Market/Gold Bar Fees changes

[Captain Jack]

Greetings everyone,

Due to a bug that has been found and reported earlier, we rushed the gold bar formula update that we promised before.

The new formula is now:

Gold Bars Price = -0.01*Market Stock + 3000

The new formula will allow up to 225K per market before gold bars reach their minimum price.
The formula update, has changed all market prices upwards.

The bug that has been reported, indicated that due to Warehouse Tycoon (and to a lesser extend, Indian Companies) could push the gold bars market to generate gold coins out of it. Thankfully, no mass exploitation was possible but it could lead to full the coffers of a nation through tax. This is why more reforms have been decided:

-Gold Bars market fee has risen to 2.75% (Previously 2.5%, v1.0 was 3% though).
-Nation Tax for Gold bars is now 0.75% (Previously 1%)
-To balance it (and even buff it in comparison to current state) we also decided to increase the Tax Rate on all other goods. This is now at 5% (previously 1%). In future, Governors will be able to tweak this.

-Also, we had to reduce Duke title bonus for gold bars to 2% (from 2.5%) to ensure no exploitation can take place.

Now, if all are correct (let us know if not), the best case scenario is:

Gold Bars Sale Price = Base Price + 2.75% Market Fee - 2.5% Warehouse Tycoon Fee => Extra price of 0.25%
Out of this, 0.75% goes to the Nation.

So, for 3000 Base price this will look like:
3000 + 82.5 - 75 = 3008gc (slightly wrong as every percentage is calculated after the last amount, affected by the previous % - just doing this fast)
22gc to Nation Coffers through Tax

Then, if the same gold bar is sold back:
Base Price - 2.75% Market Fee + 2% Duke Bonus => 3000 - 82.5 + 60 = 2977
Profit: -31
Profit if tax goes to his pocket: -9

----

If he sells the Gold Bar to another Market with indian Bonuses:
Base Price - 2.75% Market Fee + 2% Duke Bonus + 2.5% = 3000 - 82.5 + 60 + 75 = 3052
Profit = 75
Profit if tax goes to his pocket: 99

Real Case scenario
Tortuga 2456
Tzogos 2390

Egyptian Duke Buys from Tzogos 750 Crates with Warehouse Tycoon lvl 20 and uses an Automatic Trade Route (5xTrade Galleon) to Sell them to Tortuga (With Spanish Indian Company)

Result
-------
Purchase cost = 2390 + 2.75% - 2.5% = 2460gc per crate (1,847,820 total)
Sale Cost = 2456 - 2.75% + 2% + 2.5% = 2496gc per crate (about 1,872,000)
Profit for travel: About 24k

A well planned trade route should score about 400k per fleet (or 16M a day for 200 ships).

It seems that once Gold Fleets are plenty, we will start flagging them at the gossip page or they will be too profitable.

[Most Lee Harmless]

So, the fleet earns 400k per day on this route : one skirmish loss will cost the trader 1,847,820 in GB cost : or 4.75 days worth of earnings : so yep, I see why gold shipments would need flagging up on gossip page, severe and unwelcome danger of profit being made by the wrong persons, as in, the one who built and invested in their warehouses, fleets, hideout, goldsmith, Academy and did the research, etc... *shakes head sadly..

Let's be realistic here : if every gold bar shipment I send out is flagged up for all to see, attack and steal : just how can I rely on doing that as an income source? I could set my trade route, log-off for a few hours and return to see 5 subsequent shipments lost : after all, it would not take any kind of skill or cleverness to hit a flagged fleet knowing it is carrying phat plunder : just how many bars need shipping to cover 5 lost consignments? And that's all before a single coin profit can be made that day. That's insanity and I wont be doing such : so, turn off the GS save for my own production needs and write-off the billions invested in it as yet another gold sink.

I fail to see the logic here : or perhaps I do : but appeasing the instant-joy brigade does require sufficient targets for them to get their jollies hitting before the X-box calls. Maybe logic then requires that the game should be encouraging players to generate coin to be stolen, not this drip-drip of mean-hearted straight-jacketing in which ANY profit made must be handed over with minimum effort to the adrenalin-hooked minority and never-ever enjoyed by the ones who actually generate it.

A game with 100's of piratically-minded raiders all chasing a few bovine-minded traders is going to be terribly dull. Mainly cos the bovine traders wont last long enough to keep the rush of daily hits going for them all.

[Haron]

Flagging gold bar fleets will make gold bar trading extremely risky. One must EXPECT to be skirmished five times a day.

In my opinion, the problem with gold bars is that they can be bought and sold in every port. Combine that with the huge difference between people who are dukes with max warehouse tycoon tech, and those without, and it becomes very difficult to have rules where trading in gold makes sense to the latter, but is not too profitable for the former.

[Most Lee Harmless]

Flagging gold bar fleets will make gold bar trading extremely risky. One must EXPECT to be skirmished five times a day.

In my opinion, the problem with gold bars is that they can be bought and sold in every port. Combine that with the huge difference between people who are dukes with max warehouse tycoon tech, and those without, and it becomes very difficult to have rules where trading in gold makes sense to the latter, but is not too profitable for the former.

