Current state of merchant agents?

[shimmin]

Looking at the web page, I see the concept of computer-controlled merchants that handle much of the trade-route / commerce type stuff.

This is a neat idea.

To what extent has this concept been fleshed? At the moment, it appears you know what you want them to do but not how they are going to accomplish that. Is this an accurate assessment, and if it is, is this an area where ideas would be useful?

[Mark_Everson]

Hi shimmin:

Discussions and thoughts toward implementation would indeed be useful. Merchants are not far beyond what's already in the documentation. I don't know exactly what you've seen... but a search on "merchant" here at the forum should give you it all. (look in the 'Best Way...Suggestions Implemented' thread for how). Why don't you start with your thoughts right here, and we can link it to one of the econ threads.

Beyond whats in the docs the only idea I've had lately is that merchants might have contracts with cities that are entered into the turn before. I thought this concept would smooth things out a bit. Anyway, fire away, and I'll respond when I can. Thoughts on how they'd interface with the general econ framework would be valuable too.

Mark

[This message has been edited by Mark_Everson (edited October 13, 1999).]

[Yakopepper]

Im sorry for asking this but Ive gotten tired of looking, but where is the thread on the merchant agent? Ive got a few ideas but I perfer not to repeat anything and look foolish doing it?

Sir Mark Everson, one other thing, I havent heard anything about Wonders. Is there a reason? Or am I just blind?

Daniel
[This message has been edited by Yakopepper (edited October 14, 1999).]
[This message has been edited by Yakopepper (edited October 14, 1999).]

[Mark_Everson]

Daniel:

This Is the merchant thread . Pretty sad ain't it? The discussion on merchants that exists is in the Miscellaneous section of the Economic Model. If you open the link and scroll down a bit, you should get what little I have written up.

Wonders are planned to go in at least for scenario design. Probably real-world type wonders will be in the standard version of Clash also. I personally don't like silly ones like Leo's Workshop. If its a big issue for you and you want to push your case or make suggestions, just start a thread called wonders. Doing a search on "wonder" will probably net you all the little snippets of conversation on the topic that we've had from time to time.

[This message has been edited by Mark_Everson (edited December 07, 1999).]

[Yakopepper]

Thanks Sir Mark Everson.

Wondrers arent really a big issue for me, but for the sake of realism, they are essential. At least I mean the real 7 Wonders of the world. Not the "Sid Meier Wonders."

Since this is the Merchant thread, Ill stick to it. It's nice to not have to worry about trade, even though it extremely important in history.

Id like there to be a way to do what the nazis did to the allies in WWII. Try to isolate Britain by cutting off supplies via sinking merchant ships. If done during gameplay(if possible) would be an act of war and done only during war. Since you're the brains behind the game, maybe you could figure out howd this work.

I dont know how much of the trade realm the computer will control, but it should be optionized. Im just hoping the AI will be good enough to trust. Which, BTW, I havnt found yet in a game.

Thanks
Daniel

[Kull]

One other feature of the merchants/trade feature are links to intelligence gathering and tariffs on trade. The Diplomacy model contains some general thoughts on this, but the details are still sadly lacking (looking at self in mirror!)
http://apolyton.net/forums/Forum21/HTML/000106.html

[shimmin]

I am drawing a merchant-agent proposad based on the following guidelines. Expect to see it sometime this weekend.

1) Since every is computer-controlled and therefore eats up clock cycles, what they do should be simple.
2) This goes doubly so, since for the most part, the player does not directly see their mechanics, only their effects.
3) The vast majority of merchants will be computer controlled (player influenceable, but not controllable). If an urgent need arises, however, players should be able to foot a mildly hefty bill to create merchants they can control directly.
4) Despite being simple, the merchant model should be general enough to accomodate features such as:

trade routes and triangular trade
effects of technology and infrastructure
gov't influence -- taxes, tariffs, blockades, embargoes, bans
criminal elements -- piracy, smuggling, black markets

5) The merchants should also have a general enough to be used as quartermasters, distributors, and generally any activity that involves getting goods from where they are to where they should be.

