During the Industrial Revolution, an unprecedented amount of products, manufactured at never-before-seen efficiency and speed in high-tech factories, flooded the global market. The influx of manufactured goods on the economy led to the opening of deeper and larger markets, trade networks, communication, and capitalism across the world. Deepening trade networks allowed access to these wider markets, and formed an essential role in the transformation into the modern era. Our focus today will be how to realistically simulate trading in Gilded Destiny.
Trade has been one of the main engines for economies throughout human history, not to mention the exchange of ideas flowing along trade routes. The richness offered by trade networks far exceeds an exchange between goods and money—leading to the rise and fall of nations, exposure to new ideas and philosophies, the adoption of new technology, and stoking human curiosity. On the transactional side, the exchange of money for trade goods is determined by market forces such as supply and demand. As merchants seek to sell their goods, if a product sells very well, they will attempt to raise prices. However, consumers have a limit on how much they will spent. Thus the market equilibrium plays a crucial role in the flow of trade. With these considerations in mind, we are designing Gilded Destiny to be as realistic as possible
Price
To drive our industrial powerhouse, we often want the cheapest supply of goods and materials, yet want to sell our own at the highest price on the world market. As we discussed above, the market equilibrium will determine our prices at which we buy or sell goods and materials. We should note that several things can determine this equilibrium. In a free market, consumer demand and market supply will determine supply by the invisible hand of the market. However, if you are an iron-fisted ruler controlling every aspect of your economy, your fist can set the price that your economy is willing to pay for a particular good—then supply will regulate itself accordingly.
In addition, the price of a particular good or material can vary across the globe. For example, your country may have a high naturally occurring supply of coal. Therefore, coal may be very inexpensive in your country, as you are able to extract and use it easily and cheaply. However, a neighboring country may have no naturally occurring coal and will have to import its supply. Therefore, as a coal-rich country, you may have low domestic (or "local") prices but the international price is higher. As a result, your country would be incentivized to export coal and make a profit, yet disincentivized to import coal at a higher price. Buyers will always be willing to pay their province's domestic price for goods and materials.
Image caption: If the actual price exceeds the base price by a certain percentage, it will be displayed in red.
No matter where the goods come from, buyers always buy them at the local price of their province. For example, Lumber in Province A costs £10, while Lumber in Province B costs £7, so factories in Province A buy Lumber in Province B. Due to the higher price in Province A, Province B could further benefit from to Province A at a higher price than just selling internally within their local province.
Image caption: The same product has different prices in different provinces
Trade Costs
Trading in Gilded Destiny can largely be thought of as a series of point-to-point transactions that are determined by various factors, mainly logistics costs and import/export tariffs which have an effect on price. Regarding price of a commodity, when trading with other provinces, market transactions will be settled at the local price of the buyer's province. The local price will be determined by various factors, including supply and demand. Any particular region on the map may be endowed with significant natural resources or be a manufacturing hub for a specialized commodity. For example, in a province that is a large producer of leather, then price would be higher all units of leather were sold (indicating higher demand). However, if a significant amount of leather remains unsold in the province, then the price would fall. This reflects the effect that demand and supply have on price. Each commodity has a base price in the game, which will then be influenced by market forces and trade costs.
From the seller's point of view, they seek to minimize added costs arising from tariffs and logistics. Therefore, the seller will usually try to prioritize domestic or short distance trade, rather than long distance, international trade. Of course, once your logistics network is robust enough, to the point that long-haul logistics costs are low, the world market will open up to you. In game, you can level-up your logistics network and trade reach by lowering tariff rates, upgrading logistics buildings, building railways, and upgrading sea transport. Or perhaps, you wish to protect your domestic economy from outside competition; in this case, you can erect trade barriers, such as higher taxes, embargoes, or trade negotiations.
Trade Priority
Let's discuss exactly how buyers find the items they want to buy.
