(01-10-2010 01:55 PM)Bagaluth Wrote:  Persocom

don't tray that again.

You try to explayn away a mistake done by you. With the graph that indicates a tecnological brakthroug or some effects in massproduction.

In your case you chose the wrong graph to explain your cause.

If i can produce wood for 29 Gold i may have "Supply" but if i am able to produce wood for 20 Gold i have "S1".
That is not the example needed for your case.

Hein

Err actually the amount it costs for me to actually produce a good has nothing to do with that graph. That is an issue for marginal cost and fixed cost questions relating to factory operation. For example the at the current level of supply the equilibrium price of a product is 25. My marginal cost is 29. Thus it would be better for me to close the factory since I would make a loss of 4 even if I sold the product anyway.

An increase in supply is can be caused by say, a new factory opening. It does not have to be caused by tech breakthroughs even though it can be. The graph is the correct one for my point. Remember the supply graph is made of producers willing and able to produce. While it's true that in economics someone would be willing to produce at a lower price if there is say, a technological breakthough, the original equilibrium could also be caused by simple inability to produce more of a good. Thus the opening of a new factory can increase the supply. I'm not the one mistaken in this case but both of you are.

You stated:
"3. Every economist also knows that as the supply of a good increases, the quantity demanded of a normal good also increases. The price dropping is just the most observable effect to the layman. Let's take a look at a simple ss dd graph:



However in this game we all know that the quantity demanded of a good is always the same, regardless of supply. Thus it does not follow the rules of economics."

The demand to a given price in your graph is fixed. The amount of goods to a given price is fixed to the productionprice of Supply and S1.

You are right that i made a mistake. Because wood for 29 is S1 and wood for 20 is Supply.

But your graph didn't explain your example. Your graph exlains, that if i can give a good to Price P1 to the market Q1 will be demandet. That is the point where my production costs + profit will give me most net income from the amount of sold goods multiplied with the profit per sold good. So i try to produce Q1. If there are more goods to have on the marked the price will drop. If i am able to produce to lower production costs, i can sell to lower prices without reducing my profit per good. So more goods will be sold and the summ of sold good multiplied with the profit per goods allows me to even reduce the netprofit per good and make a even bigger netincome than selling with the same profit per good.

Back to Patrician.

In P4 the demand is rising with the amount of people to supply. And the costs to produce a good are fix.

If you break it up the the demand of one citizen in the game, the demand graph for one good and one citizen would be vertical. And the supply graph yould be part of a quadratic funktion with two ends. First the maximum price for the good in the game and second the combined demand of citizens and town for each of the 32 towns.

In reality you have that effect on closed local markets. There is a upper limit to the price, that no one will ever pay and there is a limit to the amount of goods that can be demanded. You can't drink 70 l beer every evening.

There will never be more goods sold, than the combined demand of all citicens and towns (for building walls doms etc.). That would be a saturated marked.

The problem of the game and the economic-engine behind the database is, that you can't meet the demand. (see post above demand and production possible for 60.000 citizens)

You can meet the demand for some of the goods and you even can produce more than the demand. The last will build up as goods in your warehouse.

In general:
No model is reallity. Even the models modern economics tries to explain the marked and states as facts for calculating the economic. They are models to come near, but they are not reallity.

For P4:
As long as the research in the university interface have no effect on the production outputt and the production prices we don't have a dynamic system in P4.

And as long as mints and university together with the satisfaction quote of the demant in a city don't have an effect on the prozentual distribution of wealthy ritch and poor citizens like it was in P3 we don't have a dynamic demant.

So yes P4 is at patch 1.1.3 still a more or less static system. But did you ever have a look at other WI-SIM games?

In the patrician series you have at least a dynamic price system for every single good on one of the 32 closed markets. It does matter if you sell one or 1.000 barrels, if the selling price is 500 Gold per barrel. Because you get 500 for one barrel but not for all 1.000.

So what's wrong with that? I'm sure you know that the qty demanded of a good in this game is a purely a function of population size, not of supply.

While you take issue with my application of economics, I'm sure even if Jacqvern were completely wrong on physics, you don't give a hoot do you? Because he supports you. You probably care more for popularity than truth.

