Guides:Market

The market is designed to facilitate the purchase and sale of goods between players at the fairest price for each player. As such it will take into account tariffs and embargoes. Players may make a buy order, where they submit the maximum price they are willing to pay per item, or a sell order, where they submit the lowest price they are willing to pay per item. The market will automatically match any matching orders to fulfil a trade. If there are any tariffs, then they will be paid directly to the buyer’s nation.

Market guide

For citizens

As a normal citizen, the most you can do with the market is buy and sell from other players. Since the market will automatically find the best price, you can (for example) add buy orders at a price below what the item is currently selling for if you feel that the price will drop. This makes trading on the market a viable money-making strategy if you are able to predict patterns in the sale price.

For leaders

As a nation leader, you are able to set taxes, tariffs, and embargoes. A tax is best used to generate revenue and pay upkeep, but may discourage your citizens from trading as much, leading to less revenue being generated than with a lower tax rate. Tariffs are a directed form of taxes, where your citizens will have to pay more to import from certain nations, which may result in less trade occurring with that nation. Embargoes are a full trade barrier between your nation and another, meaning no trades will occur with that nation.

As a leader you have access to those trade settings and a fine-tuned approach may be necessary to balance national revenue with your citizen's access to resources.

Trade barriers

Tax

A tax is an extra fee to pay for all trades in a nation. The tax will be deposited in the nation's bank account.

Tariffs

A tariff is a price raised on the import of goods to a nation. This means that the importer (buyer) pays the price of the tariff to their nation, in addition to the seller's price. This discourages trade between two nations as the exporter will get have to sell for less, and the importer will have to pay more. This is a suitable way to raise revenue to pay upkeep.

Embargoes

An embargo is used to completely restrict trade between nations. This is especially useful to punish enemy nations by preventing them access to your nation's resources.

Market commands

/market

• /market
  • (empty) - used to access the market.
  • notify - used to control market notification settings.
    • trades - you will receive notifications every time your orders are traded, even if it does not result in it being 100% filled.
    • completion - you will only receive notifications if your order is 100% filled.
    • off - you will not receive market notifications.
  • stats - used to access a player's market statistics.
  • open - (admin only) used to open the market for the server.
  • close - (admin only) used to close the market for the server.
  • reset - (admin only) used to reset the market, clearing all active orders and resetting all statistics.
  • restrict {player} - (admin only) used to restrict a player's access to the market.

/tax

• /tax
  • (empty) - used to see your nation's tax rate.
  • set {rate} - used to set a rate of tax on all trades within a nation.

/tariff

• /tariff
  • set {nation} {rate} - used to set a tariff on another nation. The rate does not need a % added on the end.
  • remove {nation} - used to remove a tariff on another nation.
  • listlocal - used to get a list of all incoming and outgoing tariffs set on your nation.
  • listglobal {page} - used to see all tariffs between all nations, both incoming and outgoing.

/embargo

• /embargo
  • add {nation} - used to add an embargo on a nation, blocking all trade.
    • {duration (hours)} - an option to make the embargo expire after a given amount of hours. Setting to -1 will make it permanent.
  • remove {nation} - used to remove an embargo on a nation.
  • listlocal - used to list all embargoes which are set by your nation and those set on your nation.
  • listglobal - used to list all embargoes between nations.

Market microstructure

The market has a certain structure which affects how it determines the best trade price for each player. The process, simplified, is as follows.

1. An incoming order will be placed in the main buy or sell order list.
2. It will be processed, which is a process where the opposing list is iterated through until a matching order is found.
   1. Orders in the opposing list are sorted by price, and the market will go through each of these individual orders.
      1. It will ensure that the order is not from a nation which has an embargo.
      2. It will then check for a tariff on the importer.
   2. If the buy price (after tariffs) is greater than the sell price, then a trade occurs at the sell price.
   3. If the sell price is lower than the buy price (after tariffs), then a trade occurs at the buy price.
3. If a trade occurs, then the money will be sent to the correct accounts and items will appear in the buyer's market inventory.
4. If a trade does not occur, then the order will sit on the market until it expires.