Suggestion: Stockpile

[Ruddertail]

This idea had been mentioned priviously, but I don't think it was ever fleshed out. So, here it is.

We would set up a "stockpile". This would be like a clan treasury, but for private use by the individual, and regardless of whether they are clanned or unclanned.

The stockpile would allow the storage of:

$1 Billion Dollars & 100 Million Food Per every $1 Million Net Worth

Now, this may sound like a lot. But, think. A cash masser, on 10k land, with about 5 - 6 mil net, would make the max amount he could store in the stockpile: 6 bil, in one, maybe two, runs. One or two runs. $10 bil isn't exactly a pivotal amount, either. Not when some of the top guys have millions of troops and hundreds of billions of dollars.

Of course, the stockpile would only affect food massers unless we do something about stocks. You see, when people have a large amount of cash, the easiest way to store it is in the stock market. As long as stock-storing remains a viable option, people will continue using it.

So, then, the issue is how to stop stock-storing. There have been a lot of interesting, though complex, ideas tossed around. Eventually, the best of these ideas will probably be implemented. Until then, this plan would provide an easy fix for stock storing.

What we would do is simply set the stock market to allow transactions once a week. Perhaps it could be a set day. Perhaps it could be determined by the last time the person used the market. In this case, I would set it so that once a week had passed from the last trade, the stock market would be "availible". It would remain availible until the player accessed it, at which time it would become "Open". It would remain in this open status for a period of time, from six to twenty four hours long. After the set time period had passed, the stocks would become "Closed", and remain that way until another week had passed.

If it was a set day, it would become "Open" at 12:00 AM that day, and remain so until 11:59 PM on that day. It would be "Closed" for the rest of the week.

Those times when it was "Open" would be the only times people could trade. When it was "closed" people would either be denied access to the stocks page, or allowed to access the page, but would not be allowed to trade, or cary out any transactions.

This would make stock storing rather impracticle, as, for the rest of the week, cash would pile up, and be vulnerable to either Embezzelment (steal cash) or Sacking.

Another possible way to curb stock storing would be to limit the amount of cash one could have on stocks according to the person's NW, and/or limit the amount of stocks that could be traded at any one time (25% of your any amount of any one stock could be bought or sold, after reaching a certain amount of it. (As it would otherwise take people months to build up from the origional 1k shares of everything.) But, say, after 10 mil shares of any stock, these caps come into place. (The open/closed times would apply at any amount of stocks, for anyone.)

There you have it, friends. Suggestions, comments, agreements?

-Ruddertail

[Devari]

One word: Ragnarok.

As soon as I found out about the FAF clan feature, I adapted it to a personal stockpile.

I'm biased, but good idea.

But I would say 1/2 of what you suggested.

[Ruddertail]

Hmm, $500 mil, 50 mil food per $1 mil NW? I don't know... with a good casher strat, I've made over 100 bil in less then a week on BFR. With my average peak NW around 50 mil, that'd mean that $75 bil would either have to be spent on troops, or left exposed to sacking. I'm not sure about that...

[Slasher]

Yeah nice idea... When I saw this on Devari's game I thought FAF should have this but never atcually got round to suggesting it...

[Devari]

Well, we can't allow excessive amounts of storing. $25 billion for 50 million NW seems reasonable to me...

[Ruddertail]

I suppose... but we probably need to adjust sack, too, then. I was going to propose that anyway, though. Because you really can't leave any decent amount of resources on an account. It all gets sacked off. If sack was, like, 25% of current, on the other hand... at least it'd be fairly safe on WOA.

[Devari]

Agreed.

I'd also like to see a system where one can have "reserves" - a replacement for market storing. Then we could simply make it so market storing is not a viable strategy any more - perhaps longer lock-in times, or an awful recall fee.

[Devari]

Perhaps reserves could consume as much as peasants? Or perhaps just 1/4 of what they normally do.

[Ruddertail]

I'm with ya all the way on that one. In fact, I already was planning on putting up a proposal for that, something with a reserve. Third, after this one, and Sack-gains reduction.

Hmm, perhaps. Or, just limit the amount they take.

[Devari]

Ok, there is now a config variable - $config['sackmodifier'] - that acts as a multiplier for gains. So, if we want to reduce the sack gains, even on a per-server basis, we can do it through the config file.

On the Duels testing server, sackmodifier is set to 0.25.

[Ruddertail]

What % of the resource sacked is currently gained?

[The Beatles]

I disagree with the stockpile; I think it's a bit excessive. Why let people stockpile anyways?

[Ruddertail]

Because it's an important part of many strats. What's a hawker, cash masser, or agrarian supposed to do with their cash? Buy troops? But, eventually, after a certain place, trying to do that levels you off. You eventually have to switch over to barracks.

Plus, it's always nice to have resources sitting around in a safe place. That way, if you get most of your sacked, and most of you land taken, you still have enough to make a recovery run without having to sell too many troops, or lose them to desertion.

[The Beatles]

But what does it do to balance?

[Ruddertail]

Probably slightly ups the availibility of sackable resources for a 100% barrack strater, but with sack depowered some, this shouldn't have too noticeable an effect. It certainly balances things away from a store, store, store, pull it all and jump to 1 bil net strat, which I think we would want.