(01-10-2010 01:19 PM)persocom01 Wrote:  3. Every economist also knows that as the supply of a good increases, the quantity demanded of a normal good also increases.

Nonsense. Demand is not infinitely elastic. Demand might increase as price decreases, but the relationship is not linear and consumption capacity is not infinite. You can only eat so much bread. After that point, the government starts paying farmers not to grow grain.

(01-10-2010 02:30 PM)Nathair Wrote:  Nonsense. Demand is not infinitely elastic. Demand might increase as price decreases, but the relationship is not linear and consumption capacity is not infinite. You can only eat so much bread. After that point, the government starts paying farmers not to grow grain.

Nonsense, I know that. That's why I stated:

(01-10-2010 01:19 PM)persocom01 Wrote:  3. Every economist also knows that as the supply of a good increases, the quantity demanded of a normal good also increases. The price dropping is just the most observable effect to the layman. Let's take a look at a simple ss dd graph:

I do know there's such a thing as price inelastic goods, as well as inferior goods and all that stuff. That's why I chose the phrase normal good. Which is an economic term by itself. You are another person who really doesn't give a hoot about mistakes by people who support you, but are all so critical of people who do not, in areas you're obviously not that familiar with. An even though the single example of bread you use is relatively price inelastic, if you studied economics you should know that few things are perfectly price inelastic. The demand for bread still increases, just by a smaller amount. Moreover you just ignored pretty much every other good in the game just to put your point across.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_good

(01-10-2010 02:21 PM)persocom01 Wrote:  So what's wrong with that? I'm sure you know that the qty demanded of a good in this game is a purely a function of population size, not of supply.

While you take issue with my application of economics, I'm sure even if Jacqvern were completely wrong on physics, you don't give a hoot do you? Because he supports you. You probably care more for popularity than truth.

Sorry was not ready to post the rest of what i wanted to state here, your graphs caused some problems becaus here at work i couldn't get the link implemented, because the firewall blocks me.

(01-10-2010 02:35 PM)persocom01 Wrote:  Nonsense, I know that.
<...>
You are another person who really doesn't give a hoot about mistakes by people who support you, but are all so critical of people who do not, in areas you're obviously not that familiar with.
<...>
You're so biased you make me sick.

At this point I cease responding to you.

Calm down guys. That is no point getting exited about.

Hein

---

@persocom

Your example in "normal goods" from WIKI would be chees to meat in P4. But those are examples for substitute goods. That effect takes place when the population shifts to more wealthy and ritch citizens and less poor ones.
Exacly that effect is implemented in the game, even now.

Hein

I think the point of the game is to be fun. If not it would not be a "GAME" and more like a "simulator" and then shools would be telling students to play the game to understand the world economy.

Most of players want things simpler, so the point of warehouse is just so player can make a chain in a trade route to supply all towns, and then just build what they want.

Right now what i do is to put the administrator sell wood and bricks at 58 price. Its not the best solution because i am selling goods even if not needing to contruct. and so supporting the AI.

btw we live in democracy, so just vote. we get no way with this arguments. both sides have theirs opinion, and will not change them. so just put the Feature if most people want it or not.

Persocom:
1. You wrote:"You are another person who really doesn't give a hoot about mistakes by people who support you, but are all so critical of people who do not, in areas you're obviously not that familiar with."
a. I hope you realise that you insulted 3 people here, for no reason whatsoever, since none of us have insulted you.
b. You said the same to Bagaluth:that he's not saying anything to me, because I support him. I did NOT know that I support Nathair and Bagaluth. That's news. (I wonder if they have any knowledge of my supporting).
c. Did it occur to you even once that maybe those are areas which you are the one not familiar with? That is the reason I stopped replying.
d. Your offensive reaction is always the reaction of someone who knows that he/she does not have solid arguments and when the point can not be proven solidly, he/she retorts to such offensive reactions.

2. Persocom wrote: "You're so biased you make me sick".
a. Here is the pot calling the kettle black...It's obvious from your reactions that you are the one biased. I wonder why. Do I know you from somewhere? Did I do anything to you? I can't remember, honestly.
b. If you are so sick, maybe you should lie down and take something too, to feel better. No reason to stay feeling sick.

