Land Auctions starting price

[Keybounce]

The starting price of a land auction should never be higher than everyone's money (so no one can bid at all), unless you add in some sort of morgaging option. (You know, morgage a property for $250 plus half the value of the mule).

It should be low enough that two people can bid, provided that that price level is more than half of the one-person-only opening bid level. Otherwise, the one person can just ignore it if they want.

[-Lee-]

I think the land auction price should be the average of all the players money

[piete]

I think the original game is perfect and if this game uses the same algorithm to calculate/pick the land auction price it's fine with me

I don't think the auction starting price should be low just if everyone happens to be low on cash, this game is about decisions on trade-offs. I personally try to save my cash to be able to auction, and if my rivals spend theirs on smithore and I get to buy the land, I'll have an advantage later in the game.

[matl33t]

what if you really need money, and you sell your own land for next round auction, and start price is higher than everyone's money? then you won't be able to sell in the end even if you would be willing to price it lower.

[Big Head Zach]

what if you really need money, and you sell your own land for next round auction, and start price is higher than everyone's money? then you won't be able to sell in the end even if you would be willing to price it lower.

If you sell your own land, you technically should be able to set the minimum bid. Is this not happening?

[Pescado]

Nope. If you sell your own land, you're just a bidder like everyone else. I seem to remember in the C64 version, the seller of the land stood at the top of the screen and people walked towards him. If the price being offered becomes unpalatably paltry, there is nothing you can do and the land may effectively be taken from you if you cannot outbid your bidder for your own land due to time or lack of funds.

[Big Head Zach]

Nope. If you sell your own land, you're just a bidder like everyone else. I seem to remember in the C64 version, the seller of the land stood at the top of the screen and people walked towards him. If the price being offered becomes unpalatably paltry, there is nothing you can do and the land may effectively be taken from you if you cannot outbid your bidder for your own land due to time or lack of funds.

By all means, this needs to get added to the game with utmost priority - alongside the prototype project being developed.

[Core Xii]

The point is that an auction where the starting price is higher than all of the players' money should be skipped entirely. Nobody can bid, so everyone just stares at the timer and waits. It's pointless.

[Pescado]

There's a great deal of "purposeless waits" that can be forced on people due to either an incompetent player or just in general in the game. It generally slows down the game. For instance, the Production Phase can be stalled for a very long time purely because one smacktard wouldn't hit space, which is an entirely avoidable thing. Other times the game can be stalled when someone gets declared as a Smithore seller, and isn't bright enough to switch to Buyer, so now we have to sit through an auction where no one sells. Or the Crystite auction where everyone has sold out, but we still have to wait for the timer to run out instead of immediately ending it because the number of units for sale anywhere is zero. This happens in other auctions as well, number of units for sale is zero, but the timer still has to run out.

Finally, the round 12 auctions: Total pointlessness with a side order of footbullet.

[C64]

Land auctions currently waste a lot of time, especially when people have a lot of money and just run up the price.  I'd rather see a quicker game than see all the time that gets wasted on these land auctions in either version.  I think the Planet Mule version can be improved, and this whole concept should be rethought in the next version.