The idea behind using a auction house in place of a 'Shop' zone is that until dwarves are more in control of their personal finances, the player as a representative force is effectively "The House" which account holding visitors put their coins against and some small scale individual purchases and item offers made by peddlers runs through.
Podiums, tables and other display furniture is used for the display and barter of items, while coffers/boxes are used to hold coins for the use of buying objects of which a maximum outgoing and incoming bidding limit can be set setting can be set and also affects the wares that will come into your fortress for whatever size of auction house you can provide.
Auction House Mechanics Summarized
> Objects that are currently on display are independently valued by the 'Auctioneer' occupation, which builds up and relies on trading & social skills to operate successfully while the trade-depot is currently unoccupied allowing a alternative course of career for part-time trade negotiators.
- Animals currently inside cages in this area can be bought for their approximate pet-value and accompany their new masters, either as mounts or pet-animals.
- Artifacts can be put on sale by incoming visitors and the player, but the upper limit of coins required often restricts the trading of them with peddlers arriving with books and more cheap artifacts to sell off.
- Objects currently up for sale like in adventure mode are labelled with $$ signs, and removing objects from sale to re-enable them for fortress industrial use creates negative thoughts in the minds of buyers.
- Visitors making purchases can only account for what they can carry, so will often accessorize after making a central material purchase if they have any capital-account wealth left and havent made any money back with their own wares.
Furniture
> Tables: are used for incoming wares which visitors will haul their objects for bidding, which are valued by the auctioneer as if they were diagnosing patients in the hospital, reviewing them against their current financial knowledge more than once and moved onto the podiums for selling when confirmed for auction.
- Intially a broker can can be called outright to attempt to purchase a object before its validated to go to auction on the players behalf, using the lowest visitor set or auctioneer price estimate as a starting point, using all their trading knowledge and speech prowess to seal a agreeable deal.
- Rejected lots free the table up but the vistor may respond negatively, either leaving immediately or staying to use other location amenities if they don't return to purchase something from the auction house using their account budget.
> Display Furniture: These are used for selling your objects, queing up something to be displayed from your own fortress will queue up the auctioneer to check its asking price normally accurate or higher than it actually worth based on skill, and when a auction is held with visitors in attendance bids for the asking price, higher or lower will be made on these objects oversaw by the auctioneer.
> Boxes: Hold the finances for the accounts, in paying out and recieving bids from the auction house for all kinds of currency of which each box can hold 2000 coins (20 [100] stacks) in reserve and in earnings.
And for new mechanics there are also new merchants who can interface with the auction house directly, but is not limited eitherway to any vistor crossing boundaries to visit a tavern, library or temple to fufill their needs as much as other visitors like scholars, mercenaries and performers might visit the auction house for frivolous items that may interest them.
Auction House Related Visitor Types Summarized> Peddler: low-level merchants that arrive to buy and exchange auction goods, their main place of business in the auction-house, carrying some additional items in a bag-sack that they will claim a table in the auction room. Their budgets are usually relatively restrained and can't be siezed off them in the case of their death (magic armok e-wallets, due to the trasparent nature of economy-off coins)
> Merchant-Nobility: Site wealth & holding high bidding auctions attracts the attention of Human merchant-princes who will lay down higher quality items for sale, and large bids due to their vast personal wealth, they will often haggle harder too and stoop to using intimidation, letting these individuals be killed has diplomatic reprecussions, but they always travel with body-guards and personal attendants for carrying.
> Petty Theives: Opportunistic peddlers and unscrupulous merchant princes who think they are above the law may attempt to steal and swipe certain goods rather than pay for them after feigning or expressing a genuine interest.
- Peddlers or merchant-nobility may attempt to approach the mayor for jobs as auctioneers, which they'll contribute their own owned wealth into the auction house that can't be retracted until they have citizenship but can be spent. Being nobility, the merchant-prince and princesses seldom do any work outside of auctioneering, and are rolled up in their entourage of guards and helpers instead.
- Peddlers & merchant princes may also attempt to directly use their personal skills to haggle a price for a displayed object, and can be counteracted by quickly allocating your broker to join in the meeting else you would lose profit.
- Dwarves who procure masterworks do not like their work to be sold for under-appreciated amounts as if they were a cheap bargain and dwarves will take particular offence.
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Topic: Auction House Location Zone (Read 684 times)