I have an issue in a stock market game. I have computer simulations that play the game with different AI. There is a dumb AI that sells all his share each turn, and buy the lowest possible stocks. That AI surpasses all other players and wins all the time.
Also since players can buy or sell stocks each turn, they are not likely to try long term investment. In the original "St0ck T!cker", only 1 player could buy or sell stock at a time. Which created a situation where you could not adjust your portfolio quickly after the market moves, you had to wait for your turn.
Now I think, that not being allowed to buy or sell for a certain amount of time could be a solution to my problem, but I am not really sure how I should lock/unlock stocks in a way that makes sense and that is interesting. I came up with 2 methods so far:
A) Restriction by phase: Each year is 4 turns, so I could say that both buying and selling stocks can be done at the start of the year, but later during the year, you cannot do both. You can either buy or sell. I think restraining selling during the year would make more sense mechanically. It would prevent players from leaving the boat quickly, and they would have to plan more in long term.
B) Restrain by stock: Each turn, only 3 out of 8 stocks are considered "Active" and can be bought or sold. The other 5 stocks are locked. This creates a window of opportunity where players can decide if they jump in, stay or leave the boat. The active stocks would be determined randomly. 1, 2 or stocks would changes each turn depending on the window of opportunity I want to give to players That means certain stocks could remain locked or active or a long period of time if unlucky depending on the randomness mechanism.
Solution B looks more interesting, but both solutions does not seems to make sense thematically.
Else have you seen other games which blocks buying and selling stocks in certain situations?
Some people suggested transaction fees, it works well in real life or in a computer game, but in a board game it adds up a lot of bookeeping.
One idea I just have is that I could have fees for each stock owned at the end of the year. That would be a soft alternative to a limit in number of stocks. That would be the easiest way to handle fees. A flat rate per stock would prevent having a player stash a huge amount of low stocks and make a fortune when they raise in value. I was currently controlling this flaw by blocking purchases for stocks that are too low. But maybe a fee for each stock at the end of the year (each 4 turns) could be a solution. still players could sell all their stocks during the 4th turn to avoid the fees.
There is a random fluctuation mechanism by using cards. I could find a way that a certain amount of assets gets unlocked each turn. Although one thing I realised is that when people sell, they generally move money from one stock to another. If I only activate 3/8 stocks per turn, that means that only movement between those stocks are possible.
Another soft alternative is to have fees if you buy/sell locked stocks.
Does having blockout period makes sense?