From: bill@cv.hp.com (Bill Frolik)
Subject: Re: markets shcmarkets...
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Company, Corvallis, Oregon USA
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL4
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1992 17:42:01 GMT

jfeldhouse@miavx3.mid.muohio.edu (Jim Feldhouse) writes:
: I think any sort of magic market where you don't actually transport
: the goods via planes or ships should never be used.  There will always
: be plenty of abuse of this teleportation of goods.
: 
: Allies should always be able to trade commodities, planes, ships.
: They just have to do the transporting of said good to the destination,
: or picking them up.  ALLYHARBOR is a good start, but ships should
: be able to be boarded from units in the harbor sector, whether friendly
: or otherwise.  Meanwhile, there should be a ALLYAIRBASE rule, such that
: planes can land in an ally's air base, the owner ship would change
: to the owner of the air base then (mobility should not change).
: The new owner can then fly them back, or use them himself.
: 
: $0.02
: jim



About couple of years ago I replaced the teleport market in HP (Corvallis)
Empire with a trade center market.  It takes some getting used to, but 
seems to work quite well and hasn't drawn any major complaints.  While it
does add more realism to the game, it's coding opened up many cans of 
worms, took a considerable amount of work, and ended up adding quite a 
few more "features" to the game than I had anticipated.

Anyway, here's how our approach works:



* You designate trade centers (sector type 'x').  Trade centers are
  functionally similar to warehouses.  (It would make sense to just
  dispense with warehouses altogether and use only trade centers,
  but I haven't gotten around to doing that yet.)  Initially, trade
  centers are closed to foreigners.  Trade centers function only
  if they are >60% efficient and are not in the process of being
  dismantled.



* You use the 'open' command to open a trade center to one or 
  more specific countries, who are then able to freely sail or fly  
  into the sector.  You can also assign a price multiplier for each 
  country; each trade center has its own set of multipliers.  'Open'
  with a '.' instead of a country name/number lists the current
  openings:

	[3:251] Command : open # .
	   x,y     is open to         multiplier
	
	 -95,-11   (# 10) Nirvana           1.00
	
	 -63,-7    (# 10) Nirvana           1.00
	           (# 11) c11               1.00
	
	2 trade center(s)



* To complement 'open', there is a 'close' command which you use
  to deny any or all countries access to specific trade centers.



* You use the 'bid' command to set the price you are willing to pay
  to buy specific commodities from foreign ships in specific trade 
  centers.  'Bid' also lets you set a buy threshold; the trade center
  will buy a commodity only as long as it currently holds less than
  the threshold, and will not buy so much as to exceed the threshold.
  Foreign ships sell into the trade center buy simply sailing in and
  unloading goods; the 'unload' command handles the transaction, and
  sends a telegram to inform the trade center owner of any purchases.

  For example,

	[4:255] Command : bid f -63,-7 2.5 300

  declares that your trade center at -63,-7 will pay $2.50 to buy
  food, that it will buy only if it has on hand less than 300 units
  (and will then buy only enough to come up to 300).

  Setting a bid price of 0 withdraws the bid from the market.



* You use the 'ask' command to set the price you want to receive when
  selling specific commodities to foreign ships in specific trade centers
  'Ask' also lets you set a sell threshold; the trade center will sell 
  a commodity only as long as it currently holds more than the threshold,
  and will not sell so much as to deplete itself below the threshold.
  Foreign ships buy from the trade center by simply sailing in and loading 
  goods; the 'load' command handles the transaction, and sends a telegram
  to inform the trade center owner of any sales.

  For example,

	[4:255] Command : ask g -63,-7 100 5

  declares that your trade center at -63,-7 is selling gold bars
  for $100 apiece, and will sell until it depletes itself down to
  5 bars.

  Setting an ask price of 0 removes the ask from the market.



* The 'market' command reports trade centers that either belong to you,
  or can possibly do business with you.  The list shows commodities,
  trade center locations and who owns them, amounts you can actually
  buy/sell, bid/ask prices (scaled by the center's multiplier for your
  country), and for centers that you own, bid/ask thresholds and amount-
  on-hand.  Foreign centers are listed only if they are open to you, and 
  have real transaction possibilities (i.e., if a center is open to you 
  and buying food, but already has more food than its buy threshold
  specifies, it will not be listed).

  You can optionally specify a string of one or more commodity letters
  if you want a market report for only certain commodities.

[4:255] Command : mar -100:0,-20:0

           -= World Commodity Market Report =-
                 Fri Sep 11 09:32:21 1992
item          x,y     country   sell     ask     buy     bid     min have  max
oil         -80,-8   Kaitain    122      10.00               
petrol      -80,-8   Kaitain    518      12.50               
guns        -63,-7   Aarrgghh    15     100.00   979     2.00      5   20  999
food        -63,-7   Aarrgghh                    250     1.00      0   50  300



* I made it a compile option to select whether or not trade board
  items must change hands in trade centers, and whether or not trade
  centers are also implicit airfields.  We usually configure the game
  so that the planes must change hands in trade centers, but ships
  can be traded anywhere.  The trade board only lists planes if they
  are actually in the trade center; it also shows who owns the trade
  center, and where it is located.  As usual, the trade center must
  be open to do business with you.  Planes purchased in trade centers
  are free to use petrol from the center for the flight home; any 
  aircraft, as well as missiles, satellites, and other not-normally-
  flyable things bought in trade centers can be dismantled, crated, 
  and loaded aboard a ship; later, in one of your own airfields,
  they can be reassembled.

  If you purchase a ship, the mil aboard gets reduced to 1 (if any).


  
The above scheme has worked fairly well in our last few games; the
only drawback is that it relies heavily on the use of ships to move
commodities.  Normally, this is fine, but since ships become rather
impractical in games involving lots of land and little water, I had
to add an alternative way to get the goods to/from market.  So, we
now also have freight, passenger, and munitions trains.  The trains
work like high-capacity land ships, can move through foreign land
(provided there aren't too many mil around), and are restricted to
movement through sectors that have rail improvements.  
  

_________________________________________________
                                                       
Bill Frolik                   Hewlett-Packard Co. 
bill@hpcvlx.cv.hp.com         1010 NE Circle Blvd 
(503) 750-4082                Corvallis, OR 97330  
Newsgroups: rec.games.empire