Trading (&) Caravans

[Schro]

Came up with that idea with a few others in #salem
I know, this will be very complex and a lot of work for the devs, but I still really hope, they'll have a look at it, because if its possible to do and the devs like it, it could make salem very entertaining for a much longer period.

This is connected to the meta-biomes idea, because it'd make much more sense if not everything would be available everywhere.

The core Idea
The idea is, that you need to come out of your walls, if you want to do significant trading. So teleport-trade needs to be nerfed to make this more interesting (maybe with travel-weariness or something like that). And/or you can't teleport with region-only crops and other rare stuff.
In the end, there should be trading-caravans with wagons and ferries travelling with a bunch of people for protection a long distance and make the whole world more lively.

So this is some stuff we came up with in #salem
Trade road
Apart from using ferries, you'll need to go by land.
To improve wagon-speed, you'll need roads. Those could be marked as trading-road through milestones with the side-effect, that these prevent the roads from rotting away. If you don't use roads, its much slower and there is a chance to get a broken axle, repairable, but annoying and leaving the caravan longer open for ambush (Ambushers could also put trunks in the way like in the stories). For a better wagon, you'll need steel or something, the axle will then be less likely to break on bumpy ground, too.
I think this will soon result in a network of roads with 2 or 3 main roads.
Also, the roads don't need to be completely paved. Maybe the main roads will be later on, but I think it'll suffice for the smaller ones if the ground is even and the roads are nothing else than hard packed dirt like back then. Downside is, in case they add rain, they'll be muddy and slowing if they aren't paved.

Making Caravans Interesting
As I said, this would only make sense, if you couldn't simply teleport-trade everything. Also, you could introduce an open-end village-prosperity-level which can be increased by trading. So if your trade caravan completed a trade, the village will get prosperity-points depending on the linear distance of the two villages. This means, the trade gets initiated over a menu between the village leaders(or a certain village-trading-official) before the wagons roll out. As soon as the wagons are filled up, each of them will get some sort of trading certificate applied which is only possible inside the own village. At this point it'll track the distance the wagons made until the certificate is redeemed by the other village official. The village getting visited by the caravan should get 20% of the trade-points or something. Maybe after reaching the wagons destination, it could be converted to a stall by simply removing the cloth cover from the one side and put it on sticks. Also, the trade points should be related to the value of the cargo and the items actually sold/exchanged, so the trader needs to finish up the trade, when both sides are satisfied and then they'll get their points.
Not quite sure yet how the trading/exchange system should work, maybe someone has an Idea.

Futher anti-abuse measures
A second measure to prevent abuse of the system could be, that the trade-goods are marked by the villages trading-official, giving them a locked status until undone. This status will prevent the players from using the goods and, more importantly, teleporting with them, even if you are in Boston. This status can only be undone by a trade-official in his own village. After that, they're regular items again and free to use. Same rules for robbing a caravan. Not quite sure about robbing yet though. Maybe you could get a prosperity of half the stolen-item-value.
(hmm this could result in mercenaries with high fightig-skill selling their service to traders, who want their cargo better protected)

Trading Reward Between Village <-> Boston and Village <-> Village
If a village is trading to another village, the visitor-village(the one which travelled) gets 100%, the home-village gets 20% of the amount the visitor got.

Similar rules should apply for trading in Boston, except the exchange of items in the market-district of Boston between traders results in 100%-100% trade points, because the buyer also needs to drive the load home.
In detail it could look like this:
If the selling village in Boston finishes the trade, it gets the prosperity-reward for wagon-travel-distance(way to boston)+item-value. The buyer gets his prosperity reward, when he reaches his village with the goods and unlocks them. The reward will then be the bought item-value+distance from boston to his way home.
If the buyer just bought a small amount and can carry it in his inventory to his village, he only gets 20%.

Prosperity Reward
There should be a minimum-travel distance to reward any prosperity at all, also, the multiplier for more distance should be much more rewarding.
Like, for example something like
sqrt(10km*400itemvalue)*(10km²:3²)

Village Prosperity
There should be no prosperity-maximum, so the devs could always add new rewards to it, when they come up with them.
The villages trade-official has a menu with an important NPC in boston, where he can exchange the Village-Prosperty-points for building blueprints, invitations for contests, recipes, titles and maybe even the right to convert a village to a city.

Of couse, most to all of this needs much reviewing and rethinking but thats the general idea.

