Markets are a total joke

[vortexsurfer]

My impressions after the first 4-5 games with 2.2 (mid game mostly): neither the "internal" nor the galactic market are based on actual resource production. Supply is infinite. You can buy food from your empire's internal market without having a single farm on any planet. The food just magically appears. The same is true for the galactic market. Even if nobody produces alloys you can still buy them from the galactic market in infinite numbers. There are no shortages whatsoever. Prices are not connected to demand and supply in any way. They rise shortly after you buy something from the market and then drop back to their (scripted) value.

In my opinion the whole economy simulation is scripted and not actually implemented. Disappointed af.

 

[Jorrhast]

It is very simplified, yes. Guess coding something resembling actual market was too hard/time-consuming.

 

[semaphore]

Even if nobody produces alloys you can still buy them from the galactic market in infinite numbers. There are no shortages whatsoever.

Well that's literally how they explained it would work in the dev diary.

Prices are not connected to demand and supply in any way. They rise shortly after you buy something

Which means it is connected to supply and demand. You buying = increased demand = prices go up.

 

[vortexsurfer]

Well that's literally how they explained it would work in the dev diary.



Which means it is connected to supply and demand. You buying = increased demand = prices go up.

This is scripted. I don't think it happens when AIs buy something

 

[vortexsurfer]

It is very simplified, yes. Guess coding something resembling actual market was too hard/time-consuming.

Well, it's a 4x game. Introducing a market without actually simulating it is a bit disappointing, isn't it?

 

[Xshu]

While the supply is infinite, the prices do rise and fall with supply and demand. You can watch the fluctuations happen even while you're not buying it. Even if it were scripted, does that matter? As long as it does rise and fall with purchasing in multiplayer, that's the only way you could tell the difference; you won't really know the difference between the AI buying stuff and scripted market changes.

I certainly saw the price of alloys skyrocket after the war in heaven started, so if it is scripted then it's scripted to account for things like the demand for alloys in wartime.

I believe the devs specifically said the market represents non-government forces within your or everyone's empires. After all, you don't own all of the food in your empire unless you're a hive mind. Presumably there are non-mega-corporations and such who make products for civilian use.

 

[MK1980]

the internal market would be useless if it was based off actual production. you could only buy back stuff that you sold to the market before.

the galactic market could work more or less, but it would likely be a dead feature. you'd offer your excess minerals and food on the market just like every other empire and look for alloys just like every other empire so in the end noone would buy or sell anything.

so the infinite market that is disconnected from actual production is probably necessary to make the feature viable at all.

 

[vortexsurfer]

the internal market would be useless if it was based off actual production. you could only buy back stuff that you sold to the market before.

the galactic market could work more or less, but it would likely be a dead feature. you'd offer your excess minerals and food on the market just like every other empire and look for alloys just like every other empire so in the end noone would buy or sell anything.

so the infinite market that is disconnected from actual production is probably necessary to make the feature viable at all.

I think the "feature" is just a bad excuse for being lazy in balancing and AI programming. AIs can buy infinite amounts of resources from the market. No need to make them smart enough to build a competitive economy. Just tag switch to an AI empire after 50-60 in game years, it's horrible.

 

[Xshu]

The market wouldn't make sense if only governments were buying and selling in it. Most non-hive empires presumably have civilian enterprises buying and selling in that market as well, accounting for the "infinite" amount.

 

[semaphore]

This is scripted.

No one said otherwise. So what? Everything is scripted, it's not like integer variables knows to change their own values without being told to by some computer code.

I don't think it happens when AIs buy something

Do you have evidence for that? I only play MP but I see large fluctuations in price all the time. It seems unlikely they would go out of their way to add additional handling for the AI.

 

[vortexsurfer]

The market wouldn't make sense if only governments were buying and selling in it. Most non-hive empires presumably have civilian enterprises buying and selling in that market as well, accounting for the "infinite" amount.