3. I do not support anyone, and I am sure Nathair and Bagaluth do not support me. I have had arguments with both of them in other threads, but we kept it civilized, we did NOT behave like spoiled children.

Nathair > I am impressed with your patience, which took you so far before ceasing replying. And no, I will not support you or Bagaluth. (I'm joking, but this thread have become funny)

1st4ck > You're so very right. (I'm out of this thread for good, I have already voted).

(01-10-2010 04:12 PM)1st4ck Wrote:  I think the point of the game is to be fun.
<...>
Most of players want things simpler

The poll (plus experience) suggests that most of us here don't think "simple" is all that much fun. Personally I like complex games. Some people like Monopoly, I'd rather play Agricola. Some people play WoW, I'd rather play Eve. Patrician, in it's previous, fairly complex incarnations, kept my interest for eighteen years where all the simpler games (and I have played a lot of PC games over the last thirty years) just couldn't.

(01-10-2010 04:12 PM)1st4ck Wrote:  btw we live in democracy

We do? All of us? Which one?

(01-10-2010 04:26 PM)Jacqvern Wrote:  1. You wrote:"You are another person who really doesn't give a hoot about mistakes by people who support you, but are all so critical of people who do not, in areas you're obviously not that familiar with."
a. I hope you realise that you insulted 3 people here, for no reason whatsoever, since none of us have insulted you.
b. You said the same to Bagaluth:that he's not saying anything to me, because I support him. I did NOT know that I support Nathair and Bagaluth. That's news. (I wonder if they have any knowledge of my supporting).
c. Did it occur to you even once that maybe those are areas which you are the one not familiar with? That is the reason I stopped replying.
d. Your offensive reaction is always the reaction of someone who knows that he/she does not have solid arguments and when the point can not be proven solidly, he/she retorts to such offensive reactions.

2. Persocom wrote: "You're so biased you make me sick".
a. Here is the pot calling the kettle black...It's obvious from your reactions that you are the one biased. I wonder why. Do I know you from somewhere? Did I do anything to you? I can't remember, honestly.
b. If you are so sick, maybe you should lie down and take something too, to feel better. No reason to stay feeling sick.

3. I do not support anyone, and I am sure Nathair and Bagaluth do not support me. I have had arguments with both of them in other threads, but we kept it civilized, we did NOT behave like spoiled children.

1. I call them biased because they choose not to criticize you for your obvious errors, but choose to argue with me, despite the fact I'm talking about a pretty well known economic law called the law of demand, that this game obviously doesn't follow. I think they totally deserved it for showing partiality, and so do you for refusing to admit your gross errors btw.

2. I admit I'm probably a little biased, but I doubt to that extent. I'm simply willing to take whichever system is simpler, and moreover willing to have the P3 system be optional even if I opposed it.

3. Their motivation is more likely than not, because you support their point of view to revert the system to P3 but I'm opposed if it applies only to the warehouse. In the legal profession you generally don't judge a case you have a possible stake in. It's often called "not only must Justice be done; it must also be seen to be done". In this case they likely much prefer supporting you, thus their bias during their intrusion into an argument not their own. This is compounded by point 1.

@Bagaluth

Actually in real life almost all goods are normal goods, including grain. The only exceptions are inferior goods and superior goods. It seems that you are confused, so let me just make it simple for you and say that the game does not obey the law of demand. (which is stated below for your benefit) Furthermore, what you say, even in your misunderstanding, is completely false. The demand of meat and cheese of a city in P4 does not depend on what kind of population lives there, unlike what you say. Why don't we settle this once and for all with screenshots of the demand of meat and cheese in cities with the same population but very different numbers of rich people? Let's end our rather pointless argument about economics and determine who is right and who is wrong in this case once and for all.

"In economics, the law of demand is an economic law that states that consumers buy more of a good when its price decreases and less when its price increases (ceteris paribus)." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_demand

(30-09-2010 11:15 PM)Thorin Oakshield Wrote:  IMHO the whole problem of taking goods from a warehouse or not can be avoided if there's a small change in the game code.

That change would check the amount of available goods in the warehouse and at the market; as well as the amount of available cash of both the player and the AI.

