Merchant house clan discussion

[belthize]

I've been mulling over ideas for a city holding merchant clan. In various games I've played a solo crafter, a crafter in a loose affiliation and a crafter in a crafting 'guild' but never a true merchant where the crafter was at the top of the pyramid, harvesters next and combat at the bottom.

I've been assuming for an average clan that 100+ members will be needed to hold a hamlet and 200+ for a city. I've also assumed about 4-5 focused crafters should be able to cover virtually all aspects of crafting. 3-4 times that number should be able to work in concert without overly competing if they have good enough advertising.

Additionally a crafter needs 3-5 harvesters supplying him, and they could afford to have 3-5 combat types protecting them. The difference between harvester and combat can be arbitrarily blurry.

Call each of these groups of crafter+harvest+combat a House. That gives 12-20 Houses made up of 7-10+ members so ~100-200 members. Just right to hold a hamlet or if a bit bigger a city. You'd need to be bigger than average since you aren't as militarily focused.

For such a clan to work members would have to be devoted to clan first (or the city gets steam rolled) and House second but it does set up for good inter-house competition and melting pot for evolving ideas on how best to be profitable.

Any interest in discussing such a clan (I have a write up I was working on but it's still very skimpy).

Any other ideas or interest in making a city holding merchant clan ?

Many thanks Recneps for setting up a clan discussion area.

[Recneps]

I've wondered about the possibility of holding a hamlet as a crafter/merchant guild. I thought perhaps finding a city holding clan to live under would be beneficial to both parties.

Of course that brings up a whole new level of complications with making a agreement with the clan in question. Then there's the problems with open trading. I thought perhaps a mercenary guild would be a ideal "parent" as they would gain from access to trained crafters turning out instruments of war etc. The mechanics are iffy of course but if a taxation system is in place for hamlets falling under a guild city domain. . . . I would think they would be pleased as well. Then again they would probably already have a crafting system set up in guild so it may be seen as competition.

It could possibly also open up trade possibilities since by nature, a mercenary guild will have to remain impartial regardless of race. But then there's also the down-side of being a ripe target dangling from one of the branches of a hated tree (assuming the mercs are good, they will have enemies regardless of how hard they try to stay impartial)

So much hinges on how the game is designed. The provided trading and banking system will have a huge impact depending on what they allow.

(sorry if this makes no sense, I'm exhausted)

Recneps

[landrew]

It is going to be difficult and maybe almost impossible to hold if there a limited amount of city building spots.

If that is the case, then all this analysis is moot since the first targets for a city-less guild will be clans that have the least ability to defend themselves and that woule be merchant clans.

Eventually you will be overun as the game matures...

[Amaryl]

I'd have to agree with Landrew, if the idea is to consistently stay a merchant and crafters organisation, you'd probably be better of by setting up shop in neutral towns

and through the help of universal banks and diplomatic relations, move from clan city to city set up shop for a day or 2 to trade and move on.

That would ease you up a lot on general security, so you can put more resources into securing supply lines and harvesting operations.

[belthize]

For what it's worth I agree to ... almost impossible is probably pretty accurate.

The biggest problem as Landrew pointed out is the image of weakness. The only real difference between this guild and any number of other guilds is the hierarchy. You'll end up with roughly the same number of crafters/harvesters/combat as any other guild. Roughly 15-20 crafters, 60-80+ combat, 60+ mix of combat/harvest/craft to varying degrees.

I'm assuming the harvest skills take up very little of the soft cap. So the line between a 'harvester' and 'combat' build will be very small.

It suffers the exact same problem any of the non-pure PvP clans will suffer; it won't have the same level of PvP talent which is one reason I assume it'll need to be 33-50% bigger to offset the perception of weakness and rich target.

I think it'd almost have to be a D/H/M clan set deep within the human area as a buffer (likely near one of the NPC towns). It'd have to have some pretty good diplomacy with other human clans or it'd just get bulldozed by aggressive Human clans.

