Trading - lets make it about more than just bus-driving

[Ghroznak]

(disclaimer: sorry for the wall-of-text and lack of TL; dr, but I feel this issue is one that needs to be looked at in-depth).

 

I've only had the opportunity to do a little trading in the game so far. It seems extremely simplified (no more advanced than the system in Windward to be honest). And I honestly think it needs to be fleshed out quite a bit.

 

But how?

 

We were discussing this a bit a short while ago in O_Dingo77's stream on twitch and I had some ideas which we might be able to build upon.

 

First off... what is trading?

 

What do you expect when you hear that a game has trading?

 

Most of us think something along the lines of:

1. Buy item A at location X for low price.
2. Transport item A from location X to location Y
3. Sell item A for a high(er) price.
4. Buy item B at location Y for low price.
5. Transport item B from location Y to location X.
6. Rinse _ Repeat

Quite dull... basically you are a bus driver, doing something that even a basic bot could do.

 

But I strongly believe that trading can be much more than that.

 

Let me outline some ideas.

• Perishable items. In the Age of Sails there was no refrigeration. This is something we often don't even think about today. But transporting perishable goods on old sailships, relying on wind and weather to get to their destinations on time, was a race against time.

Fruits and vegetables would rot. Same with meat (although they could salt the meat to make it last). Carrying perishable items should be rewarding, and further away from source you sell it the higher price (at the risk of entire shipment rotting if you get delayed)

• Warehousing. Buying and managing warehouses will allow us to stockpile resources. This means we could store items in expectation of an event to happen which will increase the prices on those wares. Or it could be items you initially planned to sell, but someone else saturated the market. So you put them in storage until the prices rise again.

Having warehouses, perhaps even with a small running cost depending on the size, will open up some new ways to do trading. Especially long term investments (more on this below). It will also serve as a minor 'money sink', plus it also opens up another aspect to the game; plundering warehouses. While this is not beneficial for a trader, it does provide more content to the piracy game play, thus adding to the overall, intertwined game as a whole.

• Playing with politics. Countries wage wars. Ports were blockaded. Towns were raided. Poor harvests lead to famines and disease. Simply put, times were tough. As a trader these are potential opportunities to take advantage of. The cities should all be affected by various political situations.

Will you attempt to be a blockade runner in a fast Lynx, offering weapons, food or medicines to a town in need?

Knowing that a country is about to go to war, will you invest in the long-term and stockpile resources until the cost of war makes the price on horses, muskets and food start soaring?

What about having your friends raid a town and steal all their food and supplies, and then you sail in as a saving angel with fresh supplies and wares for the town to buy, knowing that the prices will be high since they direly need them.

• Production / "Crafting". The key to trading is buying low and selling high. But instead of relying on what each port has to offer what about investing in your own sawmill, bakery, shipwright, smithy or even merchanthouse?

For those familiar with Mount and Blade it had a very simple crafting system. You could invest in a bakery which made bread. But to keep that bakery running you needed to supply it with wheat.  Another similar example is EVE Online. Although you don't own the factories, you could still buy (or invent) a blueprint then build items by providing the blueprint and the required materials and minerals.

 

This could easily be done in Naval Action too. You buy a bakery in a town and it has a small running cost (employees and maintenance). Every few days (or weeks) it produces X amount of bread. The cost of producing the bread depends on the cost of the employees, maintenance and the cost of the raw materials (wheat or other corn).

 

With a system where you can invest in your own "factories" that produce certain items you could start to create a network with other players, and thus begin the first steps towards a player driven economy. As an example:

 

Your friend owns farmland in one town.

You own a bakery or two.

A third friend owns an iron mine.

 

So your friend produces wheat. You make a contract where you will buy X amount of tonnes of wheat at a cost of X per tonne.

You bring that wheat to your bakery which produces bread. Then you make a contract with your other friend where he will buy X amount of tonnes of bread at a cost of X per tonne since the workers in his mine need food to produce iron.

 

This is a very simplified system, and surely can be more complex, but it illustrates how trading can be very, very interactive, provided the tools are in place. E.g. a contract system that ensures the players actually buy the X tonnes as agreed and that they get them at the agreed price. Breaking the contract should have consequences. E.g. a penalty fee involved at best, but might also mean that the "factory" is forcibly taken from the person who breaks the contract. And worst case, the person might be declared an outlaw!

• Smuggling wares. In some areas items might be considered contraband. While there might not be an active blockade in place (in which case it would be blockade running) there could still be authority ships operating under the flag of the respective nation which could routinely hail ships for inspection. 

Perhaps you just pirated some cargo from a merchant, or plundered a city. You are bound to have barrels and/or crates bearing the marks of the owner. No pirate ship sails with a hold full of empty barrels and crates to 'transfer' the goods over. Carrying such cargo which does not belong to you might cause an aggressive action from a navy ship which inspects your ship.

