Standard pricing.

[polarnomad]

How about adding 10% to the hammer cost per promotion. Likewise, if a unit is returned with extra promotions then refund 10% of the hammer cost per new promotion.

If the unit is returned with the option to promote, but was left unpromoted then refund the 10% per new promotion PLUS whatever promotion surcharge was originally applied. The reasoning behind this would be to encourage teams to provide our units with experience and give us the control over how they are promoted.

[Togas]

Proposal:

We need a base system. A root, simple, easy to understand system. I think we have that.

We can then offer to our clients EXTRA clauses to our hiring contract for those extra picky sorts who want to micromanage everything.

For example:

Confidentiality clause (for a fee)
Experience refund clause (for a slight fee)
Guaranteed Delivery clause (money back if our units are destroyed in transit to delivery point). once our retained units have left our cultural borders we rename them. They are potential targets. We do not guarantee delivery unless contracted to do so.

We can come up with many others.

None are mandatory. All are optional. We can post them all and let our clients pick and choose what they prefer.

--Togas

[UnOrthOdOx]

Hey, I like that idea.

Here I am basing these off the contracts I'm working on, and I didn't even think of contract options! And here I am working one

[Kloreep]

Good idea, Togas. I think we should always charge extra somehow for XP though. How about we start with a base system of an extra upfront charge for each promotion a unit has, and switch to tracking actual XP, and/or giving rewards and fines for XP/promotions gained/lost, if desired by the client.

Edit: If we are going to offer both promotions and XP as systems, I think we should make it so that the price of a certain # of promotion is somewhere inbetween the XP required for that promotion and the XP required for the next level. By having the cost for flat promotions be in the middle, we can hopefully even out the differences in XP over time. Whereas if we charge the same amount for 2 promotions that we do for 5 XP, it will always be in the client's interest to be charged by promotion rather than by XP so that they are never charged for extra XP.

[polarnomad]

I think charging by XP rather than by promotion is going to become way too complicated, not only for us but also for customers.

[Togas]

I also think that charging for the xp of a unit (and tracking it) is going to be a headache. Are we going to have to keep a stash of units with low AND high xp to accomodate our clients' wishes. Some may want the best (most expensive) units, others may want our cheapest (expendable) units.

If we're going to bother with client's expecting experienced units, let's make it a contract option: They can pay a premium (10% of the contract clause, for example) for our "most experienced" units. If they rent 10 swordsmen, we'll send them our 10 best.

If they don't pay for the option, they get whatever 10 swordsmen we choose to send them.

--Togas

[Kloreep]

Originally posted by Togas
I also think that charging for the xp of a unit (and tracking it) is going to be a headache. Are we going to have to keep a stash of units with low AND high xp to accomodate our clients' wishes. Some may want the best (most expensive) units, others may want our cheapest (expendable) units.

Promotions carry the same problem, just also not with the same exactness. Should we find ourselves with a really elite army, then yes, we would need to build more units if a client is looking for cannon fodder.

Re: paying a premium, that would mean half the fee (5% of the contract fee) back if all these units were returned alive, correct? I need to look at our current scheme and see how much back that would be...

[inamirrordarkly]

If we're going to bother with client's expecting experienced units, let's make it a contract option: They can pay a premium (10% of the contract clause, for example) for our "most experienced" units. If they rent 10 swordsmen, we'll send them our 10 best.

If they don't pay for the option, they get whatever 10 swordsmen we choose to send them.

this seems to be the simplest way for experience to be handled and easiest for potential customers to understand.

[Kloreep]

Copying this over from the Blood Oath Horde Diplo thread:

Purchase should be fairly straightforward once we figure out a general cost we want to set for hammers. Especially since with workers, the cost of the experience doesn't need to be taken into account.

Rental is a different matter. How to value worker turns is a bit difficult... I think the easiest way would probably be to set a "lifespan" for a worker - for example, 50 turns - and have the cost per turn be a fraction of the cost to purchase a worker (for example with a 50 turn lifespan, 10 turns rental = worker purchase cost*10/50=worker purchase cost/5)

We could also just go with the pricing for military units, but I believe it is H/2 for 10 turns? 30 gold for 10 turns, or 3 gold per worker turn, seems a little high. With military units there is some cause for this high pricing as we may not get them back alive, but unless we're taking about a combat zone worker that will be building roads on the front, we can probably be quite confident we'll get the worker back, barring a violation of contract. Thus, I think we should let workers for rent a little cheaper - though only when we actually have workers to spare!

Overall, I think taking a fraction of the price we set for purchase is best, as this makes it clear to the client at what point they should give up the idea of rental and simply buy.

[Togas]

Before we get anyone's hopes up, I think it best that we quickly nail down the requirements for making deals with our civ and make them public so that we don't have to dissapoint our eager neighbors who are seeking to use our civ to their advantage.

PROPOSAL:

Before any contract for the use of our units can be signed, the following must occur:

Alphabet must be known for any deal involving an exchange of tech.

Currency must be known for any deal involving the exchange of gold.

Paper must be known for any deal involving the exchange of maps.

Additionally, if a deal involves the sale of units, an OPEN BORDER (Req. Writing) agreement must first be signed with the Mercenary Team.

There are no tech or border requirements for any deals involving the exchange of information/intelligence.

--Togas