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Tinto Talks #10 - 1st of May 2024

Welcome to another Tinto Talks, the final of four on the economy system for our secret game with the code name “Project Caesar”.

Today we will talk about all the things related to trade, including markets, merchants and trades. This talk is heavy on tooltip screenshots, and a lot of concepts to digest, so I recommend checking it through multiple times.

Markets
Let's start with the markets themselves. These are dynamic and will change through the playthrough, as countries can create new markets and disband their old if they so desire.

Each market has a center in a location, and the owner of that location is in control over that market.

Every location and coastal seazone will belong to the most fitting market, which depends on the market attraction of the market, the distance between the location and the market center, diplomatic factors, and more.

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The Riga market has control over much of the Baltic region in the start..

A market has merchants, who have a power depending on buildings and maritime presence in the market, and a merchant capacity which depends on the infrastructure for trade that country has in that market. The Merchant Power impacts in which order exports from a market are executed, as there is not an endless supply of goods in a market. The Merchant Capacity impacts how much goods the merchants can ship.

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This is the source of the Hanseatic League’s merchant capacity in Riga.



As you can see in the market screenshot, every good has a local price, and a supply vs demand value as well, let's take a look at the beer price in the next tooltip.

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Cheap beer, must be paradise…

Prices change every month towards the Target Price, which depends on the supply and demand of the goods in the market, and the current price stability. Price stability can change through the ages as well.

Supply & Demand
The supply of each good in a market depends on several factors.
  • The output from RGO’s
  • The output from buildings
  • Base Production
  • Burgher Trades

So what is ‘Base Production’? Some goods like clay, lumber, sand and stone are produced in every market, without the need for specific RGO’s, even if an RGO with that raw material can produce much more, and there are buildings that can be built to provide these as well.

Also, your burghers will trade on their own, if they have the capacity for it. They will attempt to address needs within the market, and can trade in a slightly shorter range, thus enriching their estate. There are laws and privileges that impact them, like the “Trade Monopolies” estate privilege that the Hanseatic League has granted in the earlier screenshot, which reduces their own merchant capacity by 25% to increase the capacity of the burghers by 100%

So what about demand? This is primarily from the maintenance, input, and construction of buildings, recruiting and maintaining armies and navies, and the demands of the population, but there are more sources as well.

Of course, trades themselves impact supply and demand as well.

Trade
You can use your merchant capacity in a market to either export a good from that market, or import a good from another market. Of course that market needs to be within your trade range, which is not world-spanning in 1337.

A trade is a variable amount of goods shipped from one market to another market, purchasing it for the local price in the exporting market. The longer the distance between the markets, the more capacity each good will require to ship, and higher the maintenance costs will be.

Trades have an impact on the last land location they are in before leaving the market, and the first one they enter in the importing market, giving boosts in development to them over time. A trade always has to trace a path on the map.

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Our merchant power makes us get the amount of goods we want in Riga.

There are also the Sound Tolls, if you pass through Öresund or the Bosphorus to consider.

Diplomacy and Trade
There are many diplomatic factors that impact the trade and market mechanics of Project Caesar.

First of all, you can “Deny Market Access” to a nation owning a market, which will reduce the attraction of their markets on your locations, but also make anyone with merchants in those markets upset with you.

You can also request and/or offer market access preference making it likelier for a country’s locations to belong in a certain market.

If you dislike paying Sound Tolls, you can always try to ask for exemption for it through diplomacy with the country controlling the strait.

Some countries have isolated themselves completely, so you need to negotiate a specific exception to allow you to export or import from their markets.

There is also the possibility to embargo a country, which would block the merchants from that country to trade in your markets, and also to not be allowed to move through your country. Of course, this a legit casus belli, so use with care.

Other aspects to Trade
Each market can have specific goods banned for export or import, with one common example being that muslim markets will ban import and export of wine, beer and liquor.

We mentioned in an earlier Tinto Talks that Markets will have stockpiles, so that surplus can be stored for a rainy day. There are buildings that will increase the amount that can be stored.

There is also food in the markets, with prices adapting to the supply and demand of food as well.

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Västra Götaland är Sveriges Kornbod!

There are also automation options where you can assign trading completely to the AI. You can also lock some trades so that the AI will not interfere with them.

Stay tuned, next week we’ll be talking about mercenaries, levies and regulars!
 
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How much will geography affect trade routes? Will mountains make markets significantly less likely for a location to be in a market on the other side, and will rivers make it significantly more likely for a location to be in a market down or upstream?

I hope the logic for which locations join which market is going to be easily moddable with defines or something like that, would be disappointing if it's all hardcoded and ends up having some issues.
 
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Notably, only Sweden and Hansa have Merchant Capacity (MC) in the Riga Market. However, you've said Burghers have their own MC, do they always have it? For example, even though the Livonian Order has no MC of their own, are their Burghers performing small trades, or is it possible for both a nation and its Burghers to have no MC and therefore no impact whatsoever on the flow of goods.
 
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How and when are markets destroyed? Can we force a trade rival to disband their market? Thinking Venice and Genoa
 
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Is the AI actually going to be able to understand all of this and properly utilize all of these new mechanics? It sounds a bit pessimistic, but my biggest concern with the game right now is whether or not the ai will understand everything and act logically and strategically or not. Will the ai purposefully cut off trade networks going through their land to hurt a rival, will we see the AI understand that they want to fight somebody but can't fight them on land and thus build more ships, will the ai properly manage their economy and all of these new production methods and resources, will the ai try to establish monopolies for certain good (like potatoes coming to europe from the new world, for example) etc? My biggest hope is that the AI here isn't just bad and able to be walked all over by a player who has more than a little amount of experience in the game.
 
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Flag of Ragusa is kinda completely off (in EU4 as well).

Also, will trade war CB actually let us take provinces or at least somehow severely hurt the other nation? In EU4 for example there is never a reason to use it.
Ragusa flag is a tricky one. The proper flag doesn’t look like it would translate well to being a small icon imo, though any other choice is pretty ahistorical
 
Little wider map you can see more of spain and caspian sea
Where'd you extract this wider map from? Anyways, thanks! I am surprised the steppes are so fragmented. In particular Sarai-Juk and Astrakhan seem like they would naturally be one market, given they are close together on open terrain and it's all ruled by the Golden Horde.
 
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So the gold is completely wasted,and after some time your main market city also moves back to its previous market?
I don't think main trading city will be a concept like it is in EU4, as locations belong to different markets based primarily on market attraction. If you create your own market, it will have a greater attraction on your locations/provinces, since it's physically closer, so your locations would shift to it. But once you realize you can't satisfy your need from your market and you can't solve the issue through imports, you'll disband your new market and the locations/provinces will recalculate to which then existing market to enter (since a certain market's attraction might have grown/shrunk during the time you had the experiment with your own).
 
1- "You are a great power like i don't know France or the UK and you are so much power full and evryone want to trade with you, is it possible that your trade region can be way WAY bigger than other, like in later game and for exemple colonies want to trade or be part of trade regions of their other lords ? (like i think it will be more profitable for Hong Kong or Boston to be part of the UK trade at least in early game)

Something that is overseas is very very unlikely to be a part of a London Market. Pretty sure that it would be hard to even get a conquered & integrated Lissabon to part of it.
 
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More serious question: Is it possible to create something like the "European Economic Area/European single market" if you control most of Europe?

More nonserious question: How will Armenians, Nestorians, Coptic... buy Communion Wine for their masses if there is a ban on wine in muslim markets. :p

Edit: Does the market zone change colour by the nation which own it (or is superior to its subject?)
 
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