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[Guide] Fair trading and trading guides

DeletedUser29933

xivarmy said:
Quite to the contrary, when i was in a calculator guild i found trade calculator rates promoted people camping in lower ages and feeding me garbage (colonial) goods so they could build every GB in the game while continuing to be useless to the guild ;) Eventually I just had to stop taking the trades.
Click to expand...

true, depends on individual and guild goals i suppose. I also support gb growth in lower ages
 
Algona

Algona

Well-Known Member
Every time I see a thread like this I get mad.

No, not another discussioon about fair trade. That;s one of those topics that will be hashed over constantly. See Hagia, Victory Towers, Active city defence.

It's the deleteduser madness.

Community Management, how can you build a community without a history?

What ls the point of the deleteduser idiocy? You'r'e not saving any space, just losing some of the magnificent personalities of the past.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.
 
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Plain Red Justice

Active Member
PM me at O or G world I'll Fair Trade™ you my 10 Nickels for your 1310720 Marbles. Don't worry I provide a 50% discount for new customers as a start of our long term friendship
 

jsc29

Active Member
How is this a "guide"?

In any case, I will make a few comments about the market system and the "fair trade" concept. The game designers have arbitrarily set what they consider to be "fair trades" as a 2:1 ratio from one age to the next. Obviously, this ratio does not reflect the actual market value of these goods. Not only are some goods more valuable than others even in the same age, the ratio changes depending on the age especially, especially at the higher end.

As a player who has done a lot of trading, the InnoGames "fair trade" idea has caused me a lot of grief in the form of guilds sort of adopting the golden ratio blindly as a policy and making the rule that guild members can only post so-called "fair trades". I actually got forced out of the first big guild I joined because I posted a lot of "non-fair" trades on the open market. Note that none of these trades were posted on the guild trading threads, only on the open market, which theoretically was allowed by the guild rules. Nevertheless, a bunch of members complained about it, so the officers made an ultimatum: stop posting "unfair" trades on the open market or leave the guild. So I left. Several of the biggest complainers were members who were abusing the trading system and saw me as "competition", which was absurd because my trades hardly ever conflicted with theirs. They just didn't want another trader in the guild, especially one offering market value trades.

Making arbitrary rules about prices is never a good idea, either in real life, or in a game. Just to illustrate this, let's see how the guys who got me kicked out of my old guild would operate. What they would do is post 1:2 downtrades on the guild thread. For example, they would post 100 Silk for 200 Glass. This is a very abusive trade and would not do well on the open market, but it would get executed on the guild threads because the guild had a policy of helping members do "fair" trades. Then the player would transfer the glass to an alt on the same server. The alt would sell the glass at market prices, for example, 200 Glass for 150 Silk and make a big profit.

There is a psychological element to it. I remember when I was trying to stay in my old guild I went to one veteran member who had executed a lot of my so-called "unfair" trades, and asked him if he would support me. He said, "No, I think you should only make fair trades." I said, "You have been doing many trades with me though." He said, "Well, I just needed some stuff to do something." LOL I was helping the guy get critical stuff done by offering market liquidity in goods that he needed, and he still wanted me to stop. Well, he got his wish, I left and went to a different guild, so now none of the players except a couple of friends have access to those trades anymore. This was a big loss to them, because at one point I was putting up over 100 trades on the market every day, which is a huge amount of liquidity.
 
Agent327

Agent327

Well-Known Member
jsc29 said:
How is this a "guide"?

In any case, I will make a few comments about the market system and the "fair trade" concept. The game designers have arbitrarily set what they consider to be "fair trades" as a 2:1 ratio from one age to the next. Obviously, this ratio does not reflect the actual market value of these goods. Not only are some goods more valuable than others even in the same age, the ratio changes depending on the age especially, especially at the higher end.

