[Implemented] Treasures and Banks

[Diplomatist]

Both Tixi-etc and Murphy's last posts seem to make good sense.

[Captain Jack]

I want to request from anyone to avoid creating a bank in order to use it as a treasure hive. With time, there will be restrictions to make this as limited as possible.

For example, we are thinking the following restrictions:
-Max Bank balance should be: Amount Deposited by (active) clients * 2 + 20M
A minimum balance of 20M will be allowed just to allow bankers to operate the bank from day 1.
This means that a working bank with deposits of 25 millions, will be able to have up to 70millions in assets.
This restriction coupled with already restrictions:
Max Balance (through owner) = Bank Level * 100
Max Balance (though client) Bank Level * 100 * 2
Can lead to better results.



Another restriction we are thinking is to limit the client base of each bank according to level. So, for levels 1-5 (for example) the bank can serve only same nation players (national). At level 6 and above it can serve anyone (International Bank) except pirates which it should be able to server at level 10 and above.


Ideas,feedback?

[Shaydo]

I like the restriction on personnel deposits as i get the feeling that for only an outlay of 1.5mill a lot of people will use it to store wealth, i think even at 20mill cap with no deposits a lot of people will still use it for this reason as it will be the fastest/lowest turn way to access money short of selling a SoL. So moving forward at lvl 10 you would need 440mill banked with you to store the other 560mill from your own pocket? If you grant people loans how would that factor in to it, could i offer a friend a loan they dont actually collect from there account to increase my storage cap?

Are both max balance caps added together to total 250m or is it a cap of 150m at level 1?

I think this will have a drastic impact on the smaller nations as there client base would be next to none and you have guilds of mixed nationality, so if a guild had decided to utilize 1 guild bank then this option would no longer be possible until level 6 was achieved which i think partially defeats the object of the bank? Limiting the client base does sound like a good idea although i think another option would be best suited, i'm inclined to think limit the amount of accounts but then if you have lots of accounts with barely anything in them this would also have detrimental effect on bankers. I suppose the max deposit limit to a degree limits the amount of accounts although at max deposit you can have 60 accounts before you would need to start skimming off the top to open more.

Also, limiting the bank to only same nation would limit bankers on offering loans to only there nation?

I think the initial cost for opening a bank should be remarkably higher than it is, for a gold smith you are looking at 850m in just gold to level to 20 as opposed to a bank which sits around 90mill, so a level 20 bank will cost approx 1.9 billion where as the goldsmith is 2bill+.If the cost were higher then you would have a lot less banks and people would not be inclined to use it to store gold.

[Most Lee Harmless]

regarding the limits on client base : That would mean that pirates would have to wait a very long time before they could use a bank at all, I dont see a level10 bank showing up anytime soon as the gold bars reqd will take a considerable time to appear, and also, the means to make them also have to be expanded. Given the restrictions already in place on pirates, that does seem kinda unfair. After all, the former pirate zones are still home to legitimate international banks happy to deal with 'dirty' money.

It would also tend to exclude the citizens of smaller nations accessing a bank due to paucity of customer base making a 'national' bank unworkable (or not worth spending the vast sums reqd to get to a lvl6 when it could expand beyond its home nation) forcing them to wait until a level6 shows up, and then they could only use that one, no matter how 'untrustworthy', or undesirable the owners, may be.

I'm afraid the push to open banks as 'gold pits' will not go away, as long as treasure is costly to bury, even more costly in turns to cover, yet still gets 'found' and subjected to a 25% loss. So yes, I, for example, am cleaning out my former gold pits and moving those funds into various 'investments', including but not only into my bank : but I've been doing that anyway, bank or no, as burying it has proved to be no protection at all, just a waste of too many turns and still too many large losses. That's not the fault of the new banks, that's an imbalance in the 'treasure hunt' aspect of the game.

[Sir Henry Morgan]

Another issue may simply be the deposit levels may be too large to start - 100 million is quite high, and would require quite a facility to manage.

Instead of changing the formula, perhaps changing the initial limits would be prudent, and by not reaching that 100 million until level 3-4 would prove the solution.
Also reducing the size of deposits will help. (This could be worked into fairly simply - Say the bank has 100 mil on deposit and new limit is 25 mil for level 1. When a deposit is removed, (or lost in a loan) the ceiling is lowered, ie, the deposit/payment cannot be replaced.

Danik is right - it should be easier to bury gold than put it into a bank -a solution might be that for every turn used to bury gold, 25-50 are needed to find it, and it only takes half the turns to dig it up as it does to bury it. With the new banking features, reworking the treasure feature would be a good idea.

Depositing in a bank, 3 turns is fair - but a minimum transaction fees by nations (say 1% that never reaches the treasury - covers transaction costs) is charged, so for the ease of transacting business will cost part of the deposit. While nations could raise that number, they could not go to 0%. In fact, all the bank fees mentioned could be minimum cost as pure administeation fees, of 3rd party (NPC) bureaucrats, so if the treasury is to gain benefit, they must be 2% or higher. This will include the money the personal wealth a banker moves in and out of the bank as well as depositors.

It will cost coin to bank, or a few turns to bury it.

Just some ideas to try and find a better balance...

[Captain dungeness]

Instead of changing the formula, perhaps changing the initial limits would be prudent, and by not reaching that 100 million until level 3-4 would prove the solution.

+1! having 100M storage at level 1 is the problem. If a player wants to spend 100M gold to get a bank to level 4 then they can get their storage but it will cost them much more than if they just buried the gold.

Please make the initial available storage for the banker much less than 100M.

[Loki]

If I may make a small suggestion.. Can we please have a feature where we can see a list of our deposits in different banks? I'm imagining a balance column right beside the list of avonmora banks, then perhaps a deposit/withdraw button right next to it. Thanks!

+1 this makes a lot of sense and would be useful

[Redjack02]

How is this bnaking sytem surposed to Work? Is it surposed to be able to lend out gold for interests ? Then the Bank should allso provide intrests. If i depotis lets say 1,000,000 in a bank i should get some sort on interest to (lend) the Money to the bank. We all know intrests rates in real life are abnormaly low as of this moment in time. Doesnt need to be similar here.
What im looking at would be about 5% for lending gold and about 2,5% for depositing gold. or something similar. Something basic to make it simple

[Most Lee Harmless]

Then, as a banker, I need to be able to refuse your deposit too. Currently, anyone can open an account with any bank and deposit up to the set limit. To cover that, the bank would need to have lent 50% of deposits back out again, and get them all paid back, just to cover depositors interest payments.

[Redjack02]

Then, as a banker, I need to be able to refuse your deposit too. Currently, anyone can open an account with any bank and deposit up to the set limit. To cover that, the bank would need to have lent 50% of deposits back out again, and get them all paid back, just to cover depositors interest payments.

Yes you should have rights to refuse deposit. And you should allso have rights for longtherm planning. Long time accounts. Sure you would need to pay higher intrestsrates as the gold wouldnt be reacheble for the client in the given time