These are the values I'm trying to incorporate, and what I gathered from the web page and the overall philosophy I'm getting from the Clash staff. Is there a task the merchants need to perform that I'm missing? Something you feel is unnecessary?

[Mark_Everson]

shimmin:

Looks Great. I can't think of anything really important to add. The only minor role you missed is merchants as bankers, esp lenders to governments before modern times.

Please just post the first draft when you have one, so that if I've not mentioned something important that we catch it b4 you waste a lot of effort.

Lookin' Good,

Mark

[Lord God Jinnai]

I know this was discussed earlier but merchants should be carriers of diseases and also could sell information on other countries.

Also there should be a type of goods production where certain places produce certain items and may need others (import and export)

[Mark_Everson]

LGJ:

You need to read the economy model . The rare goods you talk about that involve merchants are called specials. We'll probably have about 20 of them varying from tin in ancient times to oil, aluminum, and uranium in modern times.

[Lord God Jinnai]

I meant more for luxuries and finished goods. Though those are important also.

[Mark_Everson]

There are luxuries and finished goods among them. The list in detail is TBD. But I think there are interesting tie-ins between the Tech model, finished-goods specials, and merchants that we should look into. For example the first civ in an area that gets to metallurgy 15% might result in one province specializing in metalwares. In game terms That province would automatically get the ability to produce the Special metalwares. The merchants based there would now obtain an advantage because their home base has something desirable to export.

This connection would benefit the merchant model, by making the player able to deliver to his merchants a competitive advantage. It would also benefit the Tech model since there would be some interest in achieving lots of little goals connected to specials. You'd get a message something like: "because of our technological progress, Paris has developed as a new center for producing metalwares".

What do you guys think?

[Yakopepper]

I dont think it should always be the first civ to develop metallurgy should earn a providence specializing in metalwares. It doesnt follow history. Maybe have each of the first 3 civs HAVE a chance to develope the specialty, but only one would come out with it.

Daniel

[shimmin]

A basic merchant model.

At the broadest level, merchants have four attributes.
1. An owner
2. A cultural profile
3. An amount of cash
4. A list of trade routes

The "owner" is simply whoever gets the merchant's profits (or absorbs their losses). This will almost always be the entity that created the merchant in the first place.

The cultural profile determines the merchant's stomach for risk and creativity, as well as their likelihood of aiding tech diffusion.

The cash is the merchant's liquid assets.

The trade routes are the most complex part. They are how the merchant makes money.

I. Merchant creation
Purchasing goods in one locale, paying for their transportation over long distances, and then hoping they can be sold at a profit requires a fair amount of capital. In short, someone must be able to gather money together and be willing to take a risk with it.

The people of a province can take the initiative to build a merchant just like they could build a schoolhouse or improve their agricultural capacity. In this case, the province's populace is effectively the owner of the merchant, and the merchant has that province's cultural profile The effectiveness of these merchants is based on the province's PCI and technology. Using the current proposed tech tree:
1. Currency: trade becomes possible. Wealthy individuals may risk their own assets. Populace can build merchants; these start out with half the province's PCI in cash (times some multiple).
2. Banking: the idea of loaning money. People willing to take risk obtain loans to start merchanting. Poulace-built merchants start with the province's PCI in cash (times the multiple).
3. Corporation: large numbers of small investments can be focused into colossal undertakings. Populace-bulit merchants start with twixe the PCI in cash (again, times the multiple).

Player-built merchants:
The player can foot the bill for merchant creation, with whatever penalties are normally assessed on the purchase price for player rather than populace building of infrastructure. The player's treasury is now the owner of the merchant. These merchants start with no cash. Instead, the player directly transfers money from the treasury to the new merchant for starting capital.

The cultural profile for player-created merchants is that of whatever province the player creates the merchant in.

(Under economic systems that completely ban private enterprise, this will be the only way to make new merchants. Such merchants still don't require extensive player control after the initial creation. In contrast to populace-created merchants, however, they will obey direct orders from the player.)

II. Trade routes

Each time the agent gets to think, it identifies a special available in great excess in its home province, or one not available but useful in its home province. If it fails to find one here, it considers other provinces in its civ before giving up.

