Port Population Consumption & Growth Rate (Small)

[Yekin]

#2. Because traders follow price(free market economics) they will all pretty much follow port to port as a group.

Small time traders and new players will seek out the most profitable routes however I highly doubt, due to the work and time involved, big traders are not going to "chase" the best prices. It is too labour/time intensive to redirect 100 fleets every 3 days.

This is especially true at it takes 24 hrs for fleets to readjust their routes and settle into a new routine.

Well nobody running 100 trade fleets these days runs exclusively off of regular trade. But moving 100 trade routes is not so difficult, if more gold is to be gained doing it no trader worth their salt will miss the opportunity.

[sXs]

#2. Because traders follow price(free market economics) they will all pretty much follow port to port as a group.

Small time traders and new players will seek out the most profitable routes however I highly doubt, due to the work and time involved, big traders are not going to "chase" the best prices. It is too labour/time intensive to redirect 100 fleets every 3 days.

This is especially true at it takes 24 hrs for fleets to readjust their routes and settle into a new routine.

This is more of a warning than anything. Effects wont be seen immediately, but basic market economics say that prices will balance across all of Avonmora eventually.

Consumption rates should be adjusted a bit is all I am saying. Also 10-20% production and consumption adjustment to resource producing ports on produced goods to ensure profitability. This setup is similar to what it now in place. If a port produces rum, it sells it at a discount. Blue numbers on active port list.

As proposed by CJs OP, there is no adjustment in proposed rates for these port goods.

[Captain Jack]

Let's see a scenario with full population at all ports:
2.1B * 21 = 44.1B

With the proposed formula:
Population Consumption is set at 0.0025 crates per citizen/day

The demand for every resource will be:
Consumption = 0.0025 * 44,100,000,000 = 110,250,000 or 110M
We have 7 resources, so the overall demand will be 770M

This means that the ports alone, the npc part of the game, can consume 770M crates a day. This is a huge number. Why?
Because current cargo capacity sits at around 55M a day. Which means that there are not enough ships to meet this demand right now.

Which ultimately defeats any way of reaching a dead end to trading in the foreseeable future, with current voodoo arsenal. Why? If, a commodity every reaches its maximum limit, then players will simply only have to boost the population of a port and let the population consume it.

The reality is that the problem we will face is the opposite that has been suggested. There is no way current players can meet the formulas. This is why the population growth formula we provided as a start has temporal variables which will be tweaked as time passes, without notice.

The normal things you should expect are the following:
-Port populations drop
-Stocks in warehouses will drop
-Trading will be more profitable as time passes
-Plantations will have room for development and high importance

Once we reach the balancing point though, the following should happen:
-Trading will be more competitive and relevant to demand
-Demand will be relative to population and vis versa.
-Plantations will not have guaranteed profit to the end of time.
-Plantations will be dependent on fleets.
-There will be no absolute win routes, like we have now.
-There will be population growth/perish outside cards
-There will be demand for successful management of supplies for ports
-We will create realistic scenarios for these supplies which naturally will fall on government choices (nations/governors)

This will also lead to further improvements in the game by our side, like the ability to tweak NPC tax law.

All these are mostly explained in the long essay I wrote at the first topic and should signal the size and the complexity of the plantations feature.

[sXs]

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Once we reach the balancing point though, the following should happen:
-Trading will be more competitive and relevant to demand
-Demand will be relative to population and vis versa.
-Plantations will not have guaranteed profit to the end of time.
-Plantations will be dependent on fleets.
-There will be no absolute win routes, like we have now.
-There will be population growth/perish outside cards
-There will be demand for successful management of supplies for ports
-We will create realistic scenarios for these supplies which naturally will fall on government choices (nations/governors)

This will also lead to further improvements in the game by our side, like the ability to tweak NPC tax law.

All these are mostly explained in the long essay I wrote at the first topic and should signal the size and the complexity of the plantations feature.

This is exactly what I was trying to explain earlier. There will be a balance reached where all goods will basically sell for little profit and populations will become stagnant because fleets will not be able to supply demand for sustained growth and maintain it.

