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Active Trade Bonus - Colors as Trading Spheres/Blocs


Alex
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So we all know Colors are basically meaningless. I think they're a neat idea to form cleavages between players, but aside from role-play, they don't do much. We've experimented with different options before, with not a lot of great success.

This proposal is to define each color in terms of trade. This would be essentially a new mechanic, you can think of it as each color being it's own Trade Deal/Organization, and each nation gets to join one exclusively.

How it works in practice is simple, every turn each nation on a given color would get a cash bonus equivalent to the average monetary net income of all nations on that color, divided by the total number of nations on that color.

For example, here are current figures:

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So if you were an Aqua nation, you'd get a free $12,514 (~$150k/day) each turn just by being on the Aqua color. The "justification" is that your nation is doing 'extra' trading with other Aqua nations (behind the scenes) and you're all getting a shared bonus from that free-trade.

This creates a trade-off then, between wanting big, producing nations on your color, and having too many small nations that bring the average down. Of course, it's free money for all nations involved, but being a flat bonus it is relatively larger for smaller nations. This is one additional way we can ease the growth of new players.

Now, I would add a few stipulations to this "Active Trade Bonus" as I've dubbed it, just to ensure it's not plainly free money.

  • You would have to be an active nation to receive it. By active, I mean either logged in on the current server-day, or have logged in on the day previous. Essentially, it would work like the login bonus does. If you're gone for 2+ days, you'll stop receiving the free bonus money until it comes back. The bonus amount would still be figured by dividing total nations though, not just active nations.
  • If you're in an alliance, you need to be on the same color as your alliance to receive the bonus. Similar to how the current Color Bonus works.
  • I would remove the existing, 3% gross income color bonus. I have looked at rough figures (not exact) but for the average nation, it wouldn't be until ~City 32 that you'd actually be losing money from this change, assuming you're getting $20,000 per turn ($240,000 extra per day.)
  • Beige nations would receive some flat rate, like $20,000 per turn.
  • Gray nations would receive no bonus, $0/turn.
  • You would not receive the Active Trade Bonus if you were blockaded.

In sum, this change would:

  1. Give Colors some meaning. There might actually be competition again to get people to move colors as you all try to maximize your cash bonuses. (You can always defeat someone in a war to kick them off of your color)
  2. Free money for everyone (I can't go wrong with that, right?) but not too much, and in particular comparatively more for smaller, active, growing nations
  3. Another reason to be active and log in everyday

In addition, I may want to change "Color" to something like "Color Faction", "Color League", "Color Bloc", etc. to make it more clear what they are (particularly for new players.) I'd probably do a poll on that with suggestions and let you guys all decide what to call them.

As usual, indicate favor/disfavor with like/dislike buttons, and leave your feedback in the replies!

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My question is why the initial flat rate idea for Beige is greater than what 7/14 actual, normal colors would get. Removing Gray because its gets nothing and Beige because it's only for losing a war. 

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If you think about it in terms of keeping people logging in, that's a pretty good reason to log in daily so I am totally good with giving that a bigger incentive.

Would that be taxable since currently the color bonus is taxable while the daily log in bonus is not taxable?  I'm going to assume that it would be taxable since you're just suggesting replacing one with the other.  

I could see it creating some different FA climate cause you would essentially have to work with upper tier alliances if you're a lower-mid tier alliance to maximize the bonus but I'm not sure if that would really be enough for some people to consider doing that in replacement of the current strategy implemented (allying people you can tier well with).

I think it's a pretty good idea to keep people active but what I think might happen is upper tier alliances merge onto one color then people are constantly switching colors to get max bonus.  You can't really have an upper tier alliance declare on a low tier alliance so it's not like anyone can force someone off their color per se (dependent on the alliances obviously).

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39 minutes ago, Lairah said:

My question is why the initial flat rate idea for Beige is greater than what 7/14 actual, normal colors would get. Removing Gray because its gets nothing and Beige because it's only for losing a war. 

Because if it's too high, it's an incentive to want to be Beiged, which creates awkward mechanics and strategies.

37 minutes ago, Seeker said:

If you think about it in terms of keeping people logging in, that's a pretty good reason to log in daily so I am totally good with giving that a bigger incentive.

Would that be taxable since currently the color bonus is taxable while the daily log in bonus is not taxable?  I'm going to assume that it would be taxable since you're just suggesting replacing one with the other.  

I could see it creating some different FA climate cause you would essentially have to work with upper tier alliances if you're a lower-mid tier alliance to maximize the bonus but I'm not sure if that would really be enough for some people to consider doing that in replacement of the current strategy implemented (allying people you can tier well with).

I think it's a pretty good idea to keep people active but what I think might happen is upper tier alliances merge onto one color then people are constantly switching colors to get max bonus.  You can't really have an upper tier alliance declare on a low tier alliance so it's not like anyone can force someone off their color per se (dependent on the alliances obviously).

I did not intend to have it taxable, I was thinking a flat cash bonus after the fact. Just free extra money for the nation, basically.

As for alliances shifting and whatnot, I am sure that would undoubtedly happen. I think the 14 day limit for changing color for alliances would limit it from happening too frequently, though. And nation color changing could be limited to 5 or 7 days or something as well to restrict too frequent shifting.

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35 minutes ago, Alex said:

Because if it's too high, it's an incentive to want to be Beiged, which creates awkward mechanics and strategies.

