Selling / Buying units to other regions?

[supremesaffgee]

The problem is that this creates an artificial way of 'magically transporting' units. For example, let's say I'm in land-locked Hungary and I want to get units to South America, where I have a small beach-head from a naval landing. I could either plan a complex series of transit treaties to get me to the coast, trade for some sea transports, negotiate dangerous waters patrolled by the enemy, find a port to unload at, and get the units where I want them. Or, I could trade the units to a South American friendly region, set my capital to the beachhead, and trade back.

It's just one of many examples of how a 'trade and spawn' system gets around some major in-game challenges for transporting units and dealing with transit and cargo issues. Trading units is a popular feature request, but we have to way to get around some of these issues.

-- George.

George wrote this on the paradox forum - now correct me if I'm wrong, but surely what he mentions here is an exploit - now I'm not saying it wouldn't be used, but that effectively is up to the player whether he stoops to this kind of action or not. I think you should just go ahead and implement a system that works, rather than thinking of how a player would exploit a system or not. Basically you can NEVER cover all angles and a player that WANTS to exploit WILL.

My opinion, but I think discussing a system that works and functions as planned and that feels realistic whilst fitting the games character is a better way to go rather than shooting down anything just because you can think of a way to exploit it. Right now ANY improvement like this will help this game enormously - let them cheat if they want to, you're not writing code protection software its a GAME !!

**Advertisment: oh and incidentally with the method I suggested above, there is no exploit I can think of....but maybe thats just me.**

[killerflood]

George does seem to be shooting down any ideas that could immensely help the game out.

George its just a GAME!! we want to have fun, we don't care about realism we just want to be able to play.

[Apollon]

we don't care about realism we just want to be able to play.

Wrong! We do care about realism! And because of that, we want unit trading. It's unrealistic that every country has to produce all their equipment themselves. This doesn't happen in the real world.

Or, I could trade the units to a South American friendly region, set my capital to the beachhead, and trade back.

Very easy and realistic solution: make it impossible to set a hex that isn't loyal to you as your capital.
I really don't understand your problem. On the one hand you don't mind the unrealistic ability to relocate your capital at a whim, but at the same time you try to defend against the realistic practice of arms dealing.

[Scott_B]

I agree apollon,

One of the basic world intervention mechanism is missing in the game and that is Arms Exports. I don't care if everyone but me cheats that is their business it is a single player game and Arms Sales should be implemented. It should also be slightly frowned upon by the world in general.

I think it thas more to do with the way units aren't really equipment but just a generic system with troops and everything all in one.

[Sauce3]

Wrong! We do care about realism! And because of that, we want unit trading. It's unrealistic that every country has to produce all their equipment themselves. This doesn't happen in the real world.

Absolutely! This would open up so many options for small countries.

[Antonin]

I agree apollon,

One of the basic world intervention mechanism is missing in the game and that is Arms Exports. I don't care if everyone but me cheats that is their business it is a single player game and Arms Sales should be implemented. It should also be slightly frowned upon by the world in general...

I agree 100% on this. I seem to recall it being possible to sell "units" in SR2010. I would have thought the sequel would make this area a little more sophisticated and allow you to export arms, broken down by category.

You sell small arms to countries that you want to influence, tanks and aircraft to countries you have good relations with.

I would argue that you should be able to sell arms to both sides in a conflict, if you choose to do so.

My biggest complaint about the SR games is that the economic and social models seem to be broken--see the part of this forum devoted to economics and trade - does anybody understand these aspects of the game? Do they work in an even remotely realistic manner? Why even have these elements in the game, then?

But OK, fine. SR is a conquest game.

Still, the arms industry is a part of military power in the real world and should be portrayed more realistically in a game that focuses on military power.

[Wuban]

At present there is no way to buy or sell units between regions. There were a few too many 'how do you get them home' problems and related issues. For example, they should change ownership where they exist, since there is no magic 'transporter'. So what if the region who sold them is landlocked, and you're in a different continent? What if there are no transports available? Who should transport, the buyer or the seller?

If we allow 'crate and uncrate' type of transport (it disappears for a month then re-appears at the destination, as if sent by fedex), then isn't this just a cheap and easy way to transfer your units around the globe? Sell them and then rebuy them at a base on the destination continent, etc.

There are just sooooo many gameplay difficulties with this.

-- George.

This could be solved rather easy, just add a time to delivery, cost of delivery, and risk of failure to deliver.

if the buyer or seller is not able to deliver by their own equipment then perhaps a third party could offer the transport for a price.

when buying you would just have to mark delivery port/airfield. then examine the delivery cost, vs the risk of losing it all in transit if any ongoing conflicts could interupt it.

might even add a new factor to the game, if convoys could be interupted.

[Balthagor]

This could be solved rather easy, just add a time to delivery, cost of delivery, and risk of failure to deliver...