Trade profit will be cut in half if not more. Nations population will reach a balance based on the number of fleet that nation dedicates to resupply.

I fear this will take away the profit from trade and nations. Don't get me wrong, I want to see plantations and believe it is the next logical evolution, but with trade profit limited, nation profit limited, I fear many will get disillusioned with the game.

There needs to be a dependable revenue stream in the game. I think this is too much of a change for traders to take all at once.

I do not have a solution except maybe leaving current port production resources tied in the way they are. Akrotiri produces Rum, so you should always be able to buy rum in Akrotiri at a discounted price. The prices in all non producing ports can be subject to market pressures, but producing ports should always be discounted. That is actually real life scenario...... you can get an apple cheaper at the orchard than at the market.

[Captain Jack]

Feniks, have you actually spent some time to at least read my full reply above? It was destined to you and I expect you to at least read it fully before going through over the same things again.

To me, your stance is summarized in one line:
I fear that market warehouses will get full so then trading and plantations will be ruined.

If you think I got this right, then your answer is already replied above. Please read it carefully. What you mention in your last reply is 90% wrong, at the best case.

[sXs]

I did read and re-read it. I guess I am not explaining my point.

[Captain Jack]

Be my guest to rephrase if you mean anything different than the thought I summarized above.

Right now, we got 0 production and 0 ways to add stock.
Still, we lose all crates moved daily plus all resources consumed by players.

With plantations we will add production, with market prices we will keep stocks and with port population we will consume part of it.

[DezNutz]

Be my guest to rephrase if you mean anything different than the thought I summarized above.

Right now, we got 0 production and 0 ways to add stock.
Still, we lose all crates moved daily plus all resources consumed by players.

With plantations we will add production, with market prices we will keep stocks and with port population we will consume part of it.

Well that's not entirely true. Fishing is technically production, however, it doesn't add to the market for re-sale.

[sXs]

"The normal things you should expect are the following:
-Port populations drop
-Stocks in warehouses will drop
-Trading will be more profitable as time passes
-Plantations will have room for development and high importance"

Trading becomes more profitable to a point, at the cost of nation profitability, to boost nation profitability, you must remove trade ships from trading to supply nations . This reduces trade profit because you will have less fleets trading. As you stated, trade fleets can not keep up with demand so prices go up.

My point is trade fleet come off port resupply, which means population falls, which means demand falls, which means prices go down. I ran the scenario with Akrotiri Psaral route and port. I may not have everything in place because it is hard to judge a nations priority. IoM may focus on things other than boosting population while SKN may try and boost population to increase nation profit.

Yes it is a very gradual thing, but I believe prices of all goods will reach a balance like you said "There will be no absolute win routes, like we have now".

My fear is that will drive down game play.

I may be completely wrong, I admit that. No one can predict nation and trader priorities, but some will see no guaranteed routes for profit and may decide to move on.

The question I can not answer is how many fleets will each player will devote to port supply. Basically this renders these fleets as "throw aways". This forces port holding nations to provide fleets for this.

"This means that the ports alone, the npc part of the game, can consume 770M crates a day. This is a huge number. Why?
Because current cargo capacity sits at around 55M a day. Which means that there are not enough ships to meet this demand right now."

Short term trade prices go up at the expense of population. As population falls, nation revenue falls. As population falls, demand falls, prices drop, so trade revenue falls.

Unless I am missing something.

[Captain Jack]

You must remove trade ships from trading to supply nations

I think you are missing something here. Supplying ships are trade ships, generate the same revenue they generate now or more if they are on a mission (contract shipping).

You will not be removing ships to supply ports like it happens for Goldsmith. The supply will be in the form of selling. I am not sure if you realize this.

Here is how it currently works:
You sell Tools to Tzogos. These tools are sold for 20 gc each and they are stored to the port warehouse. At prices update, they are removed from the game.

This is how it will work:
You sell Tools to Tzogos. These tools are sold for 20gc each and they are stored to the port warehouse. At update, these will be consumed by the population based on the proposed formulas which will affect their growth.

Extra: A merchant will be able to make extra coin through nation bonus pay or contract shipping.