Trading Posts in Native Villages (similar to Missions) [IMPLEMENTED]

[raystuttgart]

Base Idea:

As most of you definitely know, "Missionaries" can set up "Missions" in Native Villages.
We could however also implement that "Traders" can set up "Trading Posts" in Native Villages using the same pattern.

Trading Posts would be used by private traders and Natives to conduct business.
For that service they will pay you a part of their profit (in gold).

I would like to keep this simple and would not try to replace "Trade with Wagon Trains" or "beam" goods.
Thus Trading Posts would simply generate a small gold amount every turn and every couple of turns (e.g. 15) a Treasure Unit would be spawned with that gold amount.

Base Mechanic

• Profession "Trader" (which might e.g. need 100 Trading Goods to be equipped) that can set up Trading Posts in Native Villages
• Expert "Seasoned Trader" which has higher success chances to do so and creates more efficient Trading Posts (they can be acquired by Immigration from Europe or Python Events)
  
• Setting Up a Trading Post being done by moving the Unit to the Village and use the "Set Up Trading Post" Button
• There will be success and failure chances for setting up a Trade Poste depending on Attitude of then Native Nation and some base settings.
• In the process of setting up the Trading Post the Unit would be consumed.
  
• Setting Up Trading Posts will slightly improve your relations to the Native Nations as well.
• When a War is started between that Native Nation and you, Native Nation will burn down all your Trading Posts in its villages.
• A Trading Post of another Nation can be replaced by successfully setting up your own. (There can only be one per Native Village)
  
• Visualization: A "Trading Post" icon would be displayed on Billboard of Native City - similar to "Mission Cross"
• Instead of spawning "Converted Natives" it will spawn Treasure Units with gold (see below)

Gold calculation / balancing for Treasuer Units

• The gold amount per turn generated by a Trading Post will be relatively small. It will not make Wagon Trains useless.
• The gold amount per turn will depend on Population of Native City and Attitude of the Native Nation.
• If the Trading Post was set up by a "Seasoned Trader" it will also produce more gold.
• All of the base settings for balancing will be in GlobalDefinesAlt.xml
• There will also be a small random factor in the logic.

Gameplay

It might not be the most innovative or complex concept ever but I think that it would still fit.
This just gives another small possibility and incentive to interact with Natives peacefully.

However efforts and risks are relatively low.
It is also not complicated to understand if you already understand "Missioning".

Maybe we could also implement some additional Python events for flavour.

Effort and Risks

• AI already knows how to use Missions, we can teach it Trading Posts as well.
• Efforts are not unreasonable and there are very low risks.
• We will need new graphics (Profession, Expert and Billboard Icon)

I am looking forward to your feedback and suggestions.

 

[CptBadger]

I've often wanted something along these lines. The French and Dutch especially used this extensively, to varying success. I'd /love/ to see this implemented.

Perhaps we could also add a "quest" like "establish 6 trading posts before any other power," with reward options being bulk money, trade FF points, or several seasoned trader units.

Would we want option to withdraw trader from a village? In history, traders would often set for a while, then move on. And if they knew tensions were rising, I'm sure they'd pack up and move elsewhere.

I know thatd be more work and ai, but would add a bit of realism. Not sure if that detail is worth it though

 

[raystuttgart]

I'd /love/ to see this implemented.

Nice.

Perhaps we could also add a "quest" like "establish 6 trading posts before any other power," with reward options being bulk money, trade FF points, or several seasoned trader units.

Once the core feature is implemented it is pretty easy to set up Python Events (with triggering Conditions) to do something like a small quest.

Would we want option to withdraw trader from a village?
I know thatd be more work and ai, but would add a bit of realism. Not sure if that detail is worth it though.

I would rather not do it because yes it is more work for little benefit and visualization might also get difficult.
I would prefer to just apply the "Missioning" pattern, because it is pretty straight forward and relatively easy to implement.

 

[OzzyKP]

I love the idea. I like CptBadger's quest idea too. Perhaps have some leader/civ traits (enterprising/cooperative) interact with trading posts as they do now with missions.

 

[raystuttgart]

I like CptBadger's quest idea too.

As I said, once the base feature is implemented it is pretty easy to implement Python Events or small Python Quests on top of it.
(We would just need to add a new XML tag to python event trigger system and corresponding DLL logic.)

Perhaps have some leader/civ traits (enterprising/cooperative) interact with trading posts as they do now with missions.

It is doable without too much effort as well.
(We would just need to add a new XML tag to traits and corresponding DLL logic.)