Since there is no concept of a market process in the game, players will not directly dictate where goods are sold. All goods will circulate around the world according to a mechanism we will call "Trade Priority." Since Trade in Gilded Destiny does not incorporate a market process for buyers to haggle on price, we have created the concept of "Trade Priority." Trade Priority is an in-game mechanism that will dictate which markets have first access to your goods. Trade Priority is relative to each country and determined by your own production, economics, geopolitics, and logistics. Generally, buyers within your country have first access, and then buyers based on various factors, namely local price, logistics costs, tariffs and duties, and country ranking.
The Trade Priority of a specific province or country, relative to your own sellers, will be determined by several factors—first and foremost, by price. The price of a good, with all added costs included will ultimately determine where a commodity is sold. In the event that the final settlement price of an item would be the same for two countries, the country with the higher ranking will have priority and receive the chance to buy your goods before the other lower ranked country. In essence, country ranking will be a tiebreaker.
This may mean that in some instances, selling internationally may actually be more lucrative than selling to even a neighboring province, even when taking into account logistics costs and tariffs. Local prices will vary among your provinces (and among foreign provinces within other countries); the in-game trade system will automatically sell goods where they will earn the most profit. This may be rare in practice, however, it highlights the Trade system's main operating principle—to buy/sell goods at the best price.
In practice, this means that countries with more robust logistics networks will be able to send their goods internationally first and with the lowest costs. Therefore, buyers will naturally gravitate towards sellers offering goods at the lowest costs. As a result, typically this means that buyers and sellers within stronger countries will have greater access to goods from the international market, reflecting real-world advantages that military might, robust logistics systems, and political strength carry when it comes to trade.
Example: Champagne Production
The Department of Marne in France is a successful and well-known producer of Champagne. A local seller wishes to sell some freshly bottled champagne to the highest bidder.
The local price of Champagne in Marne is $5.00. This represents a base price plus local demand, as there would be no significant transport costs.
The local price of Champagne in Paris is $7.00. This represents the base price plus costs of transporting bottles to buyers in Paris. The price also reflects that local demand for Champagne is higher, as supply is also limited. Since the two provinces (in France, they are technically known as "Departments," yet for consistency, we will call them "provinces" in Gilded Destiny) are within the same country, no tariffs are collected.
The local price of Champagne in London is $10.00. This represents the base price, plus costs of transporting bottles to buyers in London and the price of customs and tariffs costs upon entry into the British Empire. Also reflected in this price is the local demand, which is also high due to there being no local suppliers of Champagne.
Above, we have considered the purchase price of Champagne in these various regions, which reflects local supply and demand pressures and increase due to added costs. Below, we will consider the profit received by the seller when selling to each region.
Selling within the local province, " the Department of Marne," champagne producers will receive $5.00, since there is no real logistics costs or trade costs.
Selling to a province within the same country, but more distant, Paris, champagne producers will receive $6.00. This reflects the local price of "$7.00" minus the logistics costs, which in this case are $1.00 for rail transport to Paris. Therefore, by selling to Paris, champagne producers will make a greater profit.
Selling to a city/province in another country, "London," champagne producers will also receive $6.00. In this case, the local price of $10.00 will include $1.50 in tariffs and $2.50 in logistics costs, resulting in a total $4.00 of trade costs. Therefore, the champagne producers would receive $6.00 for selling to London.
In the unique case outlined above, where selling to two areas would yield the same price, the area that belongs to the country with the highest global ranking will have access to the commodity (in this case, champagne) first. In the present example, champagne would be first sold to London, as the seller would receive the highest price. Once the buyers in London are satisfied, then buyers in Paris would be able to buy champagne. And finally, any local buyers in the Department of Marne would have access to buy champagne on the market once buyers in Paris are satisfied.
Image caption: The number one country in the world also has the highest trade priority, such as the United Kingdom
What Can You Do?
We have discussed how trade happens in the game. Now, let's discuss how you can influence and create trade?
Trade Agreements
Trade agreements are the intersection of diplomacy and trade. We will discuss this in greater detail in a future Dev Diary on Diplomacy. The two countries that signed the trade agreement will exempt each other from all tariffs—import and export tariffs on all goods. If used wisely, your people and industries can buy cheaper goods and raw materials, thereby boosting the domestic economy. However, the opposite may also occur in mismatched trade agreements, where your country ends up supporting and benefiting the trade partner, without reaping any benefits. Of course, a trade agreement will cost you some tariff revenue. However, usually the benefits outweigh the disadvantages, and these lost revenues will be compensated elsewhere such as increased trade volume.