Optimally it'd have to cap a hamlet clanstone almost immediately (probably need merc help) and race to defensive structures to be a less attractive target. Taking one much later in game could be very difficult, it's more of a defensive build than an offensive one. The city clanstones will be too sought after to hold. This is plausible on the US server, on the EU server it'd have to grow into it.

It might work to start as city-less Houses and if at some point you were large and strong enough to take a city. This has the advantage of weeding out the cruft and building from the ground up before hand but the likely disadvantages of taking a city being more difficult than holding. Basically have to bide your time and hit a crumbling non-allied clan before somebody else did.

The last big problem is it'd have to be very tight knit. If it was mostly folks thinking 'ooh cool a merchant clan' it'll get rolled. They'd have to know how unlikely it was to work and how hard they'd have to work to succeed.

The primary reason for doing it is that it's hard and not a standard clan build. At this point it's purely academic. It's likely close to too late to set something like this up.

[landrew]

Jan 4, 2009 14:46:06 GMT -5 belthize said:

For what it's worth I agree to ... almost impossible is probably pretty accurate.

The biggest problem as Landrew pointed out is the image of weakness. The only real difference between this guild and any number of other guilds is the hierarchy. You'll end up with roughly the same number of crafters/harvesters/combat as any other guild. Roughly 15-20 crafters, 60-80+ combat, 60+ mix of combat/harvest/craft to varying degrees.

I'm assuming the harvest skills take up very little of the soft cap. So the line between a 'harvester' and 'combat' build will be very small.

It suffers the exact same problem any of the non-pure PvP clans will suffer; it won't have the same level of PvP talent which is one reason I assume it'll need to be 33-50% bigger to offset the perception of weakness and rich target.

I think it'd almost have to be a D/H/M clan set deep within the human area as a buffer (likely near one of the NPC towns). It'd have to have some pretty good diplomacy with other human clans or it'd just get bulldozed by aggressive Human clans.

The other big problem is it'd have to cap a hamlet clanstone almost immediately (probably need merc help) and race to defensive structures to be less attractive. Taking one much later in game could be very difficult, it's more of a defensive build than an offensive one. The city clanstones will be too sought after to hold.

It might work to start as city-less Houses and if at some point you were large and strong enough to take a city. This has the advantage of weeding out the cruft and building from the ground up before hand but the likely disadvantages of taking a city being more difficult than holding. Basically have to bide your time and hit a crumbling non-allied clan before somebody else did.

The last big problem is it'd have to be very tight knit. If it was mostly folks thinking 'ooh cool a merchant clan' it'll get rolled. They'd have to know how unlikely it was to work and how hard they'd have to work to succeed.

The primary reason for doing it is that it's hard and not a standard clan build. At this point it's purely academic. It's likely close to too late to set something like this up.

That is all on paper though, but in action there may be a merchant clan set up that beats the odds and have some kind of alliance with military clans that may offest the precieved weakness, but it will get harder as more city spots are sought out and then we get to the scenario we just alluded to "almost impossible'.

[Skiodra (doctorm119)]

A clan like this doesn't exactly need to be setup from day one. It makes sense that a combat oriented would as you don't really need anything to go fight. You can just start off crafting but to get to the point where you can actually have a good business crafting it takes a bit of time. So, I don't see why something like this can't start later than combat clans.

[legolastom]

Well the way I see it we start off working for a military or mercenary clan, we provide for them and generally become good friends with then (While still being a separate organization), eventually we (Being merchants) should have lots of money (From hoarding it) eventually we become well respected and even relied upon by some (Or many) guilds for our services. Then we become the rulers of a city (Not a kingdom just city) and the clan we previously worked for become our guards, and they work for us (We will have made lots of money from crafting, buying and selling and why wouldn't they want to become a part of a clan with so much money and services).

