Insane bartering rates

[alpha123]

After playing one game for a while (usually 30+ minutes), the bartering rates at the market begin to go a little crazy. This has happened to me several times, from Alpha 11 to SVN r12988.

See ​http://i.imgur.com/gEoTw.png

[Erik Johansson]

That doesn't look too insane to me, especially if your opponent uses bartering as well, as the numbers change depending on what barters you and the other players do. (It does look like at least one person in that game made some bad deals though :P ) The numbers look fine to me on their own, but depending on the "sequence" I guess at least some of them could be a bit suspicious, so if it happens again you can attach the commands.txt for the match so someone can take a look at it.

[alpha123]

Right, I forgot to mention I hadn't bartered at all at the time of those screenshots. I never knew what other players bartered affected each other's bartering rates. That seems very surprising.

I was playing AegisBot, which can barter but isn't very smart about it. :P That probably had something to do with it. Still, I'm surprised 100 food for over 800 wood looks fine to you.

Thanks for the info feneur. I guess I misunderstood how bartering works. The current behavior seems confusing, IMO.

[Jonathan Waller]

Since this is by design I am closing the ticket, if you find that this is not caused by the AI using inadvisable bartering feel free to re-open the ticket. I quite like the way that bartering is global, you can gain an advantage if you have a surplus of a resource that other people want.

[Kieran P]

The bartering rates are affected by everyone. Basically, someone (AegisBot) must have sold a ton of wood, making wood very very cheap (hence the 100 food for 800 wood). However, you'll also see that you can't turn around and use wood to buy anything else (100 wood for 1 food/stone/iron). So it balances out in that you can exchange one for the other perfectly. I think this gives the game quite an interesting aspect to it. An opponent can flood the market with wood and kill someones trading...

[alpha123]

Sorry. I didn't understand that this was intended. Yes, Aegis sold a ton of wood. The ticket's invalid.

I actually do like this behavior. It does add an extra strategic aspect to crush other people's bartering, especially if you're someone like quantumstate and have a ton of extra resources. :P