Bah, 100k is a mere pittance... 
I have been in a game where there were very few nations remaining, the turn number was in the 60s and 70s, an I had one turn where I got almost 500k from the market, and most turns the limit was around 400k. I was the FK in game 3 of 1650 by GSI and had over 2.5 million gold in reserves at the end of the game...and there were only about 4 or 5 players left in the game when it ended as the last FP (the Dwarves) had their last big army and several characters with lots of artifacts get overrun by one of my massive hordes, and as a result decided to hang it up. Anyway, the situation was such that you could hit the market limit every turn just selling a single product, and not managing to sell all of it. At the end of the game I was making steel armor and putting it on all my troops, even archers, with whatever was left over going on hordes -- when you can sell half your bronze or timber and get 400k, and all the heavier troops already have steel armor, might as well put what is left on the light troops rather than just let it sit in pop center accumulating. (And the heavy troops were still better off than the light, as I was also making mithril armor and putting that on the HC and HI...)
One factor is money supply -- the more gold total in nation reserves, or maybe just in active nation reserves, the more you can get from the market. When there are still a lot of players this usually doesn't get too out of control, but as fewer nations control more pop centers each and as the prices edge up while production and tax revenue also increase, inflation occurs.
And it is self-sustaining too. More money in reserves means prices are higher, as well as market limit increasing. Nations have plenty of stuff so they sell to the max. Even more money in reserves, prices go higher still and so does the market limit. I have been there in both 1650 and 4th Age -- the latter doesn't see it as often because the game has a natural turn limit and also if/when too many nations are gone the rest of the losing side(s) drop and the game is over. Anyway, the market spirals up eventually.
And it is not necessarily detached from the price of food -- in game 3 food was selling in double digits and the price of mithril was four digits...basically all the prices were an order of magnitude higher than the "normal" market.
The major flaw in the program as far as inflation goes is that "wages and support" -- i.e. maintenance costs for characters, troops, etc. -- do not also increase (and it would be a nightmare to figure stuff out if they did, so I am not complaining). So in a heavily inflated market, your poor HC trooper is still relying on a mere 6 gp per fortnight to keep himself in gear, even when food to feed him and his mount costs 20 gold each, leather for the tack and harness costs 40 gold, the mounts cost over 100 and steel for equipment costs over 100 per unit as well... (It is a wonder that you don't see desertion en masse as the troopers sell their mounts and gear and retire...) So maintenance costs stay static, which makes it tough in a depressed market but trivial to support stuff in an inflated market.
Anyway, games that end early, which seems to be the trend in "grudge" and "almost grudge" games, almost never inflate that much simply because too many nations remain active and most of them do not accumulate huge reserves since the money is better spent paying for stuff to defeat the enemy with. When only a few nations are left, the problem is that they cannot (or will not) spend the money fast enough to counter the accumulation of reserves...
-- Ernie III
···
-----Original Message-----
From: Brad Brunet <bbrunec296@rogers.com>
To: mepbmlist@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Wed, 13 Jul 2005 15:28:00 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Re: [mepbmlist] Market limit?
I'm in a game with a runaway market, nations with hundreds of thousands of gold,
one nation has many hundreds... Prices are resultingly high. I've seen single
commodity sells (single 325 order) net in the 50,000's. This has been ongoing
since the beginning of the game.
I do not believe anything regarding the market is static. Normal market
conditions will show results within a normal range that move between an apparent
maximum and minimum. Move the range around and you move the limits around.
Brad
nypdblue19@aol.com wrote:
Mike -- what turn are you on -- also -- how many nations are out -- these
are two things I notice make a difference in Nation sells !! In game 118 -- we
are on turn 68 and can sell well over 60k in a single or combined sell order
!! I have even stolen over 100k with a single 690 order and one agent !!
Another game went all the way in the 90's on turns and could sell well over 100k
in stuff not to mention the selling prices of even food was like a 9 !!
Mike Welsch
OK. I know that the market limit goes up as the game goes on, but I just
had a nation sell 68000 gold worth of a single commodity in a single
order. Clearly the limit goes up further than I had thought possible.
Anyone else experience this kind of severely inflated limit?
Mike Mulka
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