As a player who has done a lot of trading, the InnoGames "fair trade" idea has caused me a lot of grief in the form of guilds sort of adopting the golden ratio blindly as a policy and making the rule that guild members can only post so-called "fair trades". I actually got forced out of the first big guild I joined because I posted a lot of "non-fair" trades on the open market. Note that none of these trades were posted on the guild trading threads, only on the open market, which theoretically was allowed by the guild rules. Nevertheless, a bunch of members complained about it, so the officers made an ultimatum: stop posting "unfair" trades on the open market or leave the guild. So I left. Several of the biggest complainers were members who were abusing the trading system and saw me as "competition", which was absurd because my trades hardly ever conflicted with theirs. They just didn't want another trader in the guild, especially one offering market value trades.

Making arbitrary rules about prices is never a good idea, either in real life, or in a game. Just to illustrate this, let's see how the guys who got me kicked out of my old guild would operate. What they would do is post 1:2 downtrades on the guild thread. For example, they would post 100 Silk for 200 Glass. This is a very abusive trade and would not do well on the open market, but it would get executed on the guild threads because the guild had a policy of helping members do "fair" trades. Then the player would transfer the glass to an alt on the same server. The alt would sell the glass at market prices, for example, 200 Glass for 150 Silk and make a big profit.

There is a psychological element to it. I remember when I was trying to stay in my old guild I went to one veteran member who had executed a lot of my so-called "unfair" trades, and asked him if he would support me. He said, "No, I think you should only make fair trades." I said, "You have been doing many trades with me though." He said, "Well, I just needed some stuff to do something." LOL I was helping the guy get critical stuff done by offering market liquidity in goods that he needed, and he still wanted me to stop. Well, he got his wish, I left and went to a different guild, so now none of the players except a couple of friends have access to those trades anymore. This was a big loss to them, because at one point I was putting up over 100 trades on the market every day, which is a huge amount of liquidity.
Click to expand...

Game designers have not set anything as "fair". They just limited trading to 2:1 or 1:2
 

Vger

Well-Known Member
jsc29 said:
How is this a "guide"?
Click to expand...
You are absolutely right about that. This is not a guide. I suspect that sometime in the last 3+ years since @plinker2 posted that, this thread has been moved as the forum got reorganized. Somebody saw 'guide' in the title, saw it was posted by a mod....so moved it to guides.

Most everything after that you got wrong. Was it really worth the ink to necro this thread yet again.
 

jsc29

Active Member
Vger said:
You are absolutely right about that. This is not a guide. I suspect that sometime in the last 3+ years since @plinker2 posted that, this thread has been moved as the forum got reorganized. Somebody saw 'guide' in the title, saw it was posted by a mod....so moved it to guides.

Most everything after that you got wrong. Was it really worth the ink to necro this thread yet again.
Click to expand...

Hey, I didn't necro this thread. It was the #1 post in the Guides forum when I replied to it, so somebody else raised it from the dead.
 
Algona

Algona

Well-Known Member
jsc29 said:
Hey, I didn't necro this thread. It was the #1 post in the Guides forum when I replied to it, so somebody else raised it from the dead.
Click to expand...

Which just means you didn't read the thread before posting more poorly written inaccurate stuff.

Your problems with your Guildies are your problems. Not problems with the game.
 
plinker2

plinker2

Well-Known Member
Howdy to all. When I first posted about this, many members had no clue about fair trades or how to go about them. I meant it for a subject to be discussed and explained, to those in need. I never meant it to be a guide.
 
MKPapa

MKPapa

Active Member
Very old thread, but anyway.
One issue with those 1:1, 1:2, 2:1 rules promoted by INNO is ridiculous difference in some production building sizes with little choice of what building to build in your city because you have no control on what random boosts you get from the Continent Map.
Say, in CA there are 4x4 Porcelain Manufactury that takes 16 squares to build, and 2x3 Paper Mill that takes only 6 squares. Both produce 10 items/8hrs. Is it fair to exchange 10 Porcelain to 10 Paper using 1:1 rule? Definitely not. Will many people accept your offer to sell 10 Porcelain for 26-27 Paper based on comparative production from 1 square? Nope, most will feel you want to rob them.

The best approach is to find a good guild where you will easily get whatever goods you need from fellow players, and do not care about what the general Market crowd expects. There are guilds that offer 1:1 or even 1:2 trade of low era goods to FE goods for those who want to build the Arc and have all prints collected. And of course, if you need specific goods for research, you get them in minutes. The only thing expected is you pay back by doing the same to lower era players now or when you advance.
 
