Not doing something because people might find exploits or cheats is THE WORST reason ever. Seriously. The trick is to find potential exploits and address them, and not to put in cheats that can be used if cheats are disabled. If you scrap every idea that could be exploited, don't try to make a game - you'll end up with a blank screen.

So he should protect his borders better. For one, being in the center of the map might not necessarily be the best place for trade - it all depends on geography and locations of the various nations as well as resource placement. And yes, if a player happens to be in a major trading hub, he would have a lot to lose by letting his trading reputation fall - that would be the balance to the advantages being in a major trading position would bring. If it brought only advantages with no ramifications or risks, then it would be unbalanced. If you allow mages to go sneaking through your territory destroying caravans and you can't identify him, then you deserve the hit.

Oh I so disagree with you. For one, it means Stardock would have to build and design and balance two very different games. It's been asked a lot that any major new concepts implemented in this game be optional, but it's just not doable and not an intelligent way to develop a game. If Stardock decides that a new, revolutionary feature is a good idea, they should go for it and at least try it out - the alpha or beta processes might reveal that it's not such a good idea and maybe it'll be retracted, but they should go for it it, full on. 

Not true. If you can trade with everyone, everywhere instantly no matter what the resources and location are incredibly devalued. It removes a large aspect of strategy because you'll almost always be able to get what you want. If trading is difficult over long distances and through hostile territory/environements, then it forces lots of choices upon you that, under traditional TBS trading mechanisms, you can avoid really easily. It forces you to be more versatile, to make efficient use of what you have and can get. It allows you to take risks - do you strike a very valuable trade deal even though the only routes available aren't the safest? Maybe a belligerent powerful militaristic player is invading a trading hub that's important to you - do you join forces against the invader to protect your interests, or live with the consequences? Frankly, I think this kind of trade presents much more interesting strategic options than run-of-the-mill TBS trade.

I still don't really see the problem here. I don't see how it's a game exploit, other than it's behavior that the AI wouldn't be able to effectively implement. But there are millions of things two players working in concert can do that the AI cannot. And if the trade is shipped in multiple caravans over time, then the trade could be put on hold once the first caravan is raided to minimize losses.

Except if there is a 3rd party merchants guild, then for the 'good cop' to send the 'bad cop' his share, the merchant's guild would require a fairly large cut to bring it into the bad cop's territory. So in the end, if both parties stick to the deal it'd pretty much end in a wash. The good cop would be better off to renege on his end of the deal and keep the goods and his good reputation to himself and leave his bad cop partner out to dry.

You know, magic, channelers, heroes, resources and settlements should all be optional so we can still enjoy the rest of the game without having to encounter major problems/exploits and then waiting for one or more patches. Blah. Again, worst argument ever. Instead, they should just not ship the game until it's finished (and I trust Stardock to do just that). Sure, things will crop up here and there after release, but that will happen whatever the case, no matter how many options there are - no, especially if there are too many big options.

Read the "Rethinking 4X Economics" dev post. Resources will be brought from city to city on an as-need, automated basis using the caravan system. I assume it'll be possible to manually send caravans as well - it better be. No such thing as instant transportation of goods within your own nation (except maybe in exceptional circumstances or on very small scales) so I expect the same to be true with foreign trade. Whether foreign trade will be automated at all, dunno. I don't think it will be, unless maybe within specific bounds that players set. It might be neat if we could say, "I'm willing to sell up to 4 horses per turn for 100 gold each, or 1 iron each, or 3 mana each" or whatnot. But really I think an auction-type UI system like what your suggestion in the OP would be just fine.

Having something completely new for a critical piece of any game such as trading is the same as making a new airplane and having it try using a new engine design without any backup options.  Let's not increase the chance of the games failure with something new which COULD cause major problems. 

As I wrote earlier having multiple trading systems would be ideal thus satisfying the desires of all gamers while allowing new game trading systems to evolve into something which won't be exploited, abused, bugged, etc., .   Seriously I've only scratched the tip of an iceberg of possible problems.

As I wrote it might be an ally looking to majorly backstab him!  So all the border protection would be no good and his trading reputation suffers because of an unforseen exploit.  I've been mentioning just a few problems and all your suggested solutions will take lots of programming time.  I'd rather not have to put the game on a shelf waiting for a patch because of unforseen exploits, cheats, etc., .   As I wrote earlier a caravan trading system between players should be one of the optional trading systems if it's going to be included.

Well then we disagree... I see options as the key for maximizing game possibilities.  Take a look at AoW:SM which has multiple OPTIONS for the types of combats which can take place.  If multiple options where each provides different results can be done for combat then it can be done for trading systems as well. 

Having trading between players rely solely on a single weak moving map unit opens HUGE windows of exploits, bugs, abuses, etc., etc., .  It's very possible one day it can evolve into a fun, stable and secure trading system  but the traditional trading system should be available as a backup... which has a solid history of working within games.  No big deal to you if the game FLOPS, but to me it matters and playing it safe will work for both trading systems.

  We'll have to just disagree as I see the players having greater limitation of choices.  There might be a game where I won't have any access to the resource for making swords... so the type of units I can create are DECREASED.  Another game might be where I don't have any access to horses or the resource for making swords... so my options for units are DECREASED  even further.  Try playing Heroes_3 as the Tower town and see how many strategic options exist when you have only TWO resources.   LOL

 

As you wrote:  AI inefficiencies; HOLD option for caravans; Trade Reputation; Monitoring safe trade for your area; etc., etc.,   There's a massive growing list of  ADJUSTMENTS  just based on our conversations...  I can't even remember all of them.    Sorry I'd rather the Stardock developers be adding game content and game depth then all this  quirky balancing for caravan trade between players!   What you're suggesting would be the most complicated trade system ever introduced within a game and it's just not worth the effort.

Very often with multiplayer games two or three human players already know each other, start the game with an active plan and work together against the other unknown human players.  Unfortunately this happens far too often even in Dominions_3.   However a 3rd party merchants guild would be the best method if this does exist and ideally I would prefer to keep the traditional trading system as an option.  It's very possible I may enjoy the caravan trading system and you might hate the caravan trading system because we don't know how it works... now if the traditional trading system was still available as an option you wouldn't have to place your copy of Elemental into the basement. 

Magic -- fantasy game so it should exist.  Channelers -- already written as the main character for a nation so it does exist.   Heroes -- Actually they are called Champions in Elemental and already written as existing.  resources -- Main resources already listed and do exist (ideally players should be able to add new resources via modding).  Wow... everything you wrote Stardock says will ALREADY exist... no reason to discuss.

What you're suggesting(caravan trading between players) is just a theory at this point and hopefully remains just a theory.  Take a look at all the options within WOG... it's been way too successful to say you can have too many options.

Everything within the dev posts have listed caravans as being used for an "overflow" of internal goods... and nothing for trading between players.   If the caravans are used for trading between players then the best way to prevent exploits, bugs, abuses, etc., would be by having a 3rd party merchant guild controlling them.  I recall CIV_3 had caravans which traveled internally(mostly) where people later found an exploit creating wonders and in this game CIV_3 only had caravans carrying production.  I can only imagine shower of exploits if all the resources in CIV_3 were stuck trading via caravans and the caravans would travel anywhere.   The more we discuss the topic clearly shows how much time the developers would need to spend on such a feature and most gamers are looking forward to a fantasy game not a massive complex trading game.     

Um, airplanes are designed with brand new engine designs all the time (well, not all the time - new planes aren't designed all the time). If no one ever built a new plane with a new engine, we'd be stuck with WWI era planes. The point is they are tested until they are determined to be good and safe and efficient. Yes, have a major feature of a game be revolutionary, something that's never been done before, is like making a new airplane with a new engine design. If it's a poor design that wasn't tested it will be a disaster. If it's a good design that has been thoroughly extensive it will be successfully.

Not an unforeseen exploit, a foreseen strategy. Keep a close eye on your enemies and a closer eye on your friends. If you're afraid that your ally might try to sabotage your trade, they keep watch against it and don't let your ally's troops into your territory.

And why can't "one day" be February 2010? Seriously, why do you think a new feature is bound to fail and flop the first time it's tried? I can point out a billion examples of games that did revolutionary things and were successful because of it, and not despite it. The original colonization, MoM, MOO2. SoaSE. Sim City. The Sims. Diablo. Hell even WoW. All of these games did something different, something new, and it worked. These new things didn't need to be trial run in other games before they became suitable for consumer use. I don't want Elemental to be limited by players' fear of change.

I have, actually, it's quite fun. Hard as heck, but doable depending on the map and what you're up against, as well as a bit of luck. Have you ever played a game of civilization where you couldn't get ahold of various important resources? It makes it difficult, it forces you to be creative, but it doesn't doom you unless you give up and start over at the first sign of difficulty. Most of the 'problems' you're citing aren't problems, they're consequences - ones that are common to many staple features of 4X games. Why do acceptable consequences become problems when related to trade?

Just for posterity, would you be opposed to the implementation of the most complicated magic system ever introduced within a game? Economy? I'm aware that 'magic' is in the title of the game, but nonetheless - what is wrong with introducing the most 'complicated' (I prefer the term deep) feature of some type if it adds enough? Obviously it appears that we disagree on whether its worth the effort but that's another matter.

We know the exist, so what? The question here is, should they be optional? So channelers are going to be the main character for a nation - what if I don't like that? What if I don't want a main character? Based on your arguments, channelers should be optional so that I can choose to play exactly how I want. But also, you just pointed something out. No one has ever implemented anything like really like a channeler before. AoW2 came the closest, with your wizard being a physical unit; but it was a frail unit that had to be tucked away in safety. There was no advantage to bringing your wizard into combat. And even more, nothing even remotely like essence has ever been implemented before. It's a huge, major feature, it's never been done before - so again according to you, it should be optional because it's bound to have all sorts of problems associated with it that you don't want to deal with. Maybe after being optional in this game the kinks will be worked out for the next fantasy TBS game on the block.

But you aren't arguing that. Because it doesn't make sense. It's a major, new feature and to work well it will have to be tested thoroughly - and it will. The first alpha is starting next week, and there are plans for an 8+ month-long public beta. The reason is so that Stardock can be creative and try out all sorts of new and crazy ideas, figure out which ones have promise and which ones don't, then work out the kinks in the ones that do.

