ENDLESS™ Space 2 is turn-based 4X space-strategy that launches players into the space colonization age of different civilizations within the ENDLESS™ Universe. Your Vision. Their Future.
I've had an idea after watching the gamescom video. One user commented on his dislike of the buy fonction (not in the market but in your production) and I have too say I agree a bit with him. It's strange, all this dust given to no one and an upgrade/unit appearing out of thin air.
So I have a drastic proposition. Why not remove this feature entirely and transfer these actions in the market.
After all, the unit purchase already exist in the market. And for the upgrade purchase, you don't buy upgrade at the market, you could buy worforce (industry).
Which bring me to another idea. Why not put food and industry in the market ?
I see several solutions for this :
in the production line there is a 'create stockpile of food/industry', after some turns it create a stockpile you can sell. Not my favorite idea.
Or, the market has food/industry pool for each player: on each system the player can decide that a percentage of the food and/or industy produced is sent to the market pool and can be sold to other player. (for the sell: the buyer select the quantity she/he want and affect it to one of his/her system)
And to the addition of the ponctual sale/purchase, a player should be able to sell a flux. What I mean is, if I have a system with a lot of food production, I can put in the market an exportation of food of +X food per turn against +X dust to an other player.
The interest is the pressure you can have with just economic production. Let's say player B import a lot of your food. Pehaps he/she will decide to skip on food research/uprade, after all he/she has already a steady flow because of you. But then, if he/she become too dependent of your food, you have a mean of pressure against him/her: you can threaten to stop exportin
I have also two questions concerning the market:
Do you receive dust when your merchandise is put on display on the market or when someone actually buy it ?
When you buy something on the market do you see who sell it ?
It seem very important to me that the dust is received when the merchandise is actually bought and that you see the identity of the seller.
If I want 2 units of adamantian, perhaps I don't want to buy the 2 units sold by the empire engaged in a war with me …
More interesting, if I'm pacifist and a big buyer, carefully distributing my dust among the differents empires could help maintaining a balance without being explicitly allies.
People need to stop complaining about the buy function. Most turn-based strategy games have such a function, especially 4x strategies, and it has been a part of this series since the beginning. As for your market idea we could already do this in Endless Legend, where the market was introduced. Players would sell stockpiles they had created of either food, industry, or science, and then get money for them upfront. Now for your solutions to the 'problem' of unit and building buyouts:
in the production line there is a 'create stockpile of food/industry', after some turns it create a stockpile you can sell. Not my favorite idea. <--We can already do this in Endless Legend. I belive its main function was to replace the overpowered Industry conversions of Endless Space.
Or, the market has food/industry pool for each player: on each system the player can decide that a percentage of the food and/or industy produced is sent to the market pool and can be sold to other player. (for the sell: the buyer select the quantity she/he want and affect it to one of his/her system)<--It is an interesting idea I'll admit, kind of reminds me of outsourcing labor. But it would be pretty overpowered since it could create an industry capacity several times your current one overall. Normal stockpiles are limited in that you can only make use of the effects of each once per turn, and they only provide a flat amount of resources.
And to the addition of the ponctual sale/purchase, a player should be able to sell a flux. What I mean is, if I have a system with a lot of food production, I can put in the market an exportation of food of +X food per turn against +X dust to an other player.<--This right here? That's a good idea, though instead of putting it on the market I would maybe use it as a reason to trade. Like you can send X-amount of FIDS to a certain system via your trade routes, effectively allowing you to export your FIDS to other planets to boost their economy. However as cool as it would be I don't see it happening, since it could be quite overpowered create a slew of balancing issues.
The interest is the pressure you can have with just economic production. Let's say player B import a lot of your food. Pehaps he/she will decide to skip on food research/uprade, after all he/she has already a steady flow because of you. But then, if he/she become too dependent of your food, you have a mean of pressure against him/her: you can threaten to stop exporting.<--I'd be more worried about them just using all that extra food to stack up a large population and then just pump out colony ship after colony ship.
I have also two questions concerning the market:
Do you receive dust when your merchandise is put on display on the market or when someone actually buy it ?
When you buy something on the market do you see who sell it ?
-Honestly we don't know a lot about Endless Space 2's market yet, but I'm pretty sure it is safe to assume that many of the most basic functions will be either the same or similar to Endless Legend's market. Meaning we would get dust immediately from the market by selling units or resources. Then those resources have their price adjusted based on scarcity/supply and demand. And no one will know who sold what unless we have a Roving Clans-esque faction who can see who sells what to the market. Now I know that in this game a player will own the market, so perhaps that player will be the one who knows?