The moment there are goods present at the market, the "constructor" is taking these goods, which then can be re-supplied by the player by selling these goods to the city.

If there aren't any goods present at the market; or they would fall below a certain threshold, goods would be taken out of the warehouse.

If there aren't any goods present at both the market and the warehouse, or the amount of available cash is too low, building isn't possible at all.


Thorin

I wrote this a page back, because it offers a solution for all players.
Simply because those who'd like to have goods taken from the city get what they want, just as those who'd like to have them taken from the warehouse.
Most important part for me is that it actually caps the expansion drift of the AI.
Too often I've seen the AI build several houses or industries, after I bought one of theirs.
Another advantage would be that you're able to keep the amount of building materials low, thus limiting the AI's expansion and making a nice profit at the same time.

Too bad only Jacqvern had read the previous post. And I'm afraid he slightly misunderstood what I meant, or I hadn't written my idea the way it had to be.


Thorin

PS: Yes, this is an attempt to get back to topic.

Thorin > he he he, you're good at your attempt.

I didn't misunderstand what you wrote, I just stated my disagreement with the options, if you look at my reply again, you will see the disagreement.

Ok, I take it back. We could have the options (though I doubt that Kalypso will do it), to appease all. (There goes the democracy with the votes' majority )

"Most important part for me is that it actually caps the expansion drift of the AI." > That I agree fully with you.

What's all the fuss?

If I pay for the construction of my building I should decide which materials are used.

It's my money after all.
I still am the customer here, am I not?
If the construction company doesn't want that - I just pay another one for the job.
Does work real well in real life...
Well not so much anymore but anyway...

Example:
I want to build my own Brewery in Lübeck.
If I want to use my *special* bricks, you know, those carefully molded by the young hands of my personal - child labour abusing - clay pits in Reval, instead of those hastily produced in Malmö which are currently on the market in Lübeck, well that's MY CHOICE.

I pay for it. My company made those bricks. Their quality is much better probably. Maybe the bricks smell better, you know how important the scent is.
Maybe they are safer or don't contain so much toxins which will ruin the production line of my brewery. It doesn't really matter much. I have my reasons.
I really do!
It is my choice as client of the construction company. Who are you to decide where to take the material from. That's my building, my property you are constructing there...
That's what this game is all about: personal property

Apologies for the style and humour, I got carried away a bit, but child labor was quite common those days...

Anyway,
I think you should be able to decide were to take the goods from.
Market or Counting House...

A simple query would solve everything.


How comes that after all these years all those games are limiting the choices down to one...

Well someone might think it could get annoying after you place 200 Buildings in a row always being asked where to take the ressouces from.

Well, no problem there as well:
You could simply implement a button stating:
"always take the goods from here"

My most humble opinion...

Happy bypassing the market with your own wood&bricks from your counting house...

Khadgar

(30-09-2010 07:33 PM)persocom01 Wrote:  

(30-09-2010 07:24 PM)Nathair Wrote:  

(30-09-2010 07:13 PM)persocom01 Wrote:  Well that's just fine and good but still doesn't tell me as to why taking materials from the warehouse would be any superior to from the market. From my experience, it isn't. It's actually more troublesome.

More troublesome how exactly?

As to superiority, well, we have in fact explained that. I suggest you reread the thread beginning with the very first post.

It's not like this is a long tread, and I do have a post on page 1. There are no reasons stated in this tread that sufficiently justify taking materials from the warehouse in my opinion. Perhaps you may be so kind as to highlight one you find good? Perhaps it's bagaluth's "it is much too simple" in P4 reason?

(22-09-2010 02:48 PM)Bagaluth Wrote:  In P3 you had to plan how to distribute your materials for the building up of towns. Later on in P4 it is no challange at all.

Perhaps you like games to be more complicated, but I think I'm battling enough user inferfaces in this game as it is thank you very much.

FFS Persocomm01. Let me jump in, if I may and ask a couple of question?

1. Did you ever play P3?
2. Can't you see the logic, in getting supplies from, your own warehouse?

Yes, the old P3 players liked it more complicated (as you put), although we didn't find it that way. If you really are finding the interface that difficult, perhaps you could try SIMS or another less complicated game?

