Hideout HQ - Special Buildings - Gold Resource

[Big Brother]

I'm shocked you didn't, or anyone before me. We are pirates after all....

That and spain does own half the board, if not more of it behind closed doors.

[Most Lee Harmless]

I think the main barrier to any nation manipulating gold prices or trading is that it will be individuals doing the making and trading of it ; in which case, any combination of those individuals could manipulate matters.. guilds or informal cartels, for example. Apart from the increase in general trade, I don't see how having gold produced in a port will do much at all for the nation controlling it.

And yep, Spain currently controls half of the board... which you must agree is an improvement on the previous dominant force controlling three-quarters of it at one time. We welcome the wider participation in port ownership, its an aspect of the game we have always argued strongly for and, I believe, we have backed up our fine words with equally fine deeds in not contesting new ownership of several ports that came to us when Barbados shut up shop.

That said, we fully intend to retain control of our current 10 ports : we are not a charity, after all.

[Big Brother]

still... market manipulation is definitely against the rules, and giving a nation significant revenue control over such a valuable resource, that sounds like manipulation in the making. Captain Jack? care to chime in?

[Most Lee Harmless]

Nations wont control gold production or prices in their ports : individuals will make it, individuals will sell it into the market. If you, or any other non -Spaniard, sets up your goldsmiths in a Spanish port, Spain cant order you what to make or sell : A group of Spanish goldsmiths could try to manipulate the market, yes, but then, so could a group of Russian goldsmiths ; the port ownership is irrelevant and a bit of a red-herring in this discussion.

[Xanadu]

If you think about it Fertile Lands is a form of market manipulation. So would be sending all trade fleets of a guild, say ATC for example, all on the same trade route. It would be foolish as far as getting plundered is concerned, but a lot of us have done it in the past. Especially when the ports are close together such as the Tortuga - Tzogos route. No one even has to say lets all go here but the profits generated determine where we as traders go just the same. I wouldn't say it would be possible to keep a particular resource pegged at the low end or the high end of the price range in a port for longer than 3 days without the use of fertile lands, which is being removed from the game any way. The only way the market might be manipulated would be if there were only a limited amount of bankers allowed in the game. Then they could collude like gas stations, in setting the same price for a gallon of gas. Except, in this case it would be interest rates on loans or the price paid for a bar of gold. I really don't think the seller would have any say if all the banks all stood together. But that doesn't happen in the real world with OPEC. Someone always wants to sell by volume instead of by quota throwing the whole price structure off. If everyone else was buying gold at 100 gp per bar and Captn. D was buying at 99 gp per bar I would go to him and so would most everyone else. He would make up in volume what he would lose by having the higher price. He might even charge different interest rates for loans depending on the risk involved with the player he is loaning to.

I guess what I am trying to say here is that there are just too many variables that stand in the way of "price fixing or market manipulation". I think greed will win out over the ability to fix prices for even a small amount of people. It's just human nature, or Keynesian economics...Eeeww, I can't believe I said...zzzzzzzzz

[Navigator]

I slept through home economics. I don't know how I can keep playing this game.

[Most Lee Harmless]

I do think there has to be some kind of pre-set limit you can set on auto-trade routes involving gold... as the price will be dynamic then any action repeated over time will act to raise the price where you buy and drop it where you sell ; so a nice earner when you set it up will quickly turn into a total loss over a day. Its going to need some sort of qualifier added ; buy gold if price is equal or less than x, if not, buy resource n : and the same at the selling end. Complicated to set-up, I'm sure.. but a trade route system designed to handle 3-day fixed price sets is not gonna be able to handle dynamic pricing as planned.

Personally, I think it will be more practical to just flip gold port to port and do the buying and selling manually in/out of the warehouses when the price suits.

[Kart]

Anyone who has ever dealt with the stock market understands price fluctuations and the need to adjust accordingly. When placing a buy or sell order in stocks you can specify where you will buy or sell and where you will not. I had not considered the possibility of this being implemented into the game. I give two thumbs up to Danik for just bringing the subject up.

However, if it is possible to do this, it would also make it a little more predictable for pirates to know when someone is transporting gold. That could be interesting for them and it would require a little more thought on the part of everyone else.

All in all, I like the idea of having the ability to set multiple options for product to load based on the economy. However, I don't know if it is feasible considering the coding involved.

I would like to see a little more from Captain Jack posted about hideouts, banks and gold for the benefit of the newer players who are all excited about this. They probably do not have any idea about what kind of resources are going to be required and some of them may be disappointed when it is implemented and they find out their 2 million gold they have been hording may well do them little good.

[Captain meow]

BRINGEN SIE MIR GOLD already
i need that to built a force that can take over the world
BWAHHHAAAA

[Xanadu]

I know it would be a little more complicated, but possibly the gold resource market could run on the daily schedule that the markets used to run on. The three day market makes it easier for traders and pirates. Pirates because they can do a spy report when the market changes then plan an attack and hit a day or two later after the traders guard is down again and he will still be trading the same routes (probably). The traders for obvious reasons like it because they don't have to shift fleets around every day chasing the most profitable routes. I don't know if it would be better for alleviating the "threat" of price fixing if we went back to the markets fluctuating every day or not.