Trade - A viable game aspect?

[Dauntess]

Ok so I see from reading through various threads that the time aspect, waiting for missions to complete etc puts off a lot of people. I've come from a gaming background where I would of killed for two hour missions heh, its certainly not offputting for me and i assume, anybody else who sticks with the game and doesn't quit.

Which makes me wonder about trade. The way i see this server is that there is one or two big dogs at the top and they rule the roost in terms of military and black gems. Lots of people who can handle the time issues get up to rank 5 star and then get schooled in the military department and again quit.

But

Has playing through the game as a trader been explored? I'm new to this game so for me getting fast turn arounds on trades is absolutely positively essential in order for me to complete an ongoing series of actions to best utilise my time. To that end when i decide to sell a resource to raise capital for purchasing required goods or indeed for upgrades that require gold I put my goods up for sale undercutting the competition. If timber is for sale at 3 locally I sell for 2. If food is going for 10 locally i sell at 8 etc.

Now considering the time implications or rather the 'must have and now' ideology of our consumerist society i'd assume that there are many other new players, who like me, could be convinced to sell at low prices in order to faciliate a fast turnaround on trade.

Which makes me realise that of course for a more established player there is a huge potential for making a good profit on the impatience of others. Buy low sell high etc. Does that happen in this game? Is it even neccesary to go 5* to get schooled by the big players? I would feel that the way it is set up a player could make a good gold return to then buy black gems at the auction? Or indeed serve as a financial arm to a clan to raise gold for the military actions of others within the clan for a clan payment of black gems to the trader etc

Its the way it works in other games with much more devloped markets than this game has, but im certainly seeing potential for a good ROI in trade

[Vika]

Has playing through the game as a trader been explored? I'm new to this game so for me getting fast turn arounds on trades is absolutely positively essential in order for me to complete an ongoing series of actions to best utilise my time. To that end when i decide to sell a resource to raise capital for purchasing required goods or indeed for upgrades that require gold I put my goods up for sale undercutting the competition. If timber is for sale at 3 locally I sell for 2. If food is going for 10 locally i sell at 8 etc.

Yes, quite a few people do that. Notably the level 5s who can do it in massive quantities - 200,000 grain at a time for example. Some of us (myself included) tend to wait until the big guns are off the list, stockpiling resources as necessary, waiting till the price hikes about 1 standard deviation above the average for local orders, and then undercutting that. Removing our resources from trade if someone undercuts that, and waiting till the next quiet period.

Even for a lowly level one like myself, putting 20,000 grain on the market at a price point of 12 is more than acceptable, and it usually clears within two hours if it is the lowest on the market within a three hour radius. A good trick, like within any commercial situation, is to know your market, and know what the big guns around you are usually searching for, and what they are prepared to pay for speedy delivery.

[Dauntess]

do you stockpile from your own production or do you buy at 2 then sell at 5 (timber for example)?

[Vika]

I used to buy low sell high when I was just starting up. In the first days on this server (long before I opened the gate) I would send my sole merchant out to buy cheap stone for 3 per unit, and sell it back on the market eight or nine hours later for 5 per unit. It netted a good secondary income, more than my own gold production could match.

I still do that for iron, not stone, occasionally, but I've got a nice little niche for myself at the moment, selling grain, and with rather a lot of grain fields available in my capital city, I produce far more than I sell for the moment, so that has gone by the wayside until I max out there.

I'm also not in the situation I used to be in with iron, where my own level 7 mines supplied my own needs. So I'm buying that these days, just to use it myself. That's one reason why I'm seeking high iron deposits in my satellite towns. It's a very profitable market to get into, but you have to satisfy your own needs first.

[Vika]

Looking back, my reply was a little muddled. I'll add this second post below it because it's so long since I posted that, its better to make a second post than add to that one. I'm more of a trader than a conquerer, so this is the current setuip as I see it:

Wood: Absolutely useless for trade, as there is always a quarter million tonnes or more on the market going for 3 gold a tonne. 2 gold for 1 wood is the resource exchange rate, so pointless to sell it at that rate, and most people have too much of the stuff anyway.

