cool. 2 experiments then. let’s see what we can find out.
I’m glad a few others see my issues with the freep. AD basically told me i was being a dick, ho hum.
As the freep, i have gone the crash from T1 so that the DS are completely poor by first winter and watched them fall over, particularly the FK and the Dog are prone to this.
It is easy for the freep to counter the buy-out by selling at least a few K of each type of product. Only mithril is hard to counter but the numbers are so small and only a few ds make it so, they do the sells and then lose 10% in market tfer fee’s.
They get left with no armies, no new chars and 100% taxes, a real fun game and a real challenge to knock them over :rolleyes:
Adrian
It is easy for the freep to counter the buy-out by selling at least a few K of each type of product.
My take here is that it certainly impacts, but to do a successful buy-out you need to have decent economies as well to help support the buy-out. As FP when we see that a buy-out is about to occur we try to sell such things but sometimes as DS you can dupe the FP with well time mis-directions of buy-outs etc. Like I said I think this entire aspect of the game is fascinating.
Clint (player)
Let KG coordinate a market crash. If everyone on the team listens to him then contrary to what Clint thinks, you can counter every dark servant market buyout everyturn. It takes a ton of coordination and teamwork, but it can be done and the dark servants only hope to counter it is to challenge the character doing the market manipulation. Impossible to do when the character is unknown on an unknown pop center.
I guess I am with Dave Holt on this one. And I agree to disagree with Clint.
Tim
I cannot see the problem with the Free running 0 economies? There are a couple of massive negatives to be paid for doing this.
.1 Any name character order is going to fail with 1 steal from any pop. This is going to hurt in the long run.
2. Selling enough of every product to ensure the market stays flat eats alot of orders that should be used to attack the enemy or improve your own position.
3. It takes a hell of a lot of coordination.
JMO
Regards Herman
Of course u can’t hermann cause that’s what we do 
Once everyone sells heaps to get the market flatter, it only takes a few choice sells each turn. A few K steel, bronze and Ti basically. Food is always offloaded and generally too much to buy out.
It allows the freep to run big deficits with lower taxes and costs only about 2 orders per nation max.
It does require a degree of coordination, but in the grudge especially, so what. U are already talking artiis, armies etc.
When u want to name, u just sell even more. Sure some steals go through, but generally most ds thefts give up when they realise they are getting about 100 gold turn for their efforts.
Adrian
There is more to keeping the market crashed then just selling supplies every turn and keeping your reserves down. With good coordination, I have not come up with a counter strategy. Stealing gold is only partially effective against the free side. However the free can steal from you as well.
tim
any news about the changing of code ?? or the code will be stay the same ??(maybe forever…) problem stay because neutral nation can opt for this possibility without any help of other nation and you cannot avoid that(not easily in any case)
I’m still compiling data. I think I’ve got a fix but need to check out a few turns at present.
Clint
I’ve been away from ME-PBM for years, but I’ve been reading about the OBN strategy for a few weeks now. Some friends of mine are coming back to play ME-PBM after almost a 10 year hiatus.
I'm curious, could part of the FP strategy for countering the OBN be to simply destroy enemy pop-centers (and thus replace lost pop-centers with more camps) in order to produce more product for market sales? I realize this may be like urinating in the ocean, but it could be a plank in an overall larger strategy. ;)Logos,
destroying enemy pop centers and replacing them with camps would be a very minor impact on the OBN strategy. Instead of steel being 28/15 you might get it down to 25/13.
Plus, last time I checked it is the job of the free people to destroy/capture enemy pop centers.
Clint did the right thing, I hope he does not get the fix incorporated for a few months as we still need to do a return game with our opponents getting to use the OBN strategy.
tim
hi clint what about the changes of the code then?
My personal opinion is that if you are going to tamper with the code to stop 1 thing happening, then you should change the code to remove all the economic strategies…
Why is a market buyout not considered a bug?
Same for manipulating the market to crash?
Way back before Harley’s time, it wasn’t uncommon to have treasuries in the millions, with prices skyrocketing… the code was changed to stop that happening… but that left it with the possibility of crashing the market and product buyouts… and OBN which only relatively recently came to light.
So I ask again, why aren’t the 2 other manipulation effects called bugs… Just becuase one can be countered by the other doesn’t mean its not a bug surely…
Michael
well, in Grudge 57 (one of the two above-mentioned “experiments”), the FP have indeed managed to keep the economy relatively “crashed” despite DS attempts otherwise. We’ve had sells of 1 for a lot of the game, though every now and then they manage to raise non-food to 2 for a turn. The good news for the Good is that winter is coming in 57 and with that and sell prices of 1… DS have lean & mean times ahead.
As to the rest of 57 it’s a very interesting match with lots of stuff going on. Plenty of fun for all involved. At the end, LGT & team can comment on the crashed economy thing and how much it affected them. I doubt they’ll comment prior to the end as to do so would reveal either a.) how fragile they are or b.) how non-fragile they are - and it’s much more in their interest to keep the FP guessing as to whether it’s a.) or b.)
Dave
Michael,
I think that there are two important issues to be considered here.
First, OBN is not really a “strategy”, but rather an ‘exploit’. From what I understand of it (which is admittedly somewhat limited), there is not actual counter-strategy. It is effectively a guaranteed lock on the economy, with little effort to maintain, that takes the game way beyond the play experience the designers intend.
Consider; The DS start with strong agents, strong mages, strong overall characters, and a giant wall (mountains) around their very secure pop area. The Free, however, have none of these advantages, but instead have ample starting icons, extra commanders, and significantly better economics. However, at game start, the Free need more armies to defend their economic base (its their achillie’s (sp?) heel, so to speak). The DS, effectively, don’t need many icons, as their pop base is largely safe in Mordor for several turns (with a few notable exceptions, of course, who get great starting characters to offset their tougher locations outside Mordor.)
