There are two places to deal with other players: the Square, for resources, and the Auction House, for items. Either can be open or closed on this server.
The Square
The Square lives in the Market window. It's resource-for-resource trading: you post "I give this, I want that", and any player on the server can accept.
Requirements
The village doing the trade needs:
- Warehouse level 3;
- at least 5 as the sum of the levels of all its buildings;
- and the account must be at least 3 days old.
The requirements apply to whoever posts and whoever accepts. Novice protection and the Peace Pact don't block trading.
How a trade moves
- Posting takes what you offer out of the village and reserves the caravans that will carry it: Royal Wagon, War Packbeast or Profane Cart, depending on your race. Each caravan carries a fixed load, shown on the unit's page. No free caravans, no offer.
- Accepting charges the accepting player what the offer asks for, also carried by their caravans. Both caravans leave together, one in each direction, and take the travel time across the map.
- On arrival, delivery respects the destination's Warehouse: whatever doesn't fit is lost, and the notice says how much.
- Cancelling, in the My Offers tab, returns what was reserved right away and frees the caravans, which hadn't left yet. The refund also respects the Warehouse cap: whatever doesn't fit is lost, and the notice says how much. Unanswered offers expire on their own after a while, and each account has a limit on open offers.
Value and safety
Trades are measured in value, not quantity: a unit of a resource that's slower to produce is worth more. Offers that are too lopsided are refused, and the screen shows the limit.
Resources locked in an offer still count toward the village's plunder. Posting isn't a vault (see Warehouse and storage).
In a hurry and don't want to wait for another player? The Merchant's Exchange converts on the spot for cash (see Merchant and Exchange).
The Auction House
When it's open, it shows up in the menu as Auctions. Each auction is one lot: a piece of equipment, copies of an Omens card or units of a tradable material, like relic fragments and shards.
What can be auctioned
- Free, never-equipped equipment: items that dropped from map targets or came out of chests, including Chests of Fate. Equipping binds an item to you forever, and items bought in the Shop are bound from the start.
- An item with a socketed gem needs the gem removed first. Gems can't be auctioned.
- Spare copies of a card. The copy on your Table stays.
How it works
- You pick the currency (bronze, silver, essence or cash, depending on the item) and a starting price, never below the listed minimum for that item.
- The auction lasts 8, 12, 16, 20 or 24 hours, your choice, and the highest bid wins.
- Each bid must beat the previous one by a minimum margin. A bid in the final minutes pushes the end a little further, so nobody wins at the last second.
- Your bid leaves your balance right away. If someone outbids you, the amount comes back to you immediately.
- You can only cancel while there are no bids. With no bids by the end, the lot comes back to you.
- The house keeps 10% of every sale, taken out of what the seller receives.
- On top of the fee, the seller may pay a pair tax. The game tracks what two players trade between themselves (Square, direct sends and auctions) and checks whether the relationship runs one way. While the pair is balanced, the tax is zero. Once the imbalance passes 50%, 75% and 90%, the tax rises, respectively, to 15%, 40% and 70% of the sale value, and the two add up: the seller gets the value minus the fee and the tax together. In practice: if the same buyer keeps paying the same seller well above the listed price, or the seller has already sent that buyer resources without getting anything back, each further sale between the two pays less. It's the brake on gifts disguised as auctions; anyone who trades with a variety of players never feels it.
- The imbalance fades over time: it halves every 14 days, and pairs that barely traded are left out. In the higher bands, a bidder is also locked out of bidding on that seller for 6 and 24 hours, respectively, and the screen tells you when it clears.
Requirements
The account must be at least 7 days old, and the active village needs at least 8 as the sum of its building levels. There's also a limit on open auctions and on bids you lead at the same time.