I keep hearing how this or that good or tech has been undersupplied or oversupplied in Express, such that this/that strat does horribly. I thought "why not merge the public markets of several servers so as to allow sales between servers".

Then I realized that would allow alliances on alli server to send aid to express countries, and similar forms of cheating, and dropped it.

But what if instead you set up a bot to buy and sell goods on the different public markets at market-clearing prices where a surplus/shortage existed, like a real-life arbitrageur?

This would remove some of the market-scale problems in express and tourney without allowing people to send "aid packages" across servers.

It might also make oilers viable in X server while wars are occurring in alliance or FFA

Well unless I am mistaken all of the tourney markets are already linked.

I think there are two separate tourney markets.

When an express reset starts, there is nothing on the public market to buy because no one can sell in protection. If an "arbitrage" system were established, express players could immediately buy imported tech/food/oil from alliance, primary, or FFA at realistic prices that changed whenever game mechanics in those servers changed.

Also, during the course of a month-long+ reset, prices change due to tech accumulation, stocking/destocking, etc. If those markets were connected to X by arbitrage, it would add variety to the week-long express resets, with farmers/oilers/techers doing better/worse in x resets corresponding to different parts of the longer resets.

Likewise, express countries could react more quickly to changes in alliance/FFA server prices, stabilizing their markets.

If game reset times were staggered correctly, there would never be a time when the public market on any server was empty, barring temporary good-and-server-specific buyouts.

TTT

Seriously, at least link express to alliance so there'll be some variety from set to set...

Someone will run buyouts eventually and ruin it. Not plausible IMO

arbs could space their sales across time to make it more difficult, and they'd be selling at the highest price they could get so a buyout would rarely be profitable anyway

This idea has much merit. If we tie it into certain limits. Based on times for turns and stuff it wouldn't work however linking primary to alliance should work. Same set length similar mechanics. Team and tourney would work and ffa and express have no match. Because of the ffa server being influenced by having 16 countries u could do buyouts to help ur alliance country far too easily. With only one country there is no huge advantage if the base prices are raised

Not very Viable IMO.


If the game grows so will the market.

I agree w/ Maki - the volatility right now isn't because of the approach to the market, it's because of the small player base. With the #'s we're at now, there's almost always going to be one or two under/over supplied items that wreak havoc on the market.

War usually adjusts the market on alliance as players change strat to meet market demand.

If we doubled the player base there probably wouldn't be shortages :D

This suggested system has a flaw if there is a buy out in a larger market, it will cause havoc on the smaller markets. it is an interesting idea though.

Under normal conditions, when the larger server market will have lower prices there will be increased supply and lower prices in the smaller servers. However a buy out, though more difficult (expensive), would suck the smaller servers dry or raise the price in those servers to match the higher price in server being bought out.

I don't think you'd necessarily see any loss of shortages with a doubled playerbase. You'd also have to account for the doubled demand. The only thing it would do, is help stifle clan-based market buyouts, and that is worth the entire argument. Whether they're attempting to eliminate military as an anti-retaliatory tactic, or they're attempting to clear absurdly priced goods in an effort to "FA" a particular person(s), it would make it doubly difficult. That's a good thing.

I was thinking that this would make Express more interesting, because Express prices would vary depending on the stage of the game in alliance/primary, varying which strats were more successful in X: wars in alliance would drive up oil prices in X, giving oilers a good chance at a high finish, while tech and bushel sell-offs in end-reset pri/ally servers would cause unusually low prices of said items in X for an entire five-day reset.

Introducing interesting variations in each Express reset, while stabilizing markets in other servers.

Differences in turn times wouldn't matter much actually. And lag in arb sales would compensate somewhat for the differences in market times.

imagine an alliance planning to war, they make each member make 16 oilers in FFA. and through orders, gets themselves cheap oil over on alliance.

or cheap tech

cheap oil/tech would be available for purchase by everyone, including the alliance's enemies.

nhb: market orders would prevent that if set low enuf.

And why wouldn't every demo in the game have standing orders for oil that low?
And even if there weren't enough large orders routinely on the market to absorb a large volume of underpriced oil, any hint of tension between alliances would spur a dramatic increase.

ttt