i've seen goods sold well below private market sale prices on express, i.e. $1/oil. this looks like a very bad keyboard error or more probably an attempt to pass resources between players using market orders and lowball sale prices. i think that might be "outside the rules" on a solo server.

could we change the market sales mechanism to check for a better pm price before delivering goods to market? perhaps erroring out the operation with a message would be the easiest to code, or maybe just instantly sell them to the pm. but this would prevent disasterous pilot error as well as prevent the apperance of cheating on solo servers

[bonus]

(~¿~)

Plus 1

sure but game shouldn't fix user errors.

there is precedent in game on the buy side - if you try to buy items on the public market that are cheaper on the pm, you get them from the pm at the pm price, unless you change this behaviour using a toggle in the preferences

perhaps we could make a symetric mechanism on the sell side

but this [SUG] was mostly about a graceful way to stop egregious market cheating; using this approach, we would need to add the code for the auto pm sell side functionality, add the item to the prefernces menu, and then disable the new feature on solo servers ... which i can see as a nicer way to fold this idea into the current user interface

The market is supposed to auto-buy up stuff below X price for each good

(and does, i think?)

it does - atleast for oil I know it does

Yes but is it auto buying it for $1? Even though the priveat market sale price is $29? I think its in ok idea, maybe it can sell for $29 then instead of $1. Any time any one sells under their private market sale price.

this was my main concern:

at some point when there is no active offer for bushels on the board, player A posts an offer for 100,000,000 bushels at $5

later in the set, with plenty of offers at $35, $36 ... and bushels selling much higher, player B coludes with player A to boost player A's finish by selling 50 m bushels for $5 ... which player A will recieve via the market -- eventhough player B's private market net sell price would yield at least 400% more than the "deal" with player A ...

on solo servers, this seems out of bounds to me

or am i mistaken about how this functions?

Just as Earf said- There's really no reason that food or oil should be allowed to sell below their private market price. Especially since with your PM you get the funds instantly and w/o sales tax.

This should nvr happen:

May 8, 17:00 May 8, 18:00 $1 $155 $13.61 2,229,080

thanks for finding a "smoking gun" in a market history ... average price $13 on 2m+ oil ...

this was the last express set? perhaps an admin could research this sale for collusion or pilot error or whimsy?

regardless, i'm for a simple fix if we can get it

thanks again Celphi and thanks for everyone's attention

:)

Yes, you are mistaken how this funcitons.

a) If goods are sold below a certain price (3/4 of the base PM sell price), the *MARKET ITSELF* gets first dibs at them, before they even hit the market, and simply buys them. No player has a chance at any of these goods. This floor is thus $21 for bushels, in theory, you're welcome to test it, your goods should be bought in less than a couple minutes from selling at that price.

b) Even *IF* the floor *weren't* there (or say you try to transfer at $23 bushels), the way standing orders work is that, if your order is unfulfilled for rand(72,96) hours, your order gets recycled to the back of the queue. Thus, unless you do your transfer in less than 3 days (which i suppose *could* be a concern for express), your order will not necessarily first up. And that's *ASSUMING* you were the *very* first person to put up an order. Somebody else could easily have put up an order for 1000000000000 bushels at $28 and get them before you anyway.

The reason I think there's no floor, is because every set this stuff happens.

OIL
May 8, 17:00 May 8, 18:00 $1 $155 $13.61 2,229,080
May 9, 08:00 May 9, 09:00 $19 $19 $19.00 377,548

Bushels
May 8, 17:00 May 8, 18:00 $1 $38 $30.99 8,924,931
May 9, 08:00 May 9, 09:00 $19 $37 $33.85 7,693,464

I do know that tech has a floor of 1000 which is reasonable; but why not set the floor of bushels at the Private Market of the seller?
We already have a function which *buys* the cheaper goods. Perhaps we could do the same with selling? (Particularly bushels and oil).

whattabout standing orders? do those get under min price goodies? i think yes.

No, because the market should buyt them before they even get put on market...

qzjul is right off course. But I still think it should autobuy at private market price.

What is the point of allowing Fascist to sell food for $26 on public market? This ia above the autobuy point. But is also below his private market sale. It should just sell instantly and say ":You sold the food for $29 on your pivate market." You know?

I dunno why you'd want to do that. I don't know why you'd want to destroy all your construction sites and drop all your land. But we do allow it, why not?

Because destroying your CS only affects your country, but selling on the public market below PM prices affects everyone.

I agree Cellphi!

Ya, but you can only sell at 3/4 your PM price anyways

Here's an example Qzjul of why 3/4th doesn't work.

Base PM price = $29
Base PM price for Theo = $23
Base PM price for theo w/ max military bases = $17

$17 (3/4) = $13

A theo thus can sell their food as low as $13 on market with Demo buying and reselling at $36. Almost trippling their income.

