into or forming their own brigades.

It is nothing other than a realistic and even historically correct occurrence.

Alphared made a good point earlier when he said,

"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." ...