Why cross-tier trades are uneven

There's one aspect of trading that I never took part in, and that's cross-tier trades. A cross-tier trade is when someone is willing to give up a good from one tier, wanting a good from another tier in return. This is most often done where someone posts a trade giving up a higher tier good, like tier-3 Magical Goods (elixir/magic dust/gems), in exchange for a lower tier good such as tier-1 Basic Goods (marble/steel/planks).

Everyone has their own opinion on it, and those opinions are usually very strong! But personally, I have always thought that it was unfair.  Especially when someone is giving up a higher tier good for a lower tier good. And, I think it's extremely bad for a fellowship! I know – at first, this sounds backwards, maybe even downright crazy, but let me explain why.

First, we must understand how the game suggests trades. When making a trade, the game groups the trades into four categories: 0-star through 3-star trades. 2-star trades are considered “even”, basically a 1-1 ratio. 0-star trades are just bad, and I won't even mention them here. 1-star trades are a little off balance and happen most often when you come across someone in the trade window that you haven't found on the map yet. Then the game imposes a 50% penalty. So if the person is really asking for 100 units, the game will tack on another 50 units for a total cost of 150. 3-star trades are good for the “buyer”, and it happens when you are getting better than a 1-1 ratio. Usually, someone needs something bad and they are willing to give up more to get it.

Now, when placing a trade, the game will suggest a 1x4x16 ratio between the tiers to achieve a 2-star, or balanced, trade. You are allowed to waiver from that ratio some, but get too far away from it and the game will reject your trade offer. So that means for every 1 tier-3 good being offered it would be “worth” 4 tier-2 goods, and 16 tier-1 goods.

So, some examples:

(Tier-1 Basic Goods offers)

You offer 100 steel and the game will suggest you ask for 25 crystals/scrolls/silk

You offer 100 steel and the game will suggest you ask for 6 elixir/magic dust/gems

(Tier-2 Crafted Goods offers)

You offer 100 silk and the game will suggest you ask for 400 marble/steel/planks

You offer 100 silk and the game will suggest you ask for 25 elixir/magic dust/gems

(Tier-3 Magical Goods offers)

You offer 100 gems and the game will suggest you ask for 400 crystals/scrolls/silk

You offer 100 gems and the game will suggest you ask for 1600 marble/steel/planks

So you can see that if you are offering a good, it will require more lower tier goods to fulfill the offer, and less higher tier goods. Why does this matter? Because of the difference between what each tier factory produces. The lower tier factories yield a lower amount of goods per production run. While the actual amount depends on which race you are (Elf or Human), and on your current boost rate based on the number of relics you have – overall the lower the tier factory, the lower the yield per run.

While the actual production numbers will be personal, let's use some numbers from the wiki. In chapter 5, you could have max level 15 marble and elixir factories. Their base productions per day would be 173 for marble, and 571 for elixir. That is already a big difference in their production amounts. But that's just base amounts. Let me use my factories on my Elf city as a real world example (all puns intended):

Factory     Factory level     Boost amount      9-hour Production yield

Marble      14         433%             496

Crystal      9         402%             477

Elixir       5         472%             584

That's a noticeable difference between tier-1 to tier-3 production. But especially when you consider I could upgrade the elixir factory another 10 levels to level 15! Even when you take into consideration that tier-3 goods cost more coin and supplies to run, tier-3 can easily outproduce tier-1 when spending that same amount of time, coins, and supplies!

Right now, on my server, there is a trade posted where someone is giving up 300 gems and wants 4000 marble in return. This, by the way, is considered a 3-star or really good trade by the game. So using my example city above, it would take me 8 marble factories all running 9-hour productions to produce 3986 marble. Better hope I already have some marble saved up or I would need a 9th factory to fulfill the offer. Assuming the numbers for gem factories are somewhere close to my elixir factories, it would only take that person 1 gems factory to produce the 300 gems they are giving up. And they would have a surplus amount of leftover gems for themselves!

This is why, unless it was dire circumstances, I never take cross-tier trades. They aren't fair and equitable trades. Now I know people might still need them, and some people like them. But you usually see the same people posting the same cross-tier trades over and over. And that's just a drain on the “economy”. Those people usually cut down or eliminated their tier-1 factories to save space. But it is very inefficient and forces others to carry their deficiencies

That's why all it takes is one fellowship member running their production like this and it will drain the fellowship of resources.  Especially if not everyone in the fellowship is participating in trades.  But that is a topic for another post!