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FlameBlade

Thoughts about the new trade system and gold for ships

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Hi, 

I have to say, as a returning player, there seem to be something fundamentally wrong with the system as it stands. 

I come back after a hiatus of 6 months or so, and am starting from scratch. 

I discover to my "horror" that to build something as simple as a schooner, I have to gather 5000 gold?! In addition to the other resources. 

Ok, that is what it is, I get that it is related to the trade system and that is fine. I suppose that this means it should be relatively easy, compared to diving and digging for treasure,  to raise the 5000 gold. 

Right, so I build my marked. Bit expensive, but that's ok, because I am going to make a killing, right?

Ok, the marked doesn't work without a warehouse... Ok, that makes sense, I suppose, so I gather the materials for a warehouse and am finally able to put it down. 

And this is where the logic chain breaks down. 

I cannot put down my warehouse, because there is apparently another one in the vicinity. I cannot see it though, which suggests, that since I have a fairly good view from my spot, the exclusion range of a warehouse is quite large. 

This means, that it is almost impossible, or at least very very difficult, for a small single-member trading company like myself, to get some trade going, because there isn't room to get started?

There is something very very wrong with this system, if I am required to join a large trading company just to get into the trading system. 

Seems to me, that the exclusion range on e.g. warehouses should only apply within a company. 

The same goes to some extend for farmhouses, quarries, mines etc. I get that logically, there has to be a limit to the automated resource gathering in an area, but since real estate in this game is limited, it makes it incredible difficult for new players to get started.

You find a nice spot, build a nice base, get ready to build a larger ship. Only to discover that you cannot put down essential structures because you're within the exclusion range of another structure that does not even belong to you.

I really do not know what the intention with the system is, but there seems to be some major flaws in it. 

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I feel your pain.  I have played with medium and large companies in previous seasons.  At the moment I'm giving it a go as a tribe of two.

Your experience matches mine, except I was able to squeeze a warehouse down in lawless, after doing some...shady pirate things to my neighbors.

It doesn't get much better after that though.  The Market interface is clunky, and there do not seem to be any good tutorials on how to use it.  I think I figured it out, but to start making trades, requires that some other company randomly decided to check / change their routes, and finds my offers after side scrolling through 5 tabs of pagination  (it is at least sorted by distance, so that's a plus).

If I start making a killing on it, I'll let you know. In the 15 or so hours I've had it up though, it has made zero. 

I never minded farming RSS for 1 to 3 hours to build a schooner or brig (even without tames). Farming gold for several days though... that's brutal.

Edited by Thayxen
Clarification
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You know... I... after some neighbor guys drop the game for 20 days, I was able to demolish their farmhouse and build my. Then after another 20 days, I was able to demolish another player warehouse, and build my. And I finally got my trading set. You wanna know what happened next?

My windmill produce just regular wood, thatches, fiber and stone. I set to trade 1x1 my type of wood to all other type of wood. Thatches for thatches. Fiber for fiber. Stones for stones. And that's it. The next day I found in my warehouse tons of gems, metal, ingots, gunpowder, cannonballs and eggs. Why??? 

¯ \ _ (ツ) _ / ¯

I just set something for trading, and got something I didn't set in trading back. I guess it just works this way. The way we never understand. 

There are trading logs in market. It gives you like 90 pages of logs everyday. All logs looks like that: "You shipment 290479832754928745234 was sent", "You shipment 10803457538573 was complete". You wont be able to navigate those insane numbers to make it clear at all.

And gold. Yeah. Logs keep saying like: "You've got 9 gold for taxes". Sometimes it's 18. If you check your warehouse and pick a gold once a day, you'll get like 1200 gold per day. Or 800 gold. Or 600 gold. Or even NO gold at all. After a week I had 3 days when my trading didn't produce a single golden coin for me. Even tho logs were keep telling me about 9/18 gold tax income. Why?

¯ \ _ (ツ) _ / ¯

So...overall. You set your trading. You get some random resources in trade back. And you get some random gold as a result of trading. Or in some occasions - no gold at all. And you can not understand how it works, how to control that, how to navigate that.

As for 5 000 schooner, well... it's couple days of sloop sailing to lvl-5 bottles (usually one grid away from the bottle and easy doable solo with lvl-1 bear tame), and also shipwrecks checking out. Lvl-10 wreck gives you around 300 gold. Lvl16 gives you around 600-800. I personally don't like this trading system so much, so I WONT set it the next season at all, and gonna earn my 5 000 schooner old fashion way.

