[Suggestion] Trading affects Prosperity, or Backward Feudal Economics

[Jacko]

Introduction

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So, I wrote this on the irc channel:

[11:43] <jacko_> i wish trading would somehow increase prosperity
[11:43] <jacko_> so traders would be a welcome addition to a territory
[11:44] <jacko_> so you could "work" a clan area, and still not be a burden to the clan by hogging PE
[11:45] <jacko_> perhaps selling could have a chance to effect prosperity, either by random chance or by a very small amount for each "sell".
[11:46] <jacko_> (you'd still have the random prosperity factor to "deal with", but at least you could affect it somewhat)

Seeing it was just before noon, and most people on irc are lazy students ( ), I figure I better make a real suggestion on the forum instead:

Suggestion:

Trading, or rather selling, would affect a Fiefs prosperity. As it is right now, a Trader will, in the inevitable Clan owned Territory, lessen a fiefs Production Efficiency (PE) by crafting. To offset this, selling goods should increase prosperity. This could also be affected by "Faraway Goods Bonus" (FGB), so the further you have travelled, the more luxurious and lucrative the goods will be, increasing the Prosperity more then goods coming from a closer destination. 

All numbers below are just examples.

Proposal A:

-Selling would increase the overall prosperity (of a town) by town tax.
-Raise prosperity random factor to +-1.5/24h instead of +-1
-Cyclic Prosperity: Prosperity decays after +4, for 5 days, to 0 (temporarily removing the random prosperity).
-Crafting would decrease the prosperity of a village by 0.01 each item crafted.

Proposal B:
 
-Selling would increase the overall prosperity (defined by "town tax"), only available to towns.
-"Prosperity worth of goods" Depending on the FGB and the worth of the goods. The more expensive the goods, the more the Prosperity will be affected (and tax).
-Cap prosperity at +3, the only way for it to go higher would be by selling goods to the fief.
-By selling goods with a FGB of under 200%, prosperity can only raised to +4.
-To get a prosperity over +4, you would need trade caravans that have a FGB of over 200%. 
-Cyclic Prosperity: Prosperity decays after +5, for 5 days, to 0 (temporarily removing the random prosperity).
-Crafting would decrease the prosperity of a village by 0.01 each item crafted.
-Plus prosperity via selling only available to towns (town tax that can be set by players).

[Keshian]

Fully support this.  Getting caravans to come to your village should increase its prosperity where its an active market.  This would also be a reason for people to protect other clans' caravans in their own territories against bandits to keep the prosperous caravns rolling into their villages or else they will lose prosperity steadily once people are too afraid to travel to them.  Gives more meaning to fighting bandits and running caravans.  Why else pay taxes on the goods sold in fiefs than that it improves the infrastructure and prosperity of that fief.

[Varyag]

If prosperity will depend only on how many goods r sold in a specific place, then it can be abused.
So it should not be only number of goods, but rather quality of goods. Thus plan A is easily abusable.
I have a counter suggestion:

Replace prosperity with the term WEALTH

To increase the fief WEALTH fief owner should pay gold. With time WEALTH decays, thus to keep it at a steady level fief should receive lots of caravans (thus getting the tax). So the more caravans do business with the fief, the more fief owner gets gold the more money he has, so he can make decision on what to spend this gold : increase army strength or increase WEALTH, or spend money on something else  (such as war with their neighbours)
The good part is that fief WEALTH will not only depend on the caravan trade. Money can be accumulated from successful raids and lots of other sources. Thus fiefs owned by the raiders can increase their WEALTH too (because caravans will probably evade such fiefs)

P.S. Also it is probably very easy to implement, however first results from this will only be seen when factions start taking fiefs.

[Jacko]

[17:36] <@chadz|afk> jacko_, selling leading to increased prosperity wouldn#t make any sense
[17:36] <@chadz|afk> because you sell in locations that have high prosperity
[17:37] <@chadz|afk> so they get even higher
[17:37] <@chadz|afk> it would make more sense to lower the prosperity when selling
[17:37] <@chadz|afk> so when you keep selling to a location with high prices, the prices start sinking

Some player made action should affect prosperity in a negative way, I'm not sure what tho. My gut feeling tells me crafting, but I haven't thought it trough (would make the villages production areas exclusively).

Also I agree about plan A, it is abusable, but it's most likely the easiest one to implement. I like you're suggestion, but I'm not fond of player spending gold like that, but maybe it's a good money sink.

