.635.1 [Question+suggestion] Economy and Production Values

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amade

amade

Grandmaster Knight
First part of the question... I was just wondering about this:

economic_data.jpg
economic_data_2.jpg

I thought I'd go about and see how the revamped economy works but I'm not sure I understand what these figures represent (0 experience in economic studies :razz:). If anyone can explain them in layman's terms I'd appreciate it much.



The second part of the question is how transparent will this be without cheat mode on? I know that players can ask villagers what they produce and guild masters what they lack... but all in all it'd be rather cumbersome to try and remember everything so borrowing a suggestion from some other thread I think it'd be great if when we ask villagers/GMs regarding the village's/town prosperity/production status it gets updated into the locations notes similar to how character notes are updated when you talk to minstrels or lords regarding other characters. No need to put in commodity price of course, as that would take up too much space. Just a list of produced and consumed/shortage goods would do.
 
That would be great... When I first started 1.011 I had a notepad for all the different places and thier exports/imports with a mean price. Pretty time consuming, but it was necessary till I got a feel for each town and good. This would make that much better, really add some flair to the trading aspect of the game.
 
It's not too transparent, yet.

Eventually, I would like characters to say, "Our 20 smithies produce tools that satisfy local demand several times over. Production is somewhat reduced by the moderately high price of iron. That, plus the demand from surrounding villages and towns, mean that the current price is relatively high."

To explain the system, the economic calculations actually do not use real supply-and-demand curves, but rather approximate the effects of supply and demand.

Goods are measured abstractly, using a measure which I would call the "utility unit", which is a term that does not exist in real economics, as far as I know. Basically, it represents a section of the average household's budget is set aside for the purchase of that item.

Your average town will require 40 units of grain and five units of spice, for example. This means that the townsfolk would spend eight times as much money on grain as they are on spice -- and, given the discrepancy in prices, would perhaps be purchasing 100+ times as much grain in volume. Production and consumption are both measured in utility units.

The health of the economy is represented by the price index, which also represent the availability of goods. The starting point for prices is 1000. Goods also have a base price, and the actual market price of the good is base price x price index / 1000.

Every few days, the price of a good increases by (approximately consumption x 4), and decreases by (production x 4). (It's assumed that merchants and households retain stores of most goods, so even if there is a huge discrepancy between production and consumption, it will take a while for it to affect the price). The price is also brought back to the index by 3%, so the maximum price differential will be (4 x 33.3) times the production/consumption discrepancy. Thus, wool cloth (average demand 20) will max out at (20 x 4 x 33.3) + 1000 if there is no production or trade at all = price index of 3650, = 3.65 x  the market price.

Very low prices depress production. Prosperity increases both production and consumption, as people are working harder, buying more, and there are lots of migrants in town. Shortages of raw materials decrease production.

Trade between centers (ie, a merchant or village visit) brings prices closer together. Merchants will seek out towns with the highest price discrepancies, so the best way to make a profit should be to go where other merchants are not going -- ie, because of war, banditry, or awkward geography.

The price that the player will pay is also affected by a trade penalty, which represents the player's ability to haggle, assess the value of goods and commodities, etc. To some degree, it represents the merchant's "home court" advantage -- ie, they know you need the good, because you showed up to buy it. The trade penalty is higher in villages than in towns, because in towns, you can shop around for different prices, but in villages, you usually can't.

"Capital" are the capital goods (ie, smithies, fishing boats, sheep) etc that produce either raw materials or consumer goods (tools, fish, wool and mutton sausage). (Technically tools are capital goods themselves, but we'll skip that for now).

I should add that this is basically Armagan's system. I had tried a system in Sicily which atracked the amount of each item produced, consumed, and stored. However, this way is much, much easier to balance, requires less CPU power to process, and does not seem to lose anything in terms of how it affects the player's experience of the game.
 
Woa! is this implemented? Man, you guys are really working hard... This looks real good. Nice job Armagan, Nijis and whoever else helped doing that :wink:
 
Cor... that's impressive really. I'm going to have to reread it several times to make sure I really understand it.

Many thanks for the explanation! I may have some more questions later on though :grin:
 
nijis said:
* Town walkers have each been assigned a trade, based on what the town produces
Click to expand...

Just noticed this and was wondering what it meant. I assume that obviously now we have a good reason to walk around town and ask them about a particular trade :grin:

However, I was wondering if these walkers can have an effect on the trade themselves, e.g. possibly due to our interaction with them we can manipulate market prices or goods production...
 
I don't really are for that idea. I feel the player already has a significant advantage over the AI in this regard and I don't think anymore direct power would be good for the economy challenge.
 
daumor said:
I don't really are for that idea. I feel the player already has a significant advantage over the AI in this regard and I don't think anymore direct power would be good for the economy challenge.
Click to expand...

I was thinking of something subtle, like making investments in certain industries or offering subsidies to increase caravan visits (for supplies)... things that can help improve trade but carry risks, not talking about the sabotaging the enemy's economy idea.
 
nijis said:
The health of the economy is represented by the price index, which also represent the availability of goods. The starting point for prices is 1000. Goods also have a base price, and the actual market price of the good is base price x price index / 1000.