It seem very important to me that the dust is received when the merchandise is actually bought and that you see the identity of the seller.
If I want 2 units of adamantian, perhaps I don't want to buy the 2 units sold by the empire engaged in a war with me …
More interesting, if I'm pacifist and a big buyer, carefully distributing my dust among the differents empires could help maintaining a balance without being explicitly allies.
-Yes but not knowing who you are selling things to is what makes the market such a risk. Besides if it is anything like EL the market will keep material in stock for people to buy anyways. And maintaining a balace as a pacifist using money and materials can already be done through treaties and diplomatic pressure.
Eji1700 wrote: I really think this will have to be carefully balanced. The "diplomatic advantage" can be nice vs an AI which will be programmed to give a damn, but very often the player vs player interaction at that level is too simple (i'll max it and lock people out of trading unless they absolutely need it and then I make a ton of money off it and harm their war chest. Win win.).
Endless legend having a diplomatic currency was a huge step in the right direction to allowing diplomatic actions to actually matter in a pvp scenario, so I hope it's still around for space and that such market manipulations help you generate it.
That's exactly my fear.
And now that the marketplace will be an actual physical location and not merely an abstraction some other things need to be considered:
- What happens when you go to war with the marketplace owner? He can market ban you? I'm not against this, just curious on how it would work.
- Would diplomatic contact with the owner's empire be necessary in order to trade on the marketplace? I'm picturing the scenario when Empire A is the owner of the market and Empire B never encountered Empire A (perhaps because it's being blockaded in its own corner of space by Empire C).
Hey it's mine too. I made a topic on balance for endless space 2 because it's a big deal to me, and while I love the aesthetic of endless legend I just cant justify putting much effort into it simply because I know it falls apart under any scrutiny (in both vs AI and pvp). They do seem to be aware of this and their responses so far indicate that they don't want the same thing to happen with ES 2, but yeah I'd be lying if I said I felt I could totally trust them on that (i think they'll try but I worry about the outcome and their dedication past launch to getting it right).
I will say that this market system, like EL, has a large potential to flop. The changes made since EL do indicate that they understand some of the issues with the EL market, but I'm hoping it and all the other potential balance hurdles are being paid attention to.
First, can we have some sort of tech/building that gives a player/AI a vote in the taxes on the marketplace in the mid-late game? This would work regardless of where the marketplace is, and the player would get this vote so long as they are not at war with the nation owning the marketplace. Clarification: I don't mean that everyone gets to propose a different rate. I mean that the marketplace owner proposes two (significantly) different tax rates, and everyone with Tech X or Building Y or whatever gets one vote towards the marketplace tax. Hell, you could even throw influence into the mix and make it a *vote with influence* mechanic.
Another thing: We are giving control of the marketplace to a member of the market. That's basically like giving the Banker to a player in monopoly, except they actually have all the money. It's a pretty weird idea. I like it, but there has to be some way to prevent the player from taxing the absolute crap out of everyone in the game (AIs can be programmed to respond, but players are different).
And now that the marketplace will be an actual physical location and not merely an abstraction some other things need to be considered:
- What happens when you go to war with the marketplace owner? He can market ban you? I'm not against this, just curious on how it would work.
- Would diplomatic contact with the owner's empire be necessary in order to trade on the marketplace? I'm picturing the scenario when Empire A is the owner of the market and Empire B never encountered Empire A (perhaps because it's being blockaded in its own corner of space by Empire C).
You won't be able to out-and-out stop their trading though, they can still trade things directly. Besides that, I'd assume there's some kind of Malus associated with owning the trade hub, such as a huge Dust Cost. Using it as a middle finger might end up being economically unviable.
The idea of the black market is great. It would be nice to highlight the impact of the conventional market and the black market in peacetime and in wartime. And just what have the + and - at the races using them.
I'm really curious about how this will interact with ES2 diplomacy: if taxes are set too high, players might resort to diplomatic trade with each other; if players are generating heavy diplomatic pressure to push assymetrical trade deals, players low on influence might prefer trading at the marketplace instead. I'm also curious about how this will function in wartime...
