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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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Can we have a Global Trade Empire without owning provinces around the world? For example as Venice having Trade power in Egypt, Arabia and India just by having treaty ports and ships?
Maybe have a mission where we can build the Suez Canal with the Mamluks like they had planned irl.
 
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common example being that muslim markets will ban import and export of wine, beer and liquor
itd be absolutely disappointing and dumb to deprave muslims and specifically ottomans any and all social beverages. ottomans invented the still viable and very popular coffee meta. hejaz, syria, egypt, ottomans and later europe not having kahvehane/cafe would be a huge miss. coffeehouse/cafe can be one of the estate only building

at least exclude beer from the ban so i can imagine it being boza, if you wont give me a wheat/sturdy grains into boza pm and bozahane building
 
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its named after its location
Indeed, the point of the location is not an abstract dick-measuring contest between whoever wants to name the market. Even though the flanders are the nation of origin of the most powerful merchants, the main trade of that market is wool produced up to scotland and ireland. The geographical point of best connection between them is indeed london.
 
itd be absolutely disappointing and dumb to deprave muslims and specifically ottomans any and all social beverages. ottomans invented the still viable and very popular coffee meta. hejaz, syria, egypt, ottomans and later europe not having kahvehane/cafe would be a huge miss. coffeehouse/cafe can be one of the estate only building
Nowhere in the post you quoted does it mention coffee???
 
Yes I see your point. A workaround would be to base imports off market access, which is then used or not based on the actual demand.

Full example with supply of 5, A with 75% access wants 8, and B with 50% access wants 10. A has market share of 60% and B has 40% (normalized access values). First month, A gets 3 from its market share and B gets 2. A still needs 5 and B needs 8. Second month, A gets 3 from its market share and B gets 2. A still needs 2 and B needs 6. Third month, A is able to get 3 but only needs 2 to finish. After A is done, there is 3 supply left and B has 100% market share for that good. Fourth month it gets the last 3 and finishes.

There might be a more complex calculation that includes the demand value for the distribution, but the basic idea is A doesn’t get to hog all the supply that first month when B also has a good amount of market access. This method is worse for construction because it takes A longer to build and B is the same amount of time, but it might make production more realistic by distributing goods across the market better.
While that's all nice in theory, now do the math for more actors inside the market than letters in the alphabet. I have a feeling it wouldn't scale well.
 
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yes.

its not fun to see the cities you import goods from be ravaged, and not able to restore their output for many years.

but will military action affect the cost of trade that passes through the affected locations? or will it make trade more inclined to follow a different, longer path?

what i mean is, if you're importing goods from the Paris market into Lombardy, but there is war along the way between Savoy and Switzerland, will your trade become more costly or take a circuitous route even if you don't import anything from the Alpine cities, which would be ravaged by such war, but you're just passing through them? (and through the battlefields around them too?)
 
not really.

one might argue that it should, especially with the medieval practice of granting staple rights to cities along a trade route, wherein passing merchants were required to offer their goods for sale to locals.

but even without staple rights, towns and ports along trade routes would benefit from selling supplies to passing caravans and ships.
 
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What happens if you get embargoed by the market owner of the market you're currently a part of? Will you be able to receive any goods? Do you get an option to change the market for your locations?

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.

I assume and hope that a new market will be created with you as the market owner and merchant power will be extracted from the previous market to your current market. However, as time passes, your newly created market may cease to exist if a neighboring market absorbs your market due to a higher market attraction, a larger market, and other factors. Of course, you will gain access to new resources that are currently not produced in your territory.
 
@Johan question I thought of at the gym, thinking of the future MEIOU mod for this game. Will it be possible to mod it so burghers are the ones who conduct all the trade? And any buildings that increase merchant capacity increase only the merchant capacity of the burghers? Would that be possible?
 
duckduckgo gives a couple of versions of the same response for "mayan currency", of which the clearest for me :

"
The Maya did not use "money" in the modern sense. There was no universally accepted form of currency which could be used anywhere in the Maya region. Even valuable items, such as cacao seeds, salt, obsidian, or gold tended to vary in value from one region or city-state to another, often rising in value the farther away these items were from their source.
"


That sounds a lot like what is explained here...
 
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If England establish colonies on the American East coast, would these be part of the London market or would they form their own market?
their own, its too far away to be a part of the london market.

would you be able to enforce a colonial monopoly on your colonies? so that all of their trade (or as much as your control level or the colonial nation's liberty desire, whichever applies, allows) goes to your home market rather than be exported around the world directly from your colonies?
 
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How and when are markets destroyed? Can we force a trade rival to disband their market? Thinking Venice and Genoa
Its a decision by the country owning the location the market center is in.

what about forcing a country to grant market preference to your markets, so that more of their provinces would come over to you from neighboring markets?
 
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Well, as Portugal is in my top 5 of countries I play, I'm not sure really about whether I want my own market or not. If I can buddy up with Castille I want to keep it for longer.. and also, as soon as I start getting things imported from africa, their pops and buildings helps keeping the demands high..

if you had your own market in Lisbon though, wouldn't it have lower prices than Seville for these goods which you bring from Africa, which in turn would make merchants from Seville import these goods your market, thus driving the prices up? (that's on the assumption that the Spanish can't import from Africa themselves, for example because they haven't yet discovered the relevant part of Africa.)
or are prices decided before any inter-market trade happens, thus making demand from foreign merchants irrelevant?
 
Will there be a preview mode that shows the expected effects of opening and closing markets?
For example, showing which locations will join a new market, and for which goods there would be a surplus or shortage in the new market.
Or is this perhaps not possible because the effects of a new market only develop over time?
 
If this is the situation at the start of the game, there is a serious problem with calling it the London market. This should be called either the Bruges or Ghent or Antwerp market. The trade hub in London is at some point even known as the Flemish Hanse in London because the Flemish are the actual trade intermediairy between England and the continent for all imports and exports (mostly wool) for the English.
its named after its location

have you tried to see what would happen if the location of the London market at start was indeed Bruges? with no other market based in London at all?
you said earlier that the reason there isn't a market in the Low Countries at start is because it would be too small to hold its ground, however, a coastal market in Bruges could still dominate the sea and reach far along the coast of England if there was no London-based competition.

i assume that under such circumstances western England and Scotland would have atrocious market access, but that can be remedied by the addition of a market in Bristol, which historically was more important a port than London anyway, and one where the influence of the Flemish merchants wasn't as strong.
in the long term, England would probably still want to consolidate its land under a single London market, but that's an investment it would have to make, only allowing it to outcompete the Low Countries after a long time has passed. but we would have a Flemish market in the game at start.
 
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