Trade Loss Feature?

[Hunablazer]

I've noticed that there isn't any real incentive to trade with nations in your alliance, or your allies. The alliance trade tab seems almost pointless at the moment.

To encourage trade with alliance members and allies alike, my suggestion is to introduce a trade loss penalty. 

• Give everyone an inherent base of -15% (or -10% for a softer effect) when purchasing resources on the global market.
  • For example, Nation A purchases 1,000 iron from the global market, but only 850 makes it to the nation. The rest is lost due to piracy, theft, and/or accidents. The buyer bears the responsibility of the loss.

 

To offset this penalty, a nation could do several things, including:

• New National Project: Harbour (or Port Authority?) 
  • The Harbour increases the efficiency of your docks, whilst reducing the number of accidents. Trade Loss Penalty reduced by 5%. (I have no idea how much it should cost lol)
• The security from trading with nations within your alliance ensures cargo is protected and arrives safely. Trade Loss Penalty reduced by 10% (combined with the one above reduces it to 0%).
• A trade treaty with another alliance/nation helps ensure your cargo is protected and arrives safely. Trade Loss Penalty reduced by 5% (or 10%). Limit the amount of trade treaties allowed per nation/alliance to prevent abuse. This also wouldn't stack with the above perk, but it would with the national project.

Obviously, the trade penalty reduction wouldn't be able to be reduced past 0%. This would incentivise trade within alliances/blocs, creating more tight-knit communities, but it may increase the price of resources across the board.

 

Anyway, that's the end of my suggestion, be kind, thank you.

[Rin]

A 10% will straight up kill most day trading lol. Maybe 2% might be more reasonable.

I'm not a fan of offsetting this with projects. On one hand, it encourages nation specialization which is cool. On the other hand, it puts it far out of reach of new players, and day trading was one of the main appeals to me as a newbie and every time I reroll.

[JadenStar10]

Only if the resources lost due to piracy make it into the Arrgh Bank

I do agree with the sentiment though, Alliance trading should be used more often. Cyber Nations did this by giving you a happiness bonus when you traded with people in the same colour team as you. I dont believe resources should be "lost" however, I think there should be like a 2% commerce bonus for trading with your own team that lasts 3 days, but it doesnt stack, just a new trade with your color resets the timer.

Edited May 10, 2021 by JadenStar10

[Sweeeeet Ronny D]

9 hours ago, Hunablazer said:

I've noticed that there isn't any real incentive to trade with nations in your alliance, or your allies. The alliance trade tab seems almost pointless at the moment.

To encourage trade with alliance members and allies alike, my suggestion is to introduce a trade loss penalty. 

• Give everyone an inherent base of -15% (or -10% for a softer effect) when purchasing resources on the global market.
  • For example, Nation A purchases 1,000 iron from the global market, but only 850 makes it to the nation. The rest is lost due to piracy, theft, and/or accidents. The buyer bears the responsibility of the loss.

 

To offset this penalty, a nation could do several things, including:

• New National Project: Harbour (or Port Authority?) 
  • The Harbour increases the efficiency of your docks, whilst reducing the number of accidents. Trade Loss Penalty reduced by 5%. (I have no idea how much it should cost lol)
• The security from trading with nations within your alliance ensures cargo is protected and arrives safely. Trade Loss Penalty reduced by 10% (combined with the one above reduces it to 0%).
• A trade treaty with another alliance/nation helps ensure your cargo is protected and arrives safely. Trade Loss Penalty reduced by 5% (or 10%). Limit the amount of trade treaties allowed per nation/alliance to prevent abuse. This also wouldn't stack with the above perk, but it would with the national project.

Obviously, the trade penalty reduction wouldn't be able to be reduced past 0%. This would incentivise trade within alliances/blocs, creating more tight-knit communities, but it may increase the price of resources across the board.

 

Anyway, that's the end of my suggestion, be kind, thank you.

you could just sell your stuff for 15% less in the alliance trade market.  That is generally what we use it for, when you want to help out your alliance mates and sell things for a discount.

[BelgiumFury]

I don't like this idea. 
For new people day trading can be one of the few thigns you can do.
If you do want to do something like this I would do something like alliance tarifs (up to a certain amount), leaders will be able to encourage internal trading or will be able to let the free market do it's thing.

 

[TheRealMichaelJordan]

maybe instead of a negative impact on trading in the market, a bonus if you trade internally like if you trade consecutively inside your alliance for a set amount of time, your nation gets an increased % of revenue

[Hunablazer]

Perhaps a policy that further reduces the trade loss penalty would help to nations temporarily specialise for this day trading. I don't day trade, nor do I know how popular it is either. 

Trade is often an important part of other games, yet here it seems to have very little purpose. Embargoes are pointless, resources appear instantly in your nation, and you are probably buying or selling resources off/to your enemy (not that it doesn't happen in real life though lol). 

I had considered some of the other suggestions, but I felt like they didn't add enough extra fun or strategy to the game. Alliances will not want to use tariffs, they'll just be hurting their own members, and I worried that boosting income for a period of time for trading on the same team/alliance could be too easily abused/worked around. I figured by adding some trade loss, but also adding a way to overcome the penalty would add some more flavour and strategy to the trade aspect of the game, and would also not be too difficult to implement.