The ability to market ban would grant an incredible advantage to owning the marketplace, but I'd only support the idea if market bans were tagged as an aggressive action which 1) can only be accessed during war, or 2) diminishes diplomatic pressure in relation to the banned player—in effect, earning the owning player a badge. IMO, a market ban ought to be a pretty serious statement, close to declaring war. That said, I'd definitely like to try managing the marketplace as the Cravers sometime.
I'm a big fan of the Endless series, and I'm really excited about the overall direction of ES2. I'm also glad the marketplace will have more utility this time around. Hopefully, players will feel encouraged to use the marketplace more often.
A few other suggestions— Perhaps the marketplace could also function like a universal trade branch? With the right balancing, it could be interesting if the marketplace were to grant a localized assist to trade companies. Also, to encourage exploration, I think that access to the marketplace ought to depend on establishing first contact with the owning player.
Epikuros wrote: It's funny seeing Cravers dealing with the marketplace. Usually I played them as I want that - I conquer that. Everything is food apart from us... LoL
But I love this marketplace and bigger control of the transactions and economics.
I like that they still definitely angle that way. Like, I could trade with you, but it's probably cheaper just to OMNOMNOM you instead.
Thanks for all the answers, sorry I don't do personalized replies today but time is a scarce resource around here ;)
To adress a general concern about tax rate, I will say that the initial intention is mainly for it to be used in multiplayer, and I do take note on you guys saying that it might always be maxed out. We haven't been able to test it in MP yet, but we'll let you know if it works - or not.
I also have seen a lot of interesting suggestions and/or tweaks in case the current system struggles, and we will keep them in mind when we iterate on it (hard cap on lux, an indirect system for building ownership of the marketplace, market ban, marketplace contributing in the trade network).
I've had an idea after watching the gamescom video. One user commented on his dislike of the buy fonction (not in the market but in your production) and I have too say I agree a bit with him. It's strange, all this dust given to no one and an upgrade/unit appearing out of thin air.
So I have a drastic proposition. Why not remove this feature entirely and transfer these actions in the market.
After all, the unit purchase already exist in the market. And for the upgrade purchase, you don't buy upgrade at the market, you could buy worforce (industry).
Which bring me to another idea. Why not put food and industry in the market ?
I see several solutions for this :
in the production line there is a 'create stockpile of food/industry', after some turns it create a stockpile you can sell. Not my favorite idea.
Or, the market has food/industry pool for each player: on each system the player can decide that a percentage of the food and/or industy produced is sent to the market pool and can be sold to other player. (for the sell: the buyer select the quantity she/he want and affect it to one of his/her system)
And to the addition of the ponctual sale/purchase, a player should be able to sell a flux. What I mean is, if I have a system with a lot of food production, I can put in the market an exportation of food of +X food per turn against +X dust to an other player.
The interest is the pressure you can have with just economic production. Let's say player B import a lot of your food. Pehaps he/she will decide to skip on food research/uprade, after all he/she has already a steady flow because of you. But then, if he/she become too dependent of your food, you have a mean of pressure against him/her: you can threaten to stop exporting.
I have also two questions concerning the market:
Do you receive dust when your merchandise is put on display on the market or when someone actually buy it ?
When you buy something on the market do you see who sell it ?
It seem very important to me that the dust is received when the merchandise is actually bought and that you see the identity of the seller.
If I want 2 units of adamantian, perhaps I don't want to buy the 2 units sold by the empire engaged in a war with me …
More interesting, if I'm pacifist and a big buyer, carefully distributing my dust among the differents empires could help maintaining a balance without being explicitly allies.
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Falkner wrote: Is there any gameplay reason for which the one holding the marketplace won't keep the tax rate always maxed out?
Convenience vs Cost. They said that diplomatic trades can be done if the Marketplace owner tries to overtax them. If they get too greedy with tax, they might end up with no transactions going through.
I've had an idea after watching the gamescom video. One user commented on his dislike of the buy fonction (not in the market but in your production) and I have too say I agree a bit with him. It's strange, all this dust given to no one and an upgrade/unit appearing out of thin air.
People need to stop complaining about the buy function. Every strategy game has one and it has been a part of this series since the beginning.
Maybe not every strategy game has it, but a lot of 4X games do. And unlike most other 4X games, where you use cold or "credits," the Endless series at least has some actual justification for it:
Dust is a mass of extremely advanced nanites that can be used to achieve just about anything (advanced tech indistinguishable from magic, and all that). So most likely you aren't paying anybody, but the Dust itself is doing the work, assembling the structures on a molecular level.
