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Author Topic: Money sink: Super expensive slightly better items to buy in the caravan  (Read 1058 times)

Orange-of-Cthulhu

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The point of this is to make trading more meaningfull when you get to have a RICH fort with piles of goblin armor stuff to sell, you have out a bunch of dorks churning our platinum crafts just to give them happy thought from crafting, and you haven't even bothered to get any of the crafts from the lower levels to the depot in years, because you can buy everything with the closer workshops.

At that point it becomes to me no problem getting everything I need/want from the caravan paying literally pocket money in comparison to the wealth of the fort - and then I start just donating stuff to the caravans just to get rid of exess craft items. Here, have some gold bracelets. I don't even want them!

It feels meh to produce a bunch of gold crafts, and there's nothing to do with them except give them away, which kinda does nothing as well.

I think the caravans need to change according to the wealth level of the fort. You have by and by the same stuff on them for the same prices in the entire game from beginning in poverty to the end when you are super rich - a cheese, a log and a bunch of leather cost the same.

But in the beginning you have to work hard for that leather, which is fun, bit in the end it's too easy to just buy mountains of it which is less fun.

So I propose that when a fort reaches a certain level of wealth, the game adds to the caravans super expensive luxury items. The caravans become more luxure-ish according to the wealth of the fort.

The super expensive things could be

food with a small extra chance of giving a happy thought but it's 10 times more expensive. Masterpiece cheese with tiger brain pieces in it. It's 10 or 20 times expensive more than a normal chease, but only 5% better.

Human booze that has been stored for 5 years.

It could be clothes like socks and gloves made out of some very flimsy material so they deteriorate very fast but they are super expensive. So you'd just keep burning money to keep your dwarves clothed in like satin silk gold threaded whatever cloth.

The ITEMS of the caravan should change to be all masterwork and all improved with gems and stuff. So they don't just brink you jute robes anymore, now they only bring you masterpiece yute robes decorated with yak bone and diamonds and so on.

This would act as a money sink so you don't just pile wealth up endlessly, and also made you feel like you got some meaningfull benefit out of being wealthy.

I'd also like the caravans to some times have items worth a lot, like a 100K, with them, so you'd be challenged to continuously buy very expensive (but quite useless) "shining metal" chairs or dragon bone beds or whatever, and that would also keep you working.

I'd like it to end in a place where you always felt there was more stuff to buy, and it would be very hard to get to this state where more wealth is meaningless - because you can already casually buy everything you need with loads of money to spare. So that you feel it matters if optimize you gold craft production, instead of just letting the dwarves drink every day and making crafts if they feel like it, and that's all you even need to do economically.

In sum, I propose super expensive junk to spend money on that feels like it is worth the money but kind of isn't. I want the caravans to rip me off!

(The reason I think the bonuses should be very small is that otherwise I think the game would become too easy. If you could buy a cheese that made every dwarf happy, it would become too easy and boring. So it should be a rip off I think. The luxury cheese is super expensive, but only marginally better than the normal old cheese.)

(I think personally the game in the long run needs many more money sinks - super expensive stuff you can spend money on. Say bribe the humans 300K to attack the goblins, or pay the elves 100K to allow you to cut down more trees, or pay the necromancer 500K in gold so he doesn't attack or whatever.)
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Nordlicht

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Re: Money sink: Super expensive slightly better items to buy in the caravan
« Reply #1 on: November 25, 2020, 02:22:24 pm »

A richer fort should definitely attract more caravans, a permanent market and luxury traders.

Additionally make  caravans only buy stuff that they can sell elsewhere with profit would also reduce the amount cash you can make.

Caravans may pay you less because they have to hire more protection as your platinum crafts attract bandits and / or the market prices plummet with your overproduction.

I see the main idea of a caravan to support you with stuff that can't be produced in your region, or that is due to production costs / abilities still worth buying from a caravan. 

And it's too easy getting legendary craftdwarves in first place.

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Orange-of-Cthulhu

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Re: Money sink: Super expensive slightly better items to buy in the caravan
« Reply #2 on: November 25, 2020, 06:46:06 pm »

A richer fort should definitely attract more caravans, a permanent market and luxury traders.

Additionally make  caravans only buy stuff that they can sell elsewhere with profit would also reduce the amount cash you can make.

Caravans may pay you less because they have to hire more protection as your platinum crafts attract bandits and / or the market prices plummet with your overproduction.

I see the main idea of a caravan to support you with stuff that can't be produced in your region, or that is due to production costs / abilities still worth buying from a caravan. 

And it's too easy getting legendary craftdwarves in first place.

We you can get as many caravans as you want. If you send a mission to "demand tribute" to a site, the civ will start sending a caravan.

So I'm getting 3 elven ones and 4 humans ones, and I buy all the stuff they have that is usefull and still I haven't even scracted my pile of wealth.

I mean, I could buy human sized armor and expensive elvish instruments I can't play, but there's no point because all I do then it switch 1 useless item for another useless item.

I think they need to contain items that can match masterpiece platinum crafts in price and are stuff you can eat, drink or wear. This is because if the item gets consumed, then you have a drain on your wealth, and you then get a goal to produce more wealth and strike the earth some more :)
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Bumber

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Re: Money sink: Super expensive slightly better items to buy in the caravan
« Reply #3 on: November 25, 2020, 08:55:56 pm »

Why does the game need a wealth sink? Your fort's wealth is the measure of its success.

