[1.11.12c] Trade kinda functioning

[Voker57]

Interregime trade seems to be completely broken again in latest versions (v).

[Vic]

Hi Voker57,

I will need a savefile to vic@vrdesigns.net but with a little example text of what is broken (like: A not selling rare metals to B)

Would be much appreciated. We are almost at release would like to QA this asap.

best wishes,
Vic

[Voker57]

Once again trade is broken. Got a trade agreement with Gargland, prices are quite different but zero trade is going on for many turns. See attached save.

PBEM152.zip

(6.56 MiB) Downloaded 14 times

[Vic]

Thanks for the save.

I advanced the turn checking for Rare + Fuel and all is working as intended.

Gargland is selling some items to Grazing Republic , but mostly to Eclon.

For example:

Gargland Rare prices are around 26 Cr, yours are at 41 Cr, but Eclon prices are around 67 Cr. Hence Gargland traders prefer to sell to Eclon.

Best wishes,
Vic

[Voker57]

Thanks for the save.

I advanced the turn checking for Rare + Fuel and all is working as intended.

Gargland is selling some items to Grazing Republic , but mostly to Eclon.

For example:

Gargland Rare prices are around 26 Cr, yours are at 41 Cr, but Eclon prices are around 67 Cr. Hence Gargland traders prefer to sell to Eclon.

Best wishes,
Vic

Gargland and Eclon are at war and do not have a trade agreement, shouldn't this have at least some effect? And are all possible items sold to Eclon, with none left for Greenfield?

Since prices are quite different, total amount traded by Gargland seems very low.

[Vic]

They are huge trade houses so even a small % of maximum trade might do the trick, especially if buyer has limited credits.

I will think about this though as maybe some other penalty than volume should be in place.

[Vic]

Rechecked this. Thanks for being a good sport!

And actually the price to buy from Gargland is almost equal to the (buy+sell)/2 Price of Greenfields.
And Greenfields has 25% Tariffs on Gargland..
Hence no go.

For 221g I am revising the buying Trade Houses's price point from (buy+sell)/2 to (buy+sell+sell)/3 for inter Trade deals like this one.

In a test run of your save game where i disabled the 25% Tariffs (which raise the price of Garglands items for Greenfield) i saw Gargland first selling like 50 rare items to Eclon and then like 250 to Geenfield.

thanks for continued feedback and helping me finetune the game more and more.

[Voker57]

Trade seems to generally work these days, thank you

Only issue is unclear trading limits. I have a save where traders have over 100k credits, metal price diff is ~20 cred, yet they only trade around 250 max per turn. Not sure how limits are calculated, maybe this should be revised?

[Voker57]

In a similar way, traders never buy enough metals/whatever rare resources from the player to lower the prices. They always remain sky-high but with very low purchasing limits.

[Voker57]

A suggestion how to fix it: instead of letting player sell 1/3 of trader's cash per category, let player make an order for selling a maximum of X goods for minimum price Y. Same for buying. Not sure how trader algorithms work currently, but with such orders, between turns trader can sell goods in batches and satisfy highest-profit deals first.

[Vic]

I am still not completely happy here either. But thinking more towards making the traders realize what qty of stock the player is sitting on to get a real grasp on what the price should be.

[Voker57]

That sounds like inviting a set of problems on its own, minimizing your stock to maximize the price and various workarounds for that. Improving market simulation seems like a better way.

[Don_Kiyote]

...minimizing your stock to maximize the price and various workarounds for that. Improving market simulation seems like a better way.

I've been watching this thread, trying to see how trade is developing.

I was going to say that commodity producers routinely regulate their production for exactly that^ reason: to prevent over-supply, a disaster worse than anything an explosion could cause.

...then I wrote a nice long reply, about Pork Belly trading in Chicago, but the website dumped it when I stood up for a while

One thing I figured might be important in this discussion, is the difference between spot prices and futures trading. At the moment, players opening the "Trade" tab in SE are seeing only spot prices, which are typically (very) dis-advantageous.

Watching closely, good luck, never seen even an approximate economic simulation in a game before, that I can think of

[Voker57]

Overall, I'm pretty happy with how trade works now, thanks Vic! Within the limitations of the "debt" system and prices/purchase quantities being rather arbitrary. Here's a save, not sure if that's normal or intentional, but traders managed to nearly bankrupt themselves in this one, they have ~3k credits per turn, buy everything at super high prices, and I can't even afford to pay the wages as a result.

trade.zip

(5.21 MiB) Downloaded 12 times

[Don_Kiyote]

Overall, I'm pretty happy with how trade works now, thanks Vic!

Personally, Im amazed by the improvements.

Slowly trade is becoming more effectual, and in various ways. For the very first time, I used a tariff card the other night, one that had a proper effect and made sense: An 'Import tariff on Non-Aligned' starts showing spurts of 50 or 100 credits in the Treasury report right away. Hopefully this also diverts private trade towards aligned territories; Majors and Minors.

In other news, the strategic AI of my neighbouring allied major is doing an uncannily good job of keeping me away from his territory, which has rainfall, and in mine, which has none, but which has lots of oil reserves. So there is a relative advantage in production. Using this as a basis for trade, my regime will be happy as a net importer of food through the medium term, and as an exporter, not of Oil, but mainly Metal and Rares.

Actually, the Oil is being used for power production...

[Vic]

Hi Voker,
Trade is something I want to look at again later this year. Will take your post along.
Best wishes,
Vic