It would as well fit atmospherically and maybe even improve balancing of traits.

 

[Benjocaron]

I think the idea is really great!

Along with this, there should be new traits for natives which would make some of them better candidates for welcoming a trading post. This could concerns the Northern natives like the Iroquois, etc.

 

[ConjurerDragon]

Would that mean that withing a native village a mission and a trading post would be mutually exclusive?
Then I would be against it - missions are the far more important establishment to have, both historically and ingame, to pacify the natives from your expansion, direct their aggressions against your rivals and soothe their mood to exploit them better at bartering...

And - even if you could establish a mission and trading post for the same native village - I dislike the "you gain gold" part. If something like that would be implemented the trading post should collect furs to be moved to civilization to be made to gold. I already disklike how animals on land and sea give gold instead of fur, pelts, meat or whale fat as i would expect them to give when slain, but adding more ways, similar to Taverns and Markets, that simply add gold each turn would seem boring to me and together create too much gold from stationary once-built buildings instead of player action (like being a peddler with a wagon bartering with the natives). At the very least the gold should stay at the trading post like a treasure wagon and need to move back to the player with the risk of being lost on the way to competition in-between.

 

[CptBadger]

He already specified it will generate as a treasure unit.

 

[raystuttgart]

Would that mean that withing a native village a mission and a trading post would be mutually exclusive?

No, you could have both (Mission and Trading Post) in a Native Village.
(Mission and Trading Post will not exclude each other. Why should they?)

It is just not possible that 2 different players each have a Mission or 2 different players each have a Trading Post in the same Native Village.
(It is possible though that Player A has a Mission and Player B has a Trading Post in the same Native Village.)

Successfully founding a Mission in a Native Village already does destroy a Mission of another Player. (But not the Trading Post of another Player.)
Successfully founding a Trading Post in a Native Village will thus also destroy a Trading Post of another Player. (But not the Mission of another Player.)

At the very least the gold should stay at the trading post like a treasure wagon and need to move back to the player with the risk of being lost on the way to competition in-between.

That is exactly what I suggested in the concept.
(The gold per turn will just be calculated and summed up in the background and then be applied on the gold amount of the "Treasure"-Units once it is spawned.)

As I said, I just want to limit effort and risk for implementation and keep it simple for players to use.
And I also do not want to have "magical beaming" of goods.

 

[Nightinggale]

I generally like this idea.

Visualization: A "Trading Post" icon would be displayed on Billboard of Native City - similar to "Mission Cross"

While this is certainly doable, the game engine has a weird limitation. Depending on where icons are placed in the GameFont file, they might show up as invisible (or was it a question mark...) on the billboards. We got enough free billboard icons to make this work, but it is something to keep in mind whenever we add anything new to billboards.

More technical on what happens and how to avoid it: (it's ok not to understand this)

Spoiler :

The game assigns an ID to each GameFont icon and while text can normally access any of them by simply writing the number (usually the number is getChar), the Billboards are drawn using the GPU instead. This means it can only draw the icons actually copied to the GPU memory (at least I think that's the issue). The exe will copy everything from the start to the end of symbols (more specifically the location the exe assumes to be the end of symbols), though it can add a bit of padding.

The exe places symbols at the end, meaning where it is depends on the xml data and it can move as we add say yields. This doesn't make it any easier.

I think the best solution is to add mission icons to the parent players (kings). The trading post icon is then the mission icon of the parent. Since this will add mission icons to civ info, the exe will read it and reserve memory on the GPU for it... at least in theory. I think this should work in a stable way, but if not, then I have other ideas too. Worst case might require setting addresses manually, but that will for sure work. It just needs manually updating whenever we change the GameFont file, meaning it's more like a last resort than the planned solution.

I wrote a GameFont debug display, which can be controlled in the domestic advisor, though the button only shows up when using a debug dll.

Instead of spawning "Converted Natives" it will spawn Treasure Units with gold (see below)

Wouldn't it anger the natives that you move a military unit into their settlements? I mean at some point it gained a bit of defense to fight off animals, meaning there is a risk that the AI will see it as a soldier, hence a possibly invading army. We need to verify that and most likely fix it if it's an issue regardless of this proposed feature.

 

[rah]

Really like the concept. Especially if you can use it to improve relations, (even if it's not that much)
My only issue is the payout. Spitting out treasures, just plain no. Especially if it's for a small amount. Cut that in half to have the King send them to Europe or taking up 3 slots on a galleon, no thank you. Not worth the effort.