The devs have never said the word 'overflow.' ALL internal trade will be through caravans. You will be able to mine ore in one city, ship it to another city to work into swords and armor, then ship all that to a third city to arm your troops. Based on new information it appears that they are going to make it intelligent enough so that this will be done automatically - but it will all be caravan based and in all likelihood you will be able to take manual control over this internal movement of goods. They said nothing about trading between players, but I think it's a natural extension of the system. And we already have confirmation that these internal caravans will be raidable.

Also, Civ 3 never had caravans. Civ II had caravans (not even remotely like the caravans that will be in Elemental), and they could be used to quick-build wonders. They were never removed from Civ II, and the whole trade system was changed completely in Civ 3. Comparing caravans between the two games is an exercise in futility because the economic models of civilization (any of them) and Elemental are incomparably different.

Oh  my heavens that's wrong... new airplane engines are first tested on the ground and then tested on existing airplanes with older reliable engines as backups.  It would be downright crazy for a new airplane to use new untested engines.  The same should be true for Elemental...  we don't want the new game to fail because a critical feature such as trading between players via caravans fails. 
We're not in the ancient 1980s era of making PC_games where we have no clue what gamers will enjoy. 

It's an unforseen exploit when actions allow unexpected results which risk game balance.  If an ally sabotages your trade while within your lands virtually prevents anyone wanting allies to travel within their lands.  And to believe there won't be any exploits, cheats, or abuses for an UNTESTED trading system is foolish.  Sure there will be beta testing, but I want to beta test a fantasy game not a complex trading system!

A new feature can succeed, but first and foremost this is a fantasy game and not a trading game.  The level of detail we've discussed clearly shows trading between players via caravans would take way too much time for developers.  Think of all the details we've discussed and think of all the time developers would have to take adjusting for these concerns...  and that's just from TWO PEOPLE.  I can only imagine the amount of time developers would have to waste on the flood of issues discovered by the many hardcore gamers.  The traditional trading system we know works and relatively easy to establish for human to human and the human to AI has a great reference from previous games. 

Yes, it doesn't doom you, however, your strategic choices are more limited as a result of having only two resources with the Tower town.  Heck watch your strategic choices decrease even further with only one resource.  First saying less resources equals more strategic options and then the airplane engine comment... you're a funny guy.

Having limited trade should not be an acceptable consequence.  I want to be able to trade with anyone I've discovered and since I'll be casting massively powerful spells there's no reason I couldn't also teleport goods to a far away friend.  I don't want to play a game where I end up on the opposite side of a massive map from my friend and then we're stuck not being able to trade for a majority of the game.  As seen within AoW:SM  all you had to do is have one of your units make visual contact with another player.   I'm looking for a strategic fantasy game and it seems you're looking for a complex trading game. 

The most complicated magic system would at least be more closely suited since its a fantasy game, but the more complicated a feature the greater the opportunities for it having exploits, bugs, cheats, etc., .  This does not mean we should avoid complicated features, it just means they should be approached cautiously.  The best method for a caravan trading system to succeed would be introducing the system as an optional feature thus not placing the rest of the game at risk.  Gamers can then provide the feedback which will allow the new trading system to become stable, secure and fun. 

Alright we'll discuss why Channellers won't be optional... I sure hope you won't drag this thread thru each type of main feature.  Anyways probably most important reason channellers are not optional is because they themselves are a tool for providing whatever you want.  If you want an all powerful deity who can kill massive armies then it's possible... if you want to instead use magic to create strong armies or heroes or items or healthy towns then it's possible.  The channeller can become anything you want unlike the pigeon hole trading system you are suggesting.  Even with AoW2 they did introduce the single wizard being which by itself was not liked by the community... gamers wanted their wizard to be more than a couch potato a unit which could evolve and play a larger role. So this was one change which by itself not a success.  In regards to the essence I see lots of similiarities to the magic nodes from AoW:SM, but there's also similiarities to magic shards from the Dragonshard game of Atari.  We can't say essence is definitely different until we actually play the beta game.

Sorry to burst your bubble... but there's no official statement trading between players will be done all from caravans.  It's almost like you live in another fantasy world with all these expectations.  I really don't see the logic in having developers waste so much time around a trading system when so many other aspects are more important.  Your personal interest in trading is so great you should lean towards a game which specializes in trading.

 

At this time having all trade be done from caravans between human players is just a cute dream you've embraced and remains a theory.  Someone else might embrace a dream of being able to take control of exploring dungeon levels within the game based on a screenshot that the game has dungeon levels, but the vast majority are more realistic.

Yes it was Civ_2, but the point was it was one type of resource being carried on a unit which introduced an exploit.  And thus did not carry over into CIV_3 and CIV_4.  Here the developers took a small step in a new direction and recognized the dangers involved by moving resources into a single unit. No reason to have all trading for resources, items, spells, etc., pigeon holed into a single weak trade unit... and the massive size maps during mid and late game would reveal the many problems.   Thank heavens it remains just in your dreams.

Lol. I'm sorry, but when the military tests its brand new fighter jets/bombers/etc, they don't mount an experimental engine on top of one they know will work - the planes are not designed to house two engines at once - you have one engine (in some cases there is also a secondary engine system, whose primary use is not as a backup). They test the engines extensively on the ground and then, when they're confident that it works to specification, they build the jet and test it.

And more importantly, it's a really silly analogy. This game will have a beta test, and if a feature they try out fails, no biggy. Either they fix it or remove it and no one dies. The finished product should never be used to test out or trial run features - that's why betas exist. If Stardock implements a trade system like the one I've been proposing, and in the beta process it becomes clear that it isn't going to really work, it can still be fixed or removed. 

You're really going to beat this horse to death. If it's foreseen, and it is determined that it isn't an exploit but a viable strategy, then it is not an unforeseen exploit! We've already foreseen it, though we disagree on whether or not its exploitative. That said, your argument is downright ridiculous. "If an ally sabotages your trade while within your lands virtually prevents anyone wanting allies to travel within their lands." So, what about an ally who turns on you while within your lands and attacks a city? I guess attacking should be an optional feature, because allies can exploit it and it will prevent people from wanting allies traveling through their lands.

No, first and foremost this is a 4X turn-based strategy game, in a fantasy setting. Trade tends to play an... 'important minor' role in such games. It exists in all of them that I've played, and is more important in some than in others. And obviously, I am of the opinion that a deeper, more involved trade system than has been implemented before would add depth, replayability, strategy and immersion to the game. If Stardock implements such a feature and does it well, in 10 years we could be hearing complains like, "What do you mean you're not going to have an involved trading system? It's a fantasy 4X game, are you mad?!" 

Yes, I'll admit once you start limiting resources to such an extreme extent your options are obviously limited - especially in HoMM. But limited limited resources I think adds strategy and forces more meaningful choices. Do I try conquer player A for his iron resources? Do I try to get on his good side so he'll trade his excess to me? Do I do risky trade with fairly distant player B? Maybe I'll build up my military using my abundant copper, reinforce it with magic and then conquer weaker player C's tin deposits, allowing me to make bronze? If trade is too easy and you can trade with anyone, anyway, instantly with no associated risks, then resource acquisition more or less ceases to require strategic consideration.

I agree that there's a problem if trade is so limited that you're consistently stuck with just a small handful of resources and are often missing extremely important, key resources with no recourse. But if that happens, it just means they implemented resources and trade poorly.

No, I'm looking for a fantasy 4X strategy game that has a wide array of major features with depth and significance. You want a conglomeration of games that have already been made with nothing new thrown in - because new is scary and might not work and don't understand the point of long alpha and beta testing processes.

And really, you aren't going to be casting massively powerful spells until the end of the game. If you can teleport a grain-silo worth of grains across a huge map with no effort, maybe even dozens of time in the same turn, then you should be able to teleport whole armies across substantial distances. I am not opposed to late-game features that allow fast-transport or even teleportation of goods or whatnot. I'd love to be able to build magic portal networks for a massive investment of time, essence and resources making mobilization of military and trade much easier and quicker. But your argument really fails when you consider that our channelers will not be casting very massively powerful spells until later in the game.

If you want to play a game where you have constant interaction with your friend from the beginning of the game, then arrange it so you start fairly close to each other. Not very hard.

The final product should never be used as a trial run. That is the point of having a beta - so gamers can provide the feedback which will allow the new ____ system to become stable, secure and fun for when the game goes gold. 

Also, why is magic more appropriate in a fantasy game than trade? I've read fantasy in which magic has played little to no role and trade has been a rather important one. Now if I were proposing something about fusion-powered spaceships and laser beams, I'd understand your "this is a fantasy game, that doesn't belong" cries, but I'm talking about something that makes perfect sense in the setting.

Well, Stardock has told us that they are implementing something that has never been done before, called essence. There will I'm sure be plenty of aspects of magic that will be similar to AoW:SM and MoM, considering Stardock is drawing from the good aspects of both of those games and others. That said, shards in AoW:SM merely dealt with mana; Elemental will have mana as well as essence. It is something brand new, it will be used to do things that haven't ever been done before. The latest dev post shows a Shard of Fire as a way of generating mana - not essence. It appears that essence will be an expendable measure of power, while mana will be more of a magical currency. This has not been done, I'm sure there will be exploits and bugs associated with it - the point is that they will be worked out during beta.

Wow, way to take my quote out of context. I was referring to essence, not trade. I like the totally baseless personal attack. I don't have expectations that trade will be as deep and thorough as I want it to be - but I want it to be deep and thorough, hence my suggestions. The point of these forums is to suggest features and ideas that we think could lead to a better game. I have already pre-ordered the game, I'm looking forward to beta testing it and playing the final version, and I'm sure I'll enjoy it even if trade remains an afterthought - but I think I'd enjoy it more if that isn't the case.

I do however have expectations that Stardock will do more than just reuse old ideas, no matter how successful. I expect that they will go beyond that - they will reuse old, successful ideas, and they will come up with their own, new ideas that will be a big part of what will make Elemental memorable. I will be disappointed if there's nothing new.

No shit sherlock? Obviously having all trade done by trade is nothing more than hopes and suggestions at this point, because we don't know. We haven't been told how foreign trade will be handled. We have, however, been told how resources will move from one of our cities to the next - we have been told explicitly that that kind of trade will be done through caravans. If you don't know what I'm talking about, then read these threads.

