Port Population Consumption & Growth Rate (Small)

[Shadowood]

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.

Supplying Nations - It is my understanding that you will still be selling goods to a market for consumption. So a trader will still make revenue this way. It just might not be as profitable as some trade routes and for sure not party routes.

[sXs]

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.

I did not account for contract shipping. I did not believe this was part of the in initial upgrade.

But do you see my point? Initially trade will flourish, I admit that. We will reach a point where demand will out weigh supply. This means population will start to fall, which means demand will start to fall, which means prices start to fall, nation revenue start to fall. They are all tied together.

The only way to counter that is to oversupply a port at reduced price to increase population. Maybe this is where the contract shipping can come into play. Most will not transport goods to receive a reduced price. Is this not correct?

[William one eye]

I feel like this could possibly address Feniks concern, that eventually there will be nothing to drive the markets.
If I am understanding his concern correctly.

Would it not make sense and help drive the need for population to make port production a function of population.

functions I think should factor

higher population = higher consumption
higher population = higher production
population to low = no production
citizen taxes to high = population decline
citizen taxes to low = population boom

Nation set production tax that affects market price
nation set import / export tax that affects market prices

The drive becomes nations desire to collect taxes on citizens, production and cargo
Driving the nation to encourages a aggressive market place and desire to maintain a population.
The goal would be balancing your tax rates and population will make your nations market competitive.

Sorry if I overlapped things, missed something, I think I read everything but it is now spread out in three threads.
I just feel like this is one ended and I don't see the driver for the markets if port production does not vary.

[Shadowood]

One other counter to possible loss of trade profits, is Nations being allowed to change the NPC tax on citizens.

Now CJ did mention somewhere this tax will have an effect on the population. I can only assuming, HIGH TAX will make population decrease at x rate, while a LOW TAX might make population increase...

We have to wait to see what CJ has in mind here. Unless he can share now.

[sXs]

This is a question not a comment.

If I understand it correctly.

The only way to raise prices on goods is to in crease population which increases demand. To increase population you need to oversupply the port at the reduced price.

It seems this is a no win scenario. To get more money for the goods you trade you must first trade them at a lower price?

Is this scenario correct?

I must still be missing something....

Hnestly the more I am thinking about it the more confused i get......

[sXs]

It isn't so much of a concern as a question.

I truly believe I am missing something.

Also, if a port produces rum, will it still be discounted? That one thing alone will fix most of my questions. Discount should be large enough to ensure at least some profitability, but small enough to ensure all traders do not flock to that port instead of plantation activities.

Maybe cut the discount rate(base price) by half of what it is now, but still have a discount rate for port produced products?

[William one eye]

To clarify my intent

A nation that wanted to be able to offer the best cargo price for their product, would need a substantial workforce to generate enough cargo to sell
it at a good price. This workforce will require citizens that can be taxed. The production and workforce would need supplies and food.
So nations with larger work forces would need to offer better buy prices to encourage shippers to move cargo to their port instead of another
port. This all comes with an ability to tax cargo and maybe production. If a port fails to draw enough trade in their production would slow and population shrink. If a nation draws to much trade it will collapse their market, until consumption uses the excess cargo. With a collapsed market
a nations production would go into excess because traders would not want to bring cargo, unless they were getting a deal on that ports cargo that was to good to pass up. I feel this would continually drive markets.

[sXs]

CJ, I am not trying to be argumentative at all. I really want plantations to be the best thing to come to the game to date. I just see scenarios where it is lose/lose. They may not come to fruition because different players/ nations have different priorities, but the possibility is there, at least as I see it now, for all ports to buy/sell Rum for exactly the same price.

[Yekin]

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.

With party trading unless I can buy those tools for 9 gc and still sell them for 20 the fleets I assign to port supply will in effect still be throw away fleets... I also doubt the ability of a nation to supplement it in a meaningful enough way at least for me to consider it worth the effort for any nation other than my own.

[sXs]

I just want it to be the best it can be when released. With every upgrade comes a few bugs and unforeseen scenarios, so tweaks will be needed. That is understandable. Just raising concerns about some of the scenarios i see as possible.