Historically, it would be completely realistic and normal for the owner to supply the builders with materials. Thats how it happened back then. The builders didn't have enough money to buy the supplies and the owners employed their workers, whom they directly supplied with whatever they needed, including food and lodgings. Thats how it worked in the Hansa. Thats how the rich and powerfull got richer and more powerful, because they were the ones that could afford to build and supply the workers. The Hansa was the fairest and most open market system of it's time, thats why it was so successful. Trade took place freely and openly and workers got looked after and paid what they were worth. In the same way, the contractors would travel from city to city completing orders as they were needed. Once the work dried up in one town, they moved on to the next, thats how it worked.

Secondly, if I own a timber yard and a brick yard, why wouldn't supply my own contractors?

I would also in turn supply the market with which I would in turn use the profits to pay for my buildings. Thats how the market works. Naturally you wouldn't not supply the market, because that's not why you go into business in the first place, even in this game.

Quote:It might seem a small issue but having to do an extra step every time I want to build a house when I send materials by ship manually can be pretty annoying in the long run.

Yup and that's exactly what Bagaluth was saying before, you plan and strategise your builds, because you had to. It's not detrimental to the game it makes it better and more strategic and a thinking mans game.

It worked before (in P3) and that's why it was originally changed. I'm sorry if you don't see that. But perhaps you should get yourself a copy of P3 and see for yourself? As you say this is not a long thread, so perhaps you can go back over it and see you are in a minority and ask yourself why?

Materials from storage

As a long time P1-3 player, I will add my vote to return to the more strategic method (IMO) of taking building supplies from warehouse/ships in harbor. Complexity of decision making is why I keep coming back to this game over the long run.

If I'm patroning new housing or industry in a city, surely I should be able to tell the builders whom I'm paying to use materials of my choosing (IE my warehouse's contents). There is no sense in being forced to feed my competitor's building efforts by selling the very materials I want used for my own purposes into the general city's storage. Patrician 3 and Port Royale 2 had it right, use warehouse and if unavailable use the city's resources to cover the difference.

I have been playing since P2 and I have not had a problem with previous versions, being unable to build unless resources are there. I don't really mind the new way. It is only half helpful. If you have 100 other things to do, it is nice to build and forget about it. However, if the Hanse is not cooking along yet, or if you don't have a Brick/Lumber convoy spreading building material joy yet, a city can sit with no building goods for a while. This can happen especially when you are trying to get the gold bonuses offered for upping production and you only have 2 weeks.

It is true that with the old system reimplemented, you would need to be more deliberate (always having to have goods present when clearing land). Having a combo of the two systems would be nice. If it let you clear the land and waited like it does now, but it took from your warehouse as well (maybe add a checkbox like has been suggested), that would be ideal. For those who have mentioned goods balance and how pulling from the warehouse would ruin that, you could have the building crews follow the same rules that the convoys do, namely the Admin Purchase setting that is being used for max dropoff, max pickup.

(26-09-2010 07:01 PM)Timo Wrote:  

(26-09-2010 02:43 PM)Nathair Wrote:  Except, as pointed out, there's no way to earmark that material. When it goes to the city it ends up... wherever, which may well include being used in competitor's buildings and ships rather than your own.

Which is considerably less a problem than messing up your carefully set trade routes by having production material taken from the warehouse. You would essentially eliminate wood and brick from reliable trading between warehouses if you allow construction workers to take them from your warehouse at will.

I never build anything in P3 until I bring in the supplies. It is always cheaper to purchase your own supplies from other cities. Having to bring in supplies and sell them to the cities to build just doubles your costs. This does not make sense.

I always buy low and plan ahead...never messed up my trade routes...I just adjusted my ware house to hold the supplies I needed. Same for building new ships!

Wow, just failed a bunch of 'increase production in city x' missions because every time it was offered the competing merchant had a huge pile of backlog buildings that I was forced to supply the materials for before my own. We're talking dropping almost a thousand lumber and brick onto a town rapidly only to watch my two buildings remain in material shortage mode because doofus decided that the housing occupancy rate wasn't low enough already...

This sucks, big time.