Once a province and a good are chosen, it generates a list of provinces (based on the knowlege of its home civ) where the good is expensive (if dealing with a special found in the home province) or available (if demanded in the home province). It will set up a trial trade route path to as many of these as is clock-feasible. (Two or three will probably be OK, if you use something like A*. A* is especially nice since it can automatically empoy differing cost functions for each step.) The cost functions will depend at the very least on terrain and transportation technologies, but I really don't want to draw up a list until you decide whether you like this method or want something more abstract that doesn't use specific trade paths. This method gives the trade route a specific path, which gives the player huge numbers of ways to affect trade without controlling it, such as:
a) security -- when traveling far from garrisoned cities, or through civs that have poor law and order, the merchant must hire an armed escort to protect the goods to protect from highwaymen, pirates, etc.
b) infrastructure -- no nonsense of roads producing trade. Here, roads are good b/c merchants use them (they decrease their cost function), and so it is less expensive for them to get specials in and out of your cities.
c) law -- charge a tarriff, and you get a cut of the trade going through your civ into your treasury, increasing the merchant's cost function. Of course, merchants will try to go around you, but sometimes, they can't. On the other hand, you could subsidize a trade, or more severely, ban it. (This won't make the trade impossible, it will just add a heft cost function to carrying it through your civ, increasing with the effectiveness of your law enforcement and decreasing with the corruption of your officials.)
d. warfare -- set up a siege or blockade, and the merchants' cost function goes up quite a bit due to the need for smuggling it through.

After finding a path, the merchant calculates two numbers
1) the unit startup cost of the route -- based on the type(s) of transport (physical and social) needed to be paid as one-time costs.
2) the unit proifitability of the route (price difference between the supplier and customer provinces, plus ongoing security wages and bribes), divided by the amount of time the trip take. If there exists a commodity that can be traded in the return direction, its price difference will be added to the forwards price difference in this calculation.

This would be the point to try to find a triangular trade route, if no return commodity exists and clock cycles permit.

Based on the start-up costs, the profitablity (essentially a pay-back rate), and its cultural profile, the merchant picks a trade route (if any) to buy into. It pays the startup costs (times 1.5 or so -- see below), and thereafter, gets the pay-back rate paid into its account. I don't know how often you want to reinspect the path to take advantage of new infrastructure or check for interruption by warfare. Changes in commodity prices should be checked every turn simply because that pays into the merchant's account and because it's easy.

III. Merchants and their bank accounts

The merchant's cultural preferences dictate what they do with the money that accumulates in their account -- how much they reinvest and how much goes to the owner. Reinvestment can take one of two forms. Either they can expand an existing trade (by paying more startup cost to increase the capacity of their route, increasing their profit by a similar factor). Small increases should have some discount over large ones. Let's say that if the merchant wants to increase a route's capacity by more than 50% in one turn they pay the same 1.5 penalty they did on route startup. Otherwise, they can save up money, and then scout out a second route to invest in.

IV. What's missing
This is rough right now. The trade route thing is the biggest question I have right now -- do you want the additional flavor that comes with the trade routes have set paths, or do you want abstract routes? Quartermasters are an easy modification -- rather than deal in specials, they deal in food and resources, and their "home province" is an army (also, they _must_ find a route -- their "cultural profile" essentially says pay as little as possible, but pay what you have to.)

Essentially, my question at this point is: considering that this is largely a computer-controlled activity, is the flavor that comes from trade routes having exact paths worth the complexity?

[Mark_Everson]

Hi shimmin:

Looks Reeel good to me.

I personally like using an actual route rather than a more abstract system. Its especially important during warfare when supplies of strategic specials might be needed by one side. Since we already have the Map AI required for the military stuff, IMO the extra clocks needed for the merchants shouldn't be too bad. Also one can always change the "hunting time interval" for new routes if its a problem.

One other possibility for the tech tie-in is to have a base tech Commerce (LGJ are you listening in?) and have a merchant's efficiency track that. That'd make it more fluid than the big jumps you have.

Great Work,

Mark