Theo farmer stocks millions of food-> destroys farms -> makes all MBs -> Demo makes SO -> Theo sells on market -> Demo autobuys it.

There should be a flat base line for all govts, including Theo.
This same exploit can be used with oil as well.

Another reason:
Allowing any govt to sell (at / below) the $29 food mark on public, prevents ALL farmers from selling on public. This is basically what the bots are doing, but, the OP is mostly identifying players who are exploiting the system.

Extra:: I would imagine the exploit with food could be used on FFA and ALLIANCE as well.

thanks to all so far and especially for the skooling on how the market mechasims actually operate - the thing about standing offers being recycled to the back of the line after 72 hours was a brand new wrinkle for me

with respect to the idea that some country structures, like the theo farmer above, have a unique capacity to supress commodity prices can be seen as a special ability, like a demo that can act like a central bank and cash out unlimited public bushels at $36 at no cost to itself; the player lowballing the market could be trying to suffocate other players from needed cash (especially true before the market recall option was introduced)
-------
my current questions:

are the low price limits as they exist today sufficient to prevent unfair exploitation (cheating) on solo servers? generally?

do they work as advertised?

might there be enough interest to just go ahead and change things to mimic the auto-buy-from-pm funtionality that already exists?


i don't have time in real life to play express this week, but i will make a country to help do some experiments - private message me if you want to help me or need help checking something

:)

Another issue:


Time start Time end Min sold price Max sold price Avg price Total volume
May 13, 04:00 May 13, 08:00 $120 $240 $164.74 49,303
May 13, 08:00 May 13, 12:00 $95 $320 $130.85 79,743

$320 for food on public market?

why not? seen even higher.

It does this, actually; it's 3/4 the base, not government specific.



You wouldn't actually have to be demo to benefit from that, and *EVERY* player could benefit, with an SO :)

1) I think so; I'd definitely welcome somebody telling me if they can actually do a workable exploit of this.

I understand Celphi's concerns about bots undercutting the market; strictly speaking that's not an exploit, it's just non-human behaviour, which I'll be changing sometime in the near future, hopefully.

2) I believe they work as advertised, yes; these things have been tested for sure.

3) I'm not sure what this would solve exactly. I'm not sure I see how there's an actual problem

first experiments with lowball market sells

these experiments were performed in the current express set using a monarchy unmodified by military bases or technology

bushels were auto-bought at $24 and sold to standing offer at $25
oil was auto-bought at $12 and sold to standing offer at $13

i have not found the minimum auto-buy price for mil units, but have confirmed standing offer buys at

troops $30
jets $40
turrets $42
tanks $120

the goods always go to the end of their arrival timer before being sold
the price received was always the asking price minus market commission

this appears exploitable to me in a colusion to boost a particular player

buying substantial numbers of mil units at those prices seems problematic to me in itself
oil bought at $13 allows for a $60/barrel instant profit selling back to the private market at $73 (demo with mil tech)

collusion using these exploits does seems possible and material in my opinion

i will continue as time permits and plan to change to theo and build mbs as future experiments
but i did want to get this posted for commentary and to encourage others to experiment and ponder

thanks!
:)

Explain to me how you'd collude in this case?

Remember, if there's an SO for $40 for bushels, and an SO for $25 for bushels, and bushels come on at $25, whichever is at the front of the queue gets first dibs -- and then is immediately put at the back of the queue again. And unfilled SO's get put to the back of the queue after rand(72,96) hours

@qzjul:

My guess is he waited for the server to start and was first to make SO at $26. Nobody sells that low for food, and unfilled SOs really have no effect on EXPRESS because 72hrs is 3/4 of the set. Even if it did, there's probably only 2 ppl who actually make SOs for food. Making SOs only boost up price, so most players on EXPRESS avoid making them.

He'd have to be the first person to put up an SO *at or above* $26; which is possible i suppose.

The SOs are usually empty for the first day. I've seen some players set tech SOs at $500 (showing me they're confusing the rules of other servers with EXPRESS). Nevertheless SOs on EXPRESS are typically some low balling price. Only when a particular good has been missing on market for a long period of time do people start to panic and have SO bidding wars.

sos might be empty on soloservers but not on alliance-servers.