Stone: Wonderful for trade, but you have to watch the market. Steal, use your own or purchase it at 3 gold per unit. Never higher, unless you have no choice. When all the 3 gold per unit is off the market (buy it all if you can) sell it in bulk for 5 gold per unit. If you stockpile, you can wait for the right moment. This will go quickly. Problem is, you also require stone to develop your villages, and there's never enough of it.

Iron: Wonderful for trade. Build iron mines early and sell it. Buy it in at no more than 10 gold per unit, sell at 12-15 gold per unit. Even at that price, it'll sell faster than you can purchase it. Take ruthless advantage of an active price war when you see one, to force the price still lower (watching carefully to be sure very little is actually bought before you remove it). This demands patience, and a knowledge of the online time habits of the local players. As you develop, you find you never have enough of it yourself, so this slows your trades down. Warehouses in particular, eat a lot of it as they level. So do the defensive buildings to keep hungry armies out of villages with 35k of iron in them. You become your own worst enemy if you are not careful with iron.

Grain: Wonderful for trade. Everyone requires it in bulk, to train levelled armies. The local price is pretty stable at around 12 gold per unit, so there's not a lot of money in buy low, sell high with grain. Instead, this one you farm yourself. Lots of level 5-7 windmills in as many fields as you can get your hands on, and dump it on the market en-masse at around 11 per unit. Experience says, if I dump 18k of grain on the market that way, it's gone within 8 hours, for a tidy profit of 198,000 gold.

[Dauntess]

good post, +1, though im going to have to refrain from commenting further until i have more experience, will be running, testing and crunching the numbers for sure

[kingkano]

Interested strategies Vika. One point I wanted to query though -

Iron: Wonderful for trade. Build iron mines early and sell it. Buy it in at no more than 10 gold per unit, sell at 12-15 gold per unit.

How have you managed to buy it at 10 when the minimum sell price is 12?

[Vika]

How have you managed to buy it at 10 when the minimum sell price is 12?

Not a clue. Its probable I've muddled up somewhere along the line. I know I've made a profit on iron though, from buying and selling, and it's very, vary rare there isn't iron on the market for 12-14, so I have no idea where I've screwed up there. Sorry.

[SevcovPa]

I used to buy low sell high when I was just starting up. In the first days on this server (long before I opened the gate) I would send my sole merchant out to buy cheap stone for 3 per unit, and sell it back on the market eight or nine hours later for 5 per unit. It netted a good secondary income, more than my own gold production could match.

Stock exchage will not work here! Sometimes when new players has small market range - may be, but you never reach same results as you can get from neighbours robbery or ruins robbery. Look around how many cities open with resources and no players on line! This is 1st item you must learn - this is war strategy game, farmers die quickly!

[Vika]

Stock exchage will not work here! Sometimes when new players has small market range - may be, but you never reach same results as you can get from neighbours robbery or ruins robbery. Look around how many cities open with resources and no players on line! This is 1st item you must learn - this is war strategy game, farmers die quickly!

I distinctly disagree. The one thing you won't get from the players you um, 'repossess' resources from, is gold. Therefore it makes sense to take those resources, plus whatever you grow yourself, and exchange it for gold on the market. That way you can get all the gold you need for important things, like the auction.

I've stopped bothering to hit ruins or armed farms as it is. Way too many farms are available with no armies. When I hit a level 2 ruin, yes I wiped them out and gained a small amount of resources (about 40k), but my points total jumped alarmingly. I'm having a lot of fun staying at the first level, and using trading to really boost my economy, together with the resources I strip-mine from the inactives around me (more than the ruin can provide in four current cases, and each city provides that, each day).

One day I will climb the ranks, but whilst I'm having so much fun, why change? Its not like the server is ever going to end.

