And now for the GDD n°12 - Marketplace

As usual, at the end of this post you'll find a section summarizing the state of the Early Access version.

Enjoy

Rationale

The idea is to have a place where players can create resources shortages and emulate the price fluctuations of a real market.

A strong consequence of this will is to spatially constrain luxury resources on the Galaxy Map, and have a "real" stock for these resources.

EL Marketplace Post-Mortem

After reviewing the game and your feedback, it appeared that the Marketplace felt decorrelated from the actual game world, and was not dynamic enough; it felt like it was a mandatory stop for Heroes but not a really useful one for resources. One of the main issue was the automated stock creation, which we will try to address in ES2.

The Marketplace

Placement

The Marketplace's placement will be an achievable deed from Era 3. The first player to build it will become the owner of the marketplace, thus able to determine its location on one of his systems, and the location will then be fixed for the rest of the game. If this system is captured, the ownership of the marketplace is transferred.

Access

The Marketplace has several gradual unlocks of its content:

• An Era 1 Technology will unlock trading Strategic and Luxury resources
• The Units (see Content for details) tab of the Marketplace should be accessible by researching an Era 2 Technology
• Heroes are a special case and will only start to appear when the Era 2 Tech is researched AND the Academy is physically discovered on the Galaxy
  
  

Ownership benefits

Owning the Marketplace on the Galaxy will provide unique bonuses to the owner:

• Cash and Set transactions taxes: as each transaction made on the Marketplace will be subject to taxes, the owner will be able to set them, at a rate varying from 0% (triggers a global notification to all empires) to 25%
• Information Exchange: all players will have access to this panel for themselves (detailing their past transactions), but the owner will see all past transactions for all players.

Content

Continuation from EL

Except for Stockpiles, all tabs from Endless Legend will be found in ES2's Marketplace, following a similar representation. The main differences lie in how these resources are handled under the hood, which is detailed in the last part of this GDD. Note that all prices will be impacted by a "Dust Inflation" to account for generally growing empires economies (more on inflation in a future subject!) Here is a rapid overview of the above mentioned tabs:

• Resources (Strategic and Luxury): each resource has its own line, a quantity, and price. Upon first access to a new Era by a player (any player), a set amount of this Era's strategic resources is available for sale in the Marketplace. This set amount is not automatically refilled afterwards
• Units: each unit is sold by 1 and has its own line, a type, its stats, a price. Only the 20 best will be displayed, the other will be queued to be displayed once some space is freed.
• Heroes: Heroes will appear on the market, only once the Era 2 Tech has been researched AND the Academy has been discovered, as the Academy remains at the heart of the Heroes feature. The tab is shown in the event where players would be stuck without a hero. Heroes follow the same presentation as units, but have a high, fixed initial price and can't be sold by players.
  
  

Posting ads

The Marketplace window will be available from the Economy screen, where you also manage your trade routes. Next to the button, there will be an ad space with horizontally scrolling ads presenting trends in resources/prices, but also and especially player-created ads. 

What are those ads I'm talking about?

If the Marketplace runs out of a specific element, a player can post an ad for it once per turn to incite other players to sell it during their turn. The ad can be either public (displaying the poster's empire name) or anonymous. The idea is to provide another slightly more flexible mean than diplomacy to incite resources trade (without replacing a good old fashioned negotiation!).

Economy

As a reminder (for people not familiar with EL ), elements in the marketplace are sold per type (eg. the Titanium resource), and the player can set a specific quantity for resources, and buy/sell them from different panels. Each unit transaction is handled individually and impacts the price per unit for the next transaction; buying/selling in bulk will have a computed final value taking these fluctuations into account. Units (mercenaries) follow the same model but are always sold by 1, whereas Heroes will have a separate model based mostly on fixed prices due to their low availability.

The core difference with EL will be that in ES2 stock is not automatically created. This allows resource shortages or blockades to exist and be impactful in the galaxy.

The second difference is that price fluctuations for a resource won't be tied only to stock and transactions, but also to the availability of the resource: discovered resource deposits and exploited resource deposits will also be taken into account to calculate prices.

Last but not least, external Events will be able to influence resource prices and stocks directly, imposed by the game world. A set luxury resource could be reputed to give a disease, and have its price drop for a few turns, or a cache for another one could be found and increase the stock, etc.

HOW'S THE EARLY ACCESS VERSION ON THIS ASPECT?

Ownership Benefits:

• In the current implementation, everyone is able to see everyone's previous transactions, but this will be changed so only the owner of the Marketplace has access to this information.

Posting ads:

• Ads aren't implemented yet

Events:

• Events changing the value of a resources aren't implemented yet

This is one of EL features I personally like to see incorporated in ES2. Hope don't angry other people. I consider myself a fan of Es1 too.

Some questions:

• Incorporating to the market a heroes system similar to EL. What is actually the role of academy and its quests?
• Also what is academy useful for?
• Can you explain a bit more of how will market and academy heroes will be related?
• This guy has good ideas about a loans system: https://www.games2gether.com/endless-space-2/forum/66-game-design/thread/22048-a-few-suggestions-ideas#post-last. Have you considered something similar? I proposed him to post it into ideas sections, and hope we see it.

Thanks!

Sounds like a decent system. When you say ships are for sale, are those mercenary ships we wouldn't otherwise be able to gain? Or is another empire simply selling off the ships they don't want anymore? If the ships are still waiting to be sold, does the empire offering them still pay upkeep while they wait to sell? Can the sale be cancelled?

Thanks!

Hi!

I'm currently working on the market system and balancing, so looking forward to getting your feedback when you get your hands on it :)

lo_fabre wrote:

This is one of EL features I personally like to see incorporated in ES2. Hope don't angry other people. I consider myself a fan of Es1 too.