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Or you might pay your system population with Dust, so they construct said structure/unit in short term. Construction still requires 1 turn to complete after buyout, so it's not materializing from thin air.
Buyout is essentially a Dust-to-Industry conversion.
It's still woud be a dust to production conversion but with the production coming from other empires. A form of offshoring i guess.
But i see your points for the buyout function and it's atcually very good reasons. I guess you really need a strict advantage at playing dust production without distributing your dust to others.
Anyway it was just a 'what if' idea.
Another interroagtion i had reading your answers: can we consider forbiding purchase of what we're selling by some other player. (I know this has'nt be adressed yet in the GDD).
To conclude I think I just really wish to see the market being a strong place of interraction between players. The EL market was a bit 'exchange your dust against watever you want and that's all'.
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It's still woud be a dust to production conversion but with the production coming from other empires. A form of offshoring i guess.
But i see your points for the buyout function and it's atcually very good reasons. I guess you really need a strict advantage at playing dust production without distributing your dust to others.
Anyway it was just a 'what if' idea.
Another interroagtion i had reading your answers: can we consider forbiding purchase of what we're selling by some other player. (I know this has'nt be adressed yet in the GDD).
To conclude I think I just really wish to see the market being a strong place of interraction between players. The EL market was a bit 'exchange your dust against watever you want and that's all'.
The big problem with a market supplied only by other players is that they could just as easily ignore the market and keep their materials in a stockpile for a later turn when they might actually need it. I've seen such a thing happen in 4x's before and it usually makes the market more barren than the surface of Mercury.
It's still woud be a dust to production conversion but with the production coming from other empires. A form of offshoring i guess.
But i see your points for the buyout function and it's atcually very good reasons. I guess you really need a strict advantage at playing dust production without distributing your dust to others.
Anyway it was just a 'what if' idea.
Another interroagtion i had reading your answers: can we consider forbiding purchase of what we're selling by some other player. (I know this has'nt be adressed yet in the GDD).
To conclude I think I just really wish to see the market being a strong place of interraction between players. The EL market was a bit 'exchange your dust against watever you want and that's all'.
The big problem with a market supplied only by other players is that they could just as easily ignore the market and keep their materials in a stockpile for a later turn when they might actually need it. I've seen such a thing happen in 4x's before and it usually makes the market more barren than the surface of Mercury.
You can do it, but you REALLY need to understand market forces and how people handle games. This is the same issue most diplomacy in 4x's have where between players its useless and vs the AI it's still really shallow. They at least introduced a resource for Diplomacy to help make it a bit deeper (and viable in pvp), so i have some hope they understand enough about markets that they could do something like that right.
The trick is making sure the incentive is right, and it can't be just dust. There should be many other advantages and disadvantages to using the market, and it having a physical location seems like a step in the right direction.
We have taken into account the feedback on the buyout, and currently we are heading in the direction of making it more expansive, and not economically viable compared to a normal industry construction. It's still there as an option though, mainly to handle emergencies.
As for the marketplace, we are definitely heading in the direction of player filled, and we will be keeping a sharp eye for the "barren" effect. On ownership of resources, sadly each resource has a common stock, so you won't know who put what in there ; however we want to introduce an "ads" system where players would be able to post messages saying "I'd like to buy XX of YY res", or "I just put a large quantity of YY for sale".
What could help avoid the barren effect is how strategic resources have been made a little bit more central to the gameplay, encouraging players (including the AI) to trade them on the market. Luxuries also have a strong role to play with the star system upgrades and should definitely be sought after with any means necessary.
can we consider forbiding purchase of what we're selling by some other player. (I know this has'nt be adressed yet in the GDD)
We have taken into account the feedback on the buyout, and currently we are heading in the direction of making it more expansive, and not economically viable compared to a normal industry construction. It's still there as an option though, mainly to handle emergencies.
...
From what we have seen in the Gamescom video the Lumeris could only have bought around 8 ships even with the 50% buyout discount. Then after every 2 turns they could afford another ship. This felt about right to me. It could help in an emergency but not in a prolonged war, where you would loose ships and fleets. I guess the final balancing is still not done, regarding to your post about making it more expansive. I hope it will still be an option. Especially in late game where you can kickstart new colonies if you buyout key structures. Perhaps starships and buildings could have different buyout values, so it could be easier to buyout structures/buildings/improvements but not ships. Or you could also add different policies for buyout. A pacifist one which lets you buyout improvemtens cheaper and a military one which lets you buyout starships cheaper.
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