Join the new world

This is the final in my series on game innovation ideas. To my surprise the eRep team asked for links to these articles when I offered that I had ideas. This is encouraging and I highly recommend anyone who sees an idea they like (in this series or from anyone else) to send a link along to them to show interest. If you have your own ideas then write them down and send them along.

Here are the previous ideas:
Residency and Import Taxes
Governors and Schools
Territory Exchange and Brand Recognition

I'd also like to take this opportunity to mention that Commune Alpha is looking for members to work at Tasty Bread in Florida or Deadly Arms in Quebec. Daily wages are minimum and Q1 food for everyday worked. We are also prepared to gift you and get you tickets and weapons upon request (within reason). Contact me if you're interested and we'll make sure a spot is open if that isn't already the case. Finally, we are trying to make this a direct democracy and all worker-members have equal vote in all affairs if only you show some interest and get involved. Visit our forums here:

http://www.hediplomacy.com/forum/index.php?board=5.0

And now, the idea:

Shipping

This would totally revamp the way markets work in game, as well as adding another business that makes use of oil to produce its product. The new business would be in varying levels of freight shipping, which is what transports products between states, nations and continents. These would be purchased by businesses to allow them to sell in certain areas (expand their market) instead of (or potentially in addition to) market licenses. The quality would determine how much it expands the market.



Exact numbers for productivity would need to be determined by folks with more data available than myself, but I imagine the use of each freight shipping corresponding to a real life equivalent, for three different quality levels. The basic market of any business would be for the state it is in. This would require most businesses to purchase some level of freight to reach a larger market, especially in the eUS where most people live in the two fortresses while businesses are often elsewhere. Q1 shipping would be the equivalent of semi trucks and expand shipping to nearby regions (the size of the ‘region’ is up to debate), either only in the home country or also friendly neighbors (with or without licenses, up for debate). Q2 would go beyond that and automatically make it nationwide, though for smaller nations Q2 wouldn’t be a great step up from regional freight and thus perhaps another method should be developed for this. Q3 would expand things internationally, I’m thinking to any country your home nation doesn’t have an embargo or war against. Again, licenses could stay or go, depending on the desired effect; I’m sort of neutral on this. Licenses could also be revamped from being country specific to opening markets with groups of countries (like activating MPPs or something when you purchase, just expanding your license to include their allies and fluctuating as they gain or lose them).

This also means that the game would either have to calculate from the local currency of the business and show prices in native currency, then automatically trade that, or just start doing international trades in gold only. This is because international offers would probably no longer be country specific and each offer would either have to be posted with each possible currency or simply done with gold.



Finally, the freight shipping units would be good for a determined amount of goods to market. One (1) freight shipping unit might allow you to sell 500 of your product to an expanded market. After that it would be expended and you would have to purchase more to continue offering goods to an expanded market. This is another area where the exact numbers are up for debate and this would go a long way to determining how often freight would need to be purchased and how valuable it would be.

This change makes markets a little more realistic, in my opinion, and any added expenses will either be added into the cost of other goods, or made up for by the ease of expanding to new markets. And all businesses have to purchase freight shipping to expand their markets, even freight shipping businesses (but of course they can simply buy their own at nominal prices). It gives business owners more options and makes business location have more impact on the market available. Basically it’s a change to the economic module that would spice things up a bit and which makes sense.



Okay, this one certainly isn't my idea but has been voiced elsewhere. Quite frankly this should be abolished. Not that countries shouldn’t be able to set minimum wage laws, but that they should be able to set them at 0 if they voted and passed such a measure. This and better wage allocation would allow companies to hire skill 0 workers and give them appropriate wages as well as allow commune efforts better potential functionality. Again, I’m not saying the admins should enforce that there be no minimum wages, simply that option be there for countries to choose not to have one. I doubt many would, so what’s the harm?

There ya go! Four big changes and four relatively minor ones that could really improve eRepublik. Thanks for the comments, votes and subs. It's been fun thinking about how the game works and how it might work better. Now I need to find something else to keep me busy.