Some questions:

• Incorporating to the market a heroes system similar to EL. What is actually the role of academy and its quests?
• Also what is academy useful for?
• Can you explain a bit more of how will market and academy heroes will be related?

The Academy allows you to earn heroes without paying for them. Heroes will be rare on the marketplace, and expensive - so it's an alternative if you really need one specific type of hero and have the Dust for it. Currently, heroes that appear  in the market are taken from the similar pool of heroes than the Academy - the idea is to avoid any duplicates. The Academy and its quests will also be linked to other content in ES2... :)

• This guy has good ideas about a loans system: https://www.games2gether.com/endless-space-2/forum/66-game-design/thread/22048-a-few-suggestions-ideas#post-last. Have you considered something similar? I proposed him to post it into ideas sections, and hope we see it.

I hadn't seen this, I'm going to read it fully, thanks! It's currently not planned in the Market system, and a Loan system seems closer to Diplomacy (I give you X Dust and you give me Y Dust per turn for Z turns) - but this is something to mull over.

Romeo wrote:

Sounds like a decent system. When you say ships are for sale, are those mercenary ships we wouldn't otherwise be able to gain? Or is another empire simply selling off the ships they don't want anymore? If the ships are still waiting to be sold, does the empire offering them still pay upkeep while they wait to sell? Can the sale be cancelled?

Currently, any scrapped ship is sent to the market. The 20 best ships are shown in the Market Ships tab. So you get the Dust instantly and do not have to pay any upkeep. Pirate ships also appear there, so you'll be able to create even more insidious Privateer fleets :)

I'm all ears if you have any other question!

Cheers,

Nope, you answered mine immediately. Thanks!

Since we're talking about ideas, here's another one: https://www.games2gether.com/endless-space-2/ideas/49-selling-renting-lending-ships-to-another-empire 

Personally, I'm more interested in the possibility of renting (charting) a ship from another empire. You can rent it with a "space insurance" which means rent will be cheaper, but if the ship is destroyed, you have to pay some compensation, or you can rent it "as is" which is more expensive, but if the ship's destroyed in battle, you don't pay anything extra.

So a lend-lease mechanic? Sounds like a nice way to help an ally when you've got a navy lying around.

I just think we need to adress how luxury should be used to make this mparketplace feel usefull (I mean that luxuries don't flow like strategic ressources (you will always need more strategic to build troops, but luxuries are just tied to your number of systems, i really liked EL luxury system and i belive we could mix both ES2 and El syustems in making the system developement open "luxury ressources slots" that allox us to use luxuries in our system (the number of luxury used by  turn will then be determined by the number of system that have this level of developpement) this will allow luxuries to flow instead of stockpiling to absurd amount (thanks to the trade routes)

Thanks for your quick answer and clarification.

Glad to see you have at least looked at loans proposal.

Kynrael wrote:

  

Romeo wrote:

Sounds like a decent system. When you say ships are for sale, are those mercenary ships we wouldn't otherwise be able to gain? Or is another empire simply selling off the ships they don't want anymore? If the ships are still waiting to be sold, does the empire offering them still pay upkeep while they wait to sell? Can the sale be cancelled?

Currently, any scrapped ship is sent to the market. The 20 best ships are shown in the Market Ships tab. So you get the Dust instantly and do not have to pay any upkeep. Pirate ships also appear there, so you'll be able to create even more insidious Privateer fleets :)

To make it clear. If I understand correctly:

1. You scrap a ship for nothing.
2. Ship goes to market.
3. If someone buys it you receive the corresponding dust (except for the tax to the market owner).
4. If ship is not sold, you won't receive any dust, so you won't receive dust immediately.

Thx again, you're doing good job, there's lots of potential for release.

Hi again!

Pejman wrote:

I just think we need to adress how luxury should be used to make this mparketplace feel usefull (I mean that luxuries don't flow like strategic ressources (you will always need more strategic to build troops, but luxuries are just tied to your number of systems, i really liked EL luxury system and i belive we could mix both ES2 and El syustems in making the system developement open "luxury ressources slots" that allox us to use luxuries in our system (the number of luxury used by  turn will then be determined by the number of system that have this level of developpement) this will allow luxuries to flow instead of stockpiling to absurd amount (thanks to the trade routes)

We are currently thinking about what useful feature we could have as a Luxury sink, but with an asymmetry of use to avoid players just hoarding all the kinds of Luxuries, and thus increase trade :)

lo_fabre wrote:

To make it clear. If I understand correctly:

1. You scrap a ship for nothing.
2. Ship goes to market.
3. If someone buys it you receive the corresponding dust (except for the tax to the market owner).
4. If ship is not sold, you won't receive any dust, so you won't receive dust immediately.

Thx again, you're doing good job, there's lots of potential for release.

Actually, when you scrap, it sells your ship to the market - so you get the dust instantly, the price depending on your ship build (and eventually market fluctuations). However, you do need the associated Technology that enables the Ship tab of the Marketplace, otherwise the ship is just scrapped for no dust and not sent to the market.

N.N.Thoughts wrote:

Since we're talking about ideas, here's another one: https://www.games2gether.com/endless-space-2/ideas/49-selling-renting-lending-ships-to-another-empire 

Personally, I'm more interested in the possibility of renting (charting) a ship from another empire. You can rent it with a "space insurance" which means rent will be cheaper, but if the ship is destroyed, you have to pay some compensation, or you can rent it "as is" which is more expensive, but if the ship's destroyed in battle, you don't pay anything extra.

Ideas like this have been bouncing around, but nothing definitive yet. It'll probably be more of a Diplomacy action however. If you have more ideas about how this could work in the game, do post them in Ideas!

Cheers :)