[TotalyMoo]

Roads giving benefits have been talked about for ages, but this combined with sub-biomes makes for really interesting gameplay.

[Schro]

Roads giving benefits have been talked about for ages, but this combined with sub-biomes makes for really interesting gameplay.

Yea, I must admit, without those extra-biomes it wouldn't be as much interesting. Tonky showed me a first attempt on using a caravan in Haven, and I must admit, it was quite entertaining. I think, with a system like this wrapped around it, it would be even better.

For the roads, I think what whould happen fist is, that people will scout their fastest way to Boston, then the bigger ones will build a road and after that, smaller villages will connect to those roads. This would be pretty nice I believe, because at the moment, Pilgrims have no reason to leave their walls except for foraging and raiding.

[Droj]

Just an expanded idea on caravans but for a different purpose.

The time may come when a pilgrim is forced to make a difficult decision when faced with imminent danger or even death on their homesteaded land. Stay and fight which will mostly likely end in a glorious patriotic death or flee and live to fight another day.

If they decide to cut and run then they can declaim their land which will then spawn/create a caravan. A caravan mechanic could operate like the following:

• Player owned like a claim/homstead.
• May be pulled like a sled or by another method, horses for example.
• The ability to carry 100 objects or so. arbitrarily thinking.
• Caravan upkeep, something high and fast consuming, 100s a day for example, maximum of 3 days.
• Cannot be moved on to claimed land, plcaims/vclaims
• Each caravan is persistent, and when the upkeep reaches 0 it can either start to decay or can be raided crime-free like a claim.
• If there's upkeep objects can still be stolen but by doing so will leave scents as usual.
• Caravan cannot be destroyed whilst there is upkeep.
• Caravan can be converted into a new stake claim. Doing so consumes the caravan and all objects contained, so be careful to unload it first.
• New stake claim is your standard 5x5, all silver remaining from caravan's upkeep is transferred into the new stake claim.

[valv]

I like this Idea from Droj.

It makes sense, fits the game's theme and is realistic.

Also, anything that gets us closer to Oregon Trail is obviously the right move.

[Cik]

Just an expanded idea on caravans but for a different purpose.

The time may come when a pilgrim is forced to make a difficult decision when faced with imminent danger or even death on their homesteaded land. Stay and fight which will mostly likely end in a glorious patriotic death or flee and live to fight another day.

If they decide to cut and run then they can declaim their land which will then spawn/create a caravan. A caravan mechanic could operate like the following:

• Player owned like a claim/homstead.
• May be pulled like a sled or by another method, horses for example.
• The ability to carry 100 objects or so. arbitrarily thinking.
• Caravan upkeep, something high and fast consuming, 100s a day for example, maximum of 3 days.
• Cannot be moved on to claimed land, plcaims/vclaims
• Each caravan is persistent, and when the upkeep reaches 0 it can either start to decay or can be raided crime-free like a claim.
• If there's upkeep objects can still be stolen but by doing so will leave scents as usual.
• Caravan cannot be destroyed whilst there is upkeep.
• Caravan can be converted into a new stake claim. Doing so consumes the caravan and all objects contained, so be careful to unload it first.
• New stake claim is your standard 5x5, all silver remaining from caravan's upkeep is transferred into the new stake claim.

All great ideas....not to mention that trading needs to be better implemented. The way it exists now, it is not implemented, but is aking to throwing stuff on the ground and trusting that sociopaths wont run over and ninja it.

Secure trading happened in the real world because it wasnt a world of anonymous people that couldn't swipe items from within a barrel and then miraculously log out or teleport to their home like some vodoo, without ability to track someone for larceny, which is what stealing from a barrel in Boston is.

Using the forums as a suggestion to trade is not an element of gaming, but a complete disjoint from the virtual world.

In short, the game is not and wont be teaming with trusting friends or acquaintances, the way the game-play is encouraged. So, just laying in my 2-silver, as I also believe there is a need for secure trading. . .it does not exist, and favors a substantial reason to retard the game from being something that should encourage community and player centricity.

[iotuegli]

i like the idea, much more the 1 to "move" your claim in order to prevent total obliteration and death

[iamah]

ideas like this make me feel like Cartman waiting for the Wii launch

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raTts-iGixU

[staxjax]

But the Wii launch actually happened, where as this will never happen. lol.