It's fine the way you do it, kaner. But for me, it wouldn't be a problem to use another way of calculating, too.

(Why did I know, that Italy's stab was a fake?)

The point is how you read Rule 4, so please... read it and reply! :)

I think I have a simple idea for how the trading could affect gameplay. If the players, instead of simply getting SCs got points for SCs*value of currency, then they would want their currency to do well, and would therefore negotiate with the traders to get their currency doing well. That way, the trading and playing would be linked.

Guaroz, I'd say that the Mark would raise by $0.02 because the net trading is +299.

maybe it should be calculated on how much has been bought or sold the entire game...

To make things more realistic, I would prefer if there's some aggregation for the less-than-100 bit, just like the bags system in the card game Spades, if you know what I mean.

Say, if 3000 and 925 units are being sold and bought this season, the currency falls by $0.2, and 75 units (downwards) are on aggregation. In the next season, if 2000 and 975 units are sold and bought respectively, the net units sold is 2000-975=1025 i.e. the fall will be $0.1, while another 25 units (downwards) go to the aggregation. So in the aggregation there is a total of 100 units, so this will be transferred to the currency value and further decreases it by $0.01, making the total of $0.11 decrease. The aggregation for the currency will then be reset.

While being more realistic, this is of course a bit more complicated, and more things have to be taken care of. What say you?

I like that idea. Someone did make the comment that that would be a good idea before the game started, but right now we're playing with the rules as they are.

Great, we can add more complications to stick to reality in our Bourse games in the future, after collecting feedback of this game ~

All good ideas, guys, but good for the next game. Now kaner asked how do you intetprete Rule 4, that is the only rule about it we have now.
_______
@amisond & Lukas. I asked kaner basically the same thing on the first page of this thread and he said no.
@gman +1 for you. We're discussing the rules as they are. How is Rule 4?

My interpretation of rule 4 is to do all operations and truncate at the end. So, the way the Roubles stand, I would say 925-3000 = -2075 which truncates to -2000 so the Roubles go down $0.20.
Guaroz, I also posted my solution to your question but I'll re-post. 449-150 = 299 which truncates to 200 so the Marks go up $0.02.
(And with relation to Devonian's comment that this is a mathematicians way, yes, I am a mathematician!)

(Actually, I'm only sort of a mathematician; I've only finished my first year of uni and might to computer science instead of math.)

Really though, the most important thing is that whatever kaner decides to do, he does consistently. As long as it's consistent, he isn't favoring anyone over anyone else.

"I think I have a simple idea for how the trading could affect gameplay. If the players, instead of simply getting SCs got points for SCs*value of currency, then they would want their currency to do well, and would therefore negotiate with the traders to get their currency doing well. That way, the trading and playing would be linked."
However a strong currnecy doesn't equal a strong economy, when your economy is weak, you want your currency to become weaker, and as Amby pointed out, when the currency is weak, paying off debts is easier.

If we wanted to, we could change the game to have two resources rather then 1:
Supplies and Money.

Each army and fleet would require 1 unit of supplies and $20,000 to maintain.
Each army and fleet would require 1 unit of supplies and $75,000 to build.
(The supply of units will be covered by the game, however money will be covered by us. If a government lacks the funds to build new units but has the supplies, said governmnet must waive thier build. If the government lacks the funds to maintain each unit, but can't disband units because they still have supplies, they must announce at the begining of the year a unit which will be 'under funded' an under supplied unit must enter holds for each turn that year and cannot support yours or allied units. If an investor wants, he can choose to fund that unit, in which he will PM orders for that unit to the player nation. Or an ally to said nation may choose to fund it for him. However if its an allied nation, the player can choose to accept the transfer of the unit)

If more then half or your units are under funded, there will be a military coup, and said player must enter all holds for the rest of the game (as if he left the game).

Governments gain $30,000 for each home supply center they have, $15,000 for each nuetral supply center, and $5000 for each enemy home supply center.

In other words, if they ever want to build units beyond their additional 3 armies (or 4 in the case of Russia), they would have to borrow money (if they get 3 builds, they can only build one army without borrowing mony). The most common form of borrowing money for funding wars is selling victory bonds.

Each victory bound would be sold for $1,000, and would provide anual source of interest (The interest rate being calcuated based on how many people are willing to buy the bonds), before maturing and the government pays you back. If the governemnt either goes bankrupt, or looses the war, it will not pay back its investors, if the government wins, it will pay back the investors.

At the end of the game, each country will gain $150,000 for every supply center they control, regardless of how the game ends (solo or draw). They will use that money to pay back their investors and all thier debts.

This could actually work, because it incorporates the game mechanics of real diplomacy, and adds the finance side.

crap, when I posted this I was unaware that I was in an account I am sitting for (fasces349 made the above post).

