Trade Resources

Definition

Trading Resources is the process of players sending resources they have harvested to other sub-tribes in return for Cronos.
All trades are nearly instantaneous, so as soon as the trade is accepted by the recipient they are able to act on that resource, for example Delivering it to the Chief in response to a Chief Offer.

Hints and Tips

Resources expire quickly, so if you wish to trade them you’ll need to be quick.
Arranging trades can carry a high overhead while players are discussing many other aspects of the game under time pressure. However players will need to be forewarned to go to the relevant section of the ERM to accept the trade.
It might be beneficial for one or two players to concentrate on each type of Resource, such as Fish, for the duration of the game. If you’re going to do this it will be quicker to just trade the relevant resource to that player as quickly as possible.
You can trade resources for very low values of Cronos. It is up to the players to agree on how much a resource is worth before a trade takes place.

Importance in Game Design

Relevance to Evivve’s Ecosystem

Best Practices for Facilitators

Benefits and Challenges

Importance in Game Design

The facility to trade resources gives players another reason to communicate, and another subject to discuss. This adds more co-operative and competitive possibilities to the game, giving players more to consider under time pressure.
The trade option is not integral to the players’ initial use of the ERM, therefore it can be left as functionality to be discovered by players before or during the session. Therefore curiosity, especially by players who sit back while others discuss strategies, can be rewarded.
There are no preset prices for each resource to anchor the players to a value for trades, except the Cronos offered by the Chief. This gives space for the players to discuss and disagree about perceived value, which can be explored as part of the reflection taking place after the game has been played.

Relevance to Evivve’s Ecosystem

Evivve is carefully designed to give the players just too much to consider during the game. Trading Resources gives the players more options to manage the challenge of getting the right resources from their lands to the Chief.
Including the facility to trade resources gives the players another way to act together as a tribe, increasing team cohesion. This gives a facilitator another aspect to discuss regarding the interaction between players, or missed opportunities to do so.

Best Practices for Facilitators

Ensure players understand how quickly resources can expire, so the Trade Resources function needs to be used quickly.
The ERM is designed to be relatively easy to operate, but is poor at notifying players when they should take an action, forcing high levels of attention at all times. You can ensure players are aware that they will need to prompt each other, or leave this as a learning point to emerge during game play.
If players are involved in communication, or even interface design, you can discuss how the Trade Resources process could be improved if players were able to modify the ERM.

Benefits and Challenges

A benefit of the trading resources capability is that it’s a good way for players to quickly establish trust with each other through actions they can verify within the game. This is particularly useful if the group do not usually work together. Also within the mindset of using the AFERR model this gives players an early opportunity to reflect on their decisions relating to other players.
The existence of the trade resources option within the ERM means that players can attempt more complex strategies, such as designating a specific player or players to only harvest one resource, and to receive any other resources of that type created by other players.
The main challenge is that in such a fast game the trade resource option takes a relatively long amount of time, and takes more immediate co-ordination between players than other aspects of Evivve.