Unlimited stock of the Market harms the game.

[Piotrzeci]

Most of my complaints about 2.2 come back to the issue of Market, which was a pretty good idea - you can now trade with everyone regardless of opinion and there is a possibility of swapping one resource for another or even ignoring something and paying for it instead, but the current implementation of the Market (both local and global) brings more issues, that benefits, or rather it's benefits are the issue.

Not so strategic resources.
The point is they are hard to get in big numbers so you have to either buy them from Enclave (max 5 monthly), get from trade with another empire or produce artificially, if you don't have enough natural strategic resources in your space.
Except it doesn't work like that. The one thing strategic resources give is buildings with more employment slots, so what is the point of building a refinery, that provides just one job for a building slot, if the whole idea of getting the resource is to save building slots and give more employment? Why would I build a building for 1 worker to upgrade something from 5 to 8 jobs, if I can just build a second buildings that gives 5 employment? Then the Market comes in. Unlimited, allows you to buy more strategic resources than there is in the Galaxy and while it might not be always worth it, I just do that. My monthly trades are just filled with Crystals and Gases, because if I have unemployment then I upgrade Lab or Clerk building and increase the amount bought. The price might be at times not in my favour and I might lose EC in such way, but it's not like creating my own resources will solve my problem, so the Market just solves a problem of unemployment, while I am supposed to not have a way to provide these jobs. I don't have strategic resources for buildings, so it should be a problem, but is magically solved by unlimited crystals on the Market.
I think the whole idea of just making the same buildings with more jobs as an upgrade is weird, but it's more of an issue to tackle after the Market is fixed.

Minerals? Just sell some alloys.
What I would do in a couple of my last games was building alloy foundries.
Then run into shortage of minerals.
So start buying minerals.
And to afford it sell some alloys.
While I look at it's ridiculous. Why do I even do that, if I can just make less alloys (apart from the fact it might actually pay for itself in EC)? Obviously the next step is to build a Matter Decompresser in every single game to save EC from constantly buying few hundreds of minerals n monthly basis.
Again at fault is the Market (and Admin Cap). If I can buy hundreds of minerals at all time and it will never run out, then why would I ever make my economy make sense? Why waste planets on Mining Districts, if they will have less housing and just get into my way by feeding my Empire Sprawl, if I can just have city planets, that import minerals from the Void... it's like taking it out of a Black Hole, but with less science.

Dark Matter and sometimes Zro.
The latter is problematic, because while it makes little sense, mining of it requires that you have a use for it, so it's either wanted by the empire that has it or can't be mined so this great rare resource just sits there unmined.
But back to the point - they are great. I don't know for what, but they are great. Each deposit means a new monthly trade of selling one more... Who needs them? Idk. But apparently the Market is a two way Void and will gladly accept it in any quantity.
There should be a building that eats them each month so they wouldn't be useless to have, but then we just get back to the issue of other strategic resources.

Civilian Benefits or Maximizing Profit?
Okay what is the current price of Consumer Goods, because I can endlessly buy them on the Market and will choose the one that gives me more EC. What is the point of this choice, if he Market can swap any number of EC into Consumer Goods and any number of Consumer Goods into EC?

The Market should have a limited stock.
Let's think of a Local Market. It should have all the resources it buys, but also some small civilian stock based on the production of the empire it belongs to - no more empires without access to Galactic Market buying resources they can't (or don't) produce in any quantity. Why would my Market have Rare Crystals, if they aren't anywhere in my Space?
Then the Local Markets would merge into the Galactic one, where each empire would buy things other sell and have access to low quantities of resources other empire produce, even if they don't sell it.

The potential problems

• There could be some resource lacking - then it's too important/rare or just have to deal with it, make it more accessible.
• There could be too much of something - then it's too common or useless, give more uses to it.
• The Market could be mostly unused - then so be it. If nobody wants to trade, then why bother with the Market.
• Not enough EC for trading - that would be an issue. If someone sold a large quantity of something, they could get all EC out of the Stock and then nobody would be able to buy it by selling something else, so a triangle trade when 1 sells A to buy C, 2 sells B to buy A and 3 sells C to buy B wouldn't be possible, because the Market could at some point run out of credits and be stuck unless someone buys something with Energy. Possibly a system where the Market gets rid of part of it's resources to spawn EC or just big enough stockpile of EC to limit the times such situation happen.
• Nothing changes - if I produce 1010 Consumer Goods and eat 1000, then my Market would probably have a large number of Consumer Goods and relatively to my needs of around +- 20 it would seem unlimited, but maybe it is a good thing. I am not sure about this one.