Image caption: All countries with which you have signed trade agreements will be displayed in the trade interface for easy viewing
Diplomatic Trade Instruments
You can use diplomatic instruments against any country, some of which are related to trade, such as adjusting tariffs and embargoes. Adjusting a tariff on another country, is not commodity-specific, so all goods from that country will be affected by a higher or lower tariff. An embargo, by contrast, can be seen as a harsher trade instrument—directly prohibiting all trade with another country. On the one hand, an embargo can help you protect domestic industries from cheap foreign industrial products. Yet, on the other hand, it can prevent domestic goods from always being bought by more powerful countries, resulting in the needs of your people not being met (think of the Champagne example above).
Correspondingly, other countries may also use the same trade-related diplomacy against you.
Image caption: These are your diplomatic actions
Image caption: These are the diplomatic actions of other countries towards you
Excise and Customs Duties
Consumption tax and tariff are the intersection of the trading system and the financial system. Most of the time, by adjusting the settings of these two taxes that are closely related to commodities, you can control the macro flow of a commodity. For different commodities, you can decide whether to impose consumption tax on them and adjust the tax rate uniformly. Consumption tax will act on the purchase behavior of the corresponding commodity in the country. That is to say, the higher the consumption tax, the more difficult it is for the corresponding commodity to be sold in the country, no matter where it comes from. You can suppress the circulation of a commodity in your country through consumption tax. Tariffs only apply to international trade, and for each type of goods, you can choose one of three tax brackets: Priority Export, General Farm, and Priority Import. The default option is a standard tax rate that depends on the trade policy you are currently adopting. For example, under a trade protection policy, the import tariff for this option will be lower than the export tariff. The "Priority Export" option will set higher export tariffs and lower import tariffs vis-a-vis the "Normal" option. The "Priority Import" will set higher import tariffs and lower export tariffs. High Import Tariffs will prevent goods from other countries from flowing into your country, and high Export Tariffs will prevent domestically produced goods from flowing to other countries.
National Reserves
You can specify to reserve a certain amount of goods to put in your own treasury. While building a reserve, players can specify the amount of goods to be stocked and the maximum acceptable purchase price. Once established, the AI will manage the acquisition of goods for the reserve. Once the reserve exceeds the specified amount, the AI will start selling excess goods. These stockpiled goods will be used for some of your country's expenses, such as military supplies, building buildings, etc. The reserve quantity and acceptable price can be adjusted at any time, and you can adjust them at any time according to present needs. The AI will purchase items based on the price of the item in your capital province, so if the price of the item in the capital exceeds the maximum acceptable price you set, you will not be able to buy the item. Furthermore, the option to buy the item when the price is low and sell it after the price increases is also possible.
Image caption: The number in the upper right corner is your current actual reserve quantity, and the number under the slider is the target quantity you set
Trade information
Finally, a system with such a huge amount of information requires a well-designed interface to present enough data to allow real-time dynamics of Trade. In the Trade interface, you can view the trade transactions taking place in your country. You will see several columns for each row (commodity/item):
Price: This is the average unit price of the item in your country, calculated from the local unit price in each province
Demand: This is the total demand for the item in your country, but not all needs can be met
Production: This is the total output of the item in your country. However, note that not all items will be able to find a suitable buyer.
Import: This is the quantity of the commodity that your country imports. It is beneficial to import when there is a large amount of unmet domestic demand.
Export: This is the amount your country exports of the item. It is often advantageous to export after your domestic output is saturated.
Unsold: This is the quantity of the item produced domestically that remains unsold. A significant quantity of unsold items will likely cause the domestic price of the item to drop.
Unsatisfied: This is the amount of unmet demand for the item in your country. If buildings cannot buy enough raw materials, then their efficiency will be greatly reduced. If people cannot buy daily necessities such as food and clothing, then their happiness will be greatly reduced. You should strive to keep this value as low as possible.
