Tough imbalance on stone and limestone

[DeletedUser176]

This is really annoying. You cannot trade stone (1:10, 10:1) before the high middle-age, even though it's a bronce-age good. If you're not a lucky one with stone in the first two provinces, you're completely screwed. The second downside on this is, that even when you have a stone-province, you can't trade that stuff either and have to rely completely on the other province's good. (Yes, there may be stone offers by players, but maybe once a month in my neighbourhood)

Limestone is even worse. It's not offered by a single merchant! The only deal available is to trade 10 limestone for 1 silk, again a good from later ages...

I know those later ages (both goods, and gold seems to have the same problem) offer new buildings to produce the goods, maybe that's where the problem lies.

I consider this a comparatively heavy balance problem that should be dealt with very very soon...

 

[DeletedUser]

Have you tried contacting other players in your province to find out maybe if they are willing to trade their stone with you?

I'm not able to produce limestone in a mass quantity but that was easily overcome by forming some sort of a trade agreement with my neighbors. Besides, they may not have the products you can mass produce so it's a win-win situation.

 

[DeletedUser176]

I'm looking at the cities from time to time. Either they have 3 Stoneworks (implies they have the same problem), just 1 producing for later trades/researches or no stoneworks at all.
It is in fact a rare good that comes imbalanced.

I'm lucky to have a limestone province, but if I had neither stone nor limestone I'd be quite disabled in my progress.
On the other hand I can't trade that limestone, so it's not "that" lucky...

 

[DeletedUser]

I can see the game has been designed so that people have to interact with each other to progress consistently. To compare your situation with mine, my group of 80 players seem to have a big issue getting hold of dye. Nearly half the market trades from players are seeking this product. After I contacted nearly 80 players, I found a lot were not really interested in producing the product they were more interested in the fighting aspect of the game.

However, I wouldn't really call it an imbalance as there are ways to get hold of products but maybe a slight issue with the amount of players you are able to interact with.

May I ask why you are not able to trade your limestone?

 

[DeletedUser176]

I know the interaction part is important, but I see no logical reason why stone/limestone cannot be traded 1:10 in the earlier ages. Especially limestone not at all.

Limestone is not needed much up to my age, there's just no demand in my neighbourhood. And I'm not going to text all 80 of them to see if MAYBE one WILL need it sometime ^^

But you do see my point on the AI-tradig part, don't you?

 

[DeletedUser]

Right this is just frustrating. I am number 1 on my continent and I am currently mass producing Marble or Alabaster (why has it been changed? just confusing!). I need lumber which I cant mass produce, I know I can still get it another way but personally they want us to concentrate on what we can mass produce and trade it with other players.

BIG PROBLEM.....how can I trade when no one on my continent is producing anything, I refuse to use the Merchant! Why on earth are the ratios 1:10...it makes no sense. So because of this my growth has no stopped...this shouldn't be the case what so ever! There is so much imbalance that I'm left so confused.

 

[DeletedUser]

Mine was the same Twist, we all lacked dye, now everyone lacks cloth... everyone wants it... but we are fortunate to have about 15 active players, but we still find good shortages in some categories...

 

[DeletedUser]

The whole trading system has to be re-done. Or at least balanced.

Not enough active players in each group of 80, rare above 15, rarely above 5 are doing trades.

The merchants rates are not awful, they are impossible, 10 rope for 1 stone, then 10 stone for 1 lumber? My butt yeah....

I'm telling you, it is the trading part that will kill this game, not the pvp, not the bugs, not the slowness of the game, it is the lack of goods and trades and people will get bored to not be able to advance or build or research.

Lower the merchant rates, let us trade with more than our [mostly inactive] group and a lot of things will be better, a lot of player happy.

 

[DeletedUser]

You can always plunder your neighbors to get some of these resources if they refuse to trade while your buildings are making them even if you don't have the natural resource to boost it's speed.

 

[DeletedUser]

Another point: in the trades, we need to have a report sent (via messages?) identifying a trade that has been made and who the trading partner was.

This way we can communicate with those players and facilitate additional trades. This will also engender a sense of community.

This will help in a small way to make up for the abysmal lack of trading partners in the various sections.

 

[DeletedUser]

You can use the description area of your city to tell what goods you can produce and what you are looking for. Its easy to spot someone that has what you need or need what you have, then you send a polite mail and voila. Works well on my neighboorhood.

 

[DeletedUser]

Thats what we all do, we have what we supply and its assumed we want all others...

 

[DeletedUser]

Any word from the developers about the Stone/Limestone situation? The fact that you can't get stone other than producing it by yourself -at a rate of 1 every 4 hours- is a big slow down towards your city progress. Stone Mason occupies 4x4; at early stages, you can't afford having more than one due lack of space. Architecture is required to advanced further in the Iron Age, and is on the first tier!

In order to get 15 Stones, you have to spend 2 days and a half to get them, assuming that you'll be at the computer when they are ready and no one plundered your production. Due low players activity, I can't trade or plunder it because no one else in my neighborhood is producing it, so the matter affects to all the active players on my neighborhood.

It looks to me like a huge flaw in the design, especially when the only way -at least in my situation- to get it, is to advance to the High Middle Age first.