Mining and Legions

Sarapis

Tael said:

Even if everyone involved in mining were turning a profit, it would still be a huge gold sink.

Yep, correct. I just moved the gold sinks involved in mineable comms from village comm shops to mining. 

Grandue

Tael said:

Grandue said:
There is a lot of competition with herbs and minerals. There is a more hard coded limit to the supply

There really isn't much substantial competition.

For herbs, most anywhere you're going to harvest will be at Sparse, but you can still harvest a ridiculous amount by going room to room given that rooms don't run out anymore and there's no such thing as overharvesting.

For minerals, there's no scarcity mechanic at all.

The way mining is set up makes it very different from any of the tradeskills, economically speaking. Assuming you can turn a profit with any of the tradeskills (mostly depending on whether you can find a place to sell the stuff you make), they're essentially just a way to convert time into money. Mining is a way to convert time, luck, and decision-making into money. It doesn't need a license or anything because everything you do in the system removes gold from the game - even if you're making gold from mining, you're getting that gold from players, not from more gold being added to the world, and the money you spent setting up your mines and hiring your labourers and guards is still being removed from the world. Even if everyone involved in mining were turning a profit, it would still be a huge gold sink.

There absolutely is competition. If there wasn't competition you wouldn't see herbs selling for 4gp each, they would be 4-6x the price they are currently. 

You're also wrong about the supply. Rooms do run out of available herbs. I don't think they run out of minerals though. You're right though, I'm not trying to convince the world that it is the same, it is different. But it is also definitely different than anything else. It isn't like bashing or questing for gold and it isn't like the trade skills, it isn't like ship trade and it isn't like the talisman market. It is different and it may or may not benefit from having an ongoing cost (like wages or annual fees). We can obviously say, "No! No ongoing costs!" because we don't want to pay it but that doesn't erase the reality that it could be better with an ongoing cost. I definitely don't want to pay ongoing costs, who would? But I do want more gold sinks, I do want credit prices to go down, I do want to lessen the number of trolls or casual miners, I don't want mining profits to become razor thin, I do want the commodity market to remain stable, and I honestly think an ongoing cost to mining would help some of this, but I could be wrong. Just making a suggestion, the admin have heard and looks like they've already shot it down. I'll just start to brainstorm another suggestion. 

Tael

I think we're confusing two kinds of competition here. Herbs and miners have very little competition over the supply - it's easy to turn time into herbs and minerals. There may be a "hard coded limit to supply", but for all practical purposes it's essentially never the case that you can end up wanting to turn some of your time into herbs/minerals and not be able to. And on top of that, because the abundance of herbs in most rooms seems to be fairly stable, no one really has much of an advantage in terms of their time-per-herb (and there's no advantage to be had in the time-per-mineral ratio at all).

And that lack of competition over the supply leads to huge competition in the market - which is why herbs and minerals are so outrageously cheap.

Notably, if the hardcoded limit were a big limiting factor, you would expect far less competition in the market - it would be easier for a few sellers to monopolize the market and you would expect prices to be considerably higher.

But regarding mining itself, I'm not really sure I see what you're getting at.

You seem to be saying that your permit-purchasing idea was a way to introduce ongoing costs to the system, but the current system is full of ongoing costs already. The entire thing is nothing but a big, ongoing gold sink for everyone involved. It doesn't generate any gold at all and practically every element of it aside from the initial mine construction that takes comms is an ongoing gold sink.

I guess my question is why do you think it needs an additional ongoing gold sink?

Tharvis

@Grandue primes don't run out (though you can fail to find any in crowded areas like moghedu - so maybe they do run out if alot of people extract simultaniously) but with trait + gloves you'll generally find 3 of each per appropriate room

Sena

Primes work like herbs now, you just can't see the scarcity/abundance. I'm not sure if they're as limited as herbs are, though. I didn't even notice it was changed until someone pointed it out, and it didn't seem to have made any difference at all to prime/mineral prices (at least up to the tradeskill split).