Edited by George Catcher

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Thanks for the input George. 

@FlameBlade - After I replied to your post, I got on and spammed trade invites to something like 30 routes (instead of just 5 I originally had).

I woke up this morning to find some had connected, and I made 500g overnight.  Similar to what George is saying, I'm receiving a few things not set up in my trade offers (gems specifically...as I have no gem requests or offers set up).  Not complaining about it, but whether it's working as intended...I have no idea.

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@George Catcher

I have a theory regarding the days you're getting no-gold.  Have your original offered resources run low?  For example, I trade slate.  My slate stockpile is nearly empty after the above mentioned night of trading.  In it's place though, I now have a huge stockpile of another type of stone.

I'm going to go in and create sell offers for things I do not produce locally, so it will possibly re-sell. Try doing the same and let me know if that creates a consistent tax stream.

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Have your original offered resources run low?

Nope. I'm really full of resources, usually have like 3 full stack of wood (10 000 each), same with other. My windmill keep stop doing it works due to lack of storage space, so my warehouse can not gather all my windmill produces. My guessing is - maybe the reason from the other side? Like guy whom I trading with have lack of resources?

Or maybe this is some kind of bug, because... I'm not sure but it seemed to me that at some point my warehouse stopped burn a fuel. It showed it works, but amount of coal was at the same level. I stop gathering, then start it again, and after that I've got my gold income back.

Today I found just 178 gold tho...

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Hmm. Well whatever's going on with your farmhouse, I think we can rule that out as being the cause. 

Does your warehouse run out of slots? Another theory is you should try keeping at least 1/3rd of slots open in the WH. Who knows how far ahead the trade AI tries to plan space reservation.  Your guess is as good as mine.  Anyway good luck to ya.

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A few mini-tips on farms and markets.

 

  1. You will likely need to INTENTIONALLY lower the efficiency of the farms by placing the foundations in order to prevent them filling up quicker than the warehouse can drain it. It will not auto-start once it stops. It will just drain and remain stopped.
  2. Warehouse trades are weighted, and need to match at both ends.
    1.  If I set a trade of "Slate" for "Granite" at a 1:1 ratio. I can ONLY trade Slate for Granite.
      1.  If my neighbor has a trade of "Granite" for "Slate" at a 10:1 ratio, we WILL TRADE at an average of our rates. I will send 5 Slate, and he will send 1 Granite. You CANNOT PREVENT THIS except by cancelling the trade route.
    2. If I set a trade of "Slate" for "Stone" at 1:1 ratio, I can trade Slate for any other stone. Weighted ratios still apply. Some 'evil' person can set a bunch of "Marble for Stone" trades at 1:100 and if you have a route you will send 50:1 in return.
  3.    Gold earned is based on distance (in grids) but currently everything is 1 because there is only INTER-grid trading. Gold earned is PER trade, at either 10 gold for two different companies trading, or 5 gold for inter-company trades. (trading with your own markets)
  4. You can set a market to private and have a few of them on one grid and just set a bunch of 1:1 trades between them to passively generate gold.
  5. Warehouses will stop collecting (I think) if they fill on weight, but not on slots? This one is weird.
     
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Little update to my gold situation. I've noticed if I have gems, gunpowder, cannonballs and eggs in my warehouse (all stuff I DIDN"T set for trading) then I'll have a gold as income. If I don't - then no gold : ))

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If one is  in my way I just blow it up. With that being said I really shouldn’t have to do that. Remembering this is a video game and player should have access to the farmhouses, warehouses, and trading aspects, I still for the life of me haven’t figured out why they haven’t just made a farmhouses of all types be buildable in your base and just collect all resources on the island it’s on. then everyone regardless of company size gets a farmhouse, warehouse, and market on a island and the perks of those structures. This would solve so many issues on its own that it’s almost a joke to say it. I get the idea that companies should be fighting over position on a island and the current mechanic works good just for that but where is the quality of gameplay for all players? 

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Well, I am happy to see that I am not the only one baffled by the "logic" of it all. Misery loves company and all that 😉

I can only hope, that the developers will actually begin to balance things so it actually works, instead of just adding new stuff. 

I like new stuff, but I like that existing stuff works, even better 😄

 

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