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The Policy Corner


supercoolyellow

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Hello planet Bob.

I've decided to start semi-regularly posting different questions regarding alliance policies and related matters here in the OWF, so alliances can compare how they do things, and therefore be as effective as they can be.

Today's topic is for all you finance and tech trading people out there.

What kind of tech deals should an alliance's tech department focus on, The 1x1, the 2x2, or the 3x3? Please explain why of course

I think the biggest debate is between the 1x1 and the 3x3. With most alliances of consequence, that I've heard about or worked with, the 3x3 is more popular for official or alliance sponsored deals. MCXA uses 3x3 for its official deals, and I've read that that alliances like Gramlins have done 3x3s as well.

I however, prefer the 1x1 deal. If I were dicator for a day I would make all alliance sponsored deals 1x1s. First I think it takes too much time to organize. While a tech staff person is organizing a 3x3, I think they would be better spending their time identifying possible tech sellers in the alliance, and recruiting them to sell tech. Also, all 6 involved nations have to leave trade slots open until they do a tech deal. For a buyer this is not a big deal because they likely don't have all their slots filled with tech deals, but for a tech seller this can be quite the slow down because they will have aid slots left empty that they could fill right away. Another thing I notice is that when a tech seller is doing 3x3s they usually are not using their other two slots to to do 1x1 tech deals, and therefore are only selling 3/5ths of the tech they could be. For the very largest tech sellers they have 6 aid slots due to the disaster relief agency wonder. However, no tech seller has ever had a wonder, and and so they are limited to 5 aid slots.

Also, do be a successful alliance in getting tech deals you need recruit, and teach new members how to do a deal technology. 3x3s are more complex so they are harder for a new player to learn. Now granted, we would think that anyone could figure out how to do a 3x3, but you'd be surprised how much a new player can mess up. Also, new players tend to be much less active. The amount of coordination that goes into a 3x3 requires a certain level of activity that some players don't have. Then the day of the deal, a seller must check their account quite a bit to accept the first aid offer, submit the first tech, confirm the first tech has been accepted, and send the second tech aid.

The best bonus in a 3x3 deal is that the buyer gets their tech that day. But today, it is definitely a sellers market. :D

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3x3 is technically the best for the buying alliance, because you get your tech immediately, so you don't have a 15 day lag on the first deal (10 days for half, 20 for the other half). However, once things are rolling, it makes no difference to the buyer in pure monetary terms. 1x1 is more profitable for the seller, because they get 15 days of investment (averaged again) from the money before they have to spend it on tech, allowing them to grow faster.

1x1s have the big advantage that you don't need to synchronise your aid slots, and they don't require much organisation. For alliance deals that might not be an issue, as many alliances have synchronised 'aid cycles' anyway, but for individual deals it's a big difference.

Anything involving $3m/50 is a charity deal – not that there's necessarily anything wrong with that, though I prefer fair deals and explicit charity aid myself, as you can target the aid better that way.

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You forgot 5x5's. Yes, they exist. I think it really depends on what the membership wants and can do. Whatever people prefer will typically work better for them, so the effectiveness of the deal is less dependent on the structure itself, and more dependent on the willingness of those trading plus the ability of the minister to help out with the logistics.

Personally, I was always a fan of the 3x3's. I don't have to wait 10 days to remember to send more tech. I would just get a message once every ten days to send off my 50 tech.

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In MCXA, a 2x2 deal uses the 3mill 50 tech price.

Buyer1 sends Seller1 three million dollars

Buyers2 sends seller2 three million dollars

Seller1 sends buyer2 50 tech

Seller2 sends buyer1 50 tech

GO does 2x2s

i personally prefer 1x1s but CSN's internal deals are 3x3s which i try to avoid since recurring 3x3s can be thrown off if one person is even a day late

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I personally run one 3x3 and 3 other 1x1's at the same-time. So I can coordinate when I receive my tech, and gain it all at roughly the same period in order to bloat my e-peen; erm tech level.

However, in terms of what is the best policy to run if your a tech-dealing alliance...it really depends on your membership activity and there preferences.

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We do it a little differently... We do something more like a 1 x 3. For example:

  1. The buyer sends $3,000,000 to a seller.
  2. The buyer sends the seller a link to two people to send tech to.
  3. The seller sends the tech to the two people on the same day.

