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The Market

The market is the storage place for goods of individual tribes. There are 4 good types: money, food, wood and soldiers. Everything can be put in the market and, if present, taken out of it. Upon selling goods a player receives credits in return which he can use to buy the same or other goods of equal value, if present. Whenever a player sells or buys, his credits thus are altered, as is the amount of goods in the market.
The third and final part of the market is the record part: whenever a player buys or sells a good, this will show up in his record. The record is precisely what it says, namely a record of his total transactions of his whole life up to the current time. Thus, when a player buys or sells things, there will always change 3 things: the credits of the player, the actual goods in the market and the players market record. From here on I will refer to the goods in the market as 'actual goods' while I refer to the goods displayed in the record of a player as 'recorded goods'.

This 'market trinity' needs to be rigorously adopted by everything that is affecting the market: if something alters the actual market goods (say, winning a war) there need to be altered along both the player's credits as well as the player's recorded goods. This should be divided over non-green tribes according to size and should always be rounded to whole pieces of actual goods/credits/recorded goods.
Also, if a player receives credits (say, at the start of his life due to some form of heritage), there always need to be altered along with the credits both the actual market goods as well as the recorded goods of the player in question. These goods should be attached to the credits both as actual good in the market as well as recorded good of the player in question.

Unaccounted goods

When a player dies or deletes, he leaves behind certain actual goods in the market (if he put any in). These actual goods are reflected in the 'unaccounted' record section, a 13th non-player record consisting of, as said, all goods that are not attached to a living player.
This section of recorded goods is affected by a decay which consists of a 0.985 modifier on each good type per update. (1.5% decay). Thus, if the 'unaccounted' record section has a positive OR negative amount in a certain good, this record will slowly alter towards zero, removing OR creating actual goods in the process accordingly (since remember: actual goods is the product of recorded goods and credits, or, the other way around, the recorded goods are a result of the actual goods in the market or the credits etc.). If this means that credits have to be assigned to the 'unaccounted for goods' section, that is fine as long as no player has access to it.
Next to the 0.985 modifier, there is also a 'hard' minimum decay consisting of 234600 credits per good type. This results in a minimum decay of 117300 money per update, 78200 food per update, 6900 wood per update or 2040 soldiers per update. Note that decay, as defined above, is 'progress towards zero' which can be both downwards as well as upwards (if the record is negative). In both cases, the minimum alteration, be it decrease or increase, should apply until zero is hit in the 'unaccounted goods' section.

Record transaction

If all of the above is being considered, it becomes obvious that the system so far is creating some trouble with regard to the trading of resources. The market is designed to give players the possibility not only to store their goods, but also to trade them with each other so that each player can 'specialize' in a resource that fits his tribe, build setup and race. Having a structural trading agreement will so far automatically result in a huge recorded goods surplus in the produced/sold good type and a huge recorded good deficit in the bought good type. This can becomes somewhat troublesome when players die: the huge surplus AND the huge deficit will move to the 'unaccounted' section which starts to decay straightaway, resulting in a drainage away of the ex-players produced goods and a spontaneous creation of the players bought goods. To keep the market useful, other players will have to 'make up' for this by producing the disappearing resource and buying the other one, until the trading partner of the ex-tribe also dies and the mirroring records cancel each other out in the 'unaccounted' section.
To make this process less fluctuating and more smoothly we have created a way in which records can reflect the actual ongoing tradings of goods. It basically is a simple 'trading' system, not in actual goods, which already happens automatically when selling/buying, but in the records of the goods to reflect the ongoing actual trade. This, too, can be done automatically.

Here are the form and the criteria which a player has to fulfill in order to automatically propose a trade:

Form: Player A offers to provide resource x in return for resource y.
Criteria:
1- Player A must have a positive record in resource x.
2- Player A must have a negative record in resource y.

Now the actual 'record trade' happens when another player, let's say player B, offers the exact mirror of player A's proposal.

Form: Player B offers to provide resource y in return for resource x.
Criteria:
1- Player B must have a positive record in resource y.
2- Player B must have a negative record in resource x.

When two of these 'record trade proposals' match, they need to be automatically performed. This means that for each trade, 4 criteria have to be met. The record trade needs to be done up to the point where ONE of the FOUR criteria is no longer matched. In this case: up to the point that player A no longer has a positive x-record or a negative y-record, OR that player B has no longer a positive y-record OR a negative x-record.

The 'unaccounted' section, just like all players, also automatically proposes any trade proposal that is possible to him (thus automatically accepting mirroring proposals from alive players). However, only trade proposals are possible if the 'unaccounted' section, just like a player tribe, has both a negative and a positive recorded good. Precisely the same criteria need to be fulfilled.
Also, if more than a single proposal of the same type is being offered, a mirrored proposal interacts with the oldest first. The 'unaccounted' section, however, always overrides any other proposal if they compete (i.e. is always seen as 'the oldest').

A final note: no rounding is possible in these transactions. This means that if there occurs a need to trade food for wood, this is done in chunks of 3 wood and 34 food (worth 102 credits both). If no complete chunk can be taken out without passing zero, the criteria are no longer matched.
'Unaccounted goods' trades happen whenever they become possible, whereas trades between players happen at a certain point in time each day (not during an update.

Two more final and very important points:
1- Negative values are permitted in the actual market goods
2- Soldier records cannot be traded at all




Appendices


A: Starting a new tribe.

Currently, upon starting a tribe, you get a bunch of credits as well as resources in the market or at least in your tribe. If a player deletes or resets his tribe before he is twenty years old, all goods attached to his account are removed.


B: Mergers and defections

When a tribe merges into another alliance, his credits stay with him and thus his records stay with him (merge along) and thus the actual goods which are reflected by his records also merge along with him. This means that if the player has a record of 100 crowns and -50 wood, the alliance which he leaves will lose 100 crowns and gain 50 wood in the market and the alliance which he enters will gain 100 crowns and lose 50 wood. This is one of the reasons why negative amount of actual goods need to be allowed.
Still, upon requesting a merge, it would make sense if a player would automatically trade records as far as possible to prevent such a thing. Also it would make sense if an accepting elder could see the (already altered) record of the merger in question. Thus the following should happen:
1- Wannabe merger requests merge.
2- Elder presses the 'ok, but what does it mean for our market button'?
3- Wannabe mergers records are being traded in his old alliance as far as possible.
4- Resulting records are shown to elder, also showing how his market will look like if he lets Wannabe merger in.
5- Elder can press 'ok, he can come in' button (or decide to decline the request.)
6- Wannabe merger is being merged to elder along with his credits, records and the actual goods attached to the records.

On a defection, a same stage should be built in:
1- Elder presses 'lets defect this dude' button.
2- Defecters records are being traded as far as possible in his old alli.
3- Resulting records are being shown to elder, also showing how his market will look like if he 'defects this dude'.
4- Elder presses 'yes, I definitely wanna defect him' button.
5- The dude is being defected. His credits, records and actual goods are defected along with him into his new market.


C: War Spoils

War spoils also currently affect the market and thus also need to be addressed. Where goods were won before, records are now won. And because goods and credits are attached to records, these move happily along.

The actual formula for this is still discussed. I will edit this post the moment it is clear.



Credits for this post go to Joe.

I like new market, stops ppl from hoarding from over many ages (looks at 27, 71, 35, etc)

Thank you ;)

It sounds very complicated, but I am sure you guys changed it for the better. thanks =]