Reserve: This is the amount of the item you currently have in your national reserves.
Note: The data present on the interface reflects the trade that occurred during the previous week in the game, not the real-time data. In addition, you can also sort each column of data, making it easier to understand the current market situation.
Thank you for reading our latest Dev Diary. If you have any questions or comments, please let us know. Be on the lookout for more Gilded Destiny Dev Diaries!
We're excited to announce the release of Update 01 for Flame Keeper! This update brings a host of new features, improvements, and bug fixes to the game. Here's a rundown of what's new:
Players can select a random perk after each lamp charge
Perks window displays after lamp charged
Active perk icons are visible under HP bar
Weapons
Added 9 new weapons dropping from totems and some enemies
Three groups of weapons, each with its own effect on the last combo hit
Each weapon type overrides basic melee attack and changes speed, damage, and range
The forge building in the village can be upgraded to unlock new weapon drops
Added weapon throwing (hold strong attack button)
Other
Enemies now respawn after the player gains a perk
Modified and wrapped the stamina bar around Ignis for better visibility
Added two additional difficulty levels
Made small translation tweaks
Added widescreen support
Added the ability to run the game in the background
Improved dropped item visibility
Improved opened totems FX (old ones were too intense and blocked visibility)
Decreased the intro volume
Fixed various bugs, including Vulpis dropping less energy than collected, desynchronized platforms preventing walking through wind zone, and missing textures on some assets
We hope you enjoy the new features and improvements in Update 01! As always, we appreciate your feedback and support. If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to join our Discord server, and we'll be happy to assist you.
Over the past few months, we have received a ton of fantastic feedback and suggestions from our community. Today, we would like to share some of the development progress and updates we have made with Back to the Dawn!
Sizzling New Kitchen Minigames!
Experience a variety of minigames in the kitchen! Image credits: FlaglerLive
We have heard your desire for more minigames and activities during the day, and we've got you covered! We are introducing brand new kitchen activities! Like the laundry room, the kitchen will be an additional work option for you to experience prison jobs during the day.
There are a wide variety of minigames in the kitchen to experience, such as washing dishes, peeling potatoes and pickling cucumbers that can be played via dice rolls! If you have enough strength stats, you can even try your hand at transporting ingredients.
Prepare meals for your fellow inmates!
In addition, we are currently developing cooking mini games for the kitchen, where you can cook over a dozen types of food! Our goal is to capture the feeling of excitement as you prepare various dishes during a prison mealtime to feed your fellow inmates. To achieve this, we are currently designing various types of mini-games from the ground up to let you immerse yourselves into roleplaying as a prison cook!
However, if you thought you would get a free meal from working in the kitchen, think again! Prisoners must be careful not to get caught stealing or cheating by the watchful chef, or face the consequences. If you are willing to take the risk, there are secret opportunities for you to sneak into the kitchen cellar to steal food, or who knows, you might even discover a new escape path in the kitchen.🤫
Achievements Galore!
Achievements unlocked!
We have heard your feedback and we're excited to share that we are currently working to include achievements in the game!
As achievement hunters ourselves, we understand how much replayability achievements can add to a game. And with multiple endings in Back to the Dawn, we want to add loads of fun easter eggs for you to discover through our achievements!
If you have any creative ideas for achievements, feel free to share them in the comments below!
We hope you enjoyed this sneak peek into the development progress of Back to the Dawn! We can't wait to share more about the game in the coming months. Get ready to plot your escape out of prison and navigate your way to freedom!
Be sure to follow our social media accounts to stay up-to-date on all the latest news and announcements. And if you haven't already, add Back to the Dawn to your Steam wishlist to be the first to know when the game is released!
Hey Swordsmen, welcome back to the world of Wandering Sword!
Over the past few months, we have received a ton of great feedback and suggestions from all of you. Today, we would like to share some of the development progress and updates we have made with Wandering Sword!
Controller Support
Testing out our controller configuration!