It's either a problem of AI behaviour or unpolished mechanic for use of a certain resource, which are not problems with the Market, but they could easily be found in such way.

 

[Matoro_TBS]

I've been powering my money income by selling huge amounts (1000 monthly) of food and minerals, and boy that brings the prices down. Most of the game sell price for food was something like 0.31 EC. Now if there had been other players they would have probably adjusted to that and started to buy dirt-cheap food and minerals I was dumping there, both getting cheap resources and making me get more money, but AI doesn't use market enough.
I absolutely love the market as it is currently: the fact that you can change any resource to the other means you can do many different play-styles (like getting your money by selling raw resources) and I don't think it simplifies the economy that you can buy anything. Instead it makes is possible to specialize - for example, very alloy-minmaxed economy is pretty fun to run, and you can usually buy large part of your raw materials with the price of alloys. Before market every empire had to be self-sufficient in every resource.
I hope the market will get more stuff in the future, like event-based price-fluctuation, more aggressive trading by AI and shortages.

As you said, it's very silly to buy minerals to make alloys to sell them and buy minerals... it's nonsensical economy with little win margins.

Why waste planets on Mining Districts, if they will have less housing and just get into my way by feeding my Empire Sprawl, if I can just have city planets, that import minerals from the Void... it's like taking it out of a Black Hole, but with less science.

Because buying minerals with alloys is a circle that is very inefficient due to market fees etc. Sure, you can do it, but you'll end up with a lot more alloys if you use mining districts for your minerals. If you're willing to lose hundreds of resources in inefficient production line just to save yourself some Empire Sprawl, don't. It's not worth it. Empire Sprawl is just the same thing we had before 2.2 but gentler and fairer because we actually see it.

I agree with few points, especially about strategic resources. It was a right choice to put them on the market since they are needed for building upgrades and some ships, but it feels a loss that there aren't many, umm, rare strategic resources (okay there's a few) that weren't on the market.

 

[Piotrzeci]

Empire Sprawl is just the same thing we had before 2.2 but gentler and fairer because we actually see it.

It isn't true even though Devs say that. Now an empire that is just below the Capacity has the same (=0) penalty as the one that doesn't have anything. You totally can play the whole game without exceeding it, so it isn't the same, especially that you can reach techs that increase the limit and grow while still being below.
It has been said on DevClash multiple times, that You are supposed to exceed the limit, but... in the game you totally don't have to... and it's not even a bad tactic.

 

[Bearinger]

I believe a living Galactic Market where you can only buy what is being sold is Paradox's ultimate goal; evidenced by the seemingly pointless numbers that track how much each player has bought and sold on the Market. These number could be easily used to track stock and price, but I believe the devs have accurately judged that the AI is nowhere near ready to handle using the Market to this extent.

I've been playing a lot with Glavius's Mod, which has the AI heavily exploit the Market to the point where every resource floats around 1 to 1 trade with energy. In this scenario the Market is really nothing more than a swap system for changing one resource for another, with any market fluctuation being instantly back filled faster than a human can react. The ideal situation needs to be somewhere in between this and will require a lot of man hours to program.

 

[hart30]

It really is the AI which is simply bad at the market. I played lots of multiplayer games and there Players can get very easy in Trouble, if several Player use the same market tactic.

 

[Red Death]

Removing (or drastically lowering) the trend toward base price would go a long way to fixing the system I think. It doesn't matter that the theoretical stock is infinite if resources become unaffordable unless someone else is selling them.

 

[The Grumpy Buddha]

The Market still needs work but most of your post is just "It's too easy if you can just buy things!", which seems to skip past the point that to buy things, you need $$, and sometimes, you don't have all the $$ you need to buy all the things you want.

 

[The Grumpy Buddha]

I believe a living Galactic Market where you can only buy what is being sold is Paradox's ultimate goal; evidenced by the seemingly pointless numbers that track how much each player has bought and sold on the Market. These number could be easily used to track stock and price, but I believe the devs have accurately judged that the AI is nowhere near ready to handle using the Market to this extent.