(26-09-2010 07:01 PM)Timo Wrote:  Which is considerably less a problem than messing up your carefully set trade routes by having production material taken from the warehouse. You would essentially eliminate wood and brick from reliable trading between warehouses if you allow construction workers to take them from your warehouse at will.

I think you're definitely in the minority on this. If you know you're building something, it's easy to put extra materials in stock. MUCH easier than flooding the market with 250+ wood and 250+ brick and hoping that the AI leaves enough for your house to get built. ATM, I've got 6 sawmills and 4 claypits in Malmo, it still takes several market floods for my structures to get built when the AI has 2-3 things under construction. It's complete comedy that I can't supply myself before my competition! I can't imagine what that would be like if it worked that way irl...

I work in manufacturing. Imagine if we make all the subcomponants for a product, but then had to ship them to China to a company that makes knock-offs of our stuff before we could meet our customer orders. We'd be out of business in a week. It takes some crazy socialist logic to think that all our materials should go into a pool for community use before we can allocate anything to the things we specifically made those resources for.

Is it just me or the workaround for using your own materials (selling to town and building immediately) doesn't work with the new patch? I've tried several times, even putting 5 times the amount required and somehow either all the bricks or lumbers gets all bought/used between the time I sell it and select the architect to make the building, so my buildings take forever to get built. It was only rarely happening like that before I patched.

Or did anybody find yet another way beside flooding the town with thousands of bricks/lumber?


and +1 for taking materials from warehouse. As for the "excuse" from Timo that it would disrupt the trade route if we empty the warehouse, the same parameter that locks a part of the inventory from the ships on trade routes when loading can be applied when used in the administrator interface. So no need to add anything in the interface, the existing one can be used. (I'm trying to make it look easy )

Have a look at post 10 to 14 on the first side of this thread. Than you know why.

Hein

There is one other option. Intentionally crash the economy of the town before you want to build something so the AI won't do any building, spam houses all over first. Then you start building production facilities, and then let the town prosper just enough for your facilities to get workers, then let everything collapse again until you want to build more. Still, the AI will build stuff, factories to produce things which take resources not available, etc. But not as much. OR... they could just change it so we can use resources from the warehouse.

To kill the production of the AI, you can sell all goods you can produce in that specific town to a price one Gold below the price you get for 2 geen lights. That is a sure way to get the AI to close all of their production and to tear down their farms and factorys after about a gameyear.

If you start to build up to full production, meaning buildung 600 facilitys per town, you have a second lefer to get all the AI houses. Build first all the houses you will need for the 600 facilitys, without building the facilitys. That will caus a big dropp in the amount of money the AI want to have for its houses. Than pay for a litle fire and buy the houses when they are burned down.

Hein

I guess it depends on the game difficulty. On professional, they always want a ton for housing, dependant almost entirely on how much your net worth is. The other gamey way I stop the AI from spamming houses at 30% occupancy is to build town squares on every tile in the city as quickly as possible. I don't build any houses, just buy his... I buy all his in town businesses and destroy most of them to keep my net worth low so his selling price will be low also. I destroy low occupancy cheap housing, which forces more people into fewer homes, which will eventually degrade the core home types and lower their value. I use a few other gamey tactics, but within a few years, Lubeck is all mine. Of course if the AI actually did have to balance his budget, this would not be necessary.

It's amusing to read the irrelevant classical economics being used as a justification.
1. It's debatable if any of our own societies aren't totally compatible with classical economics. (Consumers has 100% knowledge of all factors in every purchase choice, and always choose totally rationally? That doesn't describe me, how about you?)
2. Even if we did live in such a world, P4 is a game, not an Economics manual. "Fun" is a higher good than "realism". Disagree? A thought experiment: To keep up with realism, add a random % chance each month that your character gets Consumption (Tuberculosis), leading to death. Increases realism? Yes. Is fun? Not at all.

So, if the question is "would it be more fun to have the option to use my own goods?" - I'll vote yes.

p3 system was perfect: it was like providing the goods for the architect who will make your building with the option that he will buy if necessary the reminder on the market. it also ensure that you only ask buildings when raw materials is available, and reserved for this purpose.

not using goods from its storage is simply a pain in the ass and bring absolutely nothing to gameplay.