The Spoils of War (moderator input desired)

[Otto]

With the looming crisis (opportunity?) of war, the Trading Company has seen an opening for business. We are an amalgamation of craftsmen and distributors, who include in our profiles expert armourers, enchanters, (al)chemists, engineers, and other inventors.

My question is: how might we be able to benefit one faction or another in the upcoming war? Our guildmaster, Invetisto de Masinoj, has already offered to provide items towards the war effort at 10% below Bazaar price, but what about outfitting and supplying a standing army? I'd like to propose that the Trading Company be able to exert an influence on the conflict by improving supply lines and supply quality to the different factions, even if we do not take a direct role in the fighting. Would it be preferable for the TC members involved to role-play out their activities in this regard? Or could such purchases be made entirely out of IC threads, and rely just on the exchange of gold? Or - more likely - a mix of both? Perhaps payment would be a certain per centage deducted from the faction's spoils of war?

If we can get some guaranteed benefits for contracting tTC, I'm hoping it'll give faction leaders some very real incentive to do so.

[Max Dirks]

The Trading Company will obviously have to own the materials they sell.

If they would like to set up a merchant agreement for a user store, they may do so by contacting myself or Aurelianus Drak'shal.

[Otto]

I'll ask Invetisto about it - the store's probably a good idea, so thanks for the suggestion. Should give us a way to keep track of all our resources, and let everyone else see what's on offer. Would that allow us to buy raw materials in bulk, and process it ourselves?

[Max Dirks]

Of course! I see you guys are doing quite a bit of mining activity as well. Those raw materials you receive as spoils can either be processed into weapons VIA threads (as spoils) or sold to the bazaar for a profit (which you can then turn around and buy weapons to sell). Lots of options. Let me know what you guys want to do.

[Otto]

Invetisto would like to hang on all the raw materials we acquire, and process them ourselves. We were thinking that we could list a couple of things about our store: our current resources (whatever we have in stock, also any discounts we might get from IC activities/facilities), and a list of our personnel and their trades (including the types of items they can make, their maximum quality, and from which materials they can make them). The aim would basically be to acquire raw materials IC or purchase in bulk for cheap, so that we can cut some costs and provide items slightly below Bazaar price - while still making a profit, of course. Obviously, we would also be limited by the skills of our craftsmen, but that's something we can work on.

I'm guessing that we would set up a thread in the 'Black Market' forum. I will review tTC's dealings, so that I can properly link our personnel, resources and facilities - please let me know if I have misunderstood or forgotten something.

[Otto]

I have made a relevant thread for sorting out the shop here (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?27033-And-now-for-something-completely-different-%28setting-up-a-PG-run-shop-and-facilities%29&p=224888#post224888). Since I thought it may require the purchase of premises or facilities (unless a bit of that comes with setting up a PG), I put it in the Bazaar. Thanks for your time!

[Rayse Valentino]

I'm interested in setting up some passive crafting income so that I don't have to complete a thread specifically designed for materials every time.

For example, let's say I have a story (and I might soon) where Rayse claims an active mythril mine. At the completion of the thread, the mine is his asset, and it generates a certain amount of ore or ingots which I can then claim at each completed thread of mine. For the TCC, let's say every time they finish a thread, and they already have the iron thread completed, they can claim a certain amount of iron ore even if the thread's content is unrelated to that, as long as a TCC member is involved, simply because they already own the mine in another thread.

This would encourage more thread completion and will help grow TCC into a formidable crafting power. As it stands, having to post so many threads for materials seems counter-productive. In the Bazaar thread they can specify how much of their current assets they have available for sale. That way it's a direct sale that adds to TCC's coffers instead of a simple discount.

I don't see the potential for abuse due to how infrequent thread completions are, this would actually encourage them to happen at a better rate. If anyone can expand on this, that would be cool.

[Otto]

I think it has merit (sadly, though, I'm not RoG...). It makes sense if tTC owns property which provides a continuous supply of resources, and it would still require multiple quests to accumulate a greater income from such capital. And just in case you're worried about the PG developing - somewhere down the line - a bonus of ten thousand Prevalida ingots at the completion of each thread, you could set up a max income for each material, and have the sources become exhausted after X number of threads (at least, for rarer, more expensive materials - which would probably come in in smaller quantities in any case).

[Max Dirks]

I have no problems with you doing that, Rayse.

Do a quick advanced search for Taskmeinster, and you'll see that many of his mining threads were more about the operations of the mines and the people therein than the actual "act" of mining. He was able to mine a certain number of ores per post. The rules have changed a bit regarding spoils since then, but the premise is the same.

If you're willing to forgo other spoils (except EXP, of course) and have the thread semi-related to clan activity, then I have no problem setting up such an agreement with you (or anyone else who might be interested, as well).

[Otto]

Sounds like a tradeoff I could live with, if the resources ended up providing more gold than we would have got from spoils... otherwise, not much point. But that's likely to be the case if we used it to craft items then sold those on, anyway.

[Rayse Valentino]

The quality of the completed thread could determine how much passive resources you would accumulate in other threads. A thread where you acquire a mine that scores 40 may produce 1 ingot in another thread, 60 makes 2 ingots, 80 makes 4 ingots (I'm not sure on the ingot > equipment conversions, I think a thread that scores 80 should amount to roughly 1000GP worth of goods). I do agree that this sort of thing, if it's replacing gold, should be worth way more than gold otherwise there's no point.

[Brand]

Hmm, would a Silkworm Farm/Cotton Farm work on the same principles as the above mining bit? I'd like to set up a nifty little enchantment/loom station for our growing economic empire

[Otto]

We could do an Akashima-based thread, set in a rural province that produces silk, and the story could explore Akashiman attitudes towards the outside world as we try and arrange a trade agreement. It would be a good reason for exchanging gold spoils for raw materials, and hopefully, also explore that nation's setting a bit more.