Ebeondi Asi

Ebeondi Asi

Well-Known Member
The aberration of claiming Building size was important in relation to Good ratios has.. thankfully... pretty much vanished from my Worlds. Everyone uses the Higher Era 1: 2 one lower Era down each Era. Or 2 pevious era:1 one higher Era up each Era as the norm.
This may be because nearly all Goods production now is from Event Buildings for most players.
The exception might be new players and players rushing up through the ages, who have not had enough time ot collect enough Event Buildings to matter.
It is very rare to see anyone doing anything else that the 1:2 and 2:1 per Era.
The interesting thing is Negotiations using one Era down, which seems to have twisted to offers to vastly more one down than any other type of offer. One up are much rarer.
Even then, trades are made all the time at the Inno ratios.
 

xivarmy

Well-Known Member
Ebeondi Asi said:
The aberration of claiming Building size was important in relation to Good ratios has.. thankfully... pretty much vanished from my Worlds. Everyone uses the Higher Era 1: 2 one lower Era down each Era. Or 2 pevious era:1 one higher Era up each Era as the norm.
This may be because nearly all Goods production now is from Event Buildings for most players.
The exception might be new players and players rushing up through the ages, who have not had enough time ot collect enough Event Buildings to matter.
It is very rare to see anyone doing anything else that the 1:2 and 2:1 per Era.
The interesting thing is Negotiations using one Era down, which seems to have twisted to offers to vastly more one down than any other type of offer. One up are much rarer.
Even then, trades are made all the time at the Inno ratios.
Click to expand...

1:2 downs are the ones you see because noone accepts them :p There are people who post better rates.

Most of the reason you see less debate over trade rates these days is that few people trade at all.
 
MKPapa

MKPapa

Active Member
xivarmy said:
1:2 downs are the ones you see because noone accepts them :p There are people who post better rates.

Most of the reason you see less debate over trade rates these days is that few people trade at all.
Click to expand...
In my guild we trade actively. But 99% of trades are within the guild.
 
Ebeondi Asi

Ebeondi Asi

Well-Known Member
xivarmy said:
1:2 downs are the ones you see because noone accepts them
Click to expand...
I do a lot of trades in three Worlds. Doing from SAJM down only to Arctic. at present. Almost all ** I offer 500 for 1000 one era down. The most I traded in one day was 58 such trades in one world. The usual are between 6 and 30 a day, per world. I make about 17 pages of trades per World, and refresh them every few days, (usually in three days they are down to 9 pages left) Then I remove all not taken, and remaking all of them, fresh. This allows me to see better what is moving. I do not keep track of who is taking my market trades. I almost never place them in a Guild post. I do have 140 friends, and am in very large Guilds... so that helps

I do not believe I could have as much success in lower Eras trading mainly because few I could trade with are in any of the Eras much below Future. and thus have little interest in those lower Era goods. (and I have very little interest i those lower Era goods either!)

** the few others are 500 for 500 same era to allow Top Era players (in SAJM and SAV) to take advantage of the 500 Goods RQs And also balances out my goods left, so a win win. I usually have maybe a half page to a full page of such offers. but have had as many as two such pages of 500 to 500 same era. (beyond the 17 pages of one Era down trades.
So from my perspective your claim no one takes them is untrue, at least in the Eras I work on. SAJM down to AF
I do confess I have only been working on this kind of trading for about six weeks (kind of as a lark) now.But the trades numbers are geneally going up rather than dropping, as players know I am offering what they may want.

So players can make baseless claims to amplify their position. I offer facts of what I am actually doing trading every day.
And, as i wrote the odd alternate ratios based on things like building size died well over a year ago. thankfully. No one uses those anymore.
Some player may offer one for two down skipping an Era. (primarily to move them fast), but not often.
My experience of better than fair trade offers is: They don't move any faster than the standard 1:2 down or 2:1 up
Though again. trades up do move rather fast. Even players who do not need to snatch them up. LOL
 
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