Somehow I don't think they removed caravans because people were using them to rush build wonders. Really, solving that problem would've been easy (remove that one aspect of caravans would've been the easiest way). I think that based on Civilization's economic and resource model, they went in the right direction. In those games, having a resource node meant you had enough of that resource to do whatever you wanted with it in every city that is connected to it by roads. If you only had one of a resource, then trading it meant you'd lose access to it yourself. Building units and buildings merely required access to a resource, and the time involved was determined by a single 'production' value. In such an abstracted binary model, a deep and sophisticated trade model wouldn't make sense. Elemental, however, will have a much different, much more sophisticated resource system. There will be no ubiquitous 'production' value - constructing buildings and training troops will require quantities of construction resources and equipment, as well as an associated time-frame - and resources won't be everywhere all at once (like they are in HoMM), but will be stored locally. Such a vastly different economic model in my opinion would benefit from an equally deep and sophisticated trade model.

Well if the caravan trading is included I would want every chance for it to succeed.  And the best chance for it to succeed would be by having a simple, secure & reliable trading system as an optional backup.  This way by the 3rd month of testing if major problems are discovered the developers don't have to remove the entire trading system and then quickly create and merge another trading system into the game... the lost programming time for gutting complex trading code and adding new code IS A BIGGY.  
 
 

My example was one possible theory on an exploit which would may not have been seen.  The point being that there will be unforseen exploits for a complex trading system.  The more complex a feature the more likely painful exploits will be discovered even after the beta.  One example of this was from Dominions_3 where battlefield enchantments provided an unfair advantage allowing a mage to cast spells like Mists of Deception and then retreat yet the spell continued for the entire battle.  The exploit was so extreme it had to be banned and only after many months of waiting did a patch arrive.  Now keep in mind with Dominions_3 they had two previous sequels worth of spells which combined into a growing massive list of spells... unlike what you're suggesting which is just jumping into a complex trading system.

 
All previous successful fantasy games have trading between players as a minor and simple integration which is only natural since there are features more important to gamers.  Features with greater importance in a fantasy game include the build/leveling of heroes(champions), the magic system/spells, the units/monsters/unead/etc., , the random game generator, the game editor, the map terrain types, the battlefield mechanics, the items/weapons/potions/armor, and these are just the ones off the top of my head.  We shouldn't be sacrificing any of the above development build time, bug fixing time, or gamers beta testing time on a new complex trading system.

Less resource choices does not add strategy choices it removes them.  For example with Heroes_3 if I could trade for the resources I need then I have a strategy choice of building the marketplace, mage guild, creature_level_3 upgrade, creature_level_4, helping my ally with 2 very needed resources or buying a level_2 creature from an outside structure.  Now with only one or two resources I have the strategy choice of building a marketplace, or buying a level_2 creature from an outside structure which seriously limits my strategies moving forward.  All the examples you listed would still be available as a strategic option to the same player who has all the resources.

  You don't want a wide range of major features... your focus for requesting a complex trading system should be at the bottom of the barrel compared to other MORE IMPORTANT features for a fantasy game.  I don't want to be beta testing a complex trading system when myself and others would rather be beta testing the magic system/spells, champion builds/leveling, evolving a channeller, battlefield engagements and many of the other more important parts of all fantasy games.  It's clear you're willing to sacrifice value from these other more important features for a complex trading system... but that's where we disagree.  I want the same thing Brad wants who said he's been inspired by many different games for the creation of Elemental.  

I'm not talking about the final product... as I wrote earlier the complex caravan trading system you're dreaming can be within the beta as an optional feature, thus still a chance for success. I never said dropped into the final product. 

Yes I know you want to combine your complex trading nightmare with an upcoming fantasy game, but this comes at the sacrifice of other critical features.  Trade by definition is not fantasy and Magic is something of fantasy... and this is a fantasy game thus why magic is more appropriate/important.   Since you're so hungry for a trading a game please find one of the many games which allow you to buy, sell and trade on the stock market... very complex trading just the way you like it.

  We've heard the essence is brand new, but we don't know the many details.  It's possible someone will pinpoint a game which has done something exactly the same.  I'm expecting this has been done with essence in regards to being a combination of what's worked with other games, hence the dev comments about inspiration from other games. 



 Wow, you want trade even more deep and thorough then what's been discussed... really you should seek the economic trading games.  I would welcome the complex caravan trading between players as an option, but let's not make it the only method thus force feeding it to gamers which could result in a long list of problems hindering other gameplay testing.  No reason why the gamers should not be able to choose the simple traditional trading system as an option if it's what the gamers want.


  Yes, I understand why you'd start getting upset once the truth of your envisioned dream may not becoming a reality.  I guess that's why this thread continues, it helps you hang onto your dream. 

The Civilization series are about the historic development of civilizations within a game.  In history trade played a major development in the history of civilizations and a deep complex trading system would definitely be more expected as compared with a fantasy type game where the creation/destruction of most places and things really don't have a logic explanation.  

In any case I don't approve of your dream to force feed trading between players using a complex caravan network which has serious limitations for obtaining needed resources.  Players should be allowed to trade with anyone they want once establishing contact using teleportation spells.  

I don't see why any experimental new feature that Stardock might want to try out should be made optional in the beta. The point of the beta is for Stardock to get players to test what Stardock wants us to test. Really if you want my opinion there should be as few options in the beta as possible (while there should be lots in final release), that way Stardock can keep the feedback as focused as possible to the major things they're working on at any given time. If they determine that an experimental feature is no good, or require too much time and effort to make work, then they should just scrap it.
  

All successful ______ include ______ until someone comes up with something better. If you're too scared to experiment and try new things, you'll just end up stuck in a rut. You can only make variations on the theme for so long. And, as you can probably tell, my personal opinion is that dev time spent on a deep trade system would be time well-spent. 

Except you're being extreme again, you're comparing HoMM to Elemental even though their economic models are going to be very different, and you're brushing off my points as irrelevant when they really aren't. Under a simple 'normal' trade system, resources are so easily attainable that the examples I listed really aren't available (or at least not relevant). If you can trade with anyone, everywhere, any time with no associated risks, as long as you have enough to trade out for what you want to bring in you'll get everything you want. Which means there's no incentive to really fight over resources, there are no trade offs when considering potential trade risks (because there aren't any). When resources are so easily attainable, you don't have to take into account resources as much when planning your moves - because it's a pretty good assumption that you'll be able to find what you need. On the other hand, if your access to resources is somewhat limited then they actually become an important and meaningful part of the game. You have to plan ahead of time, take resources into account - what you have, what you can get and what you're going to live without. Fairly ubiquitous resources diminishes their strategic value; limiting them replaces one set of strategic options with, in my opinion, a more meaningful set of strategic options.

Uhh, yes, I do want a wide range of major features - I said exactly that in the paragraph you just quoted. I just don't see having a deep trade system as being exclusive to that - instead I see it as part of it. And aww, boo hoo NTJedi doesn't want to beta test a sophisticated trade system, I guess we can't have it then! Beta testing is not for anyone to have fun, it's for gamers to suffer endless frustrations in order to help make a better final product that they will be able to enjoy even more. I, and others, would like to beta test such a trade system if it means it might make it into the game. I'd like to beta test the other features you mentioned as well - as I'd like to see them implemented well, too. I really don't think the development of a sophisticated trade system would require so much dev time as to ruin or limit other features - especially if Stardock is already planning on it (which they may or may not be).

You've been given the distinct impression that you meant having it as an option in the final version. This new position is definitely a step forward; but again, I'm opposed to many options in betas. If Stardock wants to test-run a major experimental feature, it should definitely not be optional. They should force the beta testers to test what Stardock wants them to test, not what the testers think might be the most fun, as that would largely defeat the purpose of a beta in the first place.

Trade by definition is not fantasy?! Trade is a huge portion of nearly all fantasy settings, even if it is largely behind the scenes in books and the like. Most fantasy basically takes the medieval era and adds magic and fantastical races to it; if you think trade had no role in the medieval ages, well then I give up on you. And I don't want to play a stock market game or crap like that. I want to play a fantasy 4X game with meaningful trade. I can understand if you don't share that same desire, but based on responses like this one it appears that you don't even understand what it is I want.

Ok, let me put it this way. I hope Stardock takes inspiration from Colonization (both the original and the recent remake), and implement a caravan-based trade system like it has, but improve on it greatly. The trade in that game wasn't connected to diplomacy and the UI for it (in the remake - was no UI for it in the original) was clunky, confusing and limited. There, done. A caravan-based trade system similar to the one I'm suggesting here has already been done, albeit not implemented particularly well and in a much more limited way. There, now it's not a totally brand new idea; it's based on inspiration from another game. Now do you grant permission?

I do? I didn't know that! Damn, people never tell me anything these days.

Seriously, what are you talking about?

And I don't approve of your crusade against all things new and different. I don't want to be forced fed the same old features I've already played in other games. You say, "Players should be allowed to trade with anyone they want once establishing contact using teleportation spells"  - why? Because you say so? Because that's the way most people have done it? Why does your opinion matter more than anyone else's? Not to mention the whole can of worms you open with being able to teleport arbitrarily large quantities of resources over arbitrarily large distances - especially when it's been explicitly said that that will not be the case within your own kingdom.

Stardock should include what items they feel would make a good fantasy game, but as few options as possible? The history of games have not been heading this direction, why modding content, editors and adjustable game generators are all becoming more common within games.  Heck,  in your world of less options we'd all be eating  glazed donuts at the donut store.  LOL 

First I'm open for experimenting and trying new things which is why I've been suggesting it as an option.  But you wish to force feed your trade idea to us beta testers... no options.  With your vision of trading it's accept ONE complex trading idea and if it's a major problem then either the devs can fix my the major problems or the devs can remove the major trading idea while the gamers wait for a replacement.  This is close minded.  

Having trade between everyone anytime retains the fight for resources the same as it's worked for all previous fantasy games which have included this method such as Heroes_3, AoW:SM, Dominions_3, etc., .  That's why it's called the traditional trading system because we know its had a solid history of working.  Your suggestion will have players spending more time micromanaging the multiple traveling units to other players even if all players don't attack/disrupt caravans you'd still have to watch all the little traveling shipments to determine if some independent unit/structure/weather might kill it.  It's a fantasy game and what you're suggesting would take time away not only from the development of other features, but also take time away from the beta testing gamers who'd rather be reporting magic system bugs as compared to trading bugs.