Siduri

Sena said:

Primes work like herbs now, you just can't see the scarcity/abundance. I'm not sure if they're as limited as herbs are, though. I didn't even notice it was changed until someone pointed it out, and it didn't seem to have made any difference at all to prime/mineral prices (at least up to the tradeskill split).

It does. With my gloves, I normally gain 4-5 primes per balance. If someone extracted earlier than me, that amounts sometimes faill to 1 per balance.

Grandue

Tael said:

I think we're confusing two kinds of competition here. Herbs and miners have very little competition over the supply - it's easy to turn time into herbs and minerals. There may be a "hard coded limit to supply", but for all practical purposes it's essentially never the case that you can end up wanting to turn some of your time into herbs/minerals and not be able to. And on top of that, because the abundance of herbs in most rooms seems to be fairly stable, no one really has much of an advantage in terms of their time-per-herb (and there's no advantage to be had in the time-per-mineral ratio at all).

And that lack of competition over the supply leads to huge competition in the market - which is why herbs and minerals are so outrageously cheap.

Notably, if the hardcoded limit were a big limiting factor, you would expect far less competition in the market - it would be easier for a few sellers to monopolize the market and you would expect prices to be considerably higher.

But regarding mining itself, I'm not really sure I see what you're getting at.

You seem to be saying that your permit-purchasing idea was a way to introduce ongoing costs to the system, but the current system is full of ongoing costs already. The entire thing is nothing but a big, ongoing gold sink for everyone involved. It doesn't generate any gold at all and practically every element of it aside from the initial mine construction that takes comms is an ongoing gold sink.

I guess my question is why do you think it needs an additional ongoing gold sink?

We were talking about two different kinds of competition. You were talking about competition in securing the supply and I am talking about competition in selling the supply. 

With herbs and minerals, it doesn't so much matter the volume each person is selling, it matter how many people are selling period. That is what drives the market prices to the floor. If you give 100 people 10 bananas each in a community that eats 1,000 bananas a week, 1 person will sell at $100, 1 person at $99 and so on until about $50 or so where people get uncomfortable selling for any less then you'll have 20 people who are more patient and will wait until the end of the week to sell their bananas and price them at $100. You see herb prices so low not because seller A has 50,000 of each herb and just wants to sell them super cheap because he can, but because 100 different people have 2,000 of each herb and sell them slightly cheaper than the next guy who in turn lowers his prices to compete. 

There is always a balance in economics. If mining is TOO profitable, there will be a flood of people looking for lodes for the quick flow of income which results in more people selling a commodity which leads to more undercutting which means it becomes less and less profitable to the point where they no longer look for lodes because they are hardly breaking even anymore.....which then means fewer people are mining which means less competition in the market which mean prices slowly rise again which means mining becomes more profitable which mean more people start looking for mines.... And the cycle continues over and over and over again. 

However, if there were a permit of some sort that had to be purchased annually in game, it would slow this cycle down. For sure, it would still happen, the laws of economics still apply in most pocket worlds, there would still be a fluctuation in the market but it wouldn't happen over the course of a week, it would happen over the course of a month or two and you wouldn't see such extremes in the market. It would stay more balanced long term. 

I'm not just pulling this out of thin air or trying to make things favorable for my character, trust me I can make way more gold gaming the market in its current form than I could if my suggestions was implemented. I run several businesses IRL, minored in economics, and have competed in ink milling, harvesting, tailoring, enchantments, herbs, minerals, Mayan Crowns, talisman pieces, rare items, crated  pets, and forging in Achaea and have run 5 shops in 4 cities in the last 13-14 years. I've made thousands and thousands of credits in the Achaean marketplace. I'm not saying I have all the answers or even the best suggestions, but I like to think I at least have SOME grasp on the economy in Achaea. Economics is an amazingly interesting subject and a lot of it makes ZERO sense and is completely irrational but that doesn't make it any less valid. But, like I've said before, even with as much as I know and have observed over the last decade in Achaea, I know I don't have as much insight as the admin does because I can't possibly see the figures they do, so if they think no ongoing cost is the best plan then I would have to agree with them. 

Rangor

Damn, who cares about profits. I just want lvl 10 legions so I can nuke proficy's mines.

