12/31/2013 - Commerce Nerfed

[Alex]

I've nerfed the commerce improvements and I'll explain why.

 

Before they were kind of arbitrary numbers that worked, I've reworked them so that it better fits the goal of the game.

 

Supermarkets:

Cost $5,000 to build

$600/day to maintain

Increase commerce by a flat 4%

Max Per City: 5

 

Banks:

Cost $15,000 to build

$1,800/day to maintain

Increase commerce by a flat 7%

Max Per City: 4

 

Malls:

Cost $45,000 to build

$5,400/day to maintain

Increase commerce by a flat 12%

Max Per City: 3

 

Stadiums:

Cost $100,000 to build

$12,150/day to maintain

Increase commerce by a flat 18%

Max Per City: 2

 

What does this mean?

 

With the exception of supermarkets (which was my base figure) all of the improvements are cheaper. Yay!

You can have more of these improvements per city. Yay!

They produce less commerce now and at a flat rate (I know you're bummed, but this is a good change, and it affects everyone not just you)

They cost more to maintain (this is to discourage newer nations from getting them right away, instead they can harvest resources and sell them. Yay! )

 

The main thing that this has done has made it so you need to use more improvements slots to get 100% commerce. The days of every city easily being at 100% commerce are over- as well they should be. This makes you think just a little bit more about what you want to do and gives us more options. Before it was simply "build commerce and population, ????, profit." Now mining resources should be a more legitimate option, and actually focusing on commerce and population is something that is really only viable for large nations (as it should be).

 

I know there will be a lot of complaining and whining, many of you will be upset, but just remember it affects everyone. I'm not doing this to ruin your fun or trash your income, I'm doing it to make the game more fun and dynamic for everyone. I hope you'll understand.

 

Thank you.

[Alex]

As an additional note, yes, you'll notice that it's cheaper to build and maintain 2 supermarkets vs. 1 bank. However, not having to use 2 trade slots is what makes the bank (and the next tier for each until you get to the stadium) a better option. Instead of cost being the limiting factor, it will be improvement slots, which is ideal.

[Grillick]

I think this is a good change overall, but I'm very disappointed that you ignored several comments that your proposed temporary solution (allowing anyone to change economy type at will) was not working.  I waited several days without collecting so that I could switch to a more favorable economy type, and now a 3-day collection is going to bring in less than half of what one day's collection would have brought in before.

 

Some warning (or at least a reasonable response to already noted problems) should have been given.

 

Also, in the short-term, this is likely to do little other than stunt growth overall, because the increased supply of resources is going to cause their price to drop precipitously.

[Zots]

Yea, first glance I was like "wtf did my income go!", but after reading what you said I like it.  You have a really good platform for multiple resource trading which will make things more fun than just "tech selling" and with the new nerfs you are right that it'll give new nations more options for building a nation vs. the 1 size fits all for nation building.

[Jerry LeRow]

Can you lower infrastructure cost too? I mean 50 infra would cost me over 130,000$, with my current revenue it'd take me about 4 days to get only that money... then I need money for the actual improvement too

[Alex]

I think this is a good change overall, but I'm very disappointed that you ignored several comments that your proposed temporary solution (allowing anyone to change economy type at will) was not working.  I waited several days without collecting so that I could switch to a more favorable economy type, and now a 3-day collection is going to bring in less than half of what one day's collection would have brought in before.

 

Some warning (or at least a reasonable response to already noted problems) should have been given.

 

I'm sorry about that, remember that we're still in beta and just testing things and it will all go to 0 eventually anyway.

 

Can you lower infrastructure cost too? I mean 50 infra would cost me over 130,000$, with my current revenue it'd take me about 4 days to get only that money... then I need money for the actual improvement too

 

Infrastructure really isn't too expensive, I understand it will take you time to get more of it, that's why ideally you'd try to harvest resources and sell them to get that money. I understand this is what you're trying to do, and I know there isn't a huge economy going on right now and what Grillick says is probably true-

 

 

Also, in the short-term, this is likely to do little other than stunt growth overall, because the increased supply of resources is going to cause their price to drop precipitously.

 

But I don't think nerfing infrastructure cost is the way to go. I think that things should stabilize quickly, and while you might have stunted growth temporarily things will all work out in the end

[Aenir]

Supermarkets:

Cost $5,000 to build

$600/day to maintain

Increase commerce by a flat 4%

Max Per City: 1

Uh, only one supermarket?  Really?

[ataraxis]

The start of the game will be annoyingly slow. There won't be any buyers. I doubt resource mining will be extraordinarily lucrative either even after people start building up. I have a feeling that this game will stagnate when it goes out of beta but we'll see.

[Jemmm]

Before you touched anything everything was perfect stop screwing things up. What will you touch next. If you plan on messing with things there is infrastructure and land costs also military costs that's what needs to be decreased. Thanks for ruining 400k of my income.

[Trebs]

Before you touched anything everything was perfect stop screwing things up. What will you touch next. If you plan on messing with things there is infrastructure and land costs also military costs that's what needs to be decreased. Thanks for ruining 400k of my income.