The problem is the one port they can NOT be sold in is the one in which they are made : for ANY sort of trade to exist, the makers MUST ship them elsewhere : make that shipping liable to such high loss-rates makes it untenable : ergo, no shipping, no trade.

[Haron]

That seems like a GOOD thing to me, I like the "no shipping no sale". Another rule that was buried too deep for me to find. Very nice to know, though...

[Most Lee Harmless]

That seems like a GOOD thing to me, I like the "no shipping no sale". Another rule that was buried too deep for me to find. Very nice to know, though...

Its only good as long as a relatively safe means to transport them can be found : I dont consider flagging them for all to see on the Gossip page to be relatively safe. If your GB fleet manages 12 outbound legs per day then up to 5 of those could be hit and lost : That's a nasty attrition rate to be contemplating when there will be no way to hide or conceal them : shoot/fish/barrel comes to mind. You'd have to be fairly cavalier to even consider sending out fleets under that level of risk. I suppose you could do it all manually, use instant travel and minimise the danger but who is so committed to trading bars as to to be doing that every day? Those who have already invested billions in their Goldsmiths and, silly mares, might like to trade some bars to recover that investment? That's nice for them, I'm sure.

Profit drives this game : someone, somewhere, has to be making it for it to be stolen. No pirate ever got rich robbing poor people. But what we seem to increasingly see is a pathological hatred of those who make it : some envious fear which demands traders must not only not make any profits, but somehow, by some mysterious alchemy, still carry fat purses to be plundered, still build mass fleets to be stolen, still build high-level banks to store our gold in, still build goldsmiths to make bars, still send out million gc cargo's to be skirmished and yet they must still be excoriated and guilt-tripped into quiescent and grateful acceptance of their losses cos, you know, they make soooooo much money!

[Haron]

Well, I can't say I completely agree with the ranting part of your post, but I DO agree that flagging gold fleets is a bad idea

As for the rest of your comment, I think there was a thread once where the profits of "traders" vs "pirates" was discussed. Basically, it is rather clear that traders make more gold than pirates, but in my opinion, that is necessary. However, the balance must not become TOO skewed. Nor must it be shifted so that pirates start outearning their targets, however, which I fear might be the consequenses of flagging gold fleets. And I say that even as I think I'm the second largest "skirmisher" in the game right now.

[Meliva]

I suppose one way to attempt to avoid loss of gold bar fleets is to make sure they have a good escort. such as a level 10 SotL, or a large frigate. but while that would defeat lesser fleets such as cutters and sloops, a couple large frigates could still over power them. the only way I can think of is to make gold fleets safe(ish) is to make them high class warships with cutter tails, 3 large frigs, 2 cutters. but that's an expensive precaution, and even then it can still be defeated against another war fleet.

although I suppose alternatively if you make a cutter fleet transport gold bars, you can save turns if you do the instant travel method. but again, expensive to do, and time consuming.

but yeah having gold fleets flagged is a terrible idea in my opinion.

[Haron]

Big ships would be one strategy, Meliva. Another might be to make a lot of one-cutter fleets. More or less giving away 4 cutters worth of gold bars (120 gold bars) each day, due to 5 skirmish attacks, of which on average one would fail. That would obviously only make sense for the really large traders, though; those who would still be making a nice profit even after losing 120 gold bars each day. But if Capain Jack's estimate of 16M profit a day with 200 ships is correct, those people could afford such a strategy. I have no idea if that number holds, though. And anyway I don't think flagging these fleets is a good idea. It would make gold trading even more excluse for the "big guys" only.

Like I said earlier, I think the problem here is that it becomes very difficult to make gold trading possible for everyone, yet not overly profitable for the biggest players. With all the bonuses possible to max players, along with max gold smiths, that tradeoff seems almost impossible. I guess it is possible to just accept that gold trading only should make sense for the biggest players, though, and set the rules according to that, which would mean that to small players, trading in gold bars would never be profitable.

[Meliva]

Big ships would be one strategy, Meliva. Another might be to make a lot of one-cutter fleets. More or less giving away 4 cutters worth of gold bars (120 gold bars) each day, due to 5 skirmish attacks, of which on average one would fail. That would obviously only make sense for the really large traders, though; those who would still be making a nice profit even after losing 120 gold bars each day. But if Capain Jack's estimate of 16M profit a day with 200 ships is correct, those people could afford such a strategy. I have no idea if that number holds, though. And anyway I don't think flagging these fleets is a good idea. It would make gold trading even more excluse for the "big guys" only.

Like I said earlier, I think the problem here is that it becomes very difficult to make gold trading possible for everyone, yet not overly profitable for the biggest players. With all the bonuses possible to max players, along with max gold smiths, that tradeoff seems almost impossible. I guess it is possible to just accept that gold trading only should make sense for the biggest players, though, and set the rules according to that, which would mean that to small players, trading in gold bars would never be profitable.

making 1 cutter fleets as bait would help, but odds are the raiders would eventually catch on, and learn which fleet to target. you could rearrange them each day to always keep the raiders guessing, but that would be quite time consuming.