Stock Market Resource Price Graphs

  • A line graph that shows the cheapest price of each resource in the stock market at the end of each day. This would work well as it helps to tell the user when to buy and sell their resources based on the trend that the graph shows. Open to questions, and suggestions.


    "There are no facts, only interpretations" -Friedrich Nietzsche


  • Not sure what mechanic would drive this. Given that prices are set by players, not true supply-demand principles. Maybe it could calculate the average of all prices available for a resource? then plot that? I mean you could almost manipulate the market by placing an order for a cheap price and pulling it back at day change, if someone doesn't grab it. Like sell 1 grain or 0.02 silver at day change and the graph would represent that and it would be incorrect against the actual market.

  • Not sure what mechanic would drive this. Given that prices are set by players, not true supply-demand principles. Maybe it could calculate the average of all prices available for a resource? then plot that? I mean you could almost manipulate the market by placing an order for a cheap price and pulling it back at day change, if someone doesn't grab it. Like sell 1 grain or 0.02 silver at day change and the graph would represent that and it would be incorrect against the actual market.

    Yeah that's a good concern I think. You're gonna run into real-life statistician's problems here where the average can very easily be misleading or even manipulated. Using a median value to prevent this would probably not be as useful to players though.


    I've been playing very on-and-off for close to nine years now and I've observed a lot of markets. For obvious reasons, the market is mostly driven by supply and demand in the average game. The more AI there is in the game, the more it will be. Players tend to not have standing offers on the market nearly as much as AI so the value of goods is basically determined by which AI offers the players pick up. AI will then try to make offers that match the "current price", a value that actually used to be displayed in the market tab for each resource years ago but is long gone from the public eye. I believe it's still tracked internally to control the AI's market behaviour. How exactly this number is formulated and protected against manipulation, if at all, I'm not sure, but it does depend heavily on what was most recently actually sold, not just the asking prices that nobody ever pays. If I ever get around to it I'll test it in a private game.

    Now as the AI nations make their standing offers, players come in and take them up on them. They will naturally buy the cheapest stuff first, then depending on the available supply the average selling price rises. AI is smart enough to cash in on this to an extent even if there's still supply and make offers for higher prices. This is where players can sometimes come in and stir things up by getting rid of stockpiles they accidentally accumulated at really low prices. These, however, often go very quickly in the larger games at least and don't impact the price for very long. That goes for all short-lived stunts players do on the market, including the dumping prices and the highway robbery ones. If you don't do that stuff consistently, several times a day over a number of days, you will not have a lasting impact on the prices that AI asks.


    Due to all this, the market really isn't that complicated and the dynamics surrounding it are fairly predictable if you've payed attention to it for a few games. There's the "tech days" 5, 8 and around 14-16 when Iron and Lumber (or Oil, depending on the map) develop aggressively, there's the general rule that the more AI remains deep into the game, the more lively the market will be and prices for the more maintenance-oriented stuff like fish and gas remain pretty decent.

    If you had a graph that tracked your game's market and relied on that to make your decisions, I think you'd always be one step behind anyway. It would reflect changes on the market that have already happened - I mean, if the price for oil is high right now and rising, you can see that with your own two eyeballs right on the market, you don't need a graph for that. And the market itself reflects changes in the game world - AIs disappearing, resource-relevant regions engulfed in war - that have already happened as well. If you pay attention to those is where you can get a step ahead of the market and really skim it.


    tl;dr: I think the market dynamics in supremacy are very interesting but also very simple and easily predictable to the human without the aid of additional tools or statistics that could wind up being just as much misleading as they are helpful.

  • Well, you seem to like pulling my comments out. Considering I just added to the OP i don't see why you felt the need to quote what I had to say. Seemed like you're trying to give me a lecture on the game as it stands, which I know. OP proposed a new feature and I even agreed with you by questioning how it would work. Only added to the conversation, didn't start it.

  • Well, you seem to like pulling my comments out. Considering I just added to the OP i don't see why you felt the need to quote what I had to say. Seemed like you're trying to give me a lecture on the game as it stands, which I know. OP proposed a new feature and I even agreed with you by questioning how it would work. Only added to the conversation, didn't start it.

    I'm going to show something to you right here, bear with me for a second.



    You see what that was? I'll do it again.



    Those are "newlines", they separate "paragraphs". That's what I put under my direct reply to your post, in which I actually agreed with you and added a minor thing, to seperate it from the other part that was not directly aimed at you. I see it's not such a clear one thanks to the formatting, but come on. It ain't my fault there's like four active members in this forum and not much else to quote. I didn't even look at your username when I quoted that, or anything else of you for that matter. No need to take stuff personal.

  • this suggestion will likely never happen as its a feature thats not needed. because you can always place a buy/sell offer at a set price and try to work the market out. Also the AI tend to mess the markets up and players tend to play the stock market. Lastly when you join a game there are different offers set for each players which are not the cheapest nor expensive. But overall the feature will likely not happen as it will not be helpful in the long run.

    It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent. It is the one that is most adaptable to change. -Charles Darwin