 

Or your cargo might be illegal where you are trying to sell it. Perhaps gun trade is not permitted due to the political situation, and you are trying to bring muskets and cannons to the port.

 

Having options to conceal your cargo with hidden cargo holds would allow you to mitigate the chance of discovery. Knowing what you can sell and where would be a key factor, and this could even open up for faction type gameplay where you build your standing with the criminal network in a city, which then opens up options to sell your smuggled cargo through a fence.

• Fleet bonuses. (Disclaimer: taking this example from Elite Dangerous) One thing that is very common with almost any game where you play as a trader is that you travel alone. Traders are often just sailing, flying or driving back and forth... often in 'semi autopilot' mode while watching Netflix or something else. It's not a very team-oriented activity in most games.

In Elite Dangerous they did something controversial. They gave us 'money for nothing' when doing trading. How could they do such a thing and get away with it?!? The reason they did it was to encourage teaming up as traders and flying as convoys.

 

So how does that work?

 

The way it works it that you are in a group (called Wing in Elite) together with a friend, and you are both in the same system. When he sells his items to the market and gains a profit, you get a %-based amount of money depending on his profit. So if he sells something worth 1000, and gained 100 profit from it, then you get 20 as a bonus pay.

 

Note, you get 20 out of thin air. It doesn't take 20 out of your friends profit, leaving him with 80. Nope... he gets +100 in profit, and you get +20 as a fleet bonus. But if YOU sell something as well, then your friend gets a bonus too! So if you both sell something and get +100 profit... then you BOTH get +20 in fleet bonus. Total profit per head is then +120, and the total profit between you is +240.

 

Some might think of this as exploitable. But is it really? By being in a convoy you get the fleet bonus, sure... but keep in mind that you also saturate the market faster since you are delivering higher volumes of goods to the same locations.

 

Personally I think this fleet bonus idea is great, and encourages teamplay as traders. But as I mentioned, it is a bit controversial and not everyone might agree with such a mechanic.

 

So to conclude (since I am writing this from top of my head while at work and I need to head out )

 

There are MANY ways to make trading very interesting, intricate and intertwined with the rest of the gameplay (politics, factions, piracy, blockade running et.c.). I've only gone through the ones that came to my mind, and I am positive that you clever folk out there have many other brilliant ideas. Both new ideas and ideas that improve upon what I've gone through here.

 

Lets try, together, to make trading in Naval Action more than just bus-driving.

 

Thanks for reading!

[Mulcaster]

There are a lot of good ideas here.  One thing you overlooked was the importance of export commodities in the 18th century, especially sugar and tobacco.  Most of the islands would be covered in plantations raising these crops for export to Europe.  Players should be able to buy or build plantations and ship the commodities to a designated export port (probably the capital), at least until a Europe map is added in the future.  The return trip would bring manufactured goods in from Europe.  Disrupting this trade, and highjacking valuable cargoes, would give a focus to privateers and piracy.  This, of course, would require that when a ship is captured its cargo is captured with it.

 

Smuggling was even more important than you suggest.  In the 18th century every country had a mercantile system which tried to prohibit trade in the colonies except with the "mother country."  It didn't work all that well and created enormous black markets.  Smuggling became a way of life.  One way to handle this in the game would be to change all the "neutral" and "pirate" ports to "open" ports where corrupt officials would look the other way for a bribe (or a percentage of the profit).  The size of the bribe could vary, depending on the status or reputation of the merchant.  Pirates would pay more, but have a place to "launder" their contraband.

 

In addition to demand created by player and NPC industries, each port should have demand for food, rum, textiles, luxuries and manufactured goods based on the size of the population.  This would both stimulate trade and give a point to blockading a port.  Blockade running would become profitable.

[Hassie]

I think to engage the trader fleets, maybe add a higher volume of low to mid tier pirates and privateer vessels of other nations to "common" trade sailing routes. You can make it so that 20% can go to the frigates in a fleet with you, that are watching your back. So they get all the rewards from the battles for protecting you, a promise of battle for those action oriented, and a nice little bonus at the end of the trip. This could help get traders more involved with their nations and clans, as they can be the bank rolls to finance clan or national wars, by amassing small fortunes, and moving goods around for crafters to make those pretty ships, upgrades and cannons, but only if those merchants are protected. It also would be a hot point to raid as you know those traders will be carrying valuable goods.

 

All ports should also have basic demands, and no port should want zero of something like french wine, or indian tea. They all would want it to some degree, unless they produce it themselves.It is early yet, still a lot of tweaking to get everything right, but I think it is headed in the right direction.