Market price collapse

[semaj]

Hey, so I'm sure this is old news to everyone but me, but I don't use the market very often any more (direct trade is about a million times better), so I only just noticed that prices have absolutely collapsed compared to a couple weeks ago. In my neck of the woods, jewelry used to go for 20-22 -- right now a couple of people are selling for as low as 8!

I assume this is due to the dramatic increase of market range, since that's the only thing I could think of that might have caused it, and maybe my neighborhood was way overpriced, but shouldn't prices start creeping up fairly soon? Or do you guys think this is due to the increase of new players, and therefore the prices are going to stay down?

[Tahngarth]

the prices should stabilise at cost or just above, cost for jewelry is 9 per so selling at 8 means people must be desperate for bread - probably to support monument mining.

In the central nomes most goods are getting towards 9-10 per for lux and 3-5 per for raw. Gold is 3 per with lots available for example.

[Rama-Seph]

Increase in market range is already old news, and the new market reality actually started before that...speculation has been active whether it represents deflation (lack of bread to keep the market going) or just more competition (as all cities develop, capacity to produce luxuries increases rapidly). My own take is that it's a combination of market range (in my area, the lowest prices are frequently only on one side or the other, not everywhere), lack of bread (armies have increased consumption a lot) and old-fashioned cutthroat pricing.

In any case, there is no indication that it will reverse itself. It may still be getting worse. Only time will tell.

[sakasiru]

I think it´s partly because many players have a third city already and produce much of their needed wares themselves. For needed ressources, most have off market trading partners.
In addition to that, many players in the inner nomes had hit the level 11 cap before military was implemented and had stockpiled large amounts of everything but didn´t need much, so noone needed to buy stuff.
Personally, I think that the increased market range also decreased the price, since the competition is much larger now.

Market prices here around 1S are a joke. I don´t bother to put up anything and trade 1:1 what I want with others. I´m just trying to make some bread for my limesone production right now, but for 5 bread a stone it´s hardly worth it :(

[iCat]

Market prices have been creeping downwards for weeks. There was a dip just before military was implemented followed by a slight rise afterwards, but the general trend has been downwards pretty much since the beginning. I agree that it ought to stabilize just above cost but I think it might drop below cost while there is a high demand for bread and people have materials stockpiled.

For me it's fast approaching the point where it's more cost effective to only produce the materials I need and trade privately for anything else because there's no longer any profit to be had at the market. Considering the tiny margins on market sales, 10% of the potential net profit paid upfront in fees is too steep.

[Hoborg]

Without specialties and with cities on emeralds and gold, jewelry costs 7.2 bread to produce, not 9. With the 10% market fee, selling at 8 bread per unit is breaking exactly even, which means the player might as well be producing bread... unless of course their emerald city is specializing in emeralds and their gold city is specializing in gold. If they are specializing at 8% increased production in each, then one unit of jewelry costs them 6.844 bread to produce, which means they could be profitting 0.356 bread per unit.

That's not great but it's better than 0, which is theoretically where the market would stabilize without specialties given that trade outside the market is so easy.

On the other hand, prices haven't fallen that far where my cities are and yet people still choose to produce clay and reed and sell it below cost (specialties excluded) often enough that I rarely have to produce clay or reed anymore. Also, people regularly put up buy orders for bricks, pots, and baskets above cost + market fee, so maybe some people are just weird?

[CppThis]

Jewelry could potentially crash if the local producers are running at huge bread deficits and suddenly find themselves unable to cover costs. For what its worth, its going for around 12 units here in the north 20s.

[Beamup]

The more worrying thing is not prices, really - so long as everything drops in tandem, the relative prices remain the same. Which means that as long as prices stay above what you can make by baking bread, the only thing really impacted is the ability to obtain actual *bread* from the market.

The really bad thing is that nobody's buying anything. It's unclear to me why all of a sudden nobody needs any goods, but it does seem to be the case.

For some specific numbers, up until this week I was routinely selling 1500+ units of bronze/leather/cedar a day. In the past three days combined, 400. At lowball prices. Counting limestone.

[CppThis]

For some specific numbers, up until this week I was routinely selling 1500+ units of bronze/leather/cedar a day. In the past three days combined, 400. At lowball prices. Counting limestone.

I'm guessing four things conspired to tank the market:

1. The rush for third cities is over, so demand spiked but is going back down as people return to palace upgrades, which are heavy on bricks baskets and pots (which incidentally have gone up in my neck of the woods). Plus we're getting to the point where the basic goods cost more than lux, hence that becomes the new bottleneck and people focus on it.

2. Military turned out to be a bust, everyone stockpiled thinking it would be a huge luxmat drain but it turns out its actually an even bigger bread drain--so everyone has vast piles of bronze/leather/cedar and nothing to do with it. I personally have enough to build both my army and my fleet like 12 times over and I'm small potatoes compared to the top 50.

3. Cascading failure. A specced level 8+ jewelry city with 0 bread production wont last long at all if people stop buying their stuff, hence time to dump it at silly prices in an attempt to scrap together enough bread to patch things up.

4. Idiots who undercut everyone because they lack patience.

[King Faticus]

two days ago I bought all the bread priced at 4 per off the market.. twice in the same day......


I managed to get some 15,000 bricks.... now what happened after I wiped the lower prices off?
increased demand should increase price right? nope.... they put even more up for 4 bread per.. I couldn't afford it all.... :o

I guess they were all so starved for bread they they were willing to offer more at 4 per hoping I would buy it again o_0 :eek:


I almost felt like i was feeding starved goldfish :o :D

[lynnk]

A lot of people do not need to sell things for bread to survive.... they make enough bread to feed their workers - and they cannot afford to pay for things on the market because their wares do not sell - or they do not have the time to buy in batches of 50 or 10 - or 100 when it comes to new cities or higher palaces... these people are not that affected by the market plummet...

However - the people who were relying on the markets for their bread to survive by having high production of resources and produce to sell on the market have all started their second and third cities now and so have no need to buy nearly so much - but they need to sell so much more....

This is the problem;)

[King Faticus]

uhh I bake all of my bread and I bought 15,000 bricks.... :eek:

also when I do sell my oil yes it is cheap.. but everything else is just as cheap o_0
it's not like Im making 4 bread per oil and saving for 20 bread kohl

[lynnk]

uhh I bake all of my bread and I bought 15,000 bricks.... :eek:

also when I do sell my oil yes it is cheap.. but everything else is just as cheap o_0
it's not like Im making 4 bread per oil and saving for 20 bread kohl

However - the people who were relying on the markets for their bread to survive by having high production of resources and produce to sell on the market have all started their second and third cities now and so have no need to buy nearly so much - but they need to sell so much more....

This is the problem;)