Team Discussion: Worker Trading

[Jon Shafer]

Another questionable issue to work out: What are the legitimate uses of Worker trading?

Vast number of Workers can be traded between teams, and once they become slaves they have a cost of 0. With a lot of Workers this can be a very very large amount of GPT that can be saved by mutual Working trading. Additionally, slaves for industrious Civs work as fast as normal Workers for other civs, meaning the loss in efficiency isn't all that great.

What do the teams believe should be acceptable uses of Worker trading?

I personally feel that Workers can be traded in exchange for something (e.g. a deal involving Workers for gold, or Workers for techs, etc.), but I don't think that trading between civs simply to allieviate costs or other similar uses should be allowed. The "you must trade in exchange for something" rule is the best way to cover these sorts of problems.

Of course, then we get into the area of how fair a trade is for Workers... 1g for 50 Workers would probably not be within the spirit of fair play. But you cannot judge what is or is not really a fair deal. So what should we do?

[Arnelos]

What if the thing being exchanged for is survival or a peace treaty? What about agreements out of duress?

[vondrack]

Personally, I would not restrict this aspect - trading workers to save their upkeep DOES come at a cost: you need (roughly) twice as many slaves as native workers to get the same job done (industrious or not - the ratio is always the same). And that means twice as many shields/food to build them...

I only see two possibilities: either we ban worker trading completely, or we allow it with no restrictions. Everything else is just asking for troubles... what if two teams just "silently" agree to throw a worker or two to every tech deal they do between them... how do you distinguish between the workers used as a "real" value balancer and slaves simply sent over to save upkeep?

[DeepO]

While I more or less agree with Vondrack, there are a few clear exploits which we can rule out.

1. at no time, team A is allowed to hold slaves from team B, when team B holds slaves from team A. Either of those team have to give back, or add to city.

2. you can not trade workers to another team to save on upkeep, and then have that team use that worker, or another, to improve your land. The moment team A has slaves of team B, it is forbidden to improve the land of team B.

3. Even if worker trades would be totally forbidden, it should be allowed if the receiving team does not use them for improvement, but adds them to cities at first possible opportunity. (can take a bit longer then 1 turn if a road and not a RR needs to be traversed)

my views, not my team's.
DeepO

[Cort Haus]

I agree with DeepO.

[Jon Shafer]

Originally posted by DeepO
While I more or less agree with Vondrack, there are a few clear exploits which we can rule out.

1. at no time, team A is allowed to hold slaves from team B, when team B holds slaves from team A. Either of those team have to give back, or add to city.

2. you can not trade workers to another team to save on upkeep, and then have that team use that worker, or another, to improve your land. The moment team A has slaves of team B, it is forbidden to improve the land of team B.

3. Even if worker trades would be totally forbidden, it should be allowed if the receiving team does not use them for improvement, but adds them to cities at first possible opportunity. (can take a bit longer then 1 turn if a road and not a RR needs to be traversed)

my views, not my team's.
DeepO

I like this also.

[Arnelos]

DeepO's suggestions sound fine to me.

[asleepathewheel]

DeepO

[DeepO]

hum... I see a problem with my own rules

1. at no time, team A is allowed to hold slaves from team B, when team B holds slaves from team A. Either of those team have to give back, or add to city.

So, what about this rule in case of war between the 2 teams? It is perfectly possible that in war, both teams hold slaves of the other team. Now I can see that we oblige that part of the peace situation is meant to solve this situation, so that for instance the victor gets all slaves back, and keeps his own (or that a PoW exchange happens). Would anyone want to make truces for 1 turn required to exchange slaves?

I don't really see a problem, unless some teams are going to declare a fake war just to circumvent worker upkeep.

DeepO

[ZargonX]

declare a fake war just to circumvent worker upkeep

/me scribbles on his "New Idea" notepad...