Online Trade Issues

[Androv 6]

 MC,

Could we have a setup where you could perform 'auto-trades'.

By this, I mean that your city could automatically offer on the marketplace a number of resource tokens, if certain conditions were met.  You could also have 'auto-buy' options which would get your advisors to automatically purchase contracts if certain conditions were met.

For instance, in my water city Qulara, I have excess 140 water tokens.  If I don't play for a few days (because my wife has become interested in D&D Online) I come back on and my city is sitting there with negative cashflow and enough water to start Noah's Flood.  It would be great if I could have set up a small automatic system that said:

IF Water Tokens > 10

Then Offer 1 Water Token for $50

Offer 2 Water Tokens for $90

Offer 5 Water Tokens for $200

This could be permanently available on the marketplace if I had the water tokens available.

Similarly, I have a huge industry deficiency.  Therefore, I could have the city advisor perform:

IF Heavy Industry < -5 tokens AND Cashflow > $200

Then Purchase 1 Industry token for AT MOST $30

Repeat until Heavy Industry > -5.

I like the online trading but it can become a bit of an issue when all of your contracts have expired.  It also makes it difficult for your trading partners who rely on these contracts when you're not available to run them.

I know there's a web based system for this but it is a bit slow currently (mainly because you have to re-enter and reload the page every time your make an offer, which is tedious for 40+ times).

Thanks,

Androv

PS.  Still enjoying the game, can't wait for blueprints!  

[TheJackalope 0]

I agree. I think what would be useful is the ability to set buy and sell levels and a price that could be updated automatically. For instance you set that you want to buy up to 20 water for a price of up to 35c each. Someone could then sell you 1 to 20 for that price. If someone sold you 1 then your buy order would drop to 19, if they then canceled it would go back to 20.

[Stef42 0]

I think that contracts with other players should be more than 5 days at max. 10/15 would be better..

[Kredit 0]

Great idea I'd also like to have the option to put any number of tokens up with a "per unit" price, so that people can buy the number they want (some sort of bulkdiscount could also apply). Add an automatic trade-sharing between your own cities and I'm happy.

[zwr100 2]

Originally posted by: Stef42

I think that contracts with other players should be more than 5 days at max. 10/15 would be better..quote>

The option to have "indefinate" contracts that last until someone cancels would be sweet.  I think it makes sense to only have shorter option intially though.  The fact that you have to redo your contracts keeps the economy dynamic and allows active players access to resources rather than longer contracts tieing up the resources potentially in inactive cities.

Also, I think trading between your own cities can be an exploit:

Dirty City sells a Token of oil for 500C.

Clean City buys the Token.

Play Dirty City with absurd budget.

Okay, you have to have the cash to do that in the first place, so here it goes....

Clean City sells whatever tokens to Dirty City for whatever DC can afford to increase the CC budget.

Clean City buys the oil token for 500c.

Dirty City cancels the other contracts for tokens purchased from Clean City.

Play Dirty City with absurd budget using 'false' income.

That's feasible right?  Anyone else see a problem with that?

[jeremy12 0]

the ability to set contract lengths, more dynamic contracts, and never ending contacts i think would be a nice addition

by dynamic contracts i mean one that says i will give 5 manufacturing tokens for 1 waste token etc...

[Androv 6]

I think you can propose 'dynamic contracts' to other cities directly, however I think they still only last 5 days

[Stef42 0]

The 5 day limit is probably to keep a interaction between the other players, make it a bit harder to trade..

Or else, you would just pick a trade that lasted forever, I think it would destroy the complete 'Planet-Idea' ...

[SimBurger 0]

Philippe was on the chat today and answered the question about whether they plan to allow indefinite contracts. He gave a very solid "no" to that. The reason that they have stuck with 5 days is beacuse they want to encourage cross-participation rather than people having indefinite contracts with just one other city. It forces people to differentiate, and allows for constant change.

I understand this logic. I think they may end up extending the maximum but they wont ever enable indefinite trades.

Auto-trades sound like an intelligent option as well, though they may want to encourage actual user participation as costs are involved etc.

SB

[jeremy12 0]

Originally posted by: Androv

I think you can propose 'dynamic contracts' to other cities directly, however I think they still only last 5 days quote>

thats the issue tho i know you can but thats directly, what if i don't have a city i want to propose it to...

[Livin in Sim 83]