It just proves that it is very possible to be successful as a trader rather than a fighter.

[SevcovPa]

I distinctly disagree. The one thing you won't get from the players you um, 'repossess' resources from, is gold. Therefore it makes sense to take those resources, plus whatever you grow yourself, and exchange it for gold on the market. That way you can get all the gold you need for important things, like the auction.

I've stopped bothering to hit ruins or armed farms as it is. Way too many farms are available with no armies. When I hit a level 2 ruin, yes I wiped them out and gained a small amount of resources (about 40k), but my points total jumped alarmingly. I'm having a lot of fun staying at the first level, and using trading to really boost my economy, together with the resources I strip-mine from the inactives around me (more than the ruin can provide in four current cases, and each city provides that, each day).

One day I will climb the ranks, but whilst I'm having so much fun, why change? Its not like the server is ever going to end.

It just proves that it is very possible to be successful as a trader rather than a fighter.

Of course you have option to play in your own style, but this is not really the pupose what for this game designed or what the GAME expect from you - this is deadly way to leave the game, because there will be no any adrenalin and fun. Simply buy and sold you can play on facebook - Family farm.....
When you start leveling up, you will need A LOT OF RESOURCES, you production buildings will never produce this!!!
When you will be on level 5 somedays you can try to reach limit of 30 robberies of ruins in a 24 hours (sometime I do this) and this means more than 9 000 000 of GOLD! each 5 star ruin has minimum 300 000 of gold and I didn't say how many wood, stone, crops and iron you will get there on each ruin! Your EACH resource spot has 110000 of stone and 80000 of crops or iron. You can get all this quantity from 3 ruins, just for 3 hours maximum!!! How you can produce so much resorces for 3 hour? NEVER! Sooner or later you will build labs or Visionaries or something else in villages, but you will wipe away your resources buildings - FOR SURE!

ONE MAIN MINUS OF THIS GAME - as far as you grow up you need to spend more time on line in this game, NO OTHER OPTIONS to cllimb up on ranking level!

[Vika]

Of course you have option to play in your own style, but this is not really the pupose what for this game designed or what the GAME expect from you

What the game developers expect, has no bearing on how players play the game. Any of Raph Koster's research will explain this in great detail. Forcing players to constrain to the developer's ideal of how the game should be played, rather than letting them play as they wish, is one sure-fire way to kill a game. This one is already sickly. It doesn't need that difficulty on top of everything else.

- this is deadly way to leave the game, because there will be no any adrenalin and fun.

Actually, there is a heck of a lot of adrenaline and fun. The number of combat units I've lost is aggrivating to say the least. Worse (from my perspective), to scout a target, hit it and then discover a defending army is in place is a nightmare. Yes, I usually crush said army but it all adds to my point total, which limits the amount of time I can spend at level one. Once I start gaining levels, I'm in a bit of a quagmire, not least because it'll put a serious cramp on my farming. Right now, 98% of my resources are stolen from other players.

Simply buy and sold you can play on facebook - Family farm.....

I'm not a member of Facebook, so I've never played this MMO. Perhaps you could describe it a little, please? If it has a decently complex attack system, and social structure it may well be worth giving it a try.

When you start leveling up, you will need A LOT OF RESOURCES, you production buildings will never produce this!!!

Don't remind me. Most of my production buildings are level 7, and they cannot keep up with anything close to my resource demands now. Levelling my warehouses and passive defense buildings is slow going, even with 150k+ of stolen resources a day. It's nota lot for someone like you, but at my level, that's a good staple to have - even if it is nowhere near enough. When I start levelling it is going to put a serious crimp in my trading, as I will not be able to steal the resources that make up the vast bulk of my trade stock. Ruins don't have near as many resources as abandoned player cities do. Particularly when you're used to attacking 50-60 player cities a day, some netting 10 - 28k a hit.

