Trading Feedback and Suggestions

Hey, i played for about ~4 hours yesterday and i immediately disliked how the Trading is set up:

  • The Interface is overloaded and needlessly complex. I don’t know why i have to manually store Goods in the trading post to sell them. Most games just have you pick items from your global Stockpile and they get delivered there when you sell them automatically.
  • The RNG Nature of Traders is a bit off putting. I had ~4 Traders i could not interact with because i had no money and they where not interested in my goods i offered. I think the Idea is neat and i know traders should not buy any crap i try to sell but i think this can be improved. I think we need some sort of Map or “other Villages” that produce and need resources. You can set up offers to these villages and trade with them. If you want to keep the Traders and realism you could get information what a other village needs and how much they are willing to pay so you set up these resources in your trading post with a lower price so a trader comes by and picks it up to sell it to another village for profit. This would also minimize the Micro of the trading.
  • Over time these villages improve and the more you trade with them the more other resources they are willing/able to trade with you. This way you sometimes start to overproduce stuff you normally would not to unlock the higher tiers of Trading. With upgrades to your Trading post you could unlock more villages further away and maybe build Wagons and start to sell them your stuff directly.
  • To further emphasis on Trading each Map could have a limited set of resources that dictated what you can produce and what not. This would be a pretty good way to implement Stone Quarrys and other limited resources as unlimited resources by only have one or two types unlimited and the rest can be found in other villages with access to unlimited resources of that type.

So far i enjoyed the game but the stand-out parts i did not enjoyed so much. I maybe make another topic on the farming but i think i wait until i understand this correctly. Overall the game is really really close to Banished in comparison and i wished it would be more unique.

Welcome to the forum. :slightly_smiling_face:

None of the maps in the game have all resources and not all are infinite either. Mines/pits will run out for example and you’d need to trade for the raw materials to keep making items using those. Deer/fish can be farmed out and while they may eventually return, they may also not so you’d need to trade for those as well.

Thanks!

I meant that In the context of overhauling the Trade System and the introduction of unlimited resources.
As of now Trading feels bad to completely relying on it sooner or later.

I doubt unlimited/infinite resources would be added to the game. Otherwise that more or less wipes out the need for a trading post.

As i wrote, some deposits should be unlimited and trading should be expanded to a less RNG and more of a progression based system. Also i saw the Devs already stated they are thinking about a mechanic to expand run out mines/stone which can result in making it unlimited.
And there are already unlimited resources in the game. They only need to be expanded to resources types that are not grown in the wild or on fields. Iron, Stone, Gold, Clay, Coal could have deposited that don’t run out in the game, we have those in real life where we get this stuff out of the ground for hundred of years now.

As it is now the over reliance of trade just emphasis farming too much and defaults to the same gameplay loop each run thus limiting replay value.
However if runs could give you with a Map with big unlimited Iron deposits for example would enable you to more rely on Artisans and trading tools instead of another Farming village run.
It would diversify the focus possibility each time you start up a map.
Otherwise i would call this a design oversight that effectively it’s smarter to go for fields all the time and sell cloths.
Personally i don’t enjoy the Farming System because it feels convoluted and overly complex without providing a rewarding experience. Information is not convey very well and it will default to a “Best Setup” that will be just copied over and over again.
It would be better to cut down the complexity, have three slots (each year) and a simple over view on what the final outcome of the field is when slotted with different crops.

Resources in the game will either be finite or you can over hunt/fish and stocks will disappear. They may come back eventually, but also may not. Foraging items can also be irretriably lost if you build over them

Most games don’t physically track where goods are though. :slight_smile:

We have a system in mind to request needed items, possibly for a premium price, but what traders want to buy is dependent on the traders. Each trader has their own list of wants/stock for sale that they select out of, so a certain trader arriving does mean that they will often trade for certain things. It is not completely random.

Hey thanks for the the explanations!

Even for the physically tracking it would not hurt to skip the extra manual goods transfer to the trading post. It adds extra micro management that has no extra value for the player.

A request system might be nice but this entails that the player has the money to afford it. As of now the Taxes are not even enough to pay the services and soldiers resulting in a wait game for a trader that wants to by my low level goods to get some money flowing(RNG). Also you can cheese the Tax system by putting your Gold in the trade post so it does not get eating by expenses.
I know about the trader types but the player has no influence or a comprehensive overview which trader trades what, which in the end results in RNG and a bad experience that is also nontransparent.
If you took Anno as an inspiration i would recommend taking a look how the Anno 1800 Docklands DLC has set up a Progression based trading system which is a really neat idea.

That is an argument you could make for all transfers and suddenly the entire philosophy falls apart, haha.

Goods transfer is a core system of the game.

You’re not cheesing upkeep that way, you’re just accumulating damage in the buildings that require upkeep, or not even getting their benefits (ex. Theater). Soldiers not paid will also eventually leave town, so I do not recommend trying to “game” the upkeep costs this way, haha.

I am talking about UX/UI and not the game mechanics.

As of now i did not noticed any downsides to just not paying services mostly because i can not afford to anyways.

With the recent changes to Upkeep it feel much better to trade and collect Gold.

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