I've been playing a lot with Glavius's Mod, which has the AI heavily exploit the Market to the point where every resource floats around 1 to 1 trade with energy. In this scenario the Market is really nothing more than a swap system for changing one resource for another, with any market fluctuation being instantly back filled faster than a human can react. The ideal situation needs to be somewhere in between this and will require a lot of man hours to program.

I just finished a game with Glavius's Mod in place, 2.2.4, and for most of the game energy was worth more than minerals or food. There was a long stretch where the buy for minerals, even with a 30% fee, was 0.50-0.70. So I'm not sure about it being a 1 to 1 trade most of the time -- that's not what I saw.

 

[Jman5]

The way they should do it is make 3rd party neutral aliens like conclaves always sell a small amount of every material monthly to keep the markets supplied. However beyond that, the quantity available should be based on what other empires put into it.

The way it is now is kind of stupid.

 

[DukeLeto42]

Removing (or drastically lowering) the trend toward base price would go a long way to fixing the system I think. It doesn't matter that the theoretical stock is infinite if resources become unaffordable unless someone else is selling them.

I actually think the trend is good, though it could probably stand a bit of lowering. In my main game since the market's introduction, I made a vast profit selling all kinds of resources because AI purchases sent the conversion rates sky-high - I could fill my energy stocks with a couple large consumer goods sales. If there weren't a trend toward normal prices, certain resources would become unpurchasable or completely break the game economy.

 

[CrowScape]

It isn't true even though Devs say that. Now an empire that is just below the Capacity has the same (=0) penalty as the one that doesn't have anything. You totally can play the whole game without exceeding it, so it isn't the same, especially that you can reach techs that increase the limit and grow while still being below.
It has been said on DevClash multiple times, that You are supposed to exceed the limit, but... in the game you totally don't have to... and it's not even a bad tactic.

I have no idea why people are disagreeing with you. I guess they need a screenshot?

BTW, this means the whole "You always get more than you lose by going over you cap" thing is a lie, because the penalty is not proportional to your empire size. If I went over the cap here, I would definitely lose far more than whatever piddling amount of resources that one district or claimed system provided.

 

[Piotrzeci]

Removing (or drastically lowering) the trend toward base price would go a long way to fixing the system I think. It doesn't matter that the theoretical stock is infinite if resources become unaffordable unless someone else is selling them.

It would have a similar effect, but wouldn't work as well.
I mean making a clearer Market which shows at glance what is sold cheaper/more expensive and more dependable on the demand-supply rule would be good enough.

 

[Haltin]

Minerals? Just sell some alloys.
What I would do in a couple of my last games was building alloy foundries.
Then run into shortage of minerals.
So start buying minerals.
And to afford it sell some alloys.
While I look at it's ridiculous.

Whether or not it's ridiculous, it's how the real world economy - and any node in any production chain in a market economy - works: you buy raw materials, refine them, and sell the results, using some of the income to pay for the raw materials and pocket the rest as profit. Your empire simply changed from a developing economy (producing primarily raw materials) into an industrial economy (primarily manufacturing stuff).

Now the important decisions for the game's direction is if this is good enough, or if there should be a second or even third tier of advanced buildings, using resources which can't be found but only manufactured from strategic resources, allowing for more detailed galactic economic division of labor, and if there should be some resources which are needed for very advanced buildings but cannot be manufactured, allowing for space Middle-East. In other words, do the devs want to take another step towards space Victoria?

 

[DukeLeto42]

Whether or not it's ridiculous, it's how the real world economy - and any node in any production chain in a market economy - works: you buy raw materials, refine them, and sell the results, using some of the income to pay for the raw materials and pocket the rest as profit. Your empire simply changed from a developing economy (producing primarily raw materials) into an industrial economy (primarily manufacturing stuff).

This is spot on. Part of the reason the market exists is to make sure space empires don't have to remain little mercantilist enterprises.

and if there should be some resources which are needed for very advanced buildings but cannot be manufactured, allowing for space Middle-East

I mean, that's basically what strategic resources are for, but I feel like a couple mines on scattered worlds and the refinery buildings doesn't really convey the experience of a "space Middle East" as you describe.

