Slaves market - Why not an auction house?

[Faust-chan]

Right now, you just buy slaves from the market instantly. In my opinion, it create a problem, both in singleplayer and multiplayer. As you can't know when a player/AI will sell a pop on the market, you need to check everytime if there are something to buy. Also, it become a race in multiplayer to click asap on the button. And I also suspect the AI to buy quickly the available pops.

Maybe a solution in two points :
-make a "newsletter" that inform the player when a pop is selled on the market (can be activate/desactivate)
-replace the instant buy pop system by a purchase by auction.

I can imagine a simple action system :
1. You have a base price for a pop (like now). When the player/AI whant to buy that pop, auction starts.
2. During X amount of time, others players can make an offer of a fix amount energy (by just clicking on the actual "buy" button).
3. At the end of the timer, the player/AI who make the last offer buy the pop.

Can be fun in both singleplayer and multiplayer I think.

 

[Triddle]

Right now, you just buy slaves from the market instantly. In my opinion, it create a problem, both in singleplayer and multiplayer. As you can't know when a player/AI will sell a pop on the market, you need to check everytime if there are something to buy. Also, it become a race in multiplayer to click asap on the button. And I also suspect the AI to buy quickly the available pops.

Maybe a solution in two points :
-make a "newsletter" that inform the player when a pop is selled on the market (can be activate/desactivate)
-replace the instant buy pop system by a purchase by auction.

I can imagine a simple action system :
1. You have a base price for a pop (like now). When the player/AI whant to buy that pop, auction starts.
2. During X amount of time, others players can make an offer of a fix amount energy (by just clicking on the actual "buy" button).
3. At the end of the timer, the player/AI who make the last offer buy the pop.

Can be fun in both singleplayer and multiplayer I think.

Good idea, however it has the problem that players are disincentivised to bid until the last moment, so it kind of just delays the race to click. I think a standard blind auction would work better (everyone has the opportunity to submit a price, highest wins). Alternatively a Dutch auction (price starts high, decreases until someone decides to buy) would work well - the seller could list their minimum price, x, which is announced, then the auction starts at, say, 10x, and decreases by x at each step until someone buys.

 

[Faust-chan]

Good idea, however it has the problem that players are disincentivised to bid until the last moment, so it kind of just delays the race to click. I think a standard blind auction would work better (everyone has the opportunity to submit a price, highest wins). Alternatively a Dutch auction (price starts high, decreases until someone decides to buy) would work well - the seller could list their minimum price, x, which is announced, then the auction starts at, say, 10x, and decreases by x at each step until someone buys.

Yeah, I don't take in account this case. Your proposition seems cool, also!

 

[Velorian]

Good idea, however it has the problem that players are disincentivised to bid until the last moment, so it kind of just delays the race to click. I think a standard blind auction would work better (everyone has the opportunity to submit a price, highest wins). Alternatively a Dutch auction (price starts high, decreases until someone decides to buy) would work well - the seller could list their minimum price, x, which is announced, then the auction starts at, say, 10x, and decreases by x at each step until someone buys.

Well the dutch auction sounds like it would work great.

Alternatively the blind auction would also be fine as long as your listed price is taken as your max.
So that you pay the max price of the highest secondary bidder, not the max price every time.

 

[alteration]

Good idea, however it has the problem that players are disincentivised to bid until the last moment, so it kind of just delays the race to click. I think a standard blind auction would work better (everyone has the opportunity to submit a price, highest wins). Alternatively a Dutch auction (price starts high, decreases until someone decides to buy) would work well - the seller could list their minimum price, x, which is announced, then the auction starts at, say, 10x, and decreases by x at each step until someone buys.

Not really, they could make that each bid increases the auction time by 1 minute.

 

[Frozen Yakman]

Here's an alternative that wouldn't take as much attention by the user. When the slave market opens, an empire can register its interest in slaves and will be put in a Right of Refusal queue. When a slave comes up for sale, the first person not selling the slave in the queue is given a decision, refuse the slave or buy the slave, they have 3 months to decide. If they refuse the slave, the decision is passed down the queue and they retain their position in the queue. If they buy the slave, they get put to the back of the queue. If they wait 3 months without deciding, they get sent to the back of the queue and are treated as refusing to buy the slave. If everybody refuses the slave, it stays on the market with a mark-up and can be bought by anybody at any time.

 

[yerm]

My ideal is monthly auction closes with blind bids. I wouldn't mind though if it was the timed incremental bids with a high buyout like most video games tend to employ.

My big gripe with any instant purchase mechanic here is that the AI instantly snuff out the market and I never see slaves, while multiplayer favors people just camping on it. The market should always give a fighting chance for normal people to check it.