A proposal for a modification of the Merchants in the SSHIP
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Ichon
It would be fine if only Capitals or the Highest Mechant guild buildings generated a merchant
Guided by this opinion of one of the intellectual fathers of the SSHIP I’ve prepared
A proposal for a modification of the Merchants in the SSHIP
Pros and cons of the merchants – a reminder
I’ve exhaustively presented them here, this is just to sum up the main points, to include other player’s arguments, and to set them in the order of importance.
The cons:
1. require much of the micromanagement from the player. It gets very tedious as the game progresses.
2. the AI is weak at handling it and they probably don’t provide much income.
3. there're many exploits possible.
4. there’re some other negative issues: snow-ball effect strengthen, little meaningful choices provided for the gameplay, they’re not presented very historically.
The pros:
A) they add both chrome and something to the gameplay: it's another aspect of the game making the player taking care of (what’s the ultimate goal of any game).
B) the SSHIP has already a balanced income for many factions, and the merchants may play a role in it (especially at the beginning). There’re might also be other mechanics using the very existence of the merchants.
C) other issues: it makes you to appreciate your merchant guilds; it makes your faction income less stable providing with some economic swings.
Goals to be achieved
The ultimate goal is to minimize the negative impact of the “cons” on the gameplay, while keeping the positive impact of the “pros”. This means I want to:
* provide player with fun from playing with the merchants and to keep the chrome they provide,
* minimise the bad things of the player experience: the micromanagent horror, and also the use of exploits;
* keep the balance of the income in game (balance between the factions, ability of the AI to handle it);
* don’t break other mechanisms which me may be not aware of.
A proposal
The main elements of the proposal:
1) keep the merchants in game to give the players fun from dealing with them.
2) limit their numbers to such extent that there’s no micromanagement and the exploits are irrelevant (there’s not need to use them).
3) adjust economy so that the balance is kept – both at the beginning, and also later in the game.
4) don’t change anything (or almost anything) else.
Ad 1) The merchants stay in the game
To emphasize: they are just to give the player fun and chrom. The income they generate is not a major source for neither player nor the AI. It’s just an additional one. Getting a merchant will be much more difficult and it will give the player the feeling of an “achievement” (wow, I’ve upgraded the Merchant guild to a HQ and I’m rewarded!).
Ad 2) The number of the merchants is heavily cut down
Only a few buildings and events will provide the merchants (described below). I assess that during the course of the game most factions will have access to 0-2 merchants (from the Merchant guild HQ or from the other sources), few to 3-4 (if they have a Huge City located at a right spot). Only when a faction develops or conquers more large cities and especially huge cities this number can grow, again to a low numbers like 5. For instance, in my Poland’s game in turn 235 I’d have access to only 2 merchants (while now I have 17).
Ad 3) Economy adjustment
The merchants are not meant to be a source of income for the AI. For the player they’d provide marginal income of a very few percentage points of the budget. However, they’ll usually start with better stats as they’ll be available from the Merchant Guild HQ, what already gives bonuses to their stats.
The main compensation for cutting down the number of the merchants will come from the increase the trade income. I think that the adjustment should be reasonable, but not as high as tmodelsk proposed. It’s for three reasons. First, the initial merchants will stay in place so the initial balance is upheld. Second, the AI is (probably) bad at handling the merchants so it doesn’t require much compensation for not having merchants later in the game. Third, there’ll still be a few merchants in the game providing some income. All in all, I think the ratio of 1.3 to 1.5 would be sufficient.
The starting positions of the factions don’t require any changes. The initial merchants will stay in place as they are. At the beginning their numbers are not a problem – each faction has 1 (or maybe some 2). After a number of turns, they'll start to die out. In practice they will be not replaced unless the faction has a relevant building. Dying out is not a problem as the AI is not perfect at re-sending its merchants onto the same (valuable) places, and it’ll be compenstated as the previous paragraph describes.
Ad 4) No change in the other aspects of the game
The changes will be easy to implement. They just requires:
- deleting some entries in the buildings,
- adding them to a few other buildings,
- creating benefits for some interactive events,
- modifying the mission rewards (if possible).
It means there’ll be little disruption to the game mechanics. I don’t know if there’s something depeneding on the merchants but in theory radical deletion of all merchants may lead to unexpected CTDs.
Furthermore, later on, as the SSHIP develops and complaints/proposal for changes will be gathered, it’ll be easy to fix the flaws of the mechanism. If we just remove the merchants, then fixing issues afterwards would be more difficult.
Where do the merchants come from
‘Economic’ guilds HQs
They’re just one per faction, although it might get higher if the’re present in the cities conquered from the other factions. They are available only after a number of turns from Large Cities.
- Merchant Guild HQ
- Adventurers Guild HQ
- other economic guilds – they’re likely to appear in the next version of the SSHIP.