Essentially you're buying tech for other people, and they return the favour when they can. It works well cause the deal ends on the day and you don't have to put in as much organisation with a 3 x 3.

Edited by TailsK
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In my case I prefer 1x1, because it's simpler and I only have to worry about myself. Also allows me to be perfectly on time which is something I'm proud of and have never failed to do. Plus it gives me 10 days of enjoying 50 Tech I wouldn't have otherwise.

When it comes to price I try to find a middle ground between standard price and 3/50 'charity' price. In my last mass sell I asked for 3/50 all the way because I'm preparing for my first Infra jump. In a normal situation I would be fine with 2.75-2.5/50. In reality though the market is very good for sellers and one can pretty much get a 3/50 easily if you look for it; and if you can, then why not do it?

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1x1's are not better for sellers. You make a *rough* profit of around $1.7million every 30 days.

With a 3x3, you can do the deal every 10 days, making the same $1.7million every ten days.

If you did 3 1x1's (30 days), you'd get exactly the same profit as doing one 3x3, three times (30 days). Both is $5.1mils a month, essentially. Ya get meh?

And if you're in a perma-tech circle, then negatives Super talked about don't apply- the sellers know what they're doing. And if you have one guys just sending a single quick message reminding people (as I do) it takes next to no time to do, and people are reliable. Yeah it takes longer to organise, but once it is, you can just sit back and watch the tech flow.

And also, sellers should ALWAYS have 50 tech at the ready, whether they're involved in a tech deal or not.

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GO does 2x2s

i personally prefer 1x1s but CSN's internal deals are 3x3s which i try to avoid since recurring 3x3s can be thrown off if one person is even a day late

This is exactly the reason why I don't do 3*3s.

1*1s take no time for a buyer to arrange in game, and you can send reminders a day before the tech is due to help the sellers out. And then you dont have to worry about much else. Plus I like seeing my nation strength chart go up slowly in a nice curve, rather than jumping up and down every 10 days. Much more asthetically pleasing.

Edit: I just realised that I seem to be following WickedJ's posting around and complimenting or responding to his posts. This can't be healthy

Edited by Cyphon88
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Just for the sake of discussion, SNAFU also has offered a 2x2+1 deal.

Large Nation A sends $3mil to small nation a

Larbe Nation B sends $3mil to small nation b

small nation a sends 50 tech to Large Nation B

small nation b sends 50 tech to Large Nation A

10 days later, they repeat the tech payment.

This is a little more complex than a 1x1, but helps get those pesky two extra slots used up and should a brand new seller take the route of inactive delete, the buyers only stand to lose 50 tech.

This has fallen out of favor a bit as many of our active small nations have been getting $3mil for 50 tech deals, but it's worked fairly well in the past.

As an alliance, we prefer to set up 3x3's as although the organization may be a little more involved on the front end, the deal is done and over with in 1-2 days and that's all the time we have to spend tracking it. An alliance sanctioned 1x1 must be tracked for 20 days and has in our experience resulted in many more defaults than the 3x3 format. Since we honor any alliance deal made with outside parties, it can be a real pain in the behind if we've got 3-4 new recruits who all of a sudden decide Planet Bob isn't for them 9 days into a 1x1.

Anyway, that's my $.02, I love this topic, keep the ideas coming. :D

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As a buyer, I think 1x1's are much more convenient. Each time I set one up, I guarentee to use that 1 slot of mine for 30 days. In contrast, setting up a 3x3 uses up 3 slots for 10 days, which is the same amount of slots used and tech gained, but much more difficult to organize. It also requires 3 slots to open on the same day, and it's very hard to redo this every 10 days since in each deal there might be a 1 day delay if not everyone is active. It's much easier to message around, find a seller, and send the money, and it'll get me 100 tech and 1 slot used up over the next 30 days. I'd only have to do this 6 times every 30 days, and I just send each seller a reminder the day before each day the tech is due.

However, within an alliance, I actually found 1x1s to be quite difficult to organize. You have to pair each slot of each buyer with a different person, and each slot of a seller with a different person.

Edited by XRCatD
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3x3s are good for screening new sellers, and making sure they won't run off with 15 million of feeder money for 1x1s.

Otherwise 1x1s are better. They don't take much organization, you can just post a list of sellers and tell buyers to fill open slots by sending the 3 mill seed money. They are also the easiest to achieve full slot efficiency with.

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