There's lots of games with a complicated trading system... I've played them and overall it takes time away from what I feel are the more fun features of a game.  Now you might enjoy monitoring and sometimes adjusting orders for 100+ caravans moving between you, your enemies and your allies... but I'd rather be spending time on the armies, towns, magic, champions and other expected features of a fantasy game.  As I wrote earlier I'm open to providing gamers of this community options even your painfully complex trading system, but if you had your way us beta testers would have to accept your limited trading system and then only if it was a major problem would you then expect the developers to replace it.  This is all proof you are truly someone who believes in a monarchy.



 New position??... reply#25 I wrote how this should be an option if it does exist and we're on reply#33!  Your memory must be slipping.  I've never changed my posiiton and still believe the gamers should have the option of choosing their trading system between a known working method which they are familiar to using from other games and some untested complex trading system.  Stardock should decide the beta testing and hopefully there will be options allowing the community to guide the games development.     

Heroes_3, AoW:SM, Dominions_3 have all been successful games with meaningful trade.  The trading plays a major role without involving the extra micromanagement as what your system would include.  What you're asking would limit the trading between players for a number of reasons such as the traveling time/distance between players, the unexpected and expected loss of shipments, and players not trading due to the risks involved (and perhaps others which don't come to mind).

As I've written from virtually the beginning as long as all players can trade to either a 3rd party source or with each other it will provide better game balance when only having access to a few resources.  For example Heroes_3 allowed the trading of one resource for another via a 3rd party market and via person to person.  It doesn't have to include both methods, but every player should have an equally balanced method for buying and selling resources.  A player who starts in a bad location will have enough difficulties and shouldn't suffer more from trading as a result.

   I recieved this impression based on the sentence you wrote, "I don't have expectations that trade will be as deep and thorough as I want it to be - but I want it to be deep and thorough, hence my suggestions.".  It left me the idea you were thinking of an even more complex trading system.  

  Trade is important, but for a fantasy game it should have as few pieces of micromanagement as possible.  Tolkiens Middle Earth is a good example where when extreme detail can be provided thru a novel the trade detail exists, but in comparison to the movie the producers chose to remove the trade details between races in exchange for leaving the magic and battles.   

As I've written since virtually the beginning I'm all for new options, but I do not support a single complex trading method which will cause players who land in bad locations to suffer even greater pains.  I'm also a big fan for pushing random game generators, game editors, DM controls(as seen from NeverwinterNights), game_options(as seen from AoW:SM & Heroes_3:WoG), and modding of game content and AI personalities.  These all expand the replay value of games.  The movement of resources within your own kingdom from caravans is significantly less complex, less Player/AI programming, less risk of trade loss, less possible bugs, etc., .   Players should be allowed to trade with anyone they want once establishing contact for many reasons:

1)  It's been done for MANY successful fantasy games (Dominions series, Heroes series, AgeofWonders series, Civilization series) 

2)  A player suffering based on location won't have even greater penalties due to a complex trading system where his prevented by either independents or a stronger opponent. 

3)  Less game micromanagement where gamers won't have to use spells, armies, and time for protecting trade moving to other players. 

4)  More programming and patch repair time for developers allowing them to provide us more game content, more features, more modding, deeper champion development...  all more important than a new complex trading system.  I can only imagine all the extra  programming needed for AI opponents to manage moving caravans which includes redirection as danger approaches, adjusting for player exploits/abuses/cheats, specific casted for caravans, how to decide which caravans to protect, etc., etc., etc.,  the list is enormous.

You need to start paying more attention to what I write before writing scathing, mocking retorts. I said there should be as few options as possible in the beta. Thankfully Stardock seems to be of a similar mind - they're considering making the earliest betas played out entirely on the cloth map, forcing us to test the features they want us to test. The beta testing process should be focused and narrow at any given time, with breadth provided by constantly adding/removing/tweaking features, but not options. The reason I say this is it will be much easier for Stardock to understand and fix/improve problems/features if every beta tester is reporting relevant information - whereas in most betas, the testers are reporting about a huge number of all sorts of different things at once; much harder to sift through and deal with so many things at once. A fast-moving, option-limited beta is the way to go in my opinion. The final product should have lots of options (but I think keystone features that are at all fundamental to gameplay should remain set in stone).

Why is asking for a deep trading system any more close-minded than asking for the same old simple trade system we've all played dozens of times? You and I have very different opinions of close-mindedness. The reason I don't believe something like a sophisticated trade option should be optional is because then Stardock would have to code in two trade systems, make the AI work well with both trade systems and balance both trade systems. In my opinion, options should only be included when the associated work isn't so mammoth. Stardock should pick the kind of trade system and perfect it, not try to please everyone with 2 or 3 different versions of everything, resulting in 2 or 3 lacking versions of the same feature.

And I hold by my opinion that beta-testers have no right or expectation to be presented with many options. It makes the process less efficient and a lot more chaotic. Beta testing, like I said, is about frustration, not fun. The games will be crashing, the AI will stink, features won't work, there'll be exploits and game-breaking bugs. Playing a game to completion will be a trying task, at least until later on in the development process. Options in games are there to allow players to configure each game the way the think they'll enjoy the most - that concept is irrelevant in beta processes. The beta process should make it clear, however, which features should be mandatory, which should be optional, and which should be scrapped.

Firstly, we know the steam engine had a solid history of working, but we replaced it anyway. You seem to want progress without any of the associated hard work and development - you want new features to pop out of the ground without having to suffer any of the growing pains; well it doesn't work that way. The best we can ask for is for a good, responsible game company to pioneer new features in such a way that the growing pains are felt in the development and testing process, not in the final product.

And you clearly misunderstand my suggestion based on the above quote. I don't want trade to be a huge time-sink of require inane amounts of micromanagement - I would hate that. Aspects of it should require input, of course - but the vast majority of it should be automated. Again, I'll point to Civ 4: Colonization's caravan UI - confusing and clunky as it was, once you figured it out it allowed to you make fully automated caravan routes based on all various guidelines. Once set up, they'd run and run and run until you stop them. Yes, you'd have to monitor and make sure they aren't being raided, but I don't see that as a problem...

Name one game even remotely similar to a 4X strategy game that has a trading system that's very different from the one we're all used to (except for Colonization, which has a working trade system along the lines of what I want). I'll point out again that if a system like I'm suggesting cannot be done without introducing inane amounts of micromanagement, then I will be the first to ask for it to be replaced (but I don't think that's the case). And beta processes are monarchical. Stardock is the monarch. They tell us what they want us to test, we tell them what we think about it, and they decide what to do about it. Stardock happens to be a benevolent monarchy and actually takes customer feedback to heart, which just makes things that much better. If Stardock decides to test out a sophisticated trading mechanism, it should not be an optional beta feature. They should release Beta Client 0.3.4 which focuses on the new trade mechanism; it should be one of the only major additions from the previous beta version, and in short order they'll have received a deluge of feedback about it. From there, they can decide whether it's worth keeping, or if they should scrap it. This applies to all major features, not just trade. I'm hoping the beta clients evolve rapidly, each one focusing on a small area, at least in the beginning.

Ah, I got the impression that originally you were arguing for sophisticated trade and other experimental features to be optional in the beta, but if they get fleshed out and are successful could be implemented as full features in the final release. And gamers do not need options in a beta to help guide the games development. Gamers will play the game Stardock provides, tell them what works, what doesn't work, and how what works can be improved and how what doesn't work can be fixed or replaced. No options required™. The result will be better features, new features, and optional features for the final game. 

Actually, the value of trade heavily depended on the map in Heroes 3 (and all the other heroes games). I've played plenty of Heroes 3 maps where there was hardly any reason to trade at all because there wasn't really a shortage of resources. The only time trade was ever important to me was on maps with scarce, limited resources. And even with trade, your options remained pretty limited in such cases. And we've already established that you don't like limited resources...

Now if it turned out that games consistently had very limited resources as well as very difficult trade (for whatever reasons), then that would be a problem. The trade and resource mechanics could not be developed in isolation of the other - that would lead to some of the problems you keep mentioning. But if the two things are developed side by side, then a nice equilibrium can be found.

But my suggestion could potentially make many otherwise bad locations not quite so bad. One example of a traditional bad location is someone sandwiched in the middle of a bunch of other players - even worse if the sandwiched player doesn't have many natural resources of his own. But with my suggestion, that position could end up being a great location. All the trade that could flow between those players would be crossing that player's terrain, bringing him wealth and prosperity. My suggestion won't simply make bad locations worse - it will mix up the normal rules of what makes a good or bad starting location. It adds one more thing that could go wrong, but it also adds one more thing that could go right.  

Ah I see the source of confusion. What I meant by that sentence is that I don't have expectations, I have hopes.

I'd rather my TBS games play out more like a book - nay, an epic saga - than a movie; though I'd rather my RTS or FPS games turn out more like a move than a book.

I've already addressed numbers 1-3 previously, but this one deserves special mention. You've mentioned that you have no qualms about including a sophisticated trade mechanic like what I'm suggesting as long as it's optional. But you're opposed to it being mandatory because of the extra programming and patch time it would require? Do you see the hypocrisy? Making something optional is inherently more time and effort intensive than making it required. Your argument #4 fails in epic proportions.

Well if the beta will only be having as few options as possible than we should stick with the simple, secure, stable traditional trading system... details later.



 Well I agree adding two-trade systems would be more difficult, but if Stardock only has time for adding one trade system we'd want to choose a trade system which would cause the least amount of programming time for developers, a trade system which won't provide additional punishment for someone who's already in a bad map location, a system which also has the least amount of micro-management for gamers, a system which will generate the least amount of bugs, exploits, cheating,...  and thus the most logical solution is the traditional trading system. 

 I'm saying multiple options for beta testers would provide better guidance for the game, but if it's outside the scope of programming then the developers will need to make their best judgment.  I never said beta testing is fun... why you keep harping on that must be from your own previous experience.  My work sometimes asks for me to perform beta testing so I fully understand what's expected and I've won two out of three bug reporting trials for new software at work. Any options within the game should eventually be beta tested as well, you don't just drop new options in the final product. Options within beta testing would allow gamers to continue their bug reporting progress if a major bug exists within one specific option.

Of course I want progress, but not some new feature which is worse than the traditional trading system because:

Adds more micro-management as compared with the traditional trading system.