Every few days, the price of a good increases by (approximately consumption x 4), and decreases by (production x 4). (It's assumed that merchants and households retain stores of most goods, so even if there is a huge discrepancy between production and consumption, it will take a while for it to affect the price). The price is also brought back to the index by 3%, so the maximum price differential will be (4 x 33.3) times the production/consumption discrepancy. Thus, wool cloth (average demand 20) will max out at (20 x 4 x 33.3) + 1000 if there is no production or trade at all = price index of 3650, = 3.65 x  the market price.

Very low prices depress production. Prosperity increases both production and consumption, as people are working harder, buying more, and there are lots of migrants in town. Shortages of raw materials decrease production.

Trade between centers (ie, a merchant or village visit) brings prices closer together. Merchants will seek out towns with the highest price discrepancies, so the best way to make a profit should be to go where other merchants are not going -- ie, because of war, banditry, or awkward geography.
Click to expand...

Wait, I have a question...

If I ( or someone) pillages a few villages around a town witch buys something really expensive, it would increase its price or decrease it?
Or the other way around, if I increase its prosperity, then the prices will rise or get lower, or normal?

Cuz I don't really pillage them, but if I could get petter prices of this, it would be awesome!

Then, if pillaging decreases p
 
nijis said:
It's not too transparent, yet.

Eventually, I would like characters to say, "Our 20 smithies produce tools that satisfy local demand several times over. Production is somewhat reduced by the moderately high price of iron. That, plus the demand from surrounding villages and towns, mean that the current price is relatively high."
Click to expand...
Such transparency in dialog way will be very atmospheric. But from my point of view the main weakness  of economics in 1.011 and still in 1.6x, that players does not feel effect of changes. They come to cites and there are always a lot of goods. The price only changes for trade goods, and in not noticeable from most players at late part of game. Reinforcements for cities and newly respawn lords do not take into account and not influence local production.

I know there is some changes already (or on the way) between lords wealth and their armies but it revealed monetary aspect of economy.
Something should urge player on going to streets and asking what's going about commodity aspect.
Something more easily noticeable then just price of tradegoods. It can be quantiles, quality or price (or all together) of equipment in cities. Strength (eg, connected with overall weaponry production) and  number (eg, connected with prosperity) of AI reinforcement, speed of improving AI armies near cities with different economic situation, especially if AI will try to seek more suitable places for recruiting and upgrading.

Getting  remark from characters, “Long time of peace and prosperity attract a lot of migrants, but
last war activities devastated neighbourhoods and cut the city off  form supply of raw material. We have a lot of people to protect but we can't  equip them well.”
while visiting again after long time of wars well know city surrounded now by looted villages and had only crap weapon in shops and too bad proportion of recruits in garrison and among streets guards will probably causes players feel deeper economical consequences of events in the game.
 
If I ( or someone) pillages a few villages around a town witch buys something really expensive, it would increase its price or decrease it?
Click to expand...

Pillaged villages should cause prices near the towns to rise. If the village is a major center of production for all Calradia, then it should (eventually) cause prices everywhere to rise.

But from my point of view the main weakness  of economics in 1.011 and still in 1.6x, that players does not feel effect of changes.
Click to expand...

It should be possible to add more ways in which players notice the effects of disrupted trade.
 
amade said:
daumor said:
I don't really are for that idea. I feel the player already has a significant advantage over the AI in this regard and I don't think anymore direct power would be good for the economy challenge.
Click to expand...

I was thinking of something subtle, like making investments in certain industries or offering subsidies to increase caravan visits (for supplies)... things that can help improve trade but carry risks, not talking about the sabotaging the enemy's economy idea.
Click to expand...

This implies quite a bit of potential, especially if the AI sims this behavior. I really like these things, especially if there is monetary risk.
 
nijis said:
With the bugfinder, this struck me as possibly an easier format to record changes. In some cases, I will have added new features, which may in turn cause new bugs.


* Trade penalty is higher in villages, and prices are set no lower than in the market towns
Click to expand...

This seems an awful thing. And counter intuitive, imo. Really they are the the producers of raw materials, so excepting finished goods, that's the source and would be cheaper.
 
that's the source and would be cheaper.
Click to expand...

Except the villagers aren't fools. They plan on travelling to the town in the near future anyway, which is basically a routine trip, so why would they sell to a passer-by at a cheaper price?

When you go into a village, there is not supposed to be a permanent market. Rather, you're asking around to buy things. Anyone with stuff to sell will realize that it's a sellers market.

I could mitigate the effect a bit so that if there has been a recent bandit attack, or if the town is under siege, the villagers willl sell at the local price.
 
nijis said:
Except the villagers aren't fools. They plan on travelling to the town in the near future anyway, which is basically a routine trip, so why would they sell to a passer-by at a cheaper price?