 

[Guynemer]

I love this idea, but I agree with the distinguished mustelid from Chicago, getting small treasure units is not how I would prefer the reward. Either just small amounts of gold added directly, or getting a bigger treasure less frequently, or getting better goods/discounted goods from native offers. Less ore or furs, maybe more refined goods; if the trader is there, the natives could sell us some coats, or tools, or such.

 

[CptBadger]

I love this idea, but I agree with the distinguished mustelid from Chicago, getting small treasure units is not how I would prefer the reward. Either just small amounts of gold added directly, or getting a bigger treasure less frequently, or getting better goods/discounted goods from native offers. Less ore or furs, maybe more refined goods; if the trader is there, the natives could sell us some coats, or tools, or such.

Yeah, my vote is a much larger treasure less frequently. I still think you need to make arrangements for that money, potentially far away, to be safely escorted home (so I dont love direct deposit in this idea). But constant micro treasures are just inefficient

 

[raystuttgart]

Yeah, my vote is a much larger treasure less frequently.

Absolutley no problem.

I never said that I want to spawn "micro treasure units". (e.g. ever turn)
They would only be spawned every X turns. With X e.g. being 15, 30 or 40.

It is simply a matter of balancing (there will be a special XML settings in GlobalDefinesAlt.xml for "Spawn Frequency").
We would need to figure out in our internal testing.

 

[ConjurerDragon]

If another nation creates a new trading post, deleting my own - would that only mean that no new gold would accumulate, or that the whole gold that has not yet been escorted to my cities is lost, too?

 

[raystuttgart]

If another nation creates a new trading post, deleting my own - would that only mean that no new gold would accumulate, or that the whole gold that has not yet been escorted to my cities is lost, too?

Yes, both.

Your Trading Post would be destroyed and the gold that was not yet transformed into a Treasure Unit would be lost as well.
(Of course the Treasure Units already spawned and on their way to your cities would not care about that.)

It is just the same with Missions.
Your "Missioning Progress" for a "Converted Native" is also lost, when your Mission is destroyed.

 

[raystuttgart]

Wouldn't it anger the natives that you move a military unit into their settlements?

A "Treasure Unit" is not considered a "Military Unit".
Natives are generally also not angered if you have Military Units moving through their Cities (e.g. to join the Treasure and then escort it).

If you declare War of course that is another story but then your Units are thrown out of Culture Radius first and the Trading Post would also be destroyed.

So no, there should be not problem with this.
(But of course we need to test this new feature internally before publishing.)

We got enough free billboard icons to make this work, but it is something to keep in mind whenever we add anything new to billboards.

I know, GameFonts are annoying.
But we should be able to handle this.

I was also thinking that we might just directly access them by IDs.
(Which is messy though if we modifiy the gamefonts again, because every time we do so, we might need to adapt those IDs.)

I think the best solution is to add mission icons to the parent players (kings).

Interesting idea.
We simply need to try what works best.

 

[Lib.Spi't]

This could also work nicely with future civics/techs. In M:C it introduced trading posts and they could be boosted/modified by certain civic choices. Producing crosses or science for example along with their primary function.

So this could play out with a 'Native Relations' civic branch where you could support trade or religion or a balance between the two or adopt a more violent policy for an attack boost or some such.

My initial thinking when I saw the title is that it would be an automating/privatising of the wagon system, in that it would simply beam gold or goods to you but would be less productive than a state owned wagon train that you control yourself and keep all the profits. Thus you have the trade off of micro/time management investment return vs reduced output from an automatic system. Thus allowing you to trade with a lot of native settlements in the late game without having to be micro-ing them all. (for the fee of a citizen and a reduced 'income')

 

[Dajory]

What about an additional function for the trader. It’s about „giving contaminated goods (pox and other diseases) to the natives. That would have an effect on the population of the village and of course on your relationship to the natives. A seasoned trader would have more success than a regular trader (e.g. 20% for regular, 50% for seasoned trader). This function should be allowed once per unit. Otherwise it would be too easy to erase the natives. This would be very similar to what happend in the past.

Today the missionary has also 2 functions (founding a mission and inciting)...so why not having also 2 functions for the trader. I dont know If it’s possible technically, it’s just an idea.

 

[Lib.Spi't]

You sick monster...

I can't remember was the pox ever actually weaponised in this was or was it just that things were given and they introduced diseases that were common to the settlers (and mostly therefore survivable) but devastating to the native population because they had no immunity to these new invasive diseases?