Adds more AI programming as the AI will have to do lots of extra thinking just to monitor, choose safest path route, change orders, provide protection, adjustments for cheats, exploits, etc., ,  etc., etc.,

Provides someone starting in a bad location even a greater burden due to limited trading.

Trading between players would be an unknown risk, but also much slower. 

So while you like your idea... it comes with several pain points and these are just off the top of my head, I'm sure others would appear if such a complex trading system would be introduced.

 
I'll give you two games: Port Royale 2 and Patrician 3... both games where trading on the seas has a very complex trading system... which I found annoyingly time-consuming.  These are definitely more economic type games due to the deep trading.  When buying a fantasy game I'm looking to spend the majority of my time planning strategic battles/movement, effectively using battle&map spells, leveling my champions/heroes, and encountering good/bad mythical creatures/events.... not monitoring, guarding, adjusting orders for 100+ caravans moving between other players and neutral territories.  Stardock decides what to place within their games and may choose to provide us many options at any stage of the games development. 


The options can be included inside the beta or even introduced later from updates, patches, sequels, etc., .  It depends on what Stardock developers feel need attention and improvements.  Working in the software industry I wouldn't be surprised if battles would be tested separately as skirmishes during the early stages.




It's not so much I don't like limited resources as I don't like being stuck with limited resources.  In the example of Heroes_3... if my ore mine(critical) was being guarded by a rank_1 yet in front was a rank_5 due to the random map generator I knew I could eventually trade with other players or the 3rd party merchants guild to evolve my kingdom.  If for example a caravan trading system was introduced into Elemental:WoM I would first have to tunnel a safe path to a friendly player(which might be VERY difficult and time consuming) and then convince him that we should both risk trading goods across neutral territory and then whether AI or human if he disagrees I have to worry about him coming after me, knowing the lack of resources stunts my growth.... even worse the path to my settlement is slightly safer should he become an enemy.  Even if he agrees to trading I would still have the risk of independents and other players stopping the shipment. 



Well if you're in the middle the trading will overall make it worse, because those players will want to protect many of their shipments with troops.  Having two or more opponents walking troops across your territory makes your towns less secure and more vunerable to surprise attacks.  Within games it's ideal to keep all opponents out of your territory which better protects your towns and structures.  The only scenario where it would not be so damaging is if all three players were human and trust each other for a long term alliance.

Well the point I was leaning towards is that for fantasy when features need to be placed in order of importance the depth of characters, magic, strategic decisions, lessons of wisdom, battles, mysteries, places/towns, and items all have more depth than trading.

Let me clarify my position: I'm open for TRYING new ideas... if Stardock likes your idea than it should start as optional since a complex trading system will encounter more exploits, bugs, cheats, etc., .  Gamers would then still be able to host tournaments or enjoy SP games while waiting for the complex trading system to be patched which may take months depending on the size of the problem.  If Stardock feels the new complex trading system would take too much time away from other features they wish to evolve then it should not be an option.  

Lots of extra micromanagement and programming for a trading system which limits the players for trading and introduces greater risks for trading is not something of value to me.

Yeah, it might make sense for Stardock to implement a much more basic trade system until they're ready for a more sophisticated one (if they decide to try one out) to be tested; heck I wouldn't be all that surprised if trade doesn't even exist in the first betas.

I already covered the bit about bad starting locations - nice of you to completely ignore reasonable arguments just because you can't find a flaws in them.  And quite frankly, a sophisticated system needn't have more bugs, exploits or cheating involved than a simpler one - it would only have more of such problems if it weren't tested and developed sufficiently.

Obviously any options within the game would have to be tested. You've been involved in beta processes, so you should know that they occur in stages. Stardock might try out a feature, and it might be very controversial, so they could decide to make it an option in the final version. My point was just that in the process of testing, it will be clear that some features should be made optional, and some options should be implemented in order to make some features workable for everyone. As this happens, those options would have to be put into later stages of the beta for testing.

Yes, even a very good implementation of my trade suggestion would require more micro-management than the traditional system, but it would bring with it a lot more depth. In my opinion, the depth to management ratio is more than worthwhile.

Can't argue with that. A deeper trade system, like a deeper anything, would definitely require more AI work and programming in general. It's up to Stardock to determine whether it's worthwhile.

Only in your own fantasy world, not mine... Or at least, not in the one I'm proposing. 

That makes it different, not inherently worse. Personally I think this aspect makes it better.

All new ideas come with new challenges. That's no reason to not even consider trying something. If Stardock decides to implement a more sophisticated trading system, I'd expect them to map it all out before trying an actual implementation. After mapping it out, they'd be able to make an informed decision about whether it would be worth attempting. After attempting it, they'd be able to make an informed decision about whether or not to work out the kinks and keep it. Dismissing something off the bat because of a small handful of nebulous potential issues is juvenile.

You just gave me two games with a primary focus on trading - the majority, or at least a huge part of your time is intended to be spent on trade. I don't want that for Elemental. I want trade to be sophisticated, but largely automated and not particularly time-consuming. More time-consuming than we're used to, but very minimal compared to the time I'll spend doing things like planning, fighting, building, doing magic. I'm used to trade requiring a negligible amount of thought and time - just because I want it to require more planning and effort doesn't want it to become the dominant aspect of the game - unless you choose to make it dominant by concentrating your efforts on it to become a major trading nation.

That was more or less what I was trying, and maybe failing, to say. Once the beta process matures and the game becomes more and more fleshed out, desired but still untested options should definitely be thrown in. The last beta or two could even have no specific focus, with everything thrown in, and the goal of miscellaneous bug-finding. But the earlier betas, at least, should be limited and focused on what Stardock wants tested the most.

For one, it wasn't possible for the random map generator to prevent you from getting to one of your initial wood/ore mines with a high level stack - it was scripted to prevent such a debilitating scenario from occurring (I have played hundreds if not thousands of randomly generated maps in HoMM 3, and it has never happened to me). Any good random map generator is designed so that such utterly debilitating scenarios cannot occur. And in HoMM, even with the quick and easy trading mechanism, there is no guarantee at all that you'll be able to find someone willing to trade with you - especially in the beginning (the most important time), where everyone tends to be low on all or most resources including wood and ore. And the AI doesn't trade with other players at all, so you'd have to use the marketplace's exorbitant rates which, quite frankly, tend to be impossibly high unless you just need 1 of something or you have lots of marketplaces.

Except now you're adding your own horrible bits and pieces to my suggestion. For one I don't envision most neutral territory as being all that hostile, especially to trade. Exceptions would be dangerous forests or deserts or whatnot that are governed/inhabited by some power or another. But in general, there should be very little tunneling through neutral territory just to trade. A combination of good map generation rules, and a balance between the risks and difficulty of trade and the abundance of resources would go a real long way.

You're adding your own little tidbits to my suggestion yet again. I suggested that the trade caravans be third party; maybe you'd be able to assign some of your military as a defense force but if so it should be completely constrained to protecting the caravan so it can't be a threat to lands it passes through. If you're in the middle of those nations and other people start sending armies through your territory to keep their trade safe, they'd be declaring war. Unless of course you give them permission to do so. Declaring war on the nation all of your trade is going through is a ter rible way to guarantee your trade safe passage.  If such a situation leads to war, your trade wealth should be enough to allow you to be competitive - and any rival or enemy of your aggressor would likely side with you, as they would not want their enemy conquering such lucrative trade routes.

Another point I'm going to try to hammer through is that I envision trade being much safer than you are imagining. I get the impression you think I would trade to be perilous and dangerous at every twist and turn. But I want the consequences of disrupting trade to be severe. With a little extra cost you could even make your caravans defended well enough that raiders might lose more in the raid then they'd loot; add onto that penalties for disrupting trade and it makes it a really serious decision. I do not want trade to be so prohibitively dangerous that it may as well not even exist. Read that sentence again, because you don't seem to get it.

I agree that all those features should be at least as deep as trade. Except maybe lessons of wisdom and mysteries - I don't really know what that means in the context of a game. Wanting one or more features to be deep and sophisticated needn't prevent others from, as well - unless the devs decide they don't have the time for it all.

We've had this argument before in other threads and we've found ourselves on opposite sides of the debate there, too. Frankly I think that's the worst excuse ever. "This feature is sophisticated and deep! It needs to be an option so if there ha ppens to be an exploit or two, we can disable it so the world doesn't come to an end and I can still play hardcore tournaments with people I don't trust in the few weeks it takes Stardock to fix it! !!!" Seriously, grow up is all I can say That argument might have a place in games whose lifeblood is hardcore competition and ladder ranking, but Elemental is not going to be that kind of game.

It has become abundantly clear to me that the pages and pages we've written in this thread come down to this one thing: I like this idea, and you don't. You've made all sorts of excuses to make it seem like your opposition is more than that - that there are major, insurmountable issues associated with it - but it all boils down to the fact that you simply don't like it. I'm done arguing this because I've made my point clear - I like this suggestion and think it has potential and its problems solvable. You don't like this suggestion, and you aren't really willing to give new features that you don't like a chance. You make some valid points but you drown them in shallow doomsday, end-of-the-world scenarios and arguments that make your real position clear. Well I guess that's kind of unfair - I don't know if that's what you do in general, but it's what you've done here.

Geoff Geoff Geoff Geoff Geoff Geoff Geoff Geoff GEEEEEEEEOOOOOOOOFFFF!!!

Incidentally I agree with Pigeonx2 regarding pretty much all of the above. I especially agree that you can't dismiss a potential feature becaue it might hypothetically contain an exploit.. the whole game is going to be new and innovative.. so I guess SD sholdn't bother because it's clearly all going to be bugged to crap?! Features should be judged on their merits and not the fact that you obviously think that SD doesn't have robust enough quality assurance to ensure that they don't release a shitty product on day one. Obviously the devs themselves will have to make some risk assessment when embarking on the creation of a new feature as to whether they think they can manage the added complexity it brings to the game. However, this is not a decision for US to make, we have absolutely no basis for making that assessment and it's hugely arrogant, and frankly quite bizarre, to argue that we do.

I've not much to add since it really sounds like SD has their own ideas about trade and other echonomics, so I'm inclined to take the side lines until I've at least a sample of what they have before I start helping construct something that might be grossly different from what the game actually is.