This would not solve the other (often forgotten) issue that there have been no suggestions yet for clear rules on when the AI would actually offer units to another region. The 2010 style "unit trades" where also inadequate since you could not request units.

Not saying you have a bad idea, just that as George said it is not quite that simple to solve.

[Scornic]

OK, first I'll admit to not reading the whole thread, but I have some questions on buying units.

Without knowing about the real life situation, I'd would have thought it more common for regions to produce units and sell to another region, rather than the current setup of selling the unit designs.

Being able to buy unit designs bothers me a little, as I do not see the point in research, if you can go shopping round the world and just buy the best of each type of unit. Perhaps I'm missing something though.

I suppose what I'm saying is that I like the idea of buying units rather than designs. Designs I feel should only be traded between allies perhaps.

Another thing that could possible be added to this area of the game, is different fabrication plant levels, like the goods manufacturer, micro,mid etc. These could limit the type of unit or tech level of unit that could be produced there. Poorer, less developed countries would have to build up there economy over time to be able to build a plant that could produce the latest tanks, planes and aircraft carriers, and with lower level fabrication plants could be limited to old outdated units and small arms etc.

[Balthagor]

...Another thing that could possible be added to this area of the game, is different fabrication plant levels, like the goods manufacturer, micro,mid etc. These could limit the type of unit or tech level of unit that could be produced there. Poorer, less developed countries would have to build up there economy over time to be able to build a plant that could produce the latest tanks, planes and aircraft carriers, and with lower level fabrication plants could be limited to old outdated units and small arms etc.

This could be modded in, but for the "out of the box" game this is not the direction we want to go. We considered this during the development and decided that this would make the game much too complex.

[Scornic]

OK, that's good to know.

Although I'll wait till you are finished updating the game and I've had a good run at it before I look at mods or modding.

[CharlieRomeo]

I am aware that there is already a lot in this game, but i think unit trading would really add a lot to gameplay.

What are the main problems of implementing it as a diplomatic option?
How and if the AI will handle it ?

An alternative would be to put all scrapped units of the world in one pool and make it possible to buy weapons from that pool (maybe the scrapped units stay there for 2 years or so then they really disappear).

Even not as good as unit trading, it would be a good alternative for my tunisia to buy 2 squadrons of outdated fighters instead of having to produce an aircraft factory, research or trade the tech, build 2 squadrons and then close down the factory again.

[Matrix33]

I think enabling unit trade possibility in even slightly less realistic way is so or so more realistic tha to block it completely.
I would second the idea to include some abstraction - just split this trade to existing and new units. To buy new units one have to wait standard production time plus some time needed to delivery (delivery increasing buyer's infrastructure costs for the time of delivery).
To buy existing unit one has to wait time needed to put unit into reserve plus delivery time (as abve).

Of course price for new high tech units should be appropriate and countries shouldn't be to eager to sell their top tech units. To buy new to pech unit should be littlebit easier but not o easy either.
I would put dependance beween tech level of traded units and nations relations. I mean -the better reations the higher tech is allowed to be traded.

Selling unit to he country at war with another or being CB in another country should decrease relations and maybe create some CB against seller.

Regards

Edit: Of course if one buy new units the unit should be placed in production queue in seller's country. So one should wait appropriate time. Speeding up should be possible but with horrendous additional cost.

[sundancek1d]

As all previous writers, I'm for being able to sell/trade units as it would greatly improve the gameplay. I have some thoughts that I just want to "put out there":

-You should only be able to sell units to countries with which you have good relations, or the support of your own people should drop accordingly.

-AI won't sell units to countries with which their relations aren't close to perfect.

-AI will only buy units of a higher tech level than their own, or a maximum of -5 lower (AI therefore won't offer units that don't match these criteria).

-When units are bought they disappear from the seller immediately and appear in the buyer's production queue some time later (someone else probably has some great ideas on how to calculate the transport time). The buyer will then have his units trained and battle ready in half the unit's original production time.

-Either the buyer has to "produce" the units, or they will be produced "by themselves" but at an extreme cost of military goods.

More thoughts will follow...

[Kreiger815]

-AI will only buy units of a higher tech level than their own, or a maximum of -5 lower (AI therefore won't offer units that don't match these criteria).

I disagree with this.


Many countries of the world buy older weaponry as both a cost-cutter and due to their current need.

A country less likely to go to war with an advanced neighbor won't be nearly as intent to buy a single squadron of F-22s, as they would 4 squadrons of F-15s at a fraction of the cost.

Old technology might still be better than what they can produce, or still sufficient.

As Greece(who has most of the world's technology to use in my game thanks to the ease of tech trading, which should be kept IMO) I'm intent on producing a lot of Cold War era American/Soviet equipment to export to other nations. I'm trying to prep my neighbor Kosovo(neighbor thanks to my now owning of every former Yugoslavian state except for Montenegro) for a war with Montenegro so they can get some land and fabrications. I don't however want them having mechs, and exoskeleton infantry to do so.