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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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Something I would like to suggest is moving the centre of the Pest Market to Buda and to rename the market area to Buda Market. Buda was a far more important settlement compared to Pest.

Another, far less important suggestion of mine is setting up another market area centred around Hermannstadt/Szeben (today Sibiu, Romania). The market area could encompass Transylvania and adjacencies of the Lower Danube. Historically, trade in this area was quite heavily influenced by the Transylvanian Saxon towns, a separate "Hermannstadt Market" could represent that well, imo.
 
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And I want to play as the Dutch arming your Swedes to the teeth in a war that ends up giving them full control of the sound giving me an exemption because the Danes refuse to do so. Is that possible?

I really hope that providing weapons to a country boosts your relationship and means you can build some sort of alliance or pact that will boost your relationship high enough that they will indeed give you the exemption.

However, in the example you give, wouldn't it be easier to just force in a peace treaty to end the toll? prety sure as the Netherlands you should be able to defeat them with naval superiority.
 
I can't comment on Lithuania, but Hungary in this period was pretty centralised compared to other European powers. The 13th century saw rulers giving away more land and having to wrangle with feudal subjects and when the Árpád dynasty died out and Charles I/Károly Róbert/Caroberto of the Anjou dynasty was chosen as king, he had to fight a string of local pretenders and powerful feudal lords. By 1337 these fights were over a decade ago, and Charles was consolidating his royal power and weakening the power of the nobles. We're at the point where we can see the effects of his centralisation.
I believe in 1337 Charles is actually at war with 2 of those nobles, which are even backed by Austria. It is only the peacetreaty with Austria in which it is agreed upon neither nation will back future internal wars with rebel nobles that results in the actual consolidation of power to happen in Hungary.
 
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I'm still confused why the sturdy grains are sturdy? Perhaps hardy?
Perhaps its climate specific? The harsh climate of Northern Europe requires a type of wheat that can grow even in less than ideal circumstances (little sunlight, cold weather). It might also have a lower yield compared to "regular grain".
 
Why? You need to see the color of which market it belongs to, and if its land or sea does not matter, only the market access does.
This choice makes the map hard to read. Having a clearer distinction between sea and land, while still preserving the information that sea tiles belong to a market, allows the player to locate the provinces on the actual map to make changes.
 
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Perhaps its climate specific? The harsh climate of Northern Europe requires a type of wheat that can grow even in less than ideal circumstances (little sunlight, cold weather). It might also have a lower yield compared to "regular grain".
Is not hardy the word for plants that tolerate cold? Searching the net for sturdy grain the first hits are about leather. When it comes to plant-grains it seems to refer to size of the seeds, and does not matter what type of grain it is, can be even rice. Someone better at English or botany feel free to correct.
 
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I'm still confused why the sturdy grains are sturdy? Perhaps hardy?
I read that as just being rye which can have some different applications compared to wheat and can obviously be grown in colder climates.
You're probably not going to be making beer from "Sturdy Grains" is what I'd say, but the Riga market in the tooltip has a high supply of beer and lacks sturdy grains, so maybe that's not the case.
 
I am curious if I have understood how the system works correctly. My understanding is the following:

Each location in a trade region will be producing a good and will require several goods to keep pops supplied and maintain buildings etc. All the goods produced in the trade region and not consumed within the location that produces it will be added to the market in that region. All the locations will seek to meet their demands from trading in the local market, their orders are fulfilled based on the owner’s trade power and the market access. Any excess goods can then be sold either by your or other countries merchants, or by the burger estate in your or other countries. These can also seek to import goods needed from other markets, but the capacity is limited based on the capacity for the country’s merchants and estates (two separate values). The priority to export goods from one market to another depends on the merchant power in that market. Prices are dynamic, depending on supply and demand.

Is this a fair summary and is there anything I have misunderstood, missed out?
 
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Couple of questions here. I know it's late but the man the legend Johan Al-Ghaib himself is still up and last response was only some time ago, so there's a chance of response:

1) never did a world conquest in any PDX game, but we all know strategy players only want one thing and it's fucking disgusting. It's possible to do a one market run? One market as in one tag/faith/culture/whatever world conquest.

not really.

2) in the picture of the european markets you've shown there seems to be some locations in the English market that are landlocked within the French market in the area between Brittany and Normandy (my french internal geography is not very good, I don't know the name of the place). How does that work? If the French embargo the English market those living in the landlocked locations are gonna starve?

The star means it's a capital of an independent country.

Needless to say, mapmodes and icons at this stage are WIP WIP WIP :)

3) does that mean that in 1337 or whenever the screenshot has been taken London is not the English capital? Where wan then? Also Pest is not the Hungarian capital but that is probably because is separated from Buda

4) related to the previous question, the Astrakhan market capital is the only one shown not only without a star, but also without the small white rhombus, it's indicated only by a small black dot. What does that mean?

pirates and privateers will create havoc with traderoutes yes

5) by the way you phrase it, seems that's gonna be only or mainly a sea thing. It's banditry a problem also on land? As I live in a small countryside Italian mayorality that was possibly founded by bandits that were active in the period project Caesar is set I will be very upset if that's not a thing.

not in the games I make.

YES!

Trades only happen AFTER all internal demands in the market are satisfied.

6) it's possible in some way in game (I don't mean via modding) to make trades happen without regard of the internal demands? Maybe a certain good would be more profitable to sell away than to sell at a lower price within the market, or maybe a foreign power could force a weaker county to sell a certain amount of goods via some form of diplomacy?
 
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Please @Johan at that time Barcelona was barely 15k town. Valencia was the commercial capital with around a 100k, dealing with all the silk trade, even becoming capital of the Kings due to its importance.

Please change the trade capital to Valencia!
 
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their orders are fulfilled based on the owner’s trade power and the market access.

Where did you see that?
From what I've seen, merchant power only matters for trades, not intra-market consumption, and market access only matters for determining which market a location is part of, not how much they can buy from the market.

Edit: Okay I found it now, Johan said that market access determines the order of purchasing from the market.
 
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I really hope that providing weapons to a country boosts your relationship and means you can build some sort of alliance or pact that will boost your relationship high enough that they will indeed give you the exemption.

However, in the example you give, wouldn't it be easier to just force in a peace treaty to end the toll? prety sure as the Netherlands you should be able to defeat them with naval superiority.
In reality the Dutch couldn't because the Danes has access to a very large Geman market over land and they didn't have the army manpower to attack the Danes over land. So without taking part in the actual historical war the armed the Swedish with the best German manufactured weapons at a profitable but discounted price in exchange for exemption rights on the toll. After the Swedish win my ancestors madethe same deal with the Danes because they already knew the Swedish wouldn't be able to hold on to this control in thd long run against the Danes. This historically consolidated cheap Dutch access to the Baltic trade on lumber and grain that became the foundation of the Dutch trade empire. I think it would be nice if you could make diplomatic deals as part of a war that could also be part of a future peace deal. That way you wouldn't have to participate in a war directly or only indirectly by renting out mercenaries.
 
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Y'all gotta make it about modern hulabaloo, I just prefer Prague to Praha. No likey. I especially think consistency would be best here though, like at the very least call it Venezia and Napoli if we're gonna have cultural names.