I thought I logged out and logged back in... but oh well...

that was my bad, now I have logged out. Sorry for that goldfinger

I wondered why goldfinger was posting on here. I didn't think that he had expressed any interest.

He might have if he wasn't on vacation... but yeah, that was my bad.

in any case thoughts on rules and stuff like that? I made the numbers up on the spot, so they can be changed for balance or gameplay issues.

Your idea's pretty good, but it lacks the most important part of a game: reward. You need some sort of reward mechanism for the traders. What you have right now doesn't allow a "winner" among the traders. I think that your reward mechanism for the players is just the normal way of winning, but if you wanted to complicate it, go ahead, as long as you specify how to win.

Well the object for the investors is to make money. The investor with the most money at games end wins.

The bond mechanism is set up in which riskier countries (aka countries which are more likely to default or be destroyed) will offer higher returns (if they can afford to pay out) then safer countries, so you have to balance risk with reward.

On top of that (which I didn't go into detail in) the bond markets will offer buying and selling bonds between players. (However I am thinking of a way to simplify the bond market for the purpose of the game and will write that up).

So its not getting victory points, but just making raw cash.

It would be interesting because the more you invest in a country, the more likely that country will succeed, however the more a country is invested in, the less pay off there will be. So rather then purely reacting to the board, investors will have to balance between following what others are investing in, compared to going solo with riskier bond options.

I also think that rather then victory points, the goal of making the most money is a better goal since in reality investing is about making money, and in some cases, investing in the companies (or in this case countries) that succeed isn't the most successful way to make money.

Thoughts?

Lastly re the reward mechanism for the countries.

The countries will, in order to build armies, have to borrow money and finance debt. The reward mechanism for the countries is so that they can pay off their creditors (who will mostly be the investors at the end).

Like unless people are waiving more armies then they need to, they will not have the money to pay back all their investors at games end. The $150,000 per supply center makes it so that at games end, the countries that 'won' the war will be able to pay back their investors, while the countries that didn't will not. (at least in theory).

So the money isn't rewarding countries, but players who invested in the winning countries.

OK. That makes sense.

VPs are the reward points for the traders - although they are only a guide at the moment and only really matter at then end game.

re: question 4.

thanks to everyone who has responded to the question. Here is my decision:

I will continue to truncate the aggregate like I have been doing in units of 100 BEFORE calculating the sum of positive and negative gains in the value of stock. This system will remain in place throughout this game of Bourse, in order to remain consistent. We can look to changing this should we play another game at a later stage.

I know I am pulling rank at the moment, but this is how I interpret the rules set out at www.dip2000.com/index3.php?id=static/diprules/bourse

So as a reminder I am truncating each group of pluses and minuses to come up with the value of the current stock.
----

Spring 1902 currency values:
Austrian Crowns: $0.22
English Pounds: $1.21
French Francs: $0.78
German Marks: $1.07
Italian Lire: $2.13
Russian Roubles: $0.55
Turkish Piastres: $0.93
----

The total amount of each currency sold/bought is:
Austrian Crowns: 4400 sold, 0 bought = -4400, down .44
(-44)-0= -44
English Pounds: 1000 sold, 3751 bought = +2751, up .27
(-10)+37=27
French Francs: 3063 sold, 150 bought = -2913, down .29
(-30)+1=-29
German Marks: 1000 sold, 4250 bought = +3250, up .32
(-10)+42=32
Italian Lire: 500 sold, 14768 bought = +14268, up 1.42
(-5)+147=142
Russian Roubles: 3000 sold, 925 bought = -2075, down .21
(-30)+9=-21
Turkish Piastres: 4499 sold, 0 bought = -4499, down .44
(-44)+0=-44

"VPs are the reward points for the traders - although they are only a guide at the moment and only really matter at then end game."
Yeah we know, me and gman are just trying to come up with a rule set where the investors actually effect the countries abilities to build units etc.

I know, I like your ideas, and look forward to a new 're-vamped' vDip version of Bourse. The rules as they stand are imported from dip2000, and I wanted to try their rules out here before going into developing a Bourse specific for the vDip community. The interest in players for this seems quite large.

I'd love to see some sort of 'adjacent' game of Bourse that ties into the games within the system.

Did you know?

- Lira is 65% of the worth around (dollar included). Second is Pound (15%) followed by Mark, Piastre, Franc and Dollar. Crown is 0.6%.
- Devonian holds 42% of Liras around that is 20% of total worth.
- Diplomat33 holds 57% of Dollars around.
- Amisond 37% of Crowns.
- Aside Ambassador & Amisond, who joined the game later, no one paid more than 1$ for any Currency. The one who paid averagely least for Pound is gman (.96$), for Mark is drano (.85$), for Rouble is hiporox (.92$)

Some interesting facts... Very encouraged also by the discussion on Bankroll Diplomacy.

