Game Change Ideas

[Shadow I]

I forgot about the stored turn thing. That might help keep new players around if the turns appear to fill up faster at times. Keep them checking back.

[Krueler]

Sorry for this post, its not on topic.

His name is Imperialphoenix, or Phoenix for short. But I don't want to bash him, he's ok.

[Shadow I]

One of the ideas in the economics post was a good one that could help us solve the problem of what to do with all the money - loaning.

We could set up a system similar to the bounty idea - people put cash up there for loaning out, with an interest rate that is paid per turn like a tax on the person who took the loan. If people get interest on their cash by loaning it instead of spending it, far thinking people will be more inclined to build their cash that way than to spend it for immediate defense.

Some details need working out, like how to stop this from becoming yet another storage place and the details of repaying the loans, but it has potential and would certainly add to landflow. Perhaps there could be option when floating the loan like:

variable interest rate (between 2 and 10%)?
variable amount to be repaid per turn (between 0.1 and 2%)?
maturation date? We might not want this since that would screw people over if they are low cash, so maybe the per-turn repayment method would be better.

Any thoughts?

[Freenhult]

That's a fine idea, but of course, we'll need to set a limit. Otherwise EVERYONE will store every ounce of cash they have and then withdraw it at the end of the game.

But other than that, I don't see a reason why not. The game needs a new economic reform, and having a new banking system is a good approach. As well as giving markets with adjustable numbers too. Then the whole system is complimented.

[Shadow I]

I was thinking that we could just make it so that you -can't- withdraw the cash you float as a loan - the only way you can get it back is though someone accepting the loan and paying it back through turns. There would be some end-of-set considerations to work out, since otherwise people will try to snap up loans at the end of the set so they wont have to pay them back.

If we make interest rates and pay back rates adjustible the problm fixes itself - nobody can take cash back once they put it up for loaning, so they will lower the interest rate if they are afraid that they will lose it. Toward the end of set, interest rates will rise because there will be less time to pay them back. A few other automatic balances and it could work nicely. Lots of work though.

But if everyone stored their cash, interest rates would go so low that it would no longer be profitable, so I don't think we would see that as a problem except maybe in the first few days of the set.

Variable prices is another good change - and we could always incorporate the loan thing into the market system, with the price of the loan being the interest rate/per turn payments.

[Freenhult]

Right. But if you're storing cash in there as well, you never cared about your interest.

The other thing to do, might be incorporating a "Loan Rating". You start out with like a "AAA" rating and depending on how big the loan is, it drops down to say a "AA" or "A". Maybe as low as "B". You can't take out loans with a "D" rating. And your interest goes up with each rate drop.

Also, having interest naturally increase during the endgame would be best. Very little interest at the beginning of the game, as to not cause inflation. And then as money is generated through time, the interest goes up. It wouldn't be to hard to have the DB do a summation of all cash on the server and then figure out what inflation should be. We'd never disclose the rate, because that would be sorta unfair. But I think over time you would see a natural pattern of when the rates change over.

[Shadow I]

Right. But if you're storing cash in there as well, you never cared about your interest. tongue.gif

The way I understand it, you can't store cash in there - once its in, the only way it can come out again is if someone else accepts the loan. So storing is a non-issue. I suppose you could store cash in there, but you would never get it back so what's the point?

Interest rates should start low and get higher, yes, but I think there should be some player-chosen variation in there to make it a competitive market. Maybe we allow a 3% interest range around a certain value that is decided by the game.

ei, at the start of the game interest can be anywhere from 0.1-3.1%, and by the end of the game is is, say, 6.0%-9.0%, and players choose a value in that range to float their loan at.

If you are giving people loan ratings, it should be based on their ability to pay back, like credit rating - for every turn you run where you don't have enough cash to pay back your amount due, you lose a point, and that affects the interest rate you pay on loans - low rating= higher interest. Say, if the asked interest is 5%, and your rating is 50, you pay an extra 0.5% or something.

We are getting this complicated fast though, maybe we should focus on simpler things for the moment.

[Freenhult]

Thats why I was just going for a coded limit. With a coded credit rating system. Its all simplistic and is there. We can make it more complicated later.

[Shadow I]

Ah I see what you mean. Have the interest rate coded into the game and depend on the reliability of the player who takes the loan.

If you have a rating system out of 100, for example, and have them lose a point for each turns they fail to pay and gain a point for, say, 500 consecutive completed payments without failure, you could have the interest rate be

(100 * base rate)/rating

That way if the base rate is 5% and your rating is 75, you pay 500/75 = 6.67% interest, whereas if your rating is 110, you pay 500/110 = 4.54% interest, and the base rate be determined by the game as you suggested. That might be a lot easier to code than to have it set by the players as well.

With that system, the rating would never get much over 130 since there aren't enough turns in a round to get higher, but we would have to cap off the low end to avoid divide by zero explosions.

Just random numbers I pulled out to illustrate the point, the system could be based on a different rating, details can come when it gets coded.

[Freenhult]

Sure. Something like that is decent. Obviously you would need numbers to reflect your rating.

Say 150 was max and you started at 100. For every 50 turns you don't take out a loan, your rating goes up 1 point. Thus, a BFR run would let you gain 10 points per run. So 100 points would be an A rank.

So my idea is this. For a cash amount of like.. 0- 10 bil, .5% interest. So your rating would be a modifier.

Point Rating Modifier

(140) AAA = 0.50 * Rate
(120) AA = 0.75 *Rate
(100) A = 1.00 * Rate
(80) B = 1.25 * Rate
(60) C = 1.50 * Rate
(<60) D = 2.00 * Rate, and no more loans.

So in my example, out of the gate, you'd pay the normal rate. A = 1.00 so just the .5% interest.

Later, it would be much higher so your credit rating essentially would have a much greater impact on how much you pay per turn.

Also, for every Half a mill you would lose one point. of rate. So that would fast cap your ability to take out loans, since we'd WANT to see millions and billions being loaned out. Of course, this cap can increase over time as well.

[Shadow I]

I think it would work, but 0.5% is waaay too low - that's 50 mil on 10 bil. I generally earn or lose more than 50 mil in a single turn, so I'm not about to put up a 10 bil loan for the possibility of earning one turn's orth of interest on it . Interest toward the end of the set would need to be well over 5% for people to think its worth risking their loans not being taken out before end of set.

[Freenhult]

Its just initial numbers like you said. But I'm glad you agree with the concept.

[Shadow I]

Bump? More idea discussion? That's just one.

[Arthus]

I have an idea, but it's also a question.

Why does a small empire get tremble losses when they attack a larger empire and succeed? You would think that if the small empire succeed in such a bold move, his troops would feel motivated and good about themselves... If they lost, a different story.

So perphaps a change would be that smaller empires only suffer tremble losses if they fail in an attack but DO NOT if they succeed. It gives them a better chance to continue to break the top guy if they succeed and not lose penalties for a stupid reason giving the top guy an even bigger advantage.

It makes sense that a big empire attacking a small empire would suffer shame losses because he is picking on the weak, but not the other way around.

[Shadow I]

That's a very good idea - it will make taking down lockers a bit easier.