I didn't ignore your comments on bad starting locations... I provided other examples as why it would remain an overall disadvantage since a 3rd party merchant system may not exist.  Being the center of a trading network means more troops from other players passing across your nation to protect their shipments which overall introduces more violence within your territory and for your territory.  Of course a complex trading system doesn't need to have more bugs, exploits, cheating...  however this comes at the cost of time from the developers creating the system, cost of time from beta testers, cost of time for developers addressing the bugs, exploits and cheating.  All of this might take a year or more before finished.  As I wrote earlier Dominions_3 had a major exploit discovered much much later after the release of the game for their complex list of spells and here the developers were gradually making the spells more and more complex from sequels and patches.  I think having the first Elemental game where caravans are just moving resources internally is a new change and could pave the path for something larger from sequels.

 

Yes, I agree.

 

Considering how massive in size the maps can become I would lean towards having greater depth with the random game generator, evolution of the channeller, battlefield options(before & during), item forging, map editor, and more content such as weather, spells, map structures, terrain types, and monsters.  So it's not that micro-management of trade units are so bad... it's just I see many other elements which are more fun.

 Stardock will drop us the beta and hopefully the community masses can provide guidance which will be heard.  Based on what I've been reading in forums I have a very high opinion of Stardock.



Well if players can only trade between each other using caravans than the wandering independents alone will prevent lots of trading between players.  Usually only by mid_game are most of the independents removed where the only obstacles remaining are other players.  So a bad location may allow for trading with one player, but some powerful independents and map location could block trading with the other 5 players for many turns.

Well the negative aspect is there will be less trading between players as a result of the traveling risks and expected delay for shipments. On very massive size maps trading for one player can be seriously delayed due to location and independents whereas if only contact was needed using the traditional trading system the player would only need to send or discover flying units which would bypass the majority of unfriendly independents.

There's lots of other components where the developers current and future time would be better spent.  One example is I'd rather our developers provide us more spells, items, monsters and map structures as compared with a complex trading system.  I'm not saying it should be dismissed... I'm saying a game option released sometime later.

 Well if all trading between players is done from caravans most early stages of the game won't have any trading as it will be spent clearing independents and structures which may threaten caravans.  Depending on map size you could find yourself watching, guarding, casting spell buffs and/or changing orders for 100+ caravans.  I imagine it can become painful if your territory became a freeway for other nations where they would have troops guarding their caravans and walking past your towns constantly... it would be difficult to stop surprise backstabs.  Now personally I'd rather devote that time for combining different spells and battlefield formations.


  I agree... I haven't done any beta testing with Stardock, but I have two 64-bit OS systems ready to test the extra extra large maps.  I could even test the game on the most recent version of Windows_7 if Stardock is interested.





I've played hundreds of maps and have had this scenario happen to me as well as my brothers and a friend.  We usually randomly generate our maps from the editor... perhaps that's the difference.  Also garrisons dropped from WoG can also block an important resource.  As a result we have to check the paths for each town type for the wood and ore before playing.  We've also played games where one or two computer opponent was sealed off from the rest of the other opponents... this is a problem since we remove flying and dimension door as spells and related items.  Trading within Heroes_3 can be very helpful in the beginning as we trade wood for ore.  Yes, the 3rd party marketplace has very high rates when only one town has a marketplace, but it's better than nothing.


The vast majority of other TBS games have unexplored territory usually blocked by multiple types of unfriendly independents.  Even within Heroes_3 it might take a month in game time before you can fight the independents blocking your paths to other players and towns.  And for Elemental once those so called adventurers let some sleeping huge monster loose on the world a major trading route could be blocked for awhile.  There's actually several independent variables which can block trade.  Here's a few:  change in terrain(volcanic erruption or from spells); random independent monsters/beings coming out of a nearby structure(dungeon); violent weather(tornado); berserk independents wandering the map from far away strike the caravan in neutral territory.

Another question... What if I send you two shipments of magic swords and you send me two shipments of gold yet your two shipments of magic swords are destroyed in neutral territory by an enemy opponent OR independents?   Am I responsible for sending you another two shipments of swords?  Do the two shipments of gold heading my direction stop and if yes then how would they remain safe?  How would it be possible to identify the independents weren't released from a summoning spell or a map structure as some exploit?  And if released from a map structure how would it be possible to tell whether it was on purpose or an accident?       

Yes, a 3rd party merchants guild for the caravans would be the best method if it does come into existence.  Yet if there's no 3rd party merchants guild for the caravans then what I mentioned would create a problem since valuable shipments would be guarded by individual players and perhaps its best the AI opponents would also try and guard shipments. 

I believe trade would be relatively safe for territory owned by the sender and territory owned by the target player, but territory of other opponents and neutral territory of independents would present several risks.  This would be where other players would try and either block or destroy caravans using spells, blackmail, map structures and maybe others:

Spells:  Summoning of unfriendly independents or casting of a tornado which wanders the map or a spell changing the terrain in front of the caravan.

Blackmail: One strong player tells a weaker player, "If you expect to remain at peace with me then you will attack all caravans from player_blue."  This prevents any direct link with him destroying the caravans and hurts two players.

Map Structures: As mentioned within the dev journals monsters will be waking up from adventurers... possibly some are independent adventurers.  Very possible some structures will be spawning independents randomly as well.   

  Well lessons of wisdom and mysteries were more in referencing the movie, but mysteries could qualify as Quests within a game.  I was a little surprised when hearing the technology tree(s) are relatively short... hopefully we'll be able to customize and expand the technology tree(s).  Perhaps that's their goal by letting the gamers provide deeper content.  The depth at which we've been discussing trading has me concerned this type of development might come at the sacrifice of other features/content.

Actually I thought the discussion was going smoothly... not sure what triggered a boiling point for you.  Must have been the tournaments comment which has a reason.  Personally I've never played on any online or offline tournament, but I know it does provide advertising for the game which brings new customers/members into the community.  The larger our community the more likely we'll capture a few creative individuals with free time who provide extra content and/or improvements from modding.

In any case it's not so much the trading system you're suggesting is deep being the problem.  There's a number of reasons I've listed which have me worried, each of these are significantly less when using the traditional trading system.  There's the extra time spent by developers for AI programming, exploits/bugs otherwise not encountered, increased micro-management (especially for the giant maps), the risks of traveling shipments, and fewer players to trade based on traveling time & independents. 

I know I said I was done here but it appears I don't have the willpower to stick to my words... Sigh.

I'll say it again that the possibility that an exploit may or may not be discovered after release is a terrible reason to not even bother developing a feature. Seriously, worst reason ever. And I'll also say again that for me, the ability to have instant foreign trade across arbitrary distances, and yet having to wait 3 turns for my swords to get from one of my cities to another, would shatter any illusion of immersion. There is simply no way of reconciling that.

This game is not HoMM. HoMM is a TBS game, but not a 4X game (at least not a conventional one). Yeah sure there'll be wandering monsters and dragons and beasts and all, but if that's at all as common as in HoMM (where literally every few steps usually requires a fight) then I think it'll be a disaster. Take Civ IV for example - the barbarians and animals could pose threats towards the beginning of the game, yes - and maybe that will mean trade would be harder in the beginning. But alternatively, caravans could be protected well enough to have a fighting chance against regular wandering groups. If a dragon decided it didn't like caravans going through its territory that's an entirely different thing - I don't expect dragons or other powerful beings to be swarming all across the terrain; that would force everyone to be a turtle in the beginning.

Well for one I get the impression that flying units will not be a dime a dozen. And secondly if you justify your instant trade using flying units, well you could use them for caravans too (although personally I think that's taking it a little far). I just don't see regular trade being carried out by flying units - at least not if flight is as rare an ability as the devs make it seem it will be.



Frogboy already told us roughly how many spells will be in the game. I don't want an implementation of a deep trade system to take away from other, more important features. I think Stardock knows what it wants to do for most of the features you've mentioned - if they think they can add to that a sophisticated trade system without sacrificing their other plans, then I think they should go for it. However, I'm sure they've squirreled away plenty of development time for unforeseen issues and player suggestions both from these forums and eventually from beta feedback - that is the time I'd like them to use to develop such a trade system if it already isn't part of their plans.

Except you're again making it much more complicated and messy than I want it to be. If I ever have to micro-manage tons of caravans each turn, then it means they've implemented it poorly. And again, there are many ways to make trading still be possible towards the beginning of the game.

That's odd, like I said I've never experienced that. I was under the impression that the map editor RMG was the same as the in-game one, so I don't know what's up (and I have used both). All I can say is that it's never, ever happened to me. Sometimes the guard stack is tougher than other times (i hate it when one of my initial mines is guarded be ranged units), but I've never seen anything as extreme as a level 5 stack in my way or anything. I don't use WoG that much, honestly I'm happy with the base game - and if there are problems with the RMG when using WoG that's another story - just means the modders didn't do an excellent job integrating their features into the generator.

See I think that's a recipe for fun! Major world events or pesky adventurers stirring up some ancient power, temporarily disrupting trade in parts of the world or causing trade routes to migrate - that sounds awesome to me! But I do think that trade should be protected enough to be able to stand minor assaults or it would be disastrous. And historically in our world that was indeed the case -all trade caravans were accompanied by a significant number of defenders, except maybe along short, well-guarded trade routes.

Already covered this exact scenario several posts back... It is one of the few really good arguments you've made and I think is something that would require testing, not theory, to figure out which solution or combination of solutions would work the best. If you're interested in reading some potential solutions, look back a few posts.

Yes I agree, that's the very reason I suggested the whole 3rd party idea in the first place. Having trade operated and managed completely by the players would open several cans of worms. A 3rd party would keep those cans closed and potentially add lots of additional potential on top of that.

If its worth it to you to use your mana preventing someone from receiving a few swords, so be it. Make the cost of such spells such that it'd cost you at least as much as the other person would usually lose. (Operating under the assumption that other players won't be able to know what a caravan is carrying unless they invest resources into finding that out). 

If I were the blackmailed player here, I would turn around and tell Blue Player, "Look, this bastard is threatening to attack me unless I stop all your trade. How about we gang up on him?" Additionally, this would in all likelihood be the sole problem of humans, and humans will always be able to blackmail humans about something or another and you simply cannot guard against all such scenarios without making a really boring game.

