Bazaar
| Shoppes and Stalls | |
|---|---|
|
Apothecary |
|
Distillery |
|
Furnisher |
|
Iron monger |
|
Shipyard |
|
Tailor |
|
Weavery |
| Shoppes only | |
|
Estate agent |
|
Construction site |
A bazaar is a building with many stalls of the same type. A bazaar must be placed on an island before a shop of that kind can. The entrance to the bazaar is a room which allows any pirate to comparison shop across the island for the goods produced by the stalls in the bazaar (both stalls and shoppes). There is also a desk which allows you to open your own stall. From the entry room, you can choose to enter any of the stalls in the bazaar. On subscription oceans, non-subscribers cannot open a stall, or change the size of a stall they may already have.
Small stalls have an owner but no managers. A medium stall may have a manager. A deluxe stall may have up to two managers.
Construction cost, stall storage capacity, and paint requirements information can be found on the page for each bazaar type.
Contents
Bazaar Ownership
The deed to a bazaar building changes with the governance of an island. Each time the island is taken in a blockade or the governorship is changed by a royalty vote, all infrastructure deeds, including the bazaar deeds, are automatically transferred over to the new governor. Governors often hand these deeds out to flag mates or friends, either with specific purposes in mind or as vanity gifts. The bazaar building itself requires no rent or tax payment.
Possessing the deed to the bazaar building confers no special privileges or powers, nor do you get any income from it. The only abilities granted the deed-holder are the power to change the news in and to paint the front room. Some bazaar holders use this ability to create an advertising space in the main lobby news. Note that bazaars themselves have no hold, so paint must be purchased automatically via the paint brush.
Stall Management
Anyone can open their own stall in a bazaar with some amount of PoE, which is determined by the type of stall, the population of the island, and the island's tax rate. Doubloon oceans also require 10 doubloons to open a stall.
You can open only one stall in each bazaar, but there are no other limits to how many stalls you can open. Stalls do not have deeds and cannot be transferred from one player to another. The fee to open a stall is an intentional barrier to entry, and raising that fee with a plan to recuperate the investment is regarded as the first test of a successful stallkeeper.
Rent
Stalls require a weekly tax to be paid as rent. This amount can be paid in advance by clicking on a button in the "Shoppe" tab, where the due date and amount of the next payment are displayed. If the tax is not paid by the due date, it will be automatically withdrawn from the coffers. If the coffers do not have enough to cover the fee, the stall is closed and cannot do business until the tax is paid. This is indicated by the stall being "dark" inside. If there are unstarted orders in the queue, they are all canceled and all of the PoE that was in escrow for them is refunded to the purchaser (the 15% restocking fee does not apply). If the tax is not paid by two weeks after the due date, the stall will be closed permanently and all commodities and PoE in its coffers confiscated as payment. Any clothes on the rack for deluxe tailor stalls will be lost as well, though any furniture added to the stall will be returned to the item's owner when the stall shuts down.
Upgrading and Downgrading
You can upgrade or downgrade your stall at any time from the main bazaar. This will result in one week's worth of rent at the new level being deducted from the coffers and the tax day set to the current day of the week. If the taxes have already been prepaid, the rent difference between the current level and the new level will be paid if upgrading (if downgrading, there will be no refund). In both cases, you gain the standard number of props for a stall of that kind, but retain any paint jobs you had previously applied.
Note Regarding Managers
If a stall is downgraded and has more managers than the new size allows, the managers who do not fit remain on the list, but are essentially invisible. They will not be able to manage unless the stall is returned to a size that has enough manager slots. However, managers removed by this will be immediately restored (since they were never actually removed) in that event, so it is advisable to check managers after upgrading a stall that was previously downgraded, to avoid theft.
Historical Notes
Bazaars were added to the game for release 2004-04-28, which also introduced comparison shopping.
Originally, starting a stall required various commodities as well as PoE, but that was changed in release 2005-02-11, shortly after merchant brigands were introduced.
Non-subscribers were prevented from opening or changing the size of stalls in release 2005-11-23.
The deeds to bazaars themselves were made untradable (along with all other government buildings) in release 2006-03-30.
All government buildings were made tradeable again in release 2006-04-20. A warning message appears in the trade window if a government building deed is being traded.
External/Other Links
- Howto:Use building news
- Commonly discussed ideas about bazaars and stalls from Game Design
- Official game documents