Synbios

Rangor said:

Damn, who cares about profits. I just want lvl 10 legions so I can nuke proficy's mines.

I, too, wish to have the lvl 10 legions because I may not be the Dawnlord but daaaaayum I have the most badass posse of assassins, mages, footmen, archers and heavies to walk the lands.

Tael

Grandue said:
snip

Moving past the little basic economics lesson and your list of apparent qualifications, I think I'm more confused than ever now. Earlier, you were saying that mining needed a gold sink to drive credit prices down. That was the part I was responding to - it's already nothing but a gold sink wrt credit prices. The profit you generate from mining comes from other players - it doesn't cause inflation and doesn't cause credit prices to rise - whereas the costs actually do remove gold from the game, causing deflation.

Hence my question as to why you think the system needs larger gold sinks. With respect to credits, the current mining system is 100% gold sink - it generates no gold and all of its costs remove gold from the world.

Also, it's probably worth pointing out that your description of the cycle of profitability misses two key things about how mining works - the fact that the maximum supply is directly tied to the amount of the commodity in the world (ensuring that it is always scarce relative to demand, regardless of how profitable mining becomes or how many people want to engage in it) and the fact that there are mechanisms in place that explicitly support monopolisation (the initial round of upkeep costs constitute a barrier to entry, there are large economies of scale, and the assault system allows you to literally destroy competition). And thanks to the way soldiers work and Sarapis's insistence on not allowing people to buy their way to more effective soldiers, it is never possible for the profitability of a comm to be so high that people who want to enter the market and undercut the current players can simply reduce their margin by paying more to enter the market.

There are already substantial mechanisms to prevent competition and allow dominant players to keep prices high in addition to supply restrictions that can ensure that supply never outstrips demand. So the question becomes why you think the system needs another barrier to entry.

Sarapis

Adding additional gold sinks to the system would simply raise the price of comms for the end buyers.

Grandue

Tael said:

Grandue said:
snip

Moving past the little basic economics lesson and your list of apparent qualifications, I think I'm more confused than ever now. Earlier, you were saying that mining needed a gold sink to drive credit prices down. That was the part I was responding to - it's already nothing but a gold sink wrt credit prices. The profit you generate from mining comes from other players - it doesn't cause inflation and doesn't cause credit prices to rise - whereas the costs actually do remove gold from the game, causing deflation.

Hence my question as to why you think the system needs larger gold sinks. With respect to credits, the current mining system is 100% gold sink - it generates no gold and all of its costs remove gold from the world.

Also, it's probably worth pointing out that your description of the cycle of profitability misses two key things about how mining works - the fact that the maximum supply is directly tied to the amount of the commodity in the world (ensuring that it is always scarce relative to demand, regardless of how profitable mining becomes or how many people want to engage in it) and the fact that there are mechanisms in place that explicitly support monopolisation (the initial round of upkeep costs constitute a barrier to entry, there are large economies of scale, and the assault system allows you to literally destroy competition). And thanks to the way soldiers work and Sarapis's insistence on not allowing people to buy their way to more effective soldiers, it is never possible for the profitability of a comm to be so high that people who want to enter the market and undercut the current players can simply reduce their margin by paying more to enter the market.

There are already substantial mechanisms to prevent competition and allow dominant players to keep prices high in addition to supply restrictions that can ensure that supply never outstrips demand. So the question becomes why you think the system needs another barrier to entry.

 I'm not trying to force the issue, I've said like three times that I'm cool with things how they are, you just keep digging into my posts trying to point out a flaw that doesn't exist and I'm trying to help you understand that I'm not an idiot and know what the hell im talking about given the information that is available to the players. 

You are making a couple of assumptions that are wrong which is making this idea go over your head. Mine production isn't related to the number of commodities available in the realm. It is related to a schedule that the admin have determined is an efficient output of that commodity. If your assumption were correct then someone could start hoarding a single commodity to the point where eventually there would be no more lodes producing that commodity because that person has all that is allowed in the realm at one time. At least this is what Sarapis said, and I'm sure they are constantly monitoring and tweaking this output of commodities. Even though this is all the information that has been given to us, I somewhat suspect that in reality there is probably a little bit of both, but I digress. 

