Market phase

Hi Hodgymbob,

I have been thinking about the underlying mechanic of "trading" within games recently so your question caught my eye right away. Based on your description, would the following idea work?

Assuming players take turns, perhaps the current player could make an offer that states what they have and the minimum they would consider as a fair exchange. For example, "I have 3 cows and 2 chickens for trade; I will not accept any offer that does not include at least 1 pig and 1 talking horse". Each other player then considers what they would offer in exchange for a few seconds and then the remaining players all reaveal their offers at the same time. The current player can then accept any offer on the table or reject them all. This mechanic would probalby require some kind of token or object to represent the various resources in the game and some way to keep offers secret until they are revealed. This may also limit trading to just those things that have physical representation in the game.

On the plus side, the trade phase should move quickly and there is a little bit of tension as you try to decide how much to offer without overpaying for the resources or whether it is important to your strategy that obtain the resources yourself or prevent other players from getting them.

To take it one step further, perhaps each kingdom has a unique resource that can only be obtained by other players through trade?

Good luck with your design!

One thing you may want to consider is that if you prevent players from taking a worse trade, you will be fighting against your goal of allowing players to put a trade embargo on a leading player. I have no idea how resource acquisition works in your game, but in many games of Catan I'm involved in, the player about to win has most resource production available, and thus would be able to offer 5-6 cards for one at the end of the game to get the one resource she needs to win. If this becomes true in your game, lead players can shut down the trade market, since they can beat most trade offers on the table, but players will not want to trade with the leader.

I also don't view players having the option of making uneven trades as a bad thing. Again drawing from Catan, I've played in plenty of games where I've sitting in second, and been willing to trade 4 to 1 to a player in last place, just so that he can steal longest road from the leader and prolong the game. Although the trade makes little economic sense in isolation, it is a shrewd strategic move, and IMHO it should be allowed.

From the very scant details you've provided, it sounds like you're trying to lawyer against poor gamesmanship. While I think a certain degree of this is wise, don't let the rules get in the way of people having a good time. Some people actually have more fun making "stupid" moves for the sake of doing something they perceive as fun. If players insist on creating a negative play environment, then they probably shouldn't be playing games in the first place, and those around them will likely not want to keep playing either.

Just my $0.02. Happy gaming.

Note that the offers aren't totally ordered: 3 cows and 2 chickens are in reality surely more than 1 cow and 4 chicken, but you may want to see them as incomparable. An offer of 3 cows and 4 chickens is strictly better than both, but quite often you'll see incomparable offers. This leaves some room for the current player's decisions and at the same allows for interesting tactical decisions by the others.

A bigger example: Let the offers be

• A: 3 cows and 2 chickens
• B: 3 cows and 4 chickens
• C: 1 mouse

The current player is not allowed to take offer A since it's dominated by B, but they're allowed to take offer C since it's not dominated by any other (even if the mouse was totally worthless). This may or may not work, depending on the number of resource kinds in the game. In case it doesn't, I'm having some ideas...

For example, there could be a second round and the current player could choose what players can participate. Each participating player could raise their bid and then simultaneously reveal it. More participants are generally better for the current player, but excluding some players could be the way in case of some hostilities.