Trading Resources

[Red Dwarf Devil]

Playing a game of conquests at the minute and have lots of things to trade but cannot get the time of day from any of the AI Players.

I would really love to see a world market as such that you can buy or sell excess goods to at the market rate, the more goods are dumped on the market the less the cost both for buying and selling.

This would also fit in nicely if each resource under your control had a quantity value, (at the minute a tile with say oil/iron/rubber can supply your whole Civ which is really annoying if you don't have any but the guy next door does) So when the AI comes knocking asking for things or else you know trouble is not far behind.

Much like the Americans today they have oil but not enough for all their needs so they try to stay friendly with the Arabs (???) to get access to their stock piles and the market price is going up and up.

If you have excess resouces then you would be able to stockpile them for your own use or sell them off, this would allow you to cause possible mayhem if you stopped supplying the world market for a precious / short supply item.

Your stockpiles would be reduced every round depending on a number of factors (size, quantity, upkeep, distribution network etc) so as your supply went down your direction would be to keep it at all costs (friendly trading, world market, new deposits, extortion or even war with neighours who have the source.
A large standing military with 100's of tanks etc is going to eat into the stockpiles of oil, rubber iron etc, so you could run the risk of having them but not the oil to run them.
A large population with access to luxury items silks, ivory & diamonds etc are going to be pissed to find team X is now keeping the lot

This could then all tie in with your relationship with all other AI players on how they would trade or not with you and specific trade embargo's would be a real worry. (Imagine having a military using up more supplies than is coming in and the AI won't trade as you screwed them over before the market price is through the roof so you are down to a few turns worth of oil.
(WHAT TO DO ?)

The last thing on trading at the minute when you try to trade with the AI you get as many tries as you like with the Trade advisor, would it not be better to get limited goes at getting a deal, the more friendly the relationship the more negiotations possible, if the leader is furious with you the time to see him is going to be short so the less chances are getting a deal passed .

 

[T-Money]

I like the idea of selling to a world market and having values related to how much of it is on the market. However, I would like to keep the idea of one resource supplying your whole empire. We all know how aggravating it is to find out you don't have any iron, saltpeter, oil etc, and this would be even worse if you needed a lot of resources to build stuff.

 

[Mr. Blonde]

A good idea would be that the lack of strategic resources does not prevent you from building certain units but make them more expensive (or the other way round, that resources make related buildings and units cheaper). They would still have impact on your empire but not entirely cripple you if not available (rails...) . As we all know, iron or aluminium ores can be found in a lot of places but not be mined cost effective everywhere. This should not apply for luxuries which are imlpemented in a good way.

 

[teccuk]

A fantastic idea. I'd trade alot more in my games but I can't be bothered usually, which puts you at a slight disadvantage. A world market would be great especially when you get to certian point and realise an essential resource is on another continent!

 

[Stid]

its annoying when u make a random map n there isnt ANY coal on it! anyway yea gd idea would be good to starve the world of oil, make the nations fight each other through (hopefully) an advanced espionage system and then walk into each of their cities when they're war is over

 

[sir_schwick]

I would prefer that resource trade is partially-automatic. All you can control are tariffs and quotas. This way you can restrict exports(at great cost) or tax imports to help bolster local companies. Cities would get resources from cheapest source, so tariffs could help hurt local companies. Quotas would prevent resource-rich civs from getting too much out of your economy, although over time liberalization of trade would occur because it makes ocnsumers happy(cheaper products) and hleps everyone grow.