I have a theory on the market prices. Now I can only speak from my
experience and from checking out friends turns in other games but it seems
to me that the prices in the market seem to be linked in someway to the
amount of gold in the treasury of all nations.
Now this would follow if it were real… so I was wondering if anyone else
has noticed this or not ?
Thomas Crane
Gunboat Game 6
All Neutral Game 68
and Game 48 too!
P.S. Sorry about the Buffy reference in the title… I couldn’t resist…
Thomas: John and yourself are certainly correct. When you get a hyperinflation you have a lot of money chasing a limited amout of commodities, so prices go up. If you have a little bit of money chasing a lot of commodities you have a deflation. This is all part of classical supply and demand theory. In the present Real World economy, you can estimate future inflation rates by observing commodity prices.
sorry to spoil your party ed, that is no genius but a very simple algorithm, IMHO
the economy system can be manipulated very easily, and it can also tilt to a degree where no repair is possible and the results are simply ludicrous. the creators have build no safety catches and there have been games (seen it myself) where food was bout 60 sell price and mithril more than 3000. there is a lot to be done in a 2nd edition…
Bernard, that is called hyperinflation. It is a man created situation that afflicted Germany after WW I. The game’s economy, roughly, tracks a free economy. This is an alien concept in Europe, I think.
sorry to say that, but every economist would laugh at you for that stupid remark… I hope you don’t deal much with money in real life
hyperinflation does mean that EVERYTHING grows more expensive very quickly - the flaw in this game is that NOT EVERYTHING grows more expensive. you get 60 GP for one food unit, you have millions in the bank. but one infantry unit still costs 4 gold upkeep, hc still 6, characters still 20 per point, etc. correct me if I am wrong on this. everybody can afford hilarious armies and monstrous deficits, I doubt this is what the creators had in mind. it would suffice to set a maximum price for every resource, but they didn’t.
Hey Ed, your market sure is free - good 'ole Bush is free enough to create a public deficit thats gonna have you paying for it for ever… God help America if the $ ever loses its status and becomes equal to the Euro or the Yen or the Remnibi (sp?) as currencies of last resort…
Bernd, you’re not being fair to the game. The Market follows certain “laws” of economics, as stated above. The entire Game does not. Something to consider for a 2nd Edition of increased complexity…although, based on both the play and the comments I’ve seen around the CURRENT market in MEPBM, I can’t imagine how a more complex system would serve the gamer…
Your certainly correct there. I have been in games which were based roughly on trading through a exceedingly complex monetary system and since that game was for that then fine.
Funny that the effect of hyperinflation ingame, is exactly the reverse of the real world. With prices at their lowest and the sell limit at about 20K, your taxbase (real estate) is that what matters. Your expences are in fixed prices and your even able to buy food, mounts and top of shelf equipment for your grunts for nothing.
Seems to be very easy to crash the market (in 2/3 games), while its the first time I heard of the situation Bernd describes.
It true that the market reacts to supply and demand, a well planned buyout of a resource which leaves the avaible units at zero, will lift the sellprice of that resource well over the average. The major factor on market level is the quantity of gold in the game, modified by the quantity of resources avaible on the market. One thing I dont know is if the stores off all nations have an influence on the prices too. Its easy enough to observe the first two, the third is a bit more elusive.
let me clarify some points.
I never said that the market system had to be more complex. I just had to object it being presented as subtle and ingenious, because it isn’t. It’s very simple and not flawless. But I don’t play this game for the economy system, it is just a minor nuisance and not on top of my list of things to be corrected in a 2nd edition (as I said in another thread, I don’t want the current game to be tweaked. It should be left for people like Ed who like it, as long as there are enough of them). And there are only two small things I’d like to see:
set maximum sell prices for each good
make it more difficult to buy out a product by increasing the random factor in production, so the market is not so easily manipulated.
After all, we are not playing sim city
By all means, let us have a centralized economy with zero growth. One that won’t let you make a mistake. After all, my judgement is superior to the Invisible Hand and I’m sure yours is also.
Seems to be very easy to crash the market (in 2/3 games), while its the first time I heard of the situation Bernd describes.
Loke/Holger:D:D:D[/QUOTE]
As I always believed that this is exactly the goal of every free in a 1650 game to crash the market so the DS are unable to sustain their armies…and create new ones.
