On the viability of trading

mrbah · 2019-04-25 16:06:22

Let's assume two advanced towns want to trade, they have radios and also a (fictional) device that let's them determine their absolute positions or positions relative to each other.

Why would these two cities trade? Because they each have something the other town needs. Now because both towns are advanced, that means they already have at least some of every raw ressource, so what could they trade?

One such ressource would be rabbits, as in a cart filled with 6 backpacks filled with 4 rabbits each, coming to 6 backpacks and 24 rabbits, or a horsecart with 4 backpacks, 4 rabbits each, 4 backpacks, 16 rabbits.
If one town has lots of rabbit holes nearby and the other doesn't that might be viable, at least slightly more viable than searching rabbit holes by horse.
Now what could the other town offer?
Iron is, even when abundant precious because it isn't renewable, it's needed for almost every piece of technology, and ultimately it would probably be better to catch your own rabbits, it has to be something renewable that can't be planted, water can't be propperly transported, oil is probably easier to make yourself rather than ride minutes to supply your town with them, and pretty much every other ressource is not needed in actual quantity, unless it only serves aesthetic purposes.
one notable exception would be women, but they can't switch families, even if a member of the new family names them.

In real life, countries can trade ressources both of them can create, but that only works because the costs for the transport are relatively low, we don't have container ships in OHOL, we have horsecarts and cars.
if there actually was something iron couldn't give you, a second bottleneck ressource, it would be worth trading, even if the travel distance is high, but right now it's not viable to trade with a far away village.

Booklat1 · 2019-04-25 16:10:55

O I L

Twisted · 2019-04-25 16:26:33

You can't make tech resources such as iron rare, because then the tech tree doesn't work for most towns. Tech resources have to be readily available no matter the location of the town. Luxury resources on the other hand, resources that are mostly cosmetic in nature, would A) make each town a bit more different and give them a bit of personality, and B) encourage trading, and in turn creating radios/planes/cars. People really do care about cosmetic stuff, as was proven by the recent clothing update - even though the clothing is technically worse than the previous options, people go crazy for clothing because they look cool. I mean who doesn't want a dope top hat?

There could be several luxury resources around the map, spawning in a cluster of several 'deposits'. A luxury resource cluster prevents other luxuries spawning in a radius of 1000 tiles. That way a town can have a maximum of one luxury.

We could have marble that can be used to make cool looking walls and maybe even statues. Silk could be used to make unique luxury clothing. A rare purple die could be the only way to obtain purple clothing. Silver could be used to decorate clothing and make it look a bit different.

futurebird · 2019-04-25 16:38:48

There aren't enough people to make trade make sense. We have specialized skills in the game and that is enough for trade. But now we use the system that most small communities use, you take what you need and people watch each other and complain if any one person isn't pulling their own weight. That's viable for small groups but with larger groups you don't know the person who has come to take a pie from your bakery and so rather than asking "is this guy helping enough?" you trade.

We need more people playing the game and much larger cities for trade to develop. It isn't always about resources. It's about what places end up specializing in and resources play a role in that. NYC is capital of fashion and finance. Is that because we have lots of sheep and clothing mills? No. It's just a persistent pattern enforced by the sheer size of the city.

Redram · 2019-04-25 17:00:52

Twisted is right, luxury goods could be used to stimulate some trade, maybe. It would be sporadic, and I don't think anyone would go to war over it. But it may create some trade activity in the right circumstances.

What I think might be even more interesting though, would be if those resources only spawned in the center of large and unfriendly biomes. It could break up the settlement location meta, possibly. So Marble spawns in mountains, silk in jungles, purple plant in plains, gold in arctic, etc. Basically anything but green or swamp biomes. You can settle directly on a resource to control it well, or settle outside the biome in a better spot, but then you risk not being able to control the resource if another family spawns in the area. As long as the resource only appears in the middle of a guaranteed large biome, you set up an interesting choice.

Jason could possibly even adjust spawn mechanics to spawn a few eves within a given radius of a given resource node, essentially moving from node to node in a spiral, and spawning eves in a ring around each node. Gives more opportunity for competition.

Vexenie · 2019-04-25 17:03:41

Booklat1 wrote:

O I L

*American anthem in the distance, increasing in volume*

OH. HELL. NAAAAAW.

thundersen · 2019-04-25 17:09:26

Redram wrote:

What I think might be even more interesting though, would be if those resources only spawned in the center of large and unfriendly biomes.

I would like this for the aspect of having to supply a fragile outpost, trade or no trade.

Ace · 2019-04-25 17:14:04

The way i imagine it is that we take our current outposts-style that happened more some time ago and make them somewhat of slave towns of sort that does crafting jobs such as farming, baking, herding. With the main village having all the tools, the forge and newcomen and would be doing the scavanging.
Oh, we could actually use the property fence to trap part of the family in such a place even. If they do a good job, they could even advance into freedom. Maybe have RP part of it like someone could marry into the main village.

But i totally forgot the point: trading. I was thinking originally to have these 2 villages of the same family be separated by players with fences (ideally one could travel between the 2 if they want to work on something specific) and limit the amount of things each can do. For example on doesn't have a forge, but has carts with rubber tires or horses and would scavange iron and stuff for the other village to get tools (as a side-note, maybe that will incentivise people to recycle steel tools more or be more carefull of when it's at it's last use since that translates into getting more tools) .

Karrots · 2019-04-25 19:17:41

You need to consider a town that has a working radio probably has a loom, sheep and all the correct tools for finding iron. They would have no need for rabbits, and then there would be no good resource to trade for iron. Trading in this game is only possible in mid tech towns on a very small scale. It only happens when either:
A: Someone how something you want, and you have something they want and it's convenient to trade.
B: Someone has something you want, but one of you doesn't know how to make the other item and needs to trade with the other person for it
C: Someone has an item of limited resource that would take effort and luck to find on your own, and therefore you have no choice but to trade with them if you want it.
or
D: Someone has made something that requires a limited resource/something you don't know how to acquire so you have no choice but to trade with them if you want it.

Last edited by Karrots (2019-04-25 19:19:57)

mrbah · 2019-04-25 19:27:07

Karrots wrote:

You need to consider a town that has a working radio probably has a loom, sheep and all the correct tools for finding iron. They would have no need for rabbits, and then there would be no good resource to trade for iron.

A loom won't help you make 400 backpacks.

DestinyCall · 2019-04-25 19:34:30

Jason could just borrow inspiration from Rust again and add Vending Machines to OHOL. We already have radios, airpplanes, and cars, so it is not that much of a leap.

*BAM* Now we have a quick and dirty solution for barter that doesn't require time consuming negotiations. It is not as fun as adding rivers or unique trade resources or larger biomes, but at least it would be relatively easy to add to the game and stimulate "real" trade without resorting to more gate magic.

One Hour One Life Forums

#1 2019-04-25 16:06:22

On the viability of trading

#2 2019-04-25 16:10:55

Re: On the viability of trading

#3 2019-04-25 16:26:33

Re: On the viability of trading

#4 2019-04-25 16:38:48

Re: On the viability of trading

#5 2019-04-25 17:00:52

Re: On the viability of trading

#6 2019-04-25 17:03:41

Re: On the viability of trading

#7 2019-04-25 17:09:26

Re: On the viability of trading

#8 2019-04-25 17:14:04

Re: On the viability of trading

#9 2019-04-25 19:17:41

Re: On the viability of trading

#10 2019-04-25 19:27:07

Re: On the viability of trading

#11 2019-04-25 19:34:30

Re: On the viability of trading

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