[Keshian]

yeahhhh, no, we don't need more money sinks.  Near impossible to equip and maintain upkeep for even a 1000 man army.  I like that crafting decreases prosperity because it uses up village resources to be sent elsewhere and that selling goods in a village increases its prosperity as it would increases the available goods for use in that village. 

WOULD REALLY LOVE: single-player carryover -
build schools for increased crafting percentage,
watchtowers to have greater sight radius on map of people staying in village,
wall, get to defend behind small wooden palisade with open gate area (use the stuff from Stronghold beta to do this),
mill to have a permanent +1 prosperity on top of whatever the prosperity would otherwise be,
and 1 fief can build a palace/stronghold/etc. where that fief will have a steadily increasing population that could potentially allow a village to become a castle, and then eventually a city (this would favor small clans with 1-2 fiefs).

[Varyag]

where that fief will have a steadily increasing population that could potentially allow a village to become a castle, and then eventually a city (this would favor small clans with 1-2 fiefs).

Judging by the abusability skill of cprg community, I can predict that very soon there will be no villages and castles, only towns 

[Dehitay]

The problem is, currently, you want one of your villages to have the worst prosperity possible and one to have the highest prosperity possible. By crafting where goods are worth crap and selling where they're expensive, you make a massive profit. And if crafting decreases prosperity and selling enhances it, you can solidify those two villages as crafting and selling villages. Hell, you could even find two villages right next to each other and purposely give them that bond for that very purpose so trading is easy.

However, if you did the exact opposite and made crafting increase prosperity and selling decrease it, then things would counter balance and you would constantly have to rechoose where you craft and where you sell. Though personally, I think it would be far smarter to make selling value based on crafting value as that would make low prosperity a bad thing completely.

[Jacko]

[ Dehitay, yes, finding two villages close by would be easy, that's why you should cap +prosperity and or make over saturating the market possible. If you sell, or produce too much, the market will get flooded and prosperity drop to 0. ]

Simply introducing + prosperity will not work, we would need a counter to it as well.

New proposal:

Villages:
-Production (crafting), decreases prosperity, keeps the prices of goods low.
Towns:
-Selling goods would increase prosperity (only available for towns), via taxes (which in the long run can be set by players).

I still feel you should give traders a positive role, otherwise we won't see them used by others then clans needing to haul stuff. Updated main post.

[Panoply]

I do think prosperity should be affected by player actions, but I think you've got it backward.

You're creating a positive feedback loop here, when a real market normally operates on negative feedback loops. Selling should not increase prosperity. Production/crafting should increase prosperity, not decrease it. For me one of the more obvious ways to decrease prosperity is if the fief were attacked or raided.

However I agree with Dehitay, in that it would be better if good prices weren't so heavily linked to prosperity. As it is, low fief prosperity is actually a good thing... I would rather see fief prosperity linked to improvements that can be built by fief owners as well as a general function of player activity. You'd have a trade off between higher taxes to fund such public works projects, or lower taxes to attract more players to your fief. I'd rather see goods prices affected more by some kind of demand function, you could artificially induce one in each fief if need be (you'd likely have to cut down on the number of different kinds of goods).

[Jacko]

Yeah, it's backward, because I want traders to be Wanted in the lands, bringing with them Wealth and "unloading it".  I'm not even sure it's backwards, it's just not modern economics, it's a feudal lord sucking dry the lands. Back in the day, you bought pretty luxurious things with "money", the rest you traded for common stuff that you made or grown. Money was not important, not in the sense it is nowadays.   

Regardless, keep the suggestions coming, I'm sure we all want the same thing: to be able to affect the economy.

[Turboflex]

The confusing thing is the word "prosperity" which is a much broader economic term when in reality the current strategus fief modifier we are actually discussing is just "market price" (high or low).

[Digglez]

kinda backwards. if you are crafting you are providing jobs and income to the village...that would raise prosperity.  them buying all your shit would make them POOR and unable to afford more shit

[chadz]

price = a value used to pay goods, between +5 and +25, default +15
prosperity = a value that's randomly increasing or decreasing and affects the price daily, default 0, randomly +1 or +0 or -1 per day

I'll write a more complex guide about trading in a minute in the "strategus for dummies" topic

[Tristan]

http://forum.c-rpg.net/index.php/topic,18592.0.html

Please check this out.