If I understand your post correctly, you're also terribly confused when it comes to what causes credit prices to change. I won't go into the economics of it because it appears you don't care and because if they don't give mining an ongoing cost I don't want to announce to the world the ways in which you can successfully make gold through the system. 

I'm cool with things how they are. I proposed a change that would help. Raising the gold sink per mine would raise comm price and have a very insignificant effect on credit prices, I wouldn't recommend that. Having a larger, annual fee that was not related to the number of mines you have would have a very insignificant effect on the price of commodities other than altering the difference curve so there isn't such a large variable between when the commodity is priced high and when it is priced low, but it would have a decent effect on credit prices, especially if all of the licenses were renewed at the same time. 

If you're sincerely interested and not just trying to argue for no reason I would be more than happy to discuss it privately. Sarapis is a smart guy, I'm sure he knows what the hell he is doing and if he doesn't I trust he is smart enough to learn and figure it out.  I've said plenty on the topic, I'm not going to keep pushing the point, I'm sure the people who make decisions have heard it and understand and it really doesn't matter if everyone else understands.

Tael

Speaking as someone who is frequently pretty insufferable, that was probably the single most insufferable post I've ever read on these forums.

Greys

@Tael Is that jealousy, admiration, or disgust I sense?

Jurixe

I dreamed about mining.

I dreamt that I had two mines, which I did, but Ruth took one from me and the other collapsed, which actually happened.

What did not happen was me finding out later that I had a secret stash of elite soldiers and miners or whatever on a giant coal lode. I was happy to discover that and started making plans for all the things I'd do with the gold from selling it.

I am sad now that this was not the case! 

Tael

Jurixe said:

I dreamed about mining.

I dreamt that I had two mines, which I did, but Ruth took one from me and the other collapsed, which actually happened.

What did not happen was me finding out later that I had a secret stash of elite soldiers and miners or whatever on a giant coal lode. I was happy to discover that and started making plans for all the things I'd do with the gold from selling it.

I am sad now that this was not the case! 

This is veering a little bit off-topic, but you just reminded me that I actually had a dream about Achaea last night for the first time in I don't know how long.

I dreamt that I had read an announce post about Ashtan's renaissance. The city got a new, slightly piratey theme focused on naval stuff (which I guess sort of makes sense given the literary trope of people being drawn to seafaring by the way it represents "freedom"), there was some sort of sundering-esque thing that lead to the city having a waterway running through it turning it into a kind of non-Italian Venice, and the two houses were divided not by combatant/noncom, but by mariner/non-mariner. There was also some immediate drama on the forums because the mariner house required that you own a ship to join, which I had to admit seemed a little bit excessive.

Perhaps more importantly, I also dreamt that there was another announce post announcing multiclass. I remember being surprised by that - Sarapis said that it was ready and awaiting Ashtan's renaissance, but I hadn't expected it to come out on the same day.

And just like you, I was pretty disappointed when I became sufficiently awake to realize that it was all a dream.

I guess the whole "Dreams of Divine Lands" thing is no joke.

Sarapis

Jurixe said:

I dreamt that I had two mines, which I did, but Ruth took one from me 

Color me unsurprised. She literally has this t-shirt.

Tahquil

NEW TEA MINES CONFIRMED!

Azhrarn

Seems i picked the right time to wake up.. mining does seem interesting. still no vineyards though. :P

Ive been reading through the various help files and posts, one thing I dont completely understand. Attacking squads have to be 1 level higher than the defender, and the only way to level squads if they are in a mine.
Wouldnt that make it exceptionally hard for folks that try to get into mining later on? They would only have level 1 squads and if they are lucky to found a mine of their own they will have a very hard time defending against the say "more settled" mining players.

It would also imply that a mine defended by a maximum level squads simply can never be taken?

