In a previous post I suggested the idea of adding fisheries to the world of Avonmora. During that conversation Vane brought up the subject of there being many different income streams in the game, and it being too easy for players to run every income stream and rack up enormous wealth.

(If you want to read more on that topic, you can find it here: viewtopic.php?f=4&t=3768#p53836)

The suggestion was made that there should be blocks put in place to limit a player from running all of the income streams.

I have been giving this some thought as of late, and have come up with a solution I wanted to lay on the table for discussion.

The suggestion is to add a fourth officer to the game: the Overseer.

Overseers are trusted individuals that one would hire to basically manage an enterprise. Owning a bank, goldsmith, plantation, fishery, or any other such income structure that may be added in the future would require the hiring of an Overseer.

For every Overseer you own however, the profits of each enterprise drop a bit due to "corruption". The more Overseers you own, the more corruption enters into your business dealings.

For instance, a player could hire up to 5 Overseers and not suffer from corruption. After 5 Overseers you would begin to see losses. Lets say a 1%-3% corruption loss per Overseer over 5.

5 Overseers would give no loss from corruption.
10 Overseers would give a potential 5%-15% loss from corruption across the board in all of your various enterprises.
20 Overseers would give a potential 15%-45% loss each day in any enterprise.

It would begin to add up, and the player would have to choose how they want to set up their income stream- put their hands in many different occupations and see diminished returns, or limit their endeavors in favor of a more secure profit margin.

Players do like to diversify, however, so I would submit adding a new tech for research at the Academy- Administrative Oversight (or some such thing). Basically it is an investment in establishing better accountability and oversight in one's business activities, thus reducing corruption in larger operations. This would allow a player to reduce (but not eliminate) corruption losses and allow for them to hire more Overseers so they can participate in different enterprises. Eventually corruption losses would stack up though, even with the tech, and getting involved in more enterprises would not be profitable beyond a certain point.

The idea is to make players have to think more strategically as they plan which route they wish to pursue with regard to how they are going to generate wealth. While operations such as plantations or fisheries would require one Overseer each, larger and potentially more profitable enterprises such as banking and goldsmithing should possibly require more than one Overseer each- I would suggest 3 Overseers to establish a bank, and 2 for Goldsmith.

Prices for hiring an Overseer should scale upward fairly quickly after 5, and costs for corruption reducing tech at the Academy should be on par with tech costs such as Officer Contracts.

Still thinking over this though, and looking forward to hearing suggestions.

Humbly submitted...

The cost of a bank or a gold smith is already WAY expensive. Now you want to add to the cost and reduce profits that still take 2 years to pay back with a Fee that will only add to the length of paying back such a obscene investment.

For me it's a -1

It would add very little to the cost of a bank or smith, unless you also wanted to have your hand in multiple plantations and other enterprises.

You could own both a bank and a smith without having to go beyond the first 5 Overseers, which would be affordable and would not accrue any corruption penalties.

Or a bank and smith could require only 1 overseer, and leave 3 more for plantations or other endeavors before corruption would begin to become a problem to be dealt with.

-1

I agree that no one player should be able to profit on every income stream; however, there are far better methods of going about doing this.

Banks for example have an existing suggestion where Banks are restricted via Nations. If I recall the suggestion correctly, there would be a maximum allowed number of banks per nation. So players who belong to a nation that have reached the cap can still own a bank, but they can't open it to the public.

-1

Even though that wouldn't be fair either, cause that way, the nation would decide who gets to profit and who doesn't.

I think overseers are a good idea, I would suggest keeping overseers for a bank and such at 1 per 2 levels or something like that, 1 overseer per trade route. But I probably wouldn't go as far as to say 40% loss, 20-30% maybe yes, but not any higher than that.

+1 but does need some work.

Astragek wrote:1 overseer per trade route..

We already have 1 merchant needed per trade route, 1 overseer per trade route would just be a waste of time.

-1 from me as well. In my opinion there really isn't a problem with the number of income streams, since certain incomes conflict with others, and it is rather difficult to be proficient in multiple streams in the first place. A large trader for example has his trade fleets earning coin for one stream, and maybe party routes for a second, but he would not be able to profit much from plunders due to having a lot to lose if hit back- so such a player would probably avoid plunders. And a player who mainly earns coin through skirmish and plunder would avoid having many trade fleets. And even middle of the road players(privateers) Don't earn as much trade income as pure traders, or as much plunder as pure pirates.

Grimrock Litless wrote:

Astragek wrote:1 overseer per trade route..

We already have 1 merchant needed per trade route, 1 overseer per trade route would just be a waste of time.

I don't mean per trade fleet, but per route. So for example 1 overseer for any fleets sailing between 2 ports.