 

 

Relax

 

 

we're still in beta and just testing things and it will all go to 0 eventually anyway.

[Dongs (old)]

So far I lost 49.45% of my income, sweet.

[Ark]

Could we get a reimbursement for the commerce building we currently have so we can kick-start the economy?

[Jack Smith]

Oh great, now my back collect has been cut by half... 

Now it's gonna take twice as long to get my next city...

[Captain Ahab]

I think it's a good idea to force people to mine, refine, and sell to gain money. So I applaud this change. Unfortunately, the problem still remains that under the current structure no one really needs anyone else. You can produce anything you need on your own. The change that should be made is to limit the number of resources that you can mine and refine. That will force nations to either trade for or buy the things that they can't make. This will led to an explosion of market activity.

[Aenir]

I think it's a good idea to force people to mine, refine, and sell to gain money. So I applaud this change. Unfortunately, the problem still remains that under the current structure no one really needs anyone else. You can produce anything you need on your own. The change that should be made is to limit the number of resources that you can mine and refine. That will force nations to either trade for or buy the things that they can't make. This will led to an explosion of market activity.

There already is a limit on what you can produce.  The problem isn't a lack of resources on the market; the problem is a lack of money to buy anything.

[Captain Ahab]

Let me try this again. The fundamental problem of the market is that there is no demand for anything you a want to sell. Why is this? Because every nation can produce on it's own any resource that it needs. Why would I buy anything from another nation when I can make it on my own for less. Why buy coal for my plant when I can make it cheaper. Why buy iron when I can mine it by myself forever. This is why the market is doing nothing. Even when there was money in the game no one was using the market for anything other than for bargain hunting.

 

Now, if you needed say 200 coal, 200 food, 200 bauxite, 200 steel for your next city build and you were only allowed to produce coal and food in your nation you would have to either trade for or buy the bauxite and steel from the nations that were allowed to make it. This was the idea behind the market in PT and it was the best the best part of the game. In fact, in PT you needed resources that you couldn't make on your own to do just about anything, from building a police station to a battleship. It forced every nation to buy resources on the open market. That gave every new nation an immediate opportunity to make income.

[SoS]

It's a great idea to make the commerce work better, but agh...hyper-inflation on our debts.

[Caladin]

As a counter to those asking for advance notice, I would ask that you never give advance notice, because that will give people the opportunity to act to negate the effects of the change or take advantage of it. 

[Jerry LeRow]

Like other people said, resources aren't that lucrative so I can replace the money I lost because of the update.

I remember before a few days there were about 90 global offers, yesterday there were 30... now there are 36...

So no, I'll not focus on resources, I'm gonna focus fully on revenue.

 

And the infra is in my eyes too expensive...

[Secundus]

My income went down ALOT.

[Hereno]

You want to make this change really work?

 

1. Give each nation a single power resource (either coal or oil) and a single non-power resource. Create a need to actually use the market, as was suggested before. Cooperation between nations/international trade should be essential to surviving. This also makes getting into alliances - which is the best way to keep people involved in the game - much more important.

 

2. Then, implement a war system so we can actually have any use whatsoever for investing in something other than commerce and production of coal or oil. I have 1k troops just in-case war comes up, and zero tanks. Most of the resources in game are useless and they're over-abundant. I'd even go as far as to say that resource buildings need to produce less resources.

 

3. Finally, put a 3 day cap on collections and put a soft cap on total money a nation can have on hand based on the nation's current score. This requires cooperation between nations for any bankrolling - as opposed to massive back-collects that aren't fun and simultaneously screw up the economy - and encourage activity as the best way to grow. This way, you can make money really easy to get like it was before, but also create a factor that encourages people to invest in resources and other things rather than hoarding money.

[McMelvin]

What happens to the money we spent on improvements before the prices went down?

[Caladin]

What happens to the money we spent on improvements before the prices went down?

 

I'd say it's gone.

Remember, you are playing a beta (I'd actually call it an alpha, but w/e - you still need to expect changes that might not always be to your benefit)

[Jerry LeRow]

What happens to the money we spent on improvements before the prices went down?

Aaaaand... it's gone... *Poof*

[ataraxis]

You want to make this change really work?

 

1. Give each nation a single power resource (either coal or oil) and a single non-power resource. Create a need to actually use the market, as was suggested before. Cooperation between nations/international trade should be essential to surviving. This also makes getting into alliances - which is the best way to keep people involved in the game - much more important.

 

I'm going to clarify on this. Either that or refute what you're saying.

 

You do not need any resources to survive right now (except food). Even if I can only make one resource (I hope you give food to everybody) I don't really care that much, unless I'm going to be running tanks or planes (ostensibly soldiers may eventually use munitions). Maybe if the cost to buy a resource is high enough to justify using a slot to mine/refine, I'll do it, but otherwise it's still commerce all the way. I can elect to live a lifestyle largely free from the resource system completely, and, far from being suboptimal, this is certainly still one of the best ways to grow.

 

 Make it so that we need other resources to survive, by making buildings, infrastructure, new cities, etc. cost resources. If we do not need resources, we won't need to buy them.