Dochitha

Azhrarn said:

Seems i picked the right time to wake up.. mining does seem interesting. still no vineyards though. :P

Ive been reading through the various help files and posts, one thing I dont completely understand. Attacking squads have to be 1 level higher than the defender, and the only way to level squads if they are in a mine.
Wouldnt that make it exceptionally hard for folks that try to get into mining later on? They would only have level 1 squads and if they are lucky to found a mine of their own they will have a very hard time defending against the say "more settled" mining players.

It would also imply that a mine defended by a maximum level squads simply can never be taken?

It's very quick to get level 1 to level 2 now, and getting increasingly harder to level them up after each level.

And yes, it's business. You need make friends and deals to keep you in. There are definitely strategies to help you get started while not entirely getting bullied.

It's costly to attack you even if you just defend with level 2 squads, so unless your mine is really attractive, like platinum, iron, stone or what, you are not going to be a meaty target. Just make sure you start small and safe, take baby steps.

And I personally feel like you need to have at least a million gold as buffer between training up your squads on lousy lodes, stuck with too many comms not sold, and stocking up stones and iron to build more mines...it does require "accredited investor" status kinda deal....

Grandue

Tael said:

Speaking as someone who is frequently pretty insufferable, that was probably the single most insufferable post I've ever read on these forums.

Sorry. 

Wasn't my intention, there was sincerity behind the post. That's the problem with posting things on a forum talking to people you've had no previous interactions with, you have no idea how it will be received. My apologies. 

Medi

Is anyone else having small lodes deplete after only a few hundred comms produced?

Krypton

Sarapis said:

There is a 0% chance we'd gate mining with upfront costs that go beyond what it costs to buy legions and establish mines.

What's the chance you will make mine-less mining an ability in Gopher morph?

Skye

Medi said:

Is anyone else having small lodes deplete after only a few hundred comms produced?

The amount of comms produced appears to have been resized a bit?

Also I found a tiny lode. Decided to put a mine on it just to experiment. In one hour:

Your medium gold ore mine at Between a pair of looming hills collapsed, depleted of resources. 40 gold ore has been transferred to your inventory.

yeaaaaaah. I'm not even sure it that qualifies as a training lode. Maybe it will yield better results if you put a small mine with completely untrained squads in it.

Dochitha

Guys need to increase the spawn rates of stones. Previously it was 35g which makes housing a great thing. Now it's like 80-110g, miners are keeping stock to build more mines. It'll be great to spawn more and keep the prices lower for housing market.

Jarrod

Dochitha said:

Guys need to increase the spawn rates of stones. Previously it was 35g which makes housing a great thing. Now it's like 80-110g, miners are keeping stock to build more mines. It'll be great to spawn more and keep the prices lower for housing market.

Reasons the more stone mines aren't spawning:

Leliel

Sarapis said:

Clowns dropping from skyships wasn't explicitly ruled out either!

Someone called for insane kamikaze clowns?

Ruth

Dochitha said:

Guys need to increase the spawn rates of stones. Previously it was 35g which makes housing a great thing. Now it's like 80-110g, miners are keeping stock to build more mines. It'll be great to spawn more and keep the prices lower for housing market.

It's really expensive right now. I need 8000 wood and 4000 stone to get something for one of my family events, but I don't think I can due to the current costs. X_X

Azhrarn

could sit down sometime and do the math.. but with the new system, you need iron and stone to get stone and iron and stone to get iron and both need coal before they are usuable, which also requires iron and stone to get.. it might not even be possible to produce stone for 35 gp without making a loss.
so basicly all comms would include the cost of production of these 3 comms on top of their own costprice.

Greys

Also, the price of coal has risen  from almost 10 gold each to 20. Consider that a mining squad produces maybe 8 stone a day, assuming a large mine that is 20 gold per stone just in mine costs. Plus the cost of constructing the mine (assuming a large mine on a large lode(3500 raw stone) and a cost of 60 gold per iron and 80 gold per stone) that is 16.5 per raw stone. Plus the cost of coal (20). That comes to a total cost of around 56.5 per complete stone. 80 gold per stone is a rather small margin for a risky enterprise.

Edit: I think mining stone is an output of 8/day/squad