I really do want to have worlds like Dune's Arrakis, which are worthless but for the vast quantity of strategic resources it can produce - planets that aren't population-wise important, but are worth waging wars to control.

 

[Red Death]

I mean, that's basically what strategic resources are for, but I feel like a couple mines on scattered worlds and the refinery buildings doesn't really convey the experience of a "space Middle East" as you describe.

In order to actually reach that experience, strategic resource deposits should be more clustered on galactic scale, and refineries should be made a lot less effective (making purchasing them from other empires cheaper than refineries).

 

[Xephos Demonslayer]

Dark Matter and sometimes Zro.
The latter is problematic, because while it makes little sense, mining of it requires that you have a use for it, so it's either wanted by the empire that has it or can't be mined so this great rare resource just sits there unmined.
But back to the point - they are great. I don't know for what, but they are great. Each deposit means a new monthly trade of selling one more... Who needs them? Idk. But apparently the Market is a two way Void and will gladly accept it in any quantity.
There should be a building that eats them each month so they wouldn't be useless to have, but then we just get back to the issue of other strategic resources.

Dark matter is used if you want to build/upgrade ships with FE shields/thrusters/reactors. Zro is only useful to psionics, for lowering shroud costs, but is so rare to get that I have games on huge galaxies where it literally doesn't exist, which is especially frustrating when you're psionic, and even more so that when you do get it your materialists so you'll never get the tech to mine it.

 

[Piotrzeci]

In order to actually reach that experience, strategic resource deposits should be more clustered on galactic scale, and refineries should be made a lot less effective (making purchasing them from other empires cheaper than refineries).

Part of the issue is that buying Strategic Resources on the Market is cheaper than producing them yourself. After all it costs building maintenance, a pop, job requires minerals and on top of that you spend a building slot. Sometimes the Minerals themselves are more expensive than the SG you get in result.

 

[Beanstalker]

Minerals? Just sell some alloys.
What I would do in a couple of my last games was building alloy foundries.
Then run into shortage of minerals.
So start buying minerals.
And to afford it sell some alloys.
While I look at it's ridiculous. Why do I even do that, if I can just make less alloys (apart from the fact it might actually pay for itself in EC)? Obviously the next step is to build a Matter Decompresser in every single game to save EC from constantly buying few hundreds of minerals n monthly basis.
Again at fault is the Market (and Admin Cap). If I can buy hundreds of minerals at all time and it will never run out, then why would I ever make my economy make sense? Why waste planets on Mining Districts, if they will have less housing and just get into my way by feeding my Empire Sprawl, if I can just have city planets, that import minerals from the Void... it's like taking it out of a Black Hole, but with less science.

Dude, buy recources -> use/process recources, adding value -> sell output at a profit is, like, the very basis of any vaguely capitalist economy. I don't see why being able to focus your economy in this way is a problem.
There SHOULD be risk involved though. I don't think the market "running out" makes much sense though - rather, there should be potentially drastic price fluctuations depending on available supply.

 

[Piotrzeci]

Dude, buy recources -> use/process recources, adding value -> sell output at a profit is, like, the very basis of any vaguely capitalist economy. I don't see why being able to focus your economy in this way is a problem.
There SHOULD be risk involved though. I don't think the market "running out" makes much sense though - rather, there should be potentially drastic price fluctuations depending on available supply.

It would be a very basic way a capitalist economy works, if not for the fact that everybody can produce alloys just as effectively. We are talking about empire-empire trade and not a trade between a corporation and consumers. Basically there are empires in the Galaxy who mine Minerals and instead of just refining them into alloys sell them on Market and then buy alloys. They can skip the Market fee and avoid paying me, if they just redirected some of miners into foundries.

 

[The Grumpy Buddha]

Part of the issue is that buying Strategic Resources on the Market is cheaper than producing them yourself. After all it costs building maintenance, a pop, job requires minerals and on top of that you spend a building slot. Sometimes the Minerals themselves are more expensive than the SG you get in result.

It can be -- sometimes, though, you have pops and building slots to spare. What's the mineral cost, if any, for a Gas Refiner -- anyone have Stellaris running that can let us know? I know the building upkeep is 3 energy, and that a happy pop is probably making at least 2.4 of them or so, so it'd have to be a lot of minerals in order for that to be not worth it.