The should at least simulate shortages to a certain degree, imo. Being able to buy everything anytime breaks the immersion (for me at least)

 

[Olterin]

I've toyed with the idea of proposing a simulation of an internal market based on some pre-set idea of a civilian economy relative to your "state" economy. However, under the assumption that the civilian economy would be handled as mostly a resource generator, and would be anywhere between as large as your state economy and ten times larger, I quickly came to the conclusion that even if one could write a reasonable civilian economy that wasn't a fully-developed "hidden" player (and that's a fairly big "if" right there), it would saturate the market with resources to such a ridiculous degree as to be functionally unlimited anyway.

Quick example: let's say your empire is producing 250 minerals - a reasonable midgame number. Let's say you have a civilian economy five times that. Let's also assume that the civilian economy utilizes 50% of minerals to produce refined products. It would have a net production of 625 minerals per month. Call it 500 for ease of calculating. How quickly will the number of minerals on the market reach a million? So far so good, we're at 166 years. Seems reasonable, right? Now multiply the mineral production by the number of empires in the galaxy, let's call it 10. Whoops, the market now has a million minerals in just 17 years. You'd need to rewrite the AI soooo much to deal with this it's not even remotely funny. As a player I'd have to consider how much I need to expand my resource gathering versus how much I want to buy from the expanding civilian economy - and that'd be great. But it's a nightmare for the AI.

 

[vortexsurfer]

In

No one said otherwise. So what? Everything is scripted, it's not like integer variables knows to change their own values without being told to by some computer code.


Do you have evidence for that? I only play MP but I see large fluctuations in price all the time. It seems unlikely they would go out of their way to add additional handling for the AI.

In my 4 or 5 games in SP I never witnessed lasting price fluctuations. The whole thing for me just doesn't feel right. Prices go up shortly after buying somethind then drop back to normal soon. No problem with resource shortages anymore with 2.2, You can build farms everywhere and sell the food for energy all the time. I never witnessed a sharp and lasting price drop due to high supply

 

[Sarno]

No one said otherwise. So what? Everything is scripted, it's not like integer variables knows to change their own values without being told to by some computer code.


Do you have evidence for that? I only play MP but I see large fluctuations in price all the time. It seems unlikely they would go out of their way to add additional handling for the AI.

Copy-pasted thread from Steam forums (since we are forbidden from directly linking it):

Spoiler: Thread

I got a little curious as to why every AI has overwhelming fleets compared to me at fairly early in the game.

Now part of the reason is that I spent a lot of resources expanding, so I can kinda of understand.
Out of curiosity, I decided to go into Observe and check out their info.

First thing I noticed was that they were each at around 3k fleet power within the 1st 25 years...
Okay, I guess I spent more resources than I thought?

Either way I kept digging, and noticed that they all have already purchased over 6000 Alloy from the Market

Alloy for them is literally at over 16 per unit.


So I recorded how much Alloy they have purchased and let time pass
They purchased EVEN MORE Alloy without even being able to afford it
So I paid even closer attention... They aren't paying a single resource to buy from the Market

Literally
They are getting more and more resources without their energy dipping even slightly
The Market for AI is literally 100% Free and Infinite resources

It's not exactly the situation you described, but it's more like the AI is conjuring resources from thin air by using the market. They buy a resource from it, but do not pay anything for that resource. Apparently according to multiple players that checked it, it is also present in the released, non-beta 2.2.1 version of the game.

Steps to check:
- start a new game default settings on enseign (which is the default I think), do NOT check iron game
- open the console
- type observe
- set speed to fastest
- wait until 2210
- pause
- type play 1
- check the empire situation and market
- type play 2
- check the empire situation and market
- ...

Please check if it is also happening in your game.

So far it looks like the market feature is doing much, much more damage to the game than benefiting it.

 

[vortexsurfer]

I've toyed with the idea of proposing a simulation of an internal market based on some pre-set idea of a civilian economy relative to your "state" economy. However, under the assumption that the civilian economy would be handled as mostly a resource generator, and would be anywhere between as large as your state economy and ten times larger, I quickly came to the conclusion that even if one could write a reasonable civilian economy that wasn't a fully-developed "hidden" player (and that's a fairly big "if" right there), it would saturate the market with resources to such a ridiculous degree as to be functionally unlimited anyway.