When you go into a village, there is not supposed to be a permanent market. Rather, you're asking around to buy things. Anyone with stuff to sell will realize that it's a sellers market.
Click to expand...

If our passer is a trader, this would be a buyer's market. He's hoping to secure some cheap produce that he can sell at a high margin. He's not desperate to buy, and will have considered coming away empty-handed as part of the risk of the potential deal. He will know the town merchant's price, and will certainly be looking for a lower price. He will also have an idea of the price the merchant pays, and be looking for a similar amount (depending on quantity of course). He will also consider the removal of risk and expense of travel to the villager, and look for a discount.

The villager doesn't care who buys his produce, unless he has an agreement with a merchant in town to deliver a certain amount. If the passer-by is willing to pay an amount that is roughly what he would gain from doing business in town, then why would the villager reject the business? He wouldn't. He gets the money, and doesn't have to inconvenience himself with delivery in town. Now, the exact price is a little more complicated, but it will certainly be less than what is paid in town.

However, if our passer-by is a leader looking to feed his troops, then it is a seller's market, and the villager will disregard offering a competitive price unless the passer-by is willing to go to town. It's unlikely that the passer-by would go to town though, as consumers are obviously going to be far less fussy on price than a trader. In the case of a lord, he will probably just buy from towns anyway to get the quanitity he needs.

Now, if the argument was for sake of balance rather than realism, I still think village prices can still be lower (for traders anyway), because villages don't offer the quantity that towns offer, and villages usually offer goods with a low profit margin. A trader isn't going to get rich trading bread, wheat and cabbages :lol:.

Another issue I have with the trading system is goods becoming more expensive when buying in bulk. The only reason a merchant would charge higher prices for bulk is if selling the additional produce is costing him in some way (such as supply to regular customers). Remember that trading skill factors in, so the matter of a merchant haggling over limited inventory should already be factored in.
 
Zaro said:
Another issue I have with the trading system is goods becoming more expensive when buying in bulk. The only reason a merchant would charge higher prices for bulk is if selling the additional produce is costing him in some way (such as supply to regular customers). Remember that trading skill factors in, so the matter of a merchant haggling over limited inventory should already be factored in.
Click to expand...

This has always bothered me. Prices really shouldn't change on a item per item basis. Prices would be based off of long term trends of supply.
 
Man you've got trading issues... I'll try to explain.

Zaro said:
nijis said:
Except the villagers aren't fools. They plan on travelling to the town in the near future anyway, which is basically a routine trip, so why would they sell to a passer-by at a cheaper price?

When you go into a village, there is not supposed to be a permanent market. Rather, you're asking around to buy things. Anyone with stuff to sell will realize that it's a sellers market.
Click to expand...

If our passer is a trader, this would be a buyer's market. He's hoping to secure some cheap produce that he can sell at a high margin. He's not desperate to buy, and will have considered coming away empty-handed as part of the risk of the potential deal. He will know the town merchant's price, and will certainly be looking for a lower price. He will also have an idea of the price the merchant pays, and be looking for a similar amount (depending on quantity of course). He will also consider the removal of risk and expense of travel to the villager, and look for a discount.

The villager doesn't care who buys his produce, unless he has an agreement with a merchant in town to deliver a certain amount. If the passer-by is willing to pay an amount that is roughly what he would gain from doing business in town, then why would the villager reject the business? He wouldn't. He gets the money, and doesn't have to inconvenience himself with delivery in town. Now, the exact price is a little more complicated, but it will certainly be less than what is paid in town.
Click to expand...

Ok, what is a village for? Villages are the towns, and centers suppliers, they supply all of the local goods, so they DO have an arrangement with the towns, thats why you only find really little stuff in there. That is how they survive, not because of tourist and merchants, there ain't such a thing in Mount and Blade (maybe in some mods it could be found, but not in native). Villages send their goods to towns, that is how they make money. And if you go passing by there, and will buy stuff from them, they will sell it more expensively thant they would to the town, just to make a profit out of it.

Zaro said:
Now, if the argument was for sake of balance rather than realism, I still think village prices can still be lower (for traders anyway), because villages don't offer the quantity that towns offer, and villages usually offer goods with a low profit margin. A trader isn't going to get rich trading bread, wheat and cabbages :lol:.
Click to expand...

I believe it is for the sake of balance, if you don't like it, well, you know there is always the "Zaro's ultimate trading Mod for Mount and Blade" option xD.

Zaro said:
Another issue I have with the trading system is goods becoming more expensive when buying in bulk. The only reason a merchant would charge higher prices for bulk is if selling the additional produce is costing him in some way (such as supply to regular customers). Remember that trading skill factors in, so the matter of a merchant haggling over limited inventory should already be factored in.
Click to expand...

This actually should change, the less they have, the more they want out of each. Same otherwise, the more they have, the less they will pay for it.

But yes, it would be really useful to be able to buy at a merchants price, say, instead of 30 Smoked Fishes at 20 to 60 denars each, 30 units at 30 denars each. It would give the game a bit more trading easiness, but for me its ok like this, for now. But if we never try then we will never know xD.
 
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