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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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Control gives you control of the profit that can be generated.
Sorry, I am afraid I still don't quite understand. Does physically controlling the location hosting the market give you more merchant power or something similar? Because from what I can see maximizing merchant power + capacity is what you need to produce any kind of profit, regardless of who controls the actual location.
 
A small question. After seeing that Sound Tolls also will be a factor regarding trade, can we in theory create more of them manually? Like, if portugal controls both sides of the gibraltar strait can they implement a Sound Toll there?
 
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Johan al Gaib, why are you eluding me? Have I been a bad gamer? Am I not worthy of your attention? Are 25 questions too much? Do I need to repent? I already own almost all of the DLC for nearly every main PDX game that was published after 2010! Is this not enough?!
 
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Johan al Gaib, why are you eluding me? Have I been a bad gamer? Am I not worthy of your attention? Are 25 questions too much? Do I need to repent? I already own almost all of the DLC for nearly every main PDX game that was published after 2010! Is this not enough?!
I don't think asking like this will make him more likely to answer a 25 questions thread.
 
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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!

My CD Team says that their research shows that those numbers are more akin to the 15th century, when Barcelona was in relative decadence, and Valencia in its golden age. In 1337, approximate numbers would be Barcelona about 25-35K, Valencia 20-25K, and Palma around 15-20K inhabitants; for that and other reasons, Barcelona was still the main trading center of the Crown of Aragon. We have a Castilian, a Catalan, an Aragonese, and a Basque on the team, so they have great fun discussing the historical setup for the Iberian Peninsula, and are also glad to receive feedback about it.
 
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Johan al Gaib, why are you eluding me? Have I been a bad gamer? Am I not worthy of your attention? Are 25 questions too much? Do I need to repent? I already own almost all of the DLC for nearly every main PDX game that was published after 2010! Is this not enough?!
Are you five years old or a dog?
If not, why are you being so needy? Give the man a break, or rather time to actually work on the game, so it is actually released in a playable state before 2030 ;)
 
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My CD Team says that their research shows that those numbers are more akin to the 15th century, when Barcelona was in relative decadence, and Valencia in its golden age. In 1337, approximate numbers would be Barcelona about 25-35K, Valencia 20-25K, and Palma around 15-20K inhabitants; for that and other reasons, Barcelona was still the main trading center of the Crown of Aragon. We have a Castilian, a Catalan, an Aragonese, and a Basque on the team, so they have great fun discussing the historical setup for the Iberian Peninsula, and are also glad to receive feedback about it.

Awesome, thank you for going back to it to the team! I really appreciate it. I hope (I am sure, with so many spanish on the team) that the decay of Barcelona and the raise of Valencia as the main trade hub will be reflected in the game after the black plague as you go through the 14th and 15th centuries! :)
 
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I'm curious about the "Language: Baltic" for the Riga market. Is it referring to the Baltic dialect of German, or is it "Baltic" in the sense of Baltic languages (comprising Latvian and Lithuanian)?
 
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Who owns the market of riga ?
The owner of the location of Riga, I don't think merchant power and capacity plays a role in this

So Riga created the market.
Riga as market owner is the diplomatic target which affect how much the market spread
Sweden as leading merchant power, has priority to export goods outside of Riga market
The Hansa as leading capacity will be able to export outside of Riga market the most goods
 
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Are you five years old or a dog?
If not, why are you being so needy? Give the man a break, or rather time to actually work on the game, so it is actually released in a playable state before 2030 ;)
Dude chill, I didn't insult anyone, also it's a public forum and I don't think I did anything wrong. If you think I did report me and if the moderators find any wrongdoing in my behaviour they will ban me. I really don't see the need to give such an harsh response, I was just joking all along. Besides I'm not forcing Johan to respond to anyone, me included, it's him that is choosing to use his time to reply to the forum users. If he finds that my questions are too many to reply to he is fully able to just ignore me as he is doing right now and I don't think it's a big deal if I occasionally poke him for fun. Then again if he finds me annoying and spammy there's nothing stopping him to ban me from the forum outright. Maybe he's not banning me because he doesn't find me so annoying, but then again what do I know? I'm just a needy five years old after all. Or a dog.
 
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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.
You'd be correct, with the caveat, that by that point they were the remnants of the rebellious noble families who used to control most of the Hungarian land west of the Danube, but were already stripped of most of their lands and titles and reduced to controlling a handful of forts. This may be a semantic difference, but I'd characterise it more as Charles was at war with Austria, who were supported by the 2 rebellious noble families, as that was part of a larger campaign against Austria with relatively smaller impact from those nobles.
 
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The owner of the location of Riga, I don't think merchant power and capacity plays a role in this
That is the thing i want to know more about.
Why is the owner of the location of riga and thus the one with control over it not even in the top 5 of the powerfull merchants in the market of riga.

Either controll of a Market is completely detached from Merchant power and Merchant Capacity, which would seem strange to me.
Or the Owner of the location of Riga is part of the Hanseatic League, which would make sense since there is a Kontor in Riga, and is thus for Trade purposes counted as the Hansa Tag, even if the location owner is a seperate country from the League for purposes outside of trade.
 
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Will there be a shift towards mercantilism over the span of the game?
i.e. as techs, buildings, institutions, laws, etc develop will we see more countries aim for having a national market of their own (and higher likelihood for locations to be part of such national markets) to control the economy, profits, and flows of goods?
 
Sorry, I am afraid I still don't quite understand. Does physically controlling the location hosting the market give you more merchant power or something similar? Because from what I can see maximizing merchant power + capacity is what you need to produce any kind of profit, regardless of who controls the actual location.

yes, and market centers have some nice inherit bonuses to the power and capacity, and far more if you build up the infrastrucutre for it

but if you can decide who is allowed to trade? thats the true control.
 
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