Tariffs and Trade Based Politics

[Boltzlem]

Credit goes to Lucky Luciano for the original idea and shared credit to Key, TRKaisern OnvOckIS, Fine and Dandy for talking about the idea in the PnW server.

 

Trade is rather bland in PnW and offers little in the way of beneficial and varied policy.

You can either openly trade or embargo and not trade at all. This has some benefits but its use cases are limited. Introducing Tariffs to the game would add the ability to apply a form of trade restriction that discourages trade with a group rather than ban it out right. A garden hose dial rather than kinking the hose you could say.

 

So I propose this new mechanic would work is like this.

Lets say Alliance A and B dislike each other.

Alliance A puts a 25% tariff on B.

A member of Alliance B is selling Lead at 1000 PPU, and a member of Alliance A buys 1k of lead.

The 1k of lead will cost 1 million and will go to the seller as usual and the 25% tariff will add a $250,000 "fee" that goes to Alliance A's bank (the buyers alliance). The buyer would pay 1.25 million in total.

 

In simplest terms:

Buyer: -$1,250,000 & +1,000 Lead

Seller: +$1,000,000 & -1,000 Lead

Buyer's Alliance (25% Tariff Placer): +$250,000

 

 

So why would this be cool? Well you could dissuade members from buying from certain alliances while still allowing them to if the price is significantly lower than alternatives. Also unlike embargoes the alliance will gain the benefit of an added stream of revenue. Additionally it adds another form of income which will spice up tax incentives. Imagine an alliance advertising themselves as being "free trade" while they have high taxes while another alliance advertising themselves (as many do now) as "Tax Free" yet they have high tariffs.

 

This would also get us closer to what seemed to be the goal of shared markets. What do I mean by this?

The goal of markets seemed to be an attempt to isolate trade. I'll put this for sale on our shared market and then only allies can buy it. This largely only gets used occasionally by a member trying to help other alliance members out by selling with a lower profit. The issue is that individual players when trading at large do not care who and or where their food or gas comes from or goes to while alliance governments do. Tariffs open the door to alliance governments to artificially raise prices, said prices seem to be the only decider in PnW's market. We all know 99% of players click on whatever the lowest PPU and buy whatever they need, whether friend or foe. Tariffs will make it so the member makes the amount they expected to and while buying there urge to buy cheap pushes them to allies not enemies. This makes it possible to finally steer trade a little bit. You can even use this to make markets more useful.

I propose two kinds of tariffs. Global and Alliance specific.

Global tariffs would apply to all none members unless your alliance shares a market. Shared markets would treat the members of the other alliances as "members" tariff wise. So if you have a 4% global tariff and share your market with your ally then your members wont pay a tariff for that alliance's goods. This will make setting up "free trade zones" in blocs so much easier. It would be even easier if you could have multiple alliances join one shared market that isnt pegged to one alliance but I do not know how easy that would be to implement vs just tacking on the tariff mechanic to existing infrastructure. 

Alliance Tariffs are exactly as they sound. A tariff set on one specific alliance. They would supersede global tariffs. If you had a 3% global tariff and put a 10% tariff on alliance C then the alliance tariff applies not the global tariff.

 

Well that's the idea in short and bare bones. I am sure more detail is needed and I have no clue how easy or difficult it would be to add. I like the idea hope yall do as well.

[Fine]

Omw to tariff Kins & Cheddar 🙏

[Fime FRE]

Good Idea actually. Not saying that because we're in the same AA and he's my leader

[Wingawoo]

This will simply be the best for profit, magnificent and fantastic profit. This is the profit I have been wanting ever since my father gave me a small loan of a million dollars. Simply brilliant planning for Alex. I will give Alex the C.U.C.K. Agency (Corporation of Unilateral for Cash and Kangaroos) for his planning

[Lysander the Great]

Glad to see the old tariff idea is getting attention again!

[TRKaiser]

#MakeTariffsGreatAgain

[Mohammad]

I like the idea

[Rageproject]

Yeah I thought the idea of color bloc tariffs was being introduced and worked on last year. Maybe I missed where that idea either got scrapped or just shelved. But I think it’s a feature that can elevate the politics and economic play between groups. The game will always rely heavily on the demand economy and certain alliances/nations to be niche producers in areas. It would also add a real level that I think we are missing in the warfare/peace area — because tariffs could become appealing and negotiating tactics within war. 

[Joker]

I would like to see this depth of gameplay added

[donovansavage]

On 2/11/2025 at 4:55 AM, Rageproject said:

Yeah I thought the idea of color bloc tariffs was being introduced and worked on last year. Maybe I missed where that idea either got scrapped or just shelved. But I think it’s a feature that can elevate the politics and economic play between groups. The game will always rely heavily on the demand economy and certain  alliances/nations to be niche producers in areas. It would also add a real level that I think we are missing in the warfare/peace area — because tariffs could become appealing and negotiating tactics within war Sprunki Game

This kind of gaming depth is something I would like to see implemented.

Edited February 18 by donovansavage

[Jacob Knox]

On 2/6/2025 at 11:17 AM, Lysander the Great said:

Glad to see the old tariff idea is getting attention again!

Mfw someone posts the same idea that like 10 other people have and thinks it's something completely original. 💀

 

In other news, I do support introducing tariffs in PnW.

[Boltzlem]

On 3/19/2025 at 1:30 PM, Jacob Knox said:

Mfw someone posts the same idea that like 10 other people have and thinks it's something completely original. 💀

 

In other news, I do support introducing tariffs in PnW.

This is what I get for posting outside alliance affairs. Gotta read a decade of post or risk contributing nothing new 😔.

[Kosta]

A tariff system is honestly a great idea. And I love that you are floating an idea like this. 

It will bring another dimension to the game's politics and trade. 

I hope Alex might consider implementing something like this. 

[pqnos]

#add tariffs

[Stanko1987]

Best idea i seen in a long time. I don't know why this hasn't been implemented in the first place when a similar proposal came popped up a while ago which was meant to be added into the last major update in 2024.