I did not intend to have it taxable, I was thinking a flat cash bonus after the fact. Just free extra money for the nation, basically.

As for alliances shifting and whatnot, I am sure that would undoubtedly happen. I think the 14 day limit for changing color for alliances would limit it from happening too frequently, though. And nation color changing could be limited to 5 or 7 days or something as well to restrict too frequent shifting.

The reason I asked about taxing is because if people utilize 100 then it would be really annoying to have to micro manage it.  I think it would be better to have it pre-tax like the current system utilizes for simplicity.  

You could limit it and that would probably be a good idea because people don't typically switch very often if at all besides from grey/beige to current color of alliance.

Like I said earlier, whatever incentives people logging on and joining the game is totally something that I think we need to seriously be investing into more.  Just to mention, I am very glad to see you providing a lot of ideas to the community and trying to make things better.  Good job man!  ? 

I know this might seem off the rail but it does have to do with a big message of the topic regarding in-game activity.  I think we should perhaps lower baseball captchas because that would be a really solid way to get people staying online more as well since they have baseball to play.  Just an idea to think about!  

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@Alex

The main issue I see with this update, is it doesn't really incentivize people to form up color blocs in the first place. There is no added advantage to two allies forming up in the same color, since the more people in one color doesn't increase the bonus, unless those people are above the current average, but even then, 10 people at 2m a day amounts to the same as 100 people at 2m a day.

I'll probably think on it and make a counter suggestion, but as is I don't think this is super effective. The bonus is pretty low too, a 100k increase in income isn't going to do much to incentivize people to do anything.

 

39 minutes ago, Alex said:

I did not intend to have it taxable, I was thinking a flat cash bonus after the fact. Just free extra money for the nation, basically.

It should be taxable if its replacing the color bonus. 

 

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4 minutes ago, Sketchy said:

@Alex

The main issue I see with this update, is it doesn't really incentivize people to form up color blocs in the first place. There is no added advantage to two allies forming up in the same color, since the more people in one color doesn't increase the bonus, unless those people are above the current average, but even then, 10 people at 2m a day amounts to the same as 100 people at 2m a day.

I'll probably think on it and make a counter suggestion, but as is I don't think this is super effective. The bonus is pretty low too, a 100k increase in income isn't going to do much to incentivize people to do anything.

 

It should be taxable if its replacing the color bonus. 

 

I think you're just not understanding his intent perhaps, it seems to me that he is trying to make people work together that usually would not work together.  Like upper tier alliances and lower tier alliances.

Glad you agree on it being taxable.

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15 minutes ago, Seeker said:

I think you're just not understanding his intent perhaps, it seems to me that he is trying to make people work together that usually would not work together.  Like upper tier alliances and lower tier alliances.

Glad you agree on it being taxable.

Where did he say that? 

How does this achieve that realistically anyway? Sure it provides incentive for smaller tiered alliances to work with larger ones, but it provides the opposite incentive for larger income alliances.

What will end up happening most likely, is larger political leaders will send their smaller allies to their political rivals color to lower the trade bonus.

It doesn't incentivizee those alliances to share the same color, which seems to be the intention based on the "Color Faction" bit.

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1 hour ago, Alex said:

Because if it's too high, it's an incentive to want to be Beiged, which creates awkward mechanics and strategies.

I did not intend to have it taxable, I was thinking a flat cash bonus after the fact. Just free extra money for the nation, basically.

As for alliances shifting and whatnot, I am sure that would undoubtedly happen. I think the 14 day limit for changing color for alliances would limit it from happening too frequently, though. And nation color changing could be limited to 5 or 7 days or something as well to restrict too frequent shifting.

I was actually implying it was too high at $20,000. There are legitimate colors with hundreds of players that get a quarter of that.

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2 hours ago, Sketchy said:

Where did he say that? 

How does this achieve that realistically anyway? Sure it provides incentive for smaller tiered alliances to work with larger ones, but it provides the opposite incentive for larger income alliances.

What will end up happening most likely, is larger political leaders will send their smaller allies to their political rivals color to lower the trade bonus.

It doesn't incentivizee those alliances to share the same color, which seems to be the intention based on the "Color Faction" bit.

It wasn't really said outright, it was more hinted in his language.

The only thing it realistically achieves is giving people a reason to sign on daily which is due to the daily log in bonus.  

That's possible as well, I mean lets take this at it is which is just a suggestion that requires proper feedback to be properly manifested lol.  I don't think we should just outright discount it. 

 

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13 minutes ago, Seeker said:

It wasn't really said outright, it was more hinted in his language.

The only thing it realistically achieves is giving people a reason to sign on daily which is due to the daily log in bonus.  

That's possible as well, I mean lets take this at it is which is just a suggestion that requires proper feedback to be properly manifested lol.  I don't think we should just outright discount it. 

 

I didn't discount it, I just said it needs to be changed because its not doing what its proposed to be doing.

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12 hours ago, Alex said:

And nation color changing could be limited to 5 or 7 days or something as well to restrict too frequent shifting. 

Does it also involve changing your color from grey to alliance color?
till now, the cap for changing your color if you get beiged to alliance color is 2 days. However, people who break out of beige(by declaring wars) before that have their colors changed to grey and we still need to wait for two days(or remaining turns) to change it. So, if color change limit is raised to 7 days, it will be a problem.

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