And here is the beautiful thing with so much defence (An entire merc guild and so many others that are connected to us) we can soon make money off of our city. If someone wants something we have an entire city of merchants working for us. All it would require is for a clan to pay some money and they will have a permanent trade route with us, they can buy and more.

Of course we will have to be set up on an island so we can have great boat defence (Boats patrolling the area) and so anyone cants just come in. While all this may sound out there it really isn't that far fetched. If we can find a military or merc clan willing to help us from the beginning and we get enough crafters we can really make a lot of money fast (This is just a logical presumption of course), and if we start from day one we will have the best knowledge of the market.

And as well all know there are many islands that you can build a base on, so the only factor that could be troublesome is finding a clan we can absolutely trust and eventually building up a great reputation with several other military clans. Also getting everything going quickly enough. Of course we don't have nearly enough information on the game to guarantee if this will work but it seems this will be a viable way to make ourselves... great.

[Si'aan Anoura]

Jan 7, 2009 1:04:02 GMT -5 legolastom said:

...eventually we (Being merchants) should have lots of money (From hoarding it) ...

You sound like you should be making a dwarf! Mind you, I will want to be your friend! ALWAYS keep company with the rich heh.

[legolastom]

Jan 7, 2009 2:50:08 GMT -5 Si'aan Anoura said:

Jan 7, 2009 1:04:02 GMT -5 legolastom said:

...eventually we (Being merchants) should have lots of money (From hoarding it) ...

You sound like you should be making a dwarf! Mind you, I will want to be your friend! ALWAYS keep company with the rich heh.

Well with you being a mercenary I guess we could come to some mutually beneficial arrangement

[belthize]

I'm still interested in the idea and I think within DF a 7-10 member 'House' made up of a mix of crafters, harvesters and combat is a good size for a micro-group independent of any future city holding clan.

If enough other houses are formed they could in time join to form a clan acting independently and in concert as the need arose and ultimately, aspire to holding a hamlet.

I'm going to continually modify the top post as things arise to consolidate ideas in one place.

Thorsen Belthize

[illias]

I have just recently started a trading/crafting clan. If any of you are interested our website is illiastradingcompany.webs.com/. I personally think it will provide a funner aspect to the game. We will be FOCUSED on crafting, but will also do pvp, raid, etc.

Note: The main difference between a crafter guild and other guilds is going to be the expectations and agendas. Not necessarily what type of players make it up (fighters, warriors, crafters, etc).

[celestine]

Jan 10, 2009 12:44:25 GMT -5 belthize said:

I'm still interested in the idea and I think within DF a 7-10 member 'House' made up of a mix of crafters, harvesters and combat is a good size for a micro-group independent of any future city holding clan.

If enough other houses are formed they could in time join to form a clan acting independently and in concert as the need arose and ultimately, aspire to holding a hamlet.

I'm going to continually modify the top post as things arise to consolidate ideas in one place.

Thorsen Belthize

I do love the idea of Merchant or Trading "Houses" and that could really add to some fine RP and backstories over time.

I'd be interested in finding out more about this, some way down the line after launch - perhaps something like this could be looked at later as an offshoot from other, larger Clans... would allow for strong alliance and support that way (especially at the beginning, when such an entity would be weak getting started)

Great, great idea though and I'll be trying to keep an eye on you and this idea.

[Si'aan Anoura]

Jan 20, 2009 5:10:25 GMT -5 illias said:

I have just recently started a trading/crafting clan. If any of you are interested our website is illiastradingcompany.webs.com/. I personally think it will provide a funner aspect to the game. We will be FOCUSED on crafting, but will also do pvp, raid, etc.

Note: The main difference between a crafter guild and other guilds is going to be the expectations and agendas. Not necessarily what type of players make it up (fighters, warriors, crafters, etc).

If you want to make an official 'plug' for your clan, feel free to do so! Just tell us how you plan on working and what you will be all about etc (Race restrictions? Territorialists? etc etc).

[sula]

I'm more than interested in this as well and would be happy to provide resources and gold from day one to make it happen.