If some buildings will constantly spawn powerful, hostile independents, then divert your trade around it. That every now and then an adventurer might disturb some powerful, angry being that then roams around the countryside might temporarily pose a threat to some local trade doesn't seem all that game-breaking to me. It's really clear that you want trade to be perfectly and completely safe and will not tolerate any risk at all to it... That's fair, but it's just a personal preference, not an exploit or bug or anything like that.

I've already said a several times that if Stardock thinks such a feature could only be done at the expense of other more important content, then I'd rather they don't do it. What more do you want from me?

The boiling point was when I realized that I was repeating myself over and over again, and you just weren't getting it. Or you would argue one thing, I'd counter it, then you'd invent even more outrageous scenarios, which I'd again counter, then you'd put words into my mouth or alter my suggestion in ways I would never want and then point out problems that could arise as a result, as if somehow that makes my suggestion, in which said problems wouldn't/shouldn't be relevant, insurmountably problematic.

Just to point out one simple example to show that I'm not just blowing hot air here, you have said things like,

Well guess what? My suggestion includes a 3rd party system. So any examples about how problems might arise if there isn't a 3rd party aren't relevant! I already agreed with you that in my formulation, if you remove the 3rd party it introduces lots of issues - that was the point of including it in the first place. 

And an example of me repeating myself over and over - how you just brought up the issue of what happens when two players are trading and a caravan going one way is stopped, just 3 or 4 posts after we had already gone 'round on that exact same topic.

I feel like the contents of all my posts have been more or less identical, just reorganized to address your slightly reworded concerns yet again.

 

The exploit concerns are just one of many problems from a complex trading system which all take time away from the developers and the gamers.   The reason why the movement of swords internally will be done is because it's most likley going to have a magic cost for trading with another player the same as its done within AoW:SM.  I'm expecting a method for players to have a magic cost if they wish to move items, resources and perhaps troops internally as well.  Naturally no one will spend massive amounts of magic moving items, resources and perhaps troops unless a situation appears.  As I wrote earlier it would be silly if a massive list of spells exist yet nothing for teleportation. Dominions_3 is one example where multiple spells of teleportation exists even for massive size armies.  This blows away your reason for reconciling that.  TELEPORTATION  within a magic game...  gosh who would of thought!  

The previous HoMM comments have been for points of reference the same as the other TBS games mentioned, I could easily reference many others.  Hopefully the game will provide the same options we've seen within many other games where we have a choice on the strength and number of independents.  I'd hate for my choice of having MANY independents removed because it needs to accommodate a complex trading system.  I'd love to play a world dominated by independents without sacrificing the loss of trade!  You keep making this trading system sound worse and worse...  no internal teleportation of resources and now lots of independents wandering come at the cost of trade. 




Flying units such as bats or eagles could not be used for trade.  Even most flying units would have trouble moving 10 suits of Half-Plate armor.  The gold/magic cost of flying units and how common/rare the units will be on a map remain to be seen.     



  Well I'm looking forward to the internal movement of resources by caravan and is a great first step for testing something on a larger scale such as a complex trading system.  We don't know how much time the developers have devoted on other more important features, so until we see what currently exists on a full beta requests for a complex trading system should be delayed.     



  I don't see how trading from caravans would be possible during the beginning of a game if it's a massive size map and no one is near your starting position.  At least if trading could exist after making contact then I could send several bats where one would eventually reach one or more players... otherwise the map distance could cause the first trade to take 50 turns and considering map size is almost unlimited for 64bit systems it could take even longer.




  Yes, it's why we check the path for all wood/ore resources within the map editor.  We rarely use the in-game generator since we prefer to remove all cartographers, spells&items for flying and dimension door, then we also remove all roads which adds additional challenge.   The amount of features within the Heroes_3 map editor are amazingly great.    In regards to WoG there are many things and places which we prefer to disable, but it has lots of new content.




  Well I'm just worried of the several ways players will indirectly attack caravans of other players thus not receiving any merchant trade penalities.  I wouldn't mind if independent adventurers unpredictably were a temporary cause for trade disruption, but a human player repeatedly using map structures, spells, etc., for ruining trade without the standard penalties is another story. 

I can't find the exact location within our multiple paragraphs can you point me to the location or at least the reply post# ?   Also does this answer all the questions I wrote?   [/quote]

Yes the third party merchants guild would be best...  in fact one caravan could be configured for carrying multiple shipments from multiple players allowing increased security and less units on the map related with trade.   

 
Well the contents of the shipment can vary greatly as it might be just 10 swords or it might be 10 holy ice swords of doom.


  Yes, I just mentioned it because it would be one method of avoiding the penalties of attacking caravans.




It doesn't have to be perfectly safe, but for scenarios where all routes are unsafe for one or more reasons trade would completely stop.



  I'm just writing its a concern and hopefully a complex trade system is not taking priority over something you or the community may feel is more important.

Actually I've personally never reached a boiling point during a discussion on forums.  I felt the discussion was not only providing more clarification, but also expanding on possible improvements and problems.  Any complex/deep trading system on forums will have lots of variables to be reviewed.  I work with software concerns daily and my posted concerns are not outrageous scenarios, but very reasonable possibilities.  If I made outrageous concerns then I would not remain employed within the software industry. 

   

 

While the 3rd party merchant system was not introduced until later it still remains possible the caravan trading system your suggesting will be included WITHOUT the 3rd party merchant system.  Even with a 3rd party merchant system many concerns remain such as the AI programming, dangers from independent variables, and probably one of the more important would be the time and danger required for trading with someone far away.

Oh there should definitely be teleportation, hopefully several methods of it. However, if they'll be cheap enough to be used for large amounts of trade, and available to everyone from the very beginning of the game, then teleportation would not only be cheapened but way too cheap! It means from very early on I'd be able to teleport troops and all huge distances for small mana costs. I'd much rather teleportation of anything more than a lone item (the kinds of items you equip on heroes and the like) to be a kind of Big Deal magic; not trivial, cheap magic that everyone can do for miniscule costs. You talked about getting to the point of having to manage 100+ caravans - well if I can teleport that much, well, quite frankly I think that would be fairly game breaking.

Well, I'll go the other way: I don't want your desire of a map absolutely swarming with powerful independents to come at the cost of a sophisticated trade system... I definitely agree we should be able to scale the frequency/abundance of wandering independents, from none to lots - but if you choose lots of independents then you should expect the beginning of the game to go much slower and contact with other people to be more difficult. It makes sense if you think about it.

Wow, this is as bad an argument as your whole "there might be exploits!!" shtick. By that argument we shouldn't suggest anything at all. After all, any suggestion or request for something that isn't part of the original plan will require extra effort, and we don't know how much time the developers have devoted to other more important features, so we should wait until beta! Quite frankly, that's downright stupid. For one, Stardock put the forums up in order to provide us with a means to make suggestions. They asked for our suggestions. The earlier suggestions are made, the easier Stardock will be able to implement if they like the idea.

If you want to play such a huge map with such a low density of players that it'll take 50 turns to get to your nearest neighbor, that's your call. In that case it would take you a long time to be able to start trading with even the traditional system (albeit not quite as long). If you want to play such a map, then it means you probably want there to be very little interaction with other players in the beginning. It doesn't seem that odd to me that that would include trade. But for people who want to have their cake and eat it to, what about a caravan speed modifier? In the game settings you could set the caravan speed to anything from extraordinarily slow (ew) to insanely fast (blegh), or somewhere in between (yay!). I suspect your reactions to those last two would be reversed from mine - that's the point of options And that would be an example of an easy option to implement.

And my point is that methods of indirectly/anonymously attacking another player or caravans should be expensive enough to make up for not taking a hit to your trade reputation. Really, methods of indirectly or anonymously attacking anyone or anything should be more expensive than doing so directly (in order to make up for the advantage of being anonymous). In other words, using indirect or anonymous means to disrupt someone else's trade would be its own cost. There could also be a chance that your anonymous role will be discovered.

Oo I kind of like that idea. Not sure exactly how it could be done but if it could be, I think I'd like it. But it also makes me realize something else - it shouldn't be easy to identify which players a trade caravan is going between unless you saw where it originated from and watch as it reaches its destination. Obviously sometimes it'll be clear just based on the direction, but still. Adds another little bit of security, from hostile players, anyway.
 

But it should be hard to tell that ahead of time. And if someone is sending an extremely valuable shipment, they could pay for better security or something.

But not a problematic one. Humans will always be able to blackmail other human players into doing all sorts of things - pretty much anything, in a game. They can blackmail you to attack other players, to help them, to give them resources, and this list could go on for a very long time.

I can't imagine would kind of scenario other than possibly a pissed off dragon or end-game world breaking spell that would be able to completely halt all trade, in all directions, for any meaningful period of time. If random events or whatever manage to conspire against you to achieve such a drastic effect then disrupted trade is the least of your worries. And if someone else does it to you, then they deserve credit for pulling off such a feat.

You've made that abundantly clear in pretty much every one of your posts. You said it once, and I agreed with you - and yet you keep bringing it up... 

Well let's just both be happy that these forums aren't part of your job... Because you really came up with contrived situations and/or really minor issues with simple solutions and portrayed them as huge, insurmountable obstacles. 

Yeah, but really there was no point in you continuing to come up with problems with a 3rd party-less trade system as a reason to why a complex trade system would be a bad idea once we both agreed that the 3rd party would make it much better. Of course Stardock could decide to implement a similar feature to my suggestion, without a 3rd party - but if they did I'd hope they'd have some other solution to deal with the problems. But that isn't what we were discussing, so it really feels like you were grabbing aimlessly at anything that you could construe as a reason to stick with a traditional system, no matter how irrelevant.

By the way guys if you try to view this thread with Firefox it cuts off halfway through NTJedi's post #39... IE (which I assume you're both using, as conversation continues) still works though So I guess you're talking slightly more in private than you were ealier ...oooo cosy

Yeah... I was using Safari in OS X, but I just started up into windows and tried to load this page and partly failed... Now I'm in IE..

Is this a record or something? Have any other people been insane enough to write so many crazy long posts all on one page of a thread before that it's gotten cut off?

 

I can barely see this, so please forgive typos.

You guys have totally out-done any extended argument I've ever seen at GalCiv2, and I read there pretty much from RTM (didn't post until much later). It's some perfrct storm of verbosity, tenaciousness, and extensive quoting. I had to go 4 notches below 100% zoom to view the bottom here.

