Are we facing an Economy Collapse?

[Lisa-Azra]

We have had an iron crisis that has been fixed by the most recent update, we now have an oak and fir crisis and I predict close on the heels of this will be a hemp crisis.

 

Why is there a lack of supply? I have been thinking a lot about it.

 

It would be nice to know the answers to these two pivotal questions.

 

1) Are neutral traders linked to neutral ports?

2) When a ship is sold to the computer is it just deleted from the world?

 

Lets assume the answer is yes for both

 

 As neutral ports are conquered by the different nations the number of trade routes decrease, not traders. For example a neutral brig could trade with all nations. Conquered it because a brig of the conquering nation and can only trade internally and with neutral/free town ports. Supply chains are cut or at the least the cascade of goods  becomes too dispersed. Yes, this is the purpose of expansion to obtain an monopoly on the goods but is it working? I see it as realising a new product on the market have a supply outlet that can feed Europe but instead realising world wide, sure after time everyone will get your product but the time lag could be so great a competitor as taken the market.  In this case oak so rare people stop crafting, no big boats available for sale, loss of players. Keeping traders neutral and increasing their number is vital for distribution. Currently there is no trading incentive, most players are travelling to distant ports to buy resources not to trade but to build with. If trading missions materialise in the future the number of NPC traders can be re-evaluated 

 

The second point if yes is more fatal. History has been kind during the age of sail, population was low, resource availability was high and production rate was incredibly slow. This game is the opposite, high population, low resources and super fast production rates. In simple terms we have a period in the game where more is taken out than supplied. Of course crafting is not linear at the start of a players' career crafting rate is incredibly high once high rank has been obtained crafting may almost stop, and that is where the dilemma happens. If you increase port production and crafting ratios to meet needs (as has been done with the iron) when demand falls there will be excess iron and the price for that commodity will fall through the floor thus damaging any trading element to the game.

There will be diverse fluctuations in product demand at various stages of the game's marketing, recently there has been a large influx of players with the game's release on Steam, a similar trend will be see when it comes off early access, then with possible expansions, and finally from discount sales. Each will see large new player spikes. Over time it will balance new players joining to players leaving but what you want is to keep the new players on the servers for as long as possible and if they are faced with crafting restrictions which stops people making the big boats they desire this will not happen.

 

When a player decides to break up a ship a certain percentage comes back to be used instantaneously, this should be the same when ships are sold. Those resources used to make the ship should immediately come back into the world. As ships are rapidly made and sold to the port in order to pump up the players' crafting XP, these extra resources from break up are pumped into the world to cope with the demand. As less ships are made and sold the extra resource influx equally drops. These break-up resources should be spread through the world and not at the port of ship sale, thus maintaining the need to trade.