Re: Olympia - Free Market Economy

From: oyvind@jade.uucp (Oyvind Bjartveit)

Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1992 00:18:12 +0000

I have allready sumbitted these ideas to the Great God some time ago, but
I thought I should share it with the rest of you as well.

My suggestion assumes that every city/town has a market, and that it is
theoretically possible to by or sell any item in any market as long
as you can find a buyer/seller.

Each city has a set chance per inhabitant of producing any given item each day,
but this chance might be zero.
Example:
	Chardia has a 0.01 chance of producing small boats per inhabitant per
	day.  If Chardia has 150 inhabitants this gives 1.5 boats ( i.e. 1
	boat + 50% chance of another.

Each city has a set chance per inhabitant of buying a given item each day,
but again this chance might be zero.
Example:
	Chardia has a 0.005 chance of buying small boats per inhabitant per
	day.  If Chardia has 150 inhabitants this gives 0.75 boats (i.e. 75%
	chance of one boat.)

By setting the percentages correctly, you will create a surplus of some items,
and a demand for others in a given city.  This could be tailored to the
location, raw materials, guilds etc. of the city/town.

Any item has a nominal price equal to the cost of the raw materials + the
value of the labour involved ( high skilled labour is expensive) + a small
profit.  This might or might not exist already.

Goods are produced at the beginning of the day, and added to the count of
available items.  That days price is determined by a function that takes into
account the nominal price and the demand for the item.  An item with unlimited
supply and no demand would cost 0g, and a very rare item with high demand would
be sold for an astronimical price.  If demand equals supply then the price
is equal to the nominal price.  You could have two towns where item A was in
great demand in town X and the excess supply was huge in town Z.

Enter the (non-trader) player character or unit. They buy as normal with the
buy command, but a max price must be specified.  The max price is the price
that will be payed as long as it is at least 10% more than the days price,and
an item is available (the locals wants to make some money on the foreigners).
If there is a limited supply, the unit getting the item is chosen by one of:
highest price,random,level etc.  The locals always gets satisfied after all
units have done their shopping.

Non-Trader units sell items in much the same manner.  The min price must be
specified, and if the demand is there it is bought as long as the min price is
at least 10% less than that days price. If more than one unit is selling that
item, and the demand for it is not big enough to buy it all, the "winner" is
chosen by lowest price, random and/or level. The items are put up for sale in
the early morning, and included in the calculation of the days price.

There must be some way to have buy/sell orders stay in effect until it is
filled or the unit moves away. Non-Trader units receives NO market information.

TRADERS:  There are no game mechanics (appart from independent units) that trade
between towns, so this gives the traders a purpose in life.  They buy/sell as
normal units, expect that the price is dependent upon the skill level.  Level
0 traders trade as a non-trader, a medium skilled trader will get the prices
used by the locals, and a top trader can get 10% lower/higher price than the
locals.  If the demand for an item is higherthan the offered
items the most skilled trader "wins", and any trader "beats" non-traders. The
traders must still supply a min/max price, but depending on their skill they
will do better than this (i.e. level 0 traders will still use this price, while
top traders will do as well as they possibly could, and the max/min is
only used when the price they could achive is higher/lower than their max/min
price).

Level 0 traders get information about what items were sold last turn, more
skilled traders also know how many items were bought/sold, avg. price and
max/min prices.

This system would not change the user interface appart from making the
max/min price mandatory, telling the players that all towns have markets and
that any item theoretically can be bought anywhere, and changing the way the
market reports are given.

The system could also be used to influence populations growth/decline in
towns with much/little trade.
--
============================================================================
Oyvind Bjartveit			Jade Simulations International Corp.
Project Manager         		Third Floor, 1422 Kensington Road N.W.
(403) 974-0401				Calgary, Alberta, Canada
(403) 283-3041 (fax)			T2N 3P9
UUCP:	uunet!ubc-cs!calgary!jade!oyvind  ( oyvind@jade.uucp )
INTERNET:	oyvind@jade.ab.ca
--
============================================================================
Oyvind Bjartveit			Jade Simulations International Corp.
Project Manager         		Third Floor, 1422 Kensington Road N.W.
(403) 974-0401				Calgary, Alberta, Canada

References

Re: Olympia - Free Market Economy
rsocia@renaissance.cray.com (Rick Socia)
Wed, 17 Jun 1992 23:43:16 +0000
Re: Olympia - Free Market Economy
morrow@romulus.rutgers.edu (John Morrow)
Fri, 19 Jun 1992 23:43:39 +0000
Re: Olympia - Free Market Economy
srt@aero.org (Scott "TCB" Turner)
Sat, 20 Jun 1992 21:31:41 +0000
Re: Olympia - Free Market Economy
jwoolsey@gfx.engga.uwo.ca (John J. Woolsey)
Mon, 22 Jun 1992 04:16:07 +0000