You have no idea how proud that makes me

Thank you NTJedi, for making this possible

I hope for several methods of teleportation by midgame... if I wish to move 20 swords to another town instantly it should be possible, naturally with a balanced magic cost.  Several simple yet flexible spells can be associated with teleportation where even if it's available during the early phase of the game its cost would be high yet research can increase its teleportation distance and reduce its cost.  Naturally we wouldn't want the cost to be so small that players would be teleporting resources and troops all the time, but a balanced formula can be acquired.  So yes teleportation with a balanced cost thus players will still be using caravans.  



Yes, but if you choose lots of independents then Player_X and Player_Y could have a trading advantage if player_A is unable to trade due to distance and independents.  Over time this can place Player_A significantly behind in either researched spells, technologies, types of battlefield units, types of forged items, etc., .  Allowing instant trade with all players as seen from Dominions_3 and a few other fantasy games would help Player_A remain competitive.



Actually we should be suggesting ideas which are of greatest importance OR ideas which require little development/repair time otherwise the more important ideas might not receive as much depth.  For example I could create a topic on requesting a fast replay of turns for the game map on growth/death of players with text details of each battle and although this might be interesting it's something of minor importance when compared to channeller development, technology trees, battlefield controls, item forging, etc., .      



Well for Dominions_3 it's possible to start trading with anyone instantly... on turn_2 they recieve the resources/items.  This promotes trading between players since trading with a neighbor is not always a good idea since you might be starting a war with them by midgame or sooner.  Even with the maximum of 8 players it could still take 50 turns to trade with a neighbor depending on locations.  Being able to trade with more players provides more options on the type of items, spells and resources which can be combined for different strategies.  For example if you had a monopoly on Fire Ruby Gems yet could only safely trade with 3 players instead of 8 players due to distance and independents you wouldn't be able to sell as many of the gems.  Interesting idea with adjustable speed caravan, yet I believe most players will choose the fast speeds thus less risk of danger from opponents and independents plus the advantage of faster results.   





Well many of the indirectly/anonymously methods for attacking caravans may not be discovered until a year or more as what's happened with Dominions_3 and the battlefield enchantments exploit .  Depending on the number of developers each game can only have so many complex features and I find many other features more important.



 Yes good idea, only the parties involved should be able to identify their contents within a moving shipment for even greater security.  Each caravan from the 3rd party merchants guild should carry a grey flag with a merchant symbol then a right click on the unit would only reveal the contents you are sending or expected to receive.




Yes paying for improved security would be very important allowing trading caravans to scale for early, mid, and late game dangers.  Also another option would be paying for faster types of trading from the 3rd party merchants guild such as shipments using flying carpets or even a more expensive trading option to purchase from the 3rd party merchants guild can be flying ships (faster, safer, more cargo).  If we are given only one choice of trading between players via caravans hopefully all these suggestions would make it into the final product.



I'm not sure what will be possible within the game... hopefully no exploits will be discovered for blocking trade at low cost of magic, time and/or units.  My biggest hope would be seeing lots of flexibility for expanding game content and game features.  Thus if the 3rd party merchants guild doesn't have flying carpets as one method for trading resources then it could be later added by the community.




I'm a perfectionist so I report concerns which can become problems.  For software concerns whether game-related or work-related I cannot recall making noise over minor issues.  For example with AoW:SM  I was first to begin complaining about the new surrender feature which luckily was switched to optional and also was first (or one of the first) to convince those developers on providing a random map generator.  Within Dominions_3 I've reported many bugs and none were ever categorized as minor or even moderate.  At work I write only a few technical articles yet the ones I do write I know will be massively used/appreciated.  Reviewing other forums no one has ever commented on my concerns as being minor or over exaggerated... so I doubt my focus only started sliding after this complex trading idea appeared.  

It's important to mention concerns which can exist without a 3rd party merchants guild because if trading between players can only be done by caravans and no 3rd party merchants guild exists than we both know of one or more problems to identify than report.  After much careful thought regarding all trading being done from caravans it seems the greatest problems would be the increased time waiting for a trade on these very massive maps and the increased dangers due to the distance.  Ideally some type of trading should exist via teleportation using a balanced associated magic cost thus caravans would remain the primary method.   If possible and if the developers have time I would be more pleased with two optional trading methods.

I wasn't exactly aiming for a compliemnt. This thread might also be in the renning to becoome the Second Dead Horse Buffet, except that the OP is still celarly into the thing, ad nanseum.

But my point is that I don't think it's possible to balance teleportation costs if teleportation is used for foreign trade and you want unrestricted and unlimited trade from early on. Let's say I send a quick flying unit to explore early on and discover a distant nation. To be able to really trade with that player, especially so early in the game, the costs of teleporting resources across the map would have to be very manageable. And, if you want to be able to trade prolifically, then the costs would have to be even more manageable. And to take your previous example of having to manage 100+ caravans, if I want to be able to trade that prolifically across large distances, then the costs of teleportation would have to be negligible. But that would be problematic.

Every feature leads to the possibility of some starting locations being better than others, or more conducive to certain strategies. Every feature (except map generator settings that are designed to start every player in symmetric starting locations and all). So quite frankly I don't see this as a problem. For example, in a good random map resources will not be uniformly distributed (that's boring imo), meaning Player_X and Player_Y might have an advantage because they started out closer to several useful resources and got to use them earlier. So if you are going to posit this as a problem, then I hope you think that it's a problem with resources, too.

First, let me revise the first part of that sentence: "Actually we should be suggesting ideas which are of greatest importance to us". Trade happens to me of importance to me. And secondly, a disagree with what you said. We should suggest everything that we think could make Elemental a better game, and then trust Stardock, being an established company with a good corporation, of being able to make intelligent decisions. Seriously, I don't understand why you think Stardock is incapable of making good decisions and not biting off more than it can chew. Stardock is much more capable of making those decisions than you, me, or anyone else on these forums.

But, if you have a monopoly over a valuable resource like Fire Ruby Gems but only currently have safe trade options with 3 players instead of 8, then you get to strategize about how to open up trade with more people to maximize your profit. In a normal trade situation there is no strategy involved to make use of a monopoly. Step 1: stumble across Fire Ruby Gems. Step 2: Profit. Whereas with a deeper trade system, you have to actually work for the profit. And you're looking at one player here who wouldn't always choose the fast speeds.

Again with this silly argument! The vague, distant possibility that someone might discover an exploit a year after the game is released is a horrible reason to throw out an idea. If such an exploit is found, then it will be fixed. Problem solved. From now on every time you repeat this ridiculous argument I'm just going to ignore it.

I wouldn't be at all opposed to that, so long as the faster types of trading make sense in the setting. 

There is always a first. Like I said, I didn't want to imply that you have a chronic habit of doing so, but like I said you've been coming up with extreme scenarios and minor issues and presenting them as insurmountable obstacles. They're perfectly valid points (they would have to be addressed at some point), but they are just not relevant at this stage.

Except that it isn't the feature we (or at least I) have been discussing. I would not be suggesting a trade system sans a 3rd party traders implementation, not unless someone came up with an alternative. We've both already mentioned concerns that could exist without one, you don't need to keep rehashing them. If Stardock has bothered to read through this whole thread (which I doubt, despite their promise to read everything), they would already be painfully aware that major problems would exist sans a 3rd party. 

I mean, you may as well say it's important to mention concerns which could exist in a trade system where the AI handles all your foreign trade for you without any way for you to control it. No one is suggesting Stardock do it, and Stardock probably wouldn't do it. It could, maybe, possibly occur, but if it did we could deal with it then. The point of these forums is to make suggestions, and discuss their pros and cons. Not argue every little tiny possible detail about every variation of a suggestion we can come up with.

The great thing about compliments is that they are entirely in the eye of the beholder - whatever you meant by it, it still makes me proud

For maps which will be expanding to sizes never before reached finding balance for teleportation costs will be easier than finding balance on a new trading system which has more variables and is significantly more complex. 

Of course locations can be a problem, but the trading system you're suggesting would place Player_A(the lone far away player) with a greater trading penalty as compared to the instant trading available from Dominions_3 or the contact required trading available from AoW:SM.   Take a look at Civilization_4 where the researching of technologies introduced a learning curve for anyone who falls behind which can quickly happen when not in the mainstream of trading technologies.  I guess Stardock could also provide a learning curve for those who fall behind in spell research and technology due to a remote location, yet this would be another adjustment for the complex trading system.



  I believe Stardock cares and listens very closely to its customers on the forums and if it sees posts requesting fancy high_end graphics than naturally I believe this can bend some of their development decisions.  So while I believe Stardock is capable of making good decisions I also believe they bend some decisions based on what's posted within the forums.  Hopefully this allows you to understand so we can move forward.



 And opening trade means clearing a safe path and even then the flow of trade would move so slowly as you could be waiting 50+ turns for the first shipment.  At least if I'm having major bad luck in a fantasy game using the traditional trading system I wouldn't have any risks involved with trading and I wouldn't have to wait for an unknown amount of traveling time thus less trading between players.  Your return argument is claiming this makes the player consider strategizing ways to open trading... I'd rather spend time strategizing about item forging, spell combos, unit builds, champion development and battle formations while you can be deciding which trade route provides the best cost/speed ratio.   

  Since we don't want you reaching your boiling point again we'll try and focus on the two more obvious and greater problem with your suggested trading system which would be time spent waiting for a trade on massively large maps and the growing dangers involved as the map size increases.

Yes, this is why I continue the discussion to not only identify problems and their possible solutions, but also provide improvements because it's possible trading may exist only by caravans. 

Always a first... the same can be said for winning a big lottery.  It's important to examine the many angles of a new complex idea to identify the biggest problems.  The two major concerns which don't seem very scalable for massive large maps would be the dangers for trading and the time involved for trading thus causing less trading between players.  And a minor concern of extra micro-management of the trade units... if something going to introduce extra micro-management I'd rather it be related to something such as alchemy, unit builds, spell combos or battlefield formations as compared to monitoring the travel of trade units to other players and pondering cost/speed ratios for foreign trade routes.



   Actually I haven't covered every little tiny possible detail otherwise the list of concerns, problems and improvements would be massively more extensive... let me know if you need examples.  It's only obvious for a new complex trading system to have many topics of concerns, problems and improvements otherwise it wouldn't be complex.