[2023] A trading strategy that might soon to be gone

I want to talk about a strategy that is really strong for regular servers, around trading, that you can do before there is a global currency.

The standard way to trade, without a global currency is players exchange goods they need for goods they can make. For example, a tailor trades plant fiber for cloth, a carpenter will trade hewn logs for furniture. This has a few major draw backs.

If you are unable to obtain an item that player A wishes to buy, then you are unable to trade with player A. This slows down trade, significantly in the early game, and can make it very difficult to get the economy moving.

There are two potential solution to this problem, either adopt a single players credit, or trade an item of value as a derivative for currency.

The first option, adopting a playes credit means that the entire supply of money is dictated by how may resources that player consumes, or by direct transfers. It puts power into a single players hands, and can be difficult to adopt, but these can also be drawbacks of a global currency.

This post looks at the second option, trading an item of value. This could be a craftable product, or a raw resource, but this would essentially stear the economy in an unhealthy way. Instead I recommend using Land claim papers.

If you wanted to buy something from player A, you could instead sell a land claim paper to buy what you need. In theory, someone could sell item's to player A and buy back that land claim. If you get multiple people who buy and sell LCP at the same credit value, you are now creating an equivalent prices. This way, you can facilitate a lot of trade by moving the same few land claim papers around in a circle between players.

Here is where the strategy gets really strong. The main source of LCP is new players, and research. This would encourage players to unlock research quickly, as a book can provide 5 claim papers for everyone. Therefore, if you always sell a research scroll below the price of 5 LCP's, it's worth while anyone reading the scroll.

This drives competition in providing research to the whole market quickly, which can have a positive impact on the server. It also means new players can have a solid injection of cash when they first start to kick them off.

Downsides are, that this disproportionately effects trades that need large plots of land, such as farmers, and claiming land actually has a deflationary effect on the market. However on the flipside, it also makes available more land claims that typically wouldn't be available.

So next time you are playing Eco on a new servee without a currency, just think about how many Land claims you actually need, and if you can potentially make a profitable trade.