Quick example: let's say your empire is producing 250 minerals - a reasonable midgame number. Let's say you have a civilian economy five times that. Let's also assume that the civilian economy utilizes 50% of minerals to produce refined products. It would have a net production of 625 minerals per month. Call it 500 for ease of calculating. How quickly will the number of minerals on the market reach a million? So far so good, we're at 166 years. Seems reasonable, right? Now multiply the mineral production by the number of empires in the galaxy, let's call it 10. Whoops, the market now has a million minerals in just 17 years. You'd need to rewrite the AI soooo much to deal with this it's not even remotely funny. As a player I'd have to consider how much I need to expand my resource gathering versus how much I want to buy from the expanding civilian economy - and that'd be great. But it's a nightmare for the AI.

The whole market/trade thing is not really needed in Stellaris imo. I find it far more challenging and pleasing to balance out your empire's economy rather than mindlessly fucking up and fixing it by monthly trades on the market. It just doesn't feel right. The introduction of the Trader Guilds was a step in the wrong direction and now this.

At least the market fees should be way higher to discourage people from using the market rather than balancing out their production

 

[Sarno]

The whole market/trade thing is not really needed in Stellaris imo. I find it far more challenging and pleasing to balance out your empire's economy rather than mindlessly fucking up and fixing it by monthly trades on the market. It just doesn't feel right. The introduction of the Trader Guilds was a step in the wrong direction and now this.

At least the market fees should be way higher to discourage people from using the market rather than balancing out their production

To be honest, Trader Guilds are a bit okay-ish, since the amount traded per month is not significant. It's more like "we have a little bit extra of food we do not need now, so lets turn into a little bit of minerals".

But market having unlimited resources breaks it for me. And the logic of "well you are not the only one who is producing stuff..." Come now, an entity capable of producing THAT amount of goods, should/would definitely be represented on the map. You are using the production of dozens of planets to get that small lump of alloys, you are telling me, that there is an entity capable of producing much more than that without having a presence on the map at all?

 

[Volapyk]

Huh if the AI don't pay for the ressources they buy on the market it sounds like a bug, I was so happy to see them use the market in my last game, as the prices on alloys and to a lesser degree minerals was flucturating highly. Alloys where over 26 energy per unit at some point, but it stabilized around 22 later on, I was seriously reconsidering retooling my entire economy to use this by producing only minerals and alloys and just buying whatever else I needed when I needed it.

As for the OP, I do agree on the fact that it feels sort of gamey that ressources just appear and the price returns to its original value rather quickly. However if someone had to sell a ressource before you can it, I think it would rather ruin the market, if someone is willing to sell a ressource you can contact them directly and trade with them for better prices than the market offers, and if you don't have the diplomatic standing to do this, why would they sell it too you on the galactic market?

I tend to imagine that the ressources in the galactic market comes from private contractors, yes I know it isn't a perfect image, but it helps my deal with the disconnect that otherwise comes.

 

[Leylos]

Supply is not infinite. In my last game I had so much energy production from trade that i decided to set up very large quantities of monthly mineral trade. The prices continued to increase until I eventually got a warning that they were running out of supplies.

 

[Xshu]

Supply is not infinite. In my last game I had so much energy production from trade that i decided to set up very large quantities of monthly mineral trade. The prices continued to increase until I eventually got a warning that they were running out of supplies.

Oh wow, really? Huh. I guess there is an upper limit in there somewhere.

 

[semaphore]

It's not exactly the situation you described, but it's more like the AI is conjuring resources from thin air by using the market. They buy a resource from it, but do not pay anything for that resource.

I'll give it a try when I'm home, but if true this can't possibly be WAD. Someone should make a bug report.

- wait until 2210

I've literally never seen the galactic market spawn this early though.