The Hanseatic guild poses a problem as it doesn’t have a HQ. There’re 14 provinces where you can build it, but it’s difficult for many of the cities to grow to the required level. I think it should be considered together with the buildings whether to add a merchant availability to each. I may imagine a combined condition (Hansa plus Great Market or something).
Trade buildings
There are a few trade building chains which should be analysed in the context of providing a merchant – perhaps from the highest level.
- “normal” trade building chain (the Market) shouln’t give any merchant (even though it might be considered for the highest level, in a Huge City).
- the Italian Trader. Don’t get it wrong – it’s not for the Italian trading factions, it’s for the host factions. The highest level requires Large City. I don’t think this building should provide a merchant.
- the Bank: it’s for the North- and Southeuropean nations, the highest level is for the Huge City. It might be considered, I think.
- the Slavemarket. It requires a resource present in 10 rather provincial cities, obviously, in the Middle East and North Africa. The highest level is for the Huge City. It might be considered, I think.
- the Silk Road Stop – requires a resource present in 17 provinces, with only a few of them able to get quickly to the required city: Large City. However, many of the provinces have the both slave and silk_road resources what would make them allowing more merchants. Therefore not both Slavemarket and Silk Road Stop should be included (if any).
Interactive events
- The “Trade Fairs” interactive event should give a merchant (if technically possible). In my experience the events in the SSHIP are very rare, unlike in the Deus Lo Vult or the Broken Crescent. This perhaps might be changed.
- Later other trade event might be coded.
Mission rewards
One may make a merchant appearing in the capital as a reward for a mission. Perhaps it can be conditional on the faction having not more than 3 merchants or something. Maybe we can link it somehow to the Hanseatic guild.
A primer on making it is here.
Other considerations
One may think about making something for the pagan factions. They’re underdeveloped had has little hope to have merchants soon. This might be historical, and they may conquer more developed cities giving them access to the merchants. However, if one sees it as a problem I see two ways of helping them:
- give a merchant for a building typical to a pagan faction (f.e. a temple)
- make a script giving a merchant to such a faction.
For the merchant republics (Novgorod, Venice, Pisa) we may add possibility to recruit a merchant from a normal Merchant Guild, or form lower-tire trade building (ie from a Large City), or from a port/dockyard, or from a building in a capital.
Perhaps it’d be worth/desirable to link some historical events to the appearance of the merchants.
The provinces have also a “capital” resources so it’s possible to make for each faction one merchant. However, once a faction conquers an enemy capital, it will be able to recruit this merchant (what can be somehow prevent).
The outcome
As the result of the changes:
* The underdeveloped nations will have no possibility to hire a merchant after the initial one dies. Occssionally, one be given by an interactive event or a mission. Later on such a faction would develop / conquer a Large City and perhaps get a guild HQ.
* Most of the factions (those starting with Large City or with a Minor City easily upgradable to a Large City) will have the access to 1 merchants after a number of turn (time to devlop a guild HQ), and sometimes also a second one (the second guild HQ), and occasionally another one (due to interactive event / mission);
* the big nations will have access to 1 or more merchants from their Huge Cities (if the buildings allow), plus what the smaller nations have.
All in all, it’ll be 0-3 merchants per faction throughout the early-mid game, later on only a few more. For the empires of 30 well-developed cities it will be slightly more, but not so many players get to that stage, and it also seems reasonable to have them.
So
Ok, guy, this is just my proposal for future. I think it’s reasonable and balanced, but what do you think?
Re: A proposal for a modification of the Merchants in the SSHIP
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Jurand of Cracow
[....]
The outcome
As the result of the changes:
* The underdeveloped nations will have no possibility to hire a merchant after the initial one dies. Occssionally, one be given by an interactive event or a mission. Later on such a faction would develop / conquer a Large City and perhaps get a guild HQ.
* Most of the factions (those starting with Large City or with a Minor City easily upgradable to a Large City) will have the access to 1 merchants after a number of turn (time to devlop a guild HQ), and sometimes also a second one (the second guild HQ), and occasionally another one (due to interactive event / mission);
* the big nations will have access to 1 or more merchants from their Huge Cities (if the buildings allow), plus what the smaller nations have.
All in all, it’ll be 0-3 merchants per faction throughout the early-mid game, later on only a few more. For the empires of 30 well-developed cities it will be slightly more, but not so many players get to that stage, and it also seems reasonable to have them.
[....]
Jurand - I like your proposal very much.
Some considerations :
.
- after nerfing total merchants number -> the merchant guild requirement need to be reworked (lowered).
Right now there's "Merchant on resource" event that gives about 2 guild points (if I remember correctly) and it's fired on each turn, so for ex. your mentioned 17 merchants gives you 34 guild points each turn. - I will give every faction at least one merchant regardless guild buildings available - just for fun, to little populate map with merchants, etc.