Economy - Foreign trade and other miscellaneous.

[Mortiferum]

Since there will most likely be "Companies" available, there should be a method to make the company more useful, and influential while benefiting its member. Also, there will be multiple suggestion to give life to smaller vessels, which often become neglected in almost all games.

 

Economy should be dynamic, with a supply and demand system in place based on the amount of goods traded from one place to another.

 

Let say

 

City 1 recently received a large amount of Wheat from Player/Company A

 

Direct influence: City one's demand for wheat will now decrease.

Indirect influence: With the wheat, the animals supplies are now increasing, thus, prices are now lowered.

 

The goods can be separated into multiple categories.

 

-Food (Wheat, pasta, whatever)

-Materials (Wood, metal, etc)

-Commodities (Soap, or some other things similar to this.)

-Luxury goods (Gold, silver, jewelries)

-Military (Guns, cannons, gunpowder)

 

Merchants will only buy the top 4 goods.

The Arsenal of each city will buy Material, food, and military items, but will not buy Luxury goods and commodities. 

 

A direct influence of selling material and food to a city is "Growth"

A direct influence of selling military hardware is "Improved defense"

There is no influence in selling commodities and Luxury, other than large amount of MONIES

 

Growth can increase the production of all goods (other than military), so the amount you can purchase at any given time is increased.

 

Improved defense can make the city you are selling the goods to more resistant to attacks from outsider, another company, for example.

 

Anyway, after the "legitimate" trading is done, lets move on to the good stuff.

 

Smuggling, and illegal goods.

 

Illegal goods depend on country, but no matter where you are, there will always be people who wants to get the illegal goods. (Read: Prohibition on Alcohol).

 

Illegal goods can include Military hardware, the only "Legit" place you can sell it to is the Arsenals, but I am sure someone would like a spare musket somewhere . 

 

Drugs such as "Opium" is illegal, but I am not sire about drug reference in game, so lets leave it as such. Smuggling goods will increase your profit, but will not be received nicely if you are caught because you are also evading tax.

 

The advantage of having a "Smuggling" mechanic is that smaller ships which are often neglected will have a use. Eg: Sneaking that barge into the port will be easier than sneaking an Indiaman into port. And thus, smaller ship will thus be given a lease of life.

 

Foreign relations

 

 

By doing "Legitimate" trading, you can gradually build up your relationship with a nation or city, thus be given exclusive economic rights. (Will write more on that later). You can also improve your relation by helping the nation in one way or another.

 

Mission comes into mind and this can provide incentive for more combat orientated players. Sinking pirates, or simply doing a patrol would improve relations with the city/ nation.

Things that can impact the nation's relation with you/ company negatively can include:

-Blockading it

-Gunboat diplomacy

-Caught smuggling

-Caught in scamming or selling inferior goods

 

By being liked by the city, you will be given the privileges of buying more goods than a quota, or receiving free supplies, or safe haven from enemies if you are fleeing.

 

By being hated by the city, you will not be allowed to enter the city, or be forced to pay a fine when you enter to normalize relations (Depends on your current relations, if you are THAT bad, you cant enter). 

 

Companies can influence the balance of power on the markets, a country can only produce so much (or be willing) to sell so much at any given time, so a company can compete to win the country (or the governor) over by either:

 

1: Consistent, and fair¹ trading

2: Gunboat diplomacy 

3: Shh.. everyone on earth have a price... even the governor. Yes, I am talking about "Palm grease"    

 

So make some of the more profitable items be limited, and only given to those whom the governor (or country) favors, much like economic privileges. 

 

Another thing is, since Smuggling² is bought up by you, I believe this will give life to the smaller more "insignificant" vessels which can serve as blockade runner.

 

I mean, having a sail boat sneaking into the port is easier than trying to "Sneak" a man of war into the ports... right?   

 

^1: Now, with the "fair" trading, it means quality of goods can also be involved.

 

Are you going to be cheap and water that wine down so you can sell "more" and run away before someone realizes your scam³, or are you going to be an honest trader? I mean, I am very sure it will be better for mutual trust if you dont sell them the cheapest watered plonk you can find, right?   

 

^2: Smuggling, blockade runners and smaller boats will have a use, also I am very sure some goods are PROHIBITED in some countries. Selling it there might be risky, and can harm relations IF CAUGHT (Quote from oliver twist "It is only stealing if you're caught"     ). But.... MONIES IS TO BE MADE, and wherever there is a ban on something, people WILL do it even more for the sake of doing it. So in a place where an item is forbidden, you might be able to sell it for a higher price.

 

(Eg: Firearms, alcohol, etc)

 

^3: Fraud. To make the most money, there are businesses that CON their clients, tell big lies, exaggerate. Obviously that aint good for the "Mutual trust" and what not, but money needs to be made, so it will be   . EG: Water down the wine, add sand to the gunpowder.......

 

Scandal

 

Adding water to wine to make "more", etc, you get the point.

 

You can get more "goods" (Maybe more Quantity), but when you sell it to people, they aint gonna like it.... (Worsening foreign relations with the group you sold it to)

 

 

WIP, will add more, maybe. Depends on comments   (Obviously not adding more if I am getting flamed, lol)

[Barberouge]

I used the term "company" because from what I read it would fit the period. Devs talked about "society" and "corporation". I'm not sure they are ready to create multiple types of players associations though.

 

I like the idea of making the markets more dynamic. Might be difficult to balance (especially with an overall growth parameter), but it would provide a more interesting gameplay to trade players (especially a growth parameter ). How would that work in the long run though ? I guess the growth should be limited.

 

However, I'd avoid making defenses be passively upgraded when selling military supplies. I think the governors should be given the choice to build what they think is best. Especially they could decide which defenses to build (walls, forts, coastal batteries...).

 

 

 

I'm not sure about specific trade rights given to individuals. Shouldn't that be done passively then ? Wouldn't that counter the possibility for governors or states to influence trade ? Or would that be included in a complex system where governors would be given access to individual selling/buying history ? Maybe such sytem would work well with companies trade rights though.

 

The game will be developped block per block, so maybe some complex features couldn't be in the game quickly. Still it would be good to have a global idea of what the game could look like, and implement at the beginning a possibility to expand features later (devs didn't start to work on the open world yet).

[Mortiferum]

Yeah, but we can still hope something like this will be introduced   .

 

The other thing is, would governor be NPC based, or an actual player? This will be the main question.

[Barberouge]

Whether it would be interesting regarding gameplay should be looked at though.

 

I basically don't advocate a PvE world in a multiplayer game. Player governed ports open up economic and conquest options that can be countered by companies or states. I think the more is controlled by players the better, because players are usually less predictable.

[Mortiferum]

Whether it would be interesting regarding gameplay should be looked at though.

 

I basically don't advocate a PvE world in a multiplayer game. Player governed ports open up economic and conquest options that can be countered by companies or states. I think the more is controlled by players the better, because players are usually less predictable.

True