experimental data on standing offer price minimums, this set, express server

troops $28
jets $37
turrets $40
tanks $111
bushels $25
oil $13

units sold below these prices will be auto-bought; units sold at or above these prices will go to standing orders or appear on the market if no standing order exists

note on methodology

when the set began, i posted low standing orders for bushels and oil and got lucky with oil bid at $10 and $15 - when i sold oil at $15, my standng order was triggered and i got the familiar market messages containing the words "to a standing order"; on the $10 sale i got the "were sold" message as per tech sales at $1000 or less on express and my $10 order was not touched. from this i conclude that the three different market messages indicate the 3 possible ways goods can be sold, and i have used the market messages to deduce the numbers above. there have been standing orders on the market as i have been testing the mil unit prices and some lucky players have scooped up ultra cheap 5000 unit lots. however, the last tanks at $111 did make it to the board where i bought it out by placing a large standing order for tanks at $111. that order was on the board when i started writing this up

conspiracy to boost one player nw - exploits

the standing order exploits depend on getting your order on the board with no orders beneath you, however, if your conspiracy's pockets are deep, you can clear the board beneath your price and then run the exploit

example, empty board on tanks. player A places massive SO at $200; conspirators feed player A tanks at $111; player A sells tanks on market at regular prices for 300%-500% profit

example, board with existing SOs at $500 and under. player A places massive SO on tanks at $501. conspirators sell tanks at $500 until existing SOs are filled and player A signals the conspirators that his $501 SO is getting tanks. conspirators sell tanks again at $400, until A signals he is getting tanks, and so on until A receives tanks at $111. conspirators continue to sell tanks at $111, player A sells on market

Those #s could use a boost Qzjul.

I don't see why any of those #s should be below a Theo's MBR strategy.

A Democracy with their land fully built up with military bases and 82% military tech, the private market prices are as follows: troops $88 jets $118 turrets $129 tanks $360

A Theocracy with their land fully built up with military bases and 89% military tech, the private market prices are as follows: troops $77 jets $103 turrets $112 tanks $315

oil should at least be 50s.

ps it occured to me that in the examples above about exploitation, i suggested the conspirators needed to be signaled by the boost target, but the game's search function shows nw, and a little math while watching your market timers count down could show when units are arriving at the target country, so explicit signaling between conspirators is not strictly necessary

It has to be lower than the PM sell I think? Seems like it'd be weird otherwise, no?

/me tired right now

new experimental results:

i switched to a theo from monarchy, still unmodified by tech or military bases

the auto-buy price points are not changed by the theo government bonus on private market prices ...

i t appears that the auto-buy/standing order functionality of the market is not related to the seller - but that is a broad conjecture and it will take more experiments to prove it

also, as previously posted, i left my standing order for $111 tanks active, and that order is receiving tanks today at $111

more experimental results:

i added military bases to my theo to reduce the private market sell prices to:

troops $26
jets $35
turrets $38
tanks $107
bushels $21
oil $44

except for oil, these prices were below the previously established thresholds for the market's auto-buy functionality to be activated

the sell limits were retested and no change in market behaviour was observed

again it appears that the market mechanisms are independent of the seller

note that this confirms that it is at least possible for some countries to sell units to the auto-buy functionality at prices higher than thier private market sell prices

my SO for tanks at $111 is still getting tanks today. also, the offer was again visible on the board today, so i added offers at $200 and $300 and will try to observe the $111 offer loose it's place in the queue to the $200 offer if the $111 offer gets cycled after 72 hours

i am also considering "solutions" - actually i am looking for one and nothing is coming

and i am not sure this even can be problem on non solo servers, e..g. colusion on a solo server is just good team work elsewhere

technically and structurally, i can imagine it easier to address a "fix" for the issues from the order side, i.e. making minimum standing order prices that are vetted and enforced from the Orders screen - picking good minimums might be enough to reduce the value of rhe exploit to where it isn't really worth it

but i think these issues derive from the definitions of how the earth market functions, i.e. goods coming to market are not sold to the higgest bids available at the moment they arrive (as per a market sell order in a real stock market), but instead are sold for the asking price into the SO queue ... and i don't really see a way to preserve that overall architecture, preserve the ability to "fight in the market" over prices, supply and income, and fully eliminate the potential for abuse on solo servers

... but i'm workin' on it ...

:)

you know you can edit your posts?

on second thought, there is very little help to be had from order minimums ...

perhaps it is very tuff ... consider that even if we raised the auto-buy thresholds to be above the private market buy prices of a maxed out theo, there may still be some room for the exploit to work ... steady streams of $350 tanks and $80 troops to a boost target could be enough to skew an express finish

what to do?

last experimental results:

added mil tech to the theo and retested the market auto-buy thresholds - no change observed

more sales of $111 tanks showed that the original $111 order lost it's place in the queue, but the $200 order and the $300 order were each tapped one time, which seemed odd in that i was thinking that both sales should have gone to whichever new order made it to the front of the queue.

however, the most recent sale test went back to the original $111 order, which seems to show that the $200 and $300 orders didn't get their 72 hours at the front of the queue

thanks again for everyone's attention

(-¿-)

Does this mean if someone was selling tanks for $111 the $200 and $300 SOs are ignored, and sell to the lower priced SO, or would those with the $200, $300 standing orders get the tanks?

If the latter would they be buying at their bid price of $200/$300 or the $111, selling price?

nope, earliest so gets goodies 1st.

The earliest SO gets it, as long as the price is below that; but then it gets shuffled to the back. So, again, I don't see how this is a problem if there's even a remotely active market.