Take that gold and turn it into luxurious furniture instead of useless crafts. Pave your floors with gold.
« Last Edit: November 25, 2020, 08:59:03 pm by Bumber »
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Uthimienure

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Re: Money sink: Super expensive slightly better items to buy in the caravan
« Reply #4 on: November 25, 2020, 09:34:52 pm »

Make gold pedestals & glass display cases, put them everywhere and display your valuable items.
Make gold statues all over the place.
Decorate your furniture & finished goods with gems, gold, silver, etc.

Make blocks from valuable materials, then build castles with them.

Or play with rare resource worlds.
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Orange-of-Cthulhu

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Re: Money sink: Super expensive slightly better items to buy in the caravan
« Reply #5 on: November 26, 2020, 07:14:00 am »

Make gold pedestals & glass display cases, put them everywhere and display your valuable items.
Make gold statues all over the place.
Decorate your furniture & finished goods with gems, gold, silver, etc.

Make blocks from valuable materials, then build castles with them.

Or play with rare resource worlds.

Did most of that. Only use gold furniture. I am also making platinum nest boxes. Set gold and platinum statues up. Encrusted a lot of stuff with jewels, untill the jewelers got stressed from overwork :) I'll just have them encrust random items when they are ready to take another dig at the gem pile.

In many games wealth is a goal in itself. I like that in DF, dwarves should be about mining for expensive stuff and hoarding it.

But wealth also translates into power, meaning access to actions that you only can do with wealth.

In shooter games it is upgrading your char with the best guns and armor, whatever is in the game. Paying a bazilion for a measly +1 bonus, because why not. In city/strategy games it is usually fast-build big things or bribe enemy units/cities. Also whatever is in the game.

DF does not have anything I am aware of in that department.

Wealth DOES increase your access to actions, in the sense that you can increase the number of caravans and buy them all out.

But you get to that point easily and it maxes out because it makes no sense to buy like 20K units of standard booze every year. It would make sense to spend that money to get 500 units uf super-luxury booze though.

The caravans you get stays the same one as the one you get the first season.

So it feels like you're super rich, but you're on a deserted island so you can do nothing with your money lol. In the entire world, there's not a guy selling something only a rich guy can afford to spash money on. That is also anti-RPish to me. I'd like it to feel like there was a bit of a rich man's world in the game, and then you'd work towards getting access to that.

And to me, that makes the wealth number just a number that means nothing. If I made the fort 10 times richer than what it is now, I would not have anything I don't already have. It's just the number on the screen would change, but the number does nothing. I don't become like renaissance Venice that could pay off everybody and had the most luxurious stuf the world could offer. I just become a guy sitting on more gold that can't be used for anything.

(In the long run, I think you should be able to splash money on consumable items, hiring people (mercenaries, scholars, whatever) and bribing other civs to start/stop wars. And it would just be something to make you think, hey I did good, I'm a big shot now, I mined all this gold and now i bought some Elven Full Moon Booze and 3 scholars to write books, and I paid the humans to attack the goblins, I'll mine more gold now! You could make it literally "infinite" in the sense that it would become impossible to buy more than a tiny fraction of everything buyable in the world. Say if bribing a civ to start a war cost 1 million, it would be hard to get all civs to go to war with each other. Of if the best booze in the world cost 20 K a unit, you'd also be pressed to just be awash in that. Numbers can be tweaked, but it is possible to just make them super high. Instead to me it goes like, IDK I think I have the gold I need, I won't bother mining any more.

So I think it would make the game better and more interesting if you added an inexhaustible "rich man's game" part to it.

It would make it feel like you progressed, and the game went from (beginning) about surviving and having enough beds, to (middle) making rooms for nobles and putting gold fornutere in all rooms, to (end) deciding if you spend your fortune on super booze or super socks, maybe just stash it, or being a war monger or a peace maker - plus an infinite number of combinations of those things.)
« Last Edit: November 26, 2020, 09:02:29 am by Orange-of-Cthulhu »
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Azerty

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Re: Money sink: Super expensive slightly better items to buy in the caravan
« Reply #6 on: November 26, 2020, 06:45:06 pm »

Wealthier consumers might ask for goods of better quality. For exemple, poor haulers might wear trousers while wealthy nobles might only wear ☼trousers☼.
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Orange-of-Cthulhu

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Re: Money sink: Super expensive slightly better items to buy in the caravan
« Reply #7 on: November 29, 2020, 09:46:52 am »

Wealthier consumers might ask for goods of better quality. For exemple, poor haulers might wear trousers while wealthy nobles might only wear ☼trousers☼.

Totally. Nobles must have ☼clothes☼, or they get bad thoughs for "wearing the clothes of a commoner." Not having these clothes will cause them to assault random dwarves due to their frustration.

And pherhaps mere commoners also start wanting at least 1 item of ☼clothes☼ once you hit a certain threshold of fort wealth?

The player thus is caught in the endless increased demands of consumption society, as dwarves demands increase as the fort increases.

I think one of the reasons it becomes easy when you get wealthy, is that the dwarves needs are static - so it's HARD to satisfy them in a startup fort, but too easy once you get nicely established. If they grow more picky, you'd get a longer gameplay before you get to the point where you've provided them with the stuff they need.
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anewaname

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Re: Money sink: Super expensive slightly better items to buy in the caravan
« Reply #8 on: November 30, 2020, 11:11:28 pm »

When the fort wealth passes some number, elected dwarf nobles may greet the caravan after they finish unloading and create a trade mandate to buy all of some preferred item type during this trading session. The prices will be suspiciously higher and the the merchant will often mutter "finest quality!"
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