One observation I have on Bourse is the disconnect between the real game and the wild currency speculation. Currently the financiers seem to be running down currency then buying up big and progressively cashing out. This creates a disconnect between the two games (which is why I think Bankroll has some real potential.)

Another approach would be still doing the currency speculation, but adding an element from the real game. Current Victory Points only come into play at the end of the game according to the rules. I was thinking in an effort to reduce speculation whether the Victory points could be used as a multiplier to $ values during the build phase. I'll give an example.

At the moment the Lira is flying high, yet the Rubble is in the doldrums. But Italy has only 4 SCs to Russia's 5. In these circumstances some kind of equation could be developed which would give an uplift money bonus to those financiers who've invested in the currencies who keep doing well on the board (offsetting the game from just being wild speculation.) Some players could do well from speculating, others could do well from backing a winner on the board, or even both. I thought the bonus would be paid by kaner in USD so players could then pull down that cash for investing in spring.

Just a thought. What do others think?

Love those stats Guaroz - keep them coming!!

What sort of equation are you thinking of Amby? bear in mind I need to be as neutral as possible in all this.

Well I don't think the Bourse is disconnected to the Game. Actually I think the exact opposite.

Yes, on the very first turn you had no clue for your investiments, aside the stats and the experience of previous games that suggest you to buy Francs & Piastres (because they're never first eliminated) or to sell Crowns (Austria's often first eliminated) and Liras (Italy often ends up with only a few SCs).

But as the Game goes on and you start having some clue, what happens in the Game has a huge influence on the Bourse.

After Spring 1901, Crown was the cheapest currency of the board but nobody bought it. Why? Because everyone could see a green army in Trieste.
Now everyone seems to be buying Crowns. Is it because Crown is the cheapest currency ever? It's because it costs only 0.22$? I don't think so. Well yes, a small price helps. But the point is that Austria doesn't look to be the first eliminated anymore. On the contrary, Austria's now in a strong alliance that could lead it to have a lot of SCs in the end. Or at least this increases the chances Austria will survive. More SCs = more VPs per hundred Crowns held in the end. If a country ends with 0 SCs, its currency is worthless, no matter how many Dollars you paid for it.

That's why people's buying Crowns now. If last autumn Italy moved:
- Trieste to Vienna
- Venice to Trieste
really stabbing Austria, do you think that anyone would be buying Crowns now? Whoever still got them would sell all his Crowns at 0.22$!!

So Bourse is deep linked to the Game and it will be deeper as the Game goes on.
I'm really curious to see how investors will react to next events. Game-players could make mistakes, have lucky or unlucky guesses, stab and being stabbed, swap alliances, catastrophicly misorder something... anything could happen and the bourse will follow it. Who will win the Bourse? IMO, it's the one who better than the others will be able to understand when and how it's time to follow events (most of times) and when and how it's time to outguess them (rare, but essential).

Not everyone has the same skill (or the same luck) doing this. Also Bourse-players could make mistakes, have lucky or unlucky guesses, stab and being stabbed, swap alliances, catastrophicly misorder something... anything could happen! What you call wild speculation is just the fruit of the thoughts each player made (right or wrong) on what just happened or what might happen next on the Map.

So Amby your concern, reading your example, looks to be that the Bourse values don't reflect the real worth of the Countries in this moment. It must not be so! otherwise it wouldn't be funny. I believe that the Bourse values will reflect the real worth of the Countries only... in the very last turn!

When to ride a wave, when to get off it. How to foresee, create and blow bubbles. How to make money, how to make VPs. How to win.
Yes, those things need a lot of diplomacy and talking with other investors is taking me a lot of time.
But you can't do those things without both eyes glued at the Game's Map. This is the beauty of the Bourse.

I agree with Guaroz that the Bourse is appropriately tied to the game. As the game goes on, the connection should become more obvious as nations become in danger of being defeated, and others clearly capable of lasting to the end. But, just like any stock exchange, there will be speculative investors.

However, I wonder if there should be buying curbs on the upside, just like there are selling curbs on the downside. This might prevent the unrealistic swings that just happened to the Lira. The upside curbs could look different than the downside curbs. For example, total buying of all currencies cannot exceed 3500 by any one player. Each player could spread their buys around, or concentrate them, but no more than 3500 could be purchased.

Another alternative would be that the total buying of all players cannot exceed 7000 of any single currency. If a buying frenzy happened, the supply would be restricted, so no single player could dominate the market.