Controller support was one of the highest requested features that we received when we released our demo in February. Since then, we have been hard at work optimizing the control layout based on your feedback, and we are happy to announce that we have recently completed our initial gamepad configuration!
Our priority is to ensure that you have a satisfying gaming experience, and that starts with providing intuitive control schemes that take full advantage of each gamepad's unique capabilities! And yes, we are including compatibility with popular gamepad options such as Playstation and Xbox controllers, so that you can choose your preferred controllers to use!
User Interface Improvements
We believe that having an easy to use and visually pleasing user interface (UI) is a crucial aspect of game development, as it can greatly enhance your gameplay experience. Therefore, one of our priorities was improving on the feedback that we received from our demo, where some players found the UI colors to be too muted which made the text difficult to read. To address this concern, we decided to conduct a major overhaul and redesign of our UI!
Old User Interface
New User Interface (Work in Progress!)
To make our new UI more visually appealing and easy to navigate, we paid attention to every detail in the design process, from selecting new color palettes to rethinking the placement of icons and text boxes. As a result, our new UI has more vibrant colors which helps to give contrast to the text and improves readability. This is still a work in progress and we would love to hear your thoughts on our new UI, so please do share your feedback in the comments below!
Addition of New Storyline Endings
Where will your choices in Wandering Sword take you?
One of our primary goals in developing Wandering Sword’s story was to provide a unique experience with each playthrough. As such, we have added more endings to our main storyline, providing players with even more paths to explore and outcomes to uncover! We want players to feel as though their choices in the game have real consequences, and that they can alter the outcome of the story. These new endings will not only enhance the replayability of the game, but they also add depth and complexity to the overall narrative.
In addition, we are currently working on exclusive side quests for party members, for you to engage with and learn more about their backstories and martial arts journey! We want to avoid having party members feel like generic fighting characters, as our goal is to make each party member feel like a unique character for players to form an emotional connection with as you make your way through the story.
We recently expanded our team to develop these exciting new features and complete the development of Wandering Sword. The team is extremely passionate about the game, and we are always discussing new ways to improve the game to give you a great experience.
Thank you for joining this behind-the-scenes glimpse of Wandering Sword's development journey! Stay tuned for more updates in the coming months and get ready to embark on your epic martial arts adventure across ancient China!
Be sure to follow our social media accounts to stay up-to-date on all the latest news and announcements. And if you haven't already, add Wandering Sword to your Steam wishlist to be the first to know when the game is released!
To celebrate the recent release of OUR PARK Update, we are launching yet another Community Contest! Exciting, isn’t it?!
Parkour Map Design Contest
Design your very own parkour map using the in-game map editor, and get a chance to win one of the tinyBuild’s games (You get to pick which one!) and have your map featured in the game as part of the official parkour mode.
How to participate?
Create your parkour map using the in-game map editor.
Upload your map to Steam Workshop.
Post the link, screenshot and a short description of your map to the Discord forum #Custom-Heck, and add the ‘Parkour Contest’ tag to your post.
???
Profit!
How do we choose the winners?
Neverjam and tinyBuild will choose from the most upvoted submissions and create a shortlist of contestants. SpiderHeck community will vote for their favorite maps to determine three winners. So please vote by reacting with the emoji for the maps you like the most, and let the creativity win!
How much time do I have?
Parkour Map Design Contest runs from April 17th until April 23rd. You can submit your design by 23:59 GMT, April 23rd. Our team will then close the contest and will work on evaluating all the submissions. Please keep an eye on the Discord announcement channel for more details and news about the contest and final votes.
Any other rules?
Yes.
Try not to overwhelm your map with hundreds of different objects. Remember that your map might be added to all platforms where SpiderHeck is available. Yes, even the Switch… which means performance matters!
Do not overcomplicate your map, making it painfully close to impossible to complete. Think of both worlds’ controls: mouse+keyboard and controllers.
Do not create any NSFW or profanity objects/designs. Our moderation team will delete such maps, and you will be disqualified from the competition.
Contestants can submit as many maps as they want.
One map equals one submission.
Please do not submit multiple copies of one map. The moderation team will delete duplicates.