When you will be on level 5 somedays you can try to reach limit of 30 robberies of ruins in a 24 hours (sometime I do this) and this means more than 9 000 000 of GOLD! each 5 star ruin has minimum 300 000 of gold and I didn't say how many wood, stone, crops and iron you will get there on each ruin! Your EACH resource spot has 110000 of stone and 80000 of crops or iron. You can get all this quantity from 3 ruins, just for 3 hours maximum!!! How you can produce so much resorces for 3 hour? NEVER!

I already know this. As I said, even at level one, my own resource production cannot compete with the resources I steal. Its a lot like real-life really. However hard you work, you cannot compete with people who steal for a living. People like burglars, politicians, football players, always have vast sums of money at hand.

Sooner or later you will build labs or Visionaries or something else in villages, but you will wipe away your resources buildings - FOR SURE!

Nope. Most of my labs are in villages. I have visionary buildings and mirror towers. They build on the spaces that have no resource deposits. The only resource production those squares are good for is wood and gold. Both are the easiest resources to steal, so why bother? I keep a minimum of gold production in each village in case I'm away for a few days, just to slow the loss the army generates when at home. Wood there is absolutely no point in producing, so that's a lot of squares for the various production buildings.

I plan on being at this level a good while yet, so it doesn't matter that even fully levelled research facilities are fairly slow - I have all the time in the world. With luck, I might even be able to complete research before I move up, meaning I can demolish those labs and build something else there. Even if it takes two or three years to get to that point, it doesn't matter. Not whilst I'm having fun.

ONE MAIN MINUS OF THIS GAME - as far as you grow up you need to spend more time on line in this game, NO OTHER OPTIONS to cllimb up on ranking level!

Yea, see I could not do that. I'm guessing you are unemployed. I mean no disrespect by that; in this economy a great many good people are out of work, and things are getting worse every day. But it means you have the time to spend like that. I don't. I *knock on wood* am still employed, and in a job I love, so I would not give it up for the game.

I had this situation once before. I used to play a gamer called Travian. It became extremely time-consuming as the game wore on. It didn't help that I was part of the leadership of one of the three most powerful clans in the game. Eventually, near the end I had to make a choice:

1. I packed in my position as wing leader, and drastically cut back on the time I spent online
2. I quit my job in order to free up the time I needed to perform my leadership duties properly
3. I suffered a nervous breakdown and burnout from sheer overexertion and exhaustion.

I chose option 1, and retired from the game in order to protect my sanity and my main income. At the time I was in substantially better health, so there's that to therow into the equation now.

I simply don't have the time available to spend all day every day on the game. As it is, I'm not always able to log in every day. So, levelling too far, would force me to quit. I would rather not do that, as I quite enjoy this badly broken little thing . So, it seems prudent to keep having fun rather than rush to put myself in an untenable situation.

[SevcovPa]

I'm guessing you are unemployed. I mean no disrespect by that; in this economy a great many good people are out of work, and things are getting worse every day. But it means you have the time to spend like that. I don't. I *knock on wood* am still employed, and in a job I love, so I would not give it up for the game.

I am employed on good job...
One of the reason to play this game is necessity to use PC all the day for the job (you must read e-mails, you must write replies and etc.)
.... so U can use this game as smoking break....
Have already same situation as you with Travian on Russian site. This game became as a job - no vacation, no weekend, every single spare minute you look here for discovered ruins, then send army for resources....
When you build up your army big enough to send 3 or 4 squads in one time - army feeding process became close to automatic. You open the game -> look for new ruins -> check that nobody on the way to eat this ruin -> send army -> and so on.
As I say it's really time consuming game, personally prefer that army work for you free of charge, than you really can spend your time here like you want - otherwise you work for this game.
....It was one of the reason why I hand over my account to my ex Clan.
Here I start all from the beggining and not sure that will stay here for long time....
Game is good, but she will eat your brain completely in one day!!! I think it's very close to narcotics.