So, the DS can accumulate all their gold into a OBN, and thereby effectively nullify the one major advantage the Free have, that of economics. And all the while, according to the studies done, the Free have little means to counter OBN. Now the DS have all the play balancers and the Freeps have none and no means (gold) to get any in the future.
So, it appears not really to be a ‘strategy’ but rather a ‘game killer’.
Why bother playing a Freep nation then if OBN is going to be allowed? Acording to many other posts and threads on this topic, the designers never meant for the OBN outcome to occur, having built other aspects of the game while not aware that this could be caused.
You also asked about suspending the other market activities. I think the big reason that these would not be suspended is that either side can use them. Granted, crashing the economy may not start out as very useful for the DS, but if they had the Free on the ropes, they may be able to use it to break the Free’s back. I’ve been in a game where we saw 4 nations ruined in 5 turns due to our inability to react to an unexpected crash in winter. The other things you note can be countered to at least some extent, and also they are difficult to maintain, costing orders and a willingness to expose one’s characters at the capitol to agent attacks. Crashes are tough, but they do end on their own and there are some counters if they are occuring. Plus, that’s gold the Free are not getting to hire cav. It’s not all bad news for the DS.
You note that just because something is counterable does not mean its not a bug. True, a bug in this case is anything that the designers feel is an outcome of the game beyond how it was designed. According to comments I’ve seen regarding the designer’s intentions, OBN is a bug, an occurance event that was unintended by the designers that should be eliminated because it unreasonably impacts the game. Consider: What if, after every assassination, the agent committing the assassination also automatically died? Some would cheer if that were to occur. Others would cry “Bug!”. But unless we ask the designers, we would not be able to “peek behind the currtain” and know for sure if it was a bug or not. It sure sounds dumb to us now, but what if the game was accidentally originally released that way?
However, the last point you make may be inadvertent…but I find it most telling. You note “…and OBN which only relatively recently came to light.” If it only recently came to light, then the designers likely were not aware it could be done. And if it is a relatively new thing, many of us players may not have even experienced it (myself for one…at least not that I know of…), so if and when it is removed we will not even miss it.
Clearly, OBN has not been necessary for a good, balanced, playable game. If the designers think it has the potential to damage the game play, its a bug. And if the vast majoirity of us haven’t noticed/used it when it was here, we won’t miss it when it’s gone.
Thanks for reading my two cents on the subject. Feel free to reply,
James
I’d like to express my thoughts on an option incorporated in any solution.
Tie the sale price somehow to the amount of stored supplies.
This should be a factor in driving prices down. Late game nations quite often have as many supplies as the market itself and with 100s of 1000s of unsold units sitting in player coffers the market should reflect this.
Mike Johncock
Mike
If fairly easy to code that would be a good move I think. It makes economic sense and would mean that massive stockpiles, which often occur, could have a detrimental side. However since the FP, with much greater settlements, are probably more likely to have the hoards this would help them keep prices down, provided they don’t sell the goods of course. Would probably have to make sure you get the balance right without making it too easy for the FP to keep prices crashed. [Might see more use of the 680 command].
Steve
My $0.02:
I don’t understand the argument that nation stockpiles should drive price.
De Beers has huge stockpiles of stored diamonds. Does that drive the price of Diamonds down? no. They carefully control the amount released into the market to keep the price up. they match supply with demand. The Russians coming into the diamond market are upsetting the applecart that De Beers has managed for so long. But the point is that De Beers’ stockpiles of diamonds does not affect the price. The market sell & buy quantities do.
back to MEPBM:
It’s not nation stockpiles that drives price. it’s quantity being sold vs. quantity being bought.
if no nation is buying something, the price should drop, and drop a lot if nations are selling it.
if no nation is selling something, the price should go up, and go up a lot if nations are buying it.
Nation stockpiles shouldn’t affect the market much in my opinion.
And if you want to dive into market activity vs. how it affects game play, I think Steve hit’s the nail on the head. The law of unintended consequences would result in the FP gaining more power over the market if they hoard commodities (drive prices down to hurt DS). It’s like an inverse OBN. Think about it. There’s nothing the DS could do. The FP just hoard ST, BR, MI in one nation (DW?) and that one nation’s stores drives down the market prices independent of what DS do… not a good thing.
The market should be primarily based on the dynamics of the market. how much is bought & sold in each commodity.
Dave
I aggree with Dave Holt on market Dynamics being based primarly or even solely on buy’s and sells… What’s in stores has no true bearing on prices in any market becuase it’s not availble to the market until it bought or sold… Another words market stores would then have bearing on market prices…
The Fact one nations gold stores drove prices out of control upwards tainted the game… Economics play a huge role in the outcome of the game… So getting the proper coding that reflects more realistic market conditions is good for us all to enjoy the game to the fulliest…
Comodity Buyout influencing market prices using laws of supply and demand is healthy for the game! It requires teamwork and promotes it on both sides…
Sometimes simplicity is best answer on broad scale problems!
Dave
Good point. Forgetting my basic economics. Its the amount put up for sale rather than the stocks available if their withheld from the market.
In theory the DS could counter such action by use of the 680 command but that could be fairly laborious in finding out where the stockpiles are. Don’t think there are spells that cover that, as opposed to production from hexes. Also, if the FP were adopting that approach there would be no real advantage to them of centralising it which worsens the DS problem further in trying to counter it.
Steve