Historic Trade Routes

[SAmaster]

I've been thinking about the new dynamic trade region system in EUV. I'm not a fan of it as of now. I understand why people might dislike the EUIV trade system- the player can't engage in it much, trade goods are pretty abstracted, and trade routes are fixed. But I think part of the problem is that trade routes are not wntirely abstracted. In EUIV you would have to feed trade from one node to another to reach home- as of now trades are pretty one way. So I thought I'd suggest some ideas to improve this-

One- Trades are no longer bilateral. Instead of going to another trade route and asking for a good and receiving it, you put a sort of 'open call' out for a route. Perhaps these get determined by pop demands? And you the player look for the trade nodes that have the goods that are desired, and have to assign merchants to their transfer. The merchants work to abstract the wheeling and dealing (and subsequent micro) of trading in your economy, while you are simply making sure good are in the right market. This could also be done to simulate goods going from one market to another in a daisy-chain which is more realistic. The issue is just realistically portraying the distances involved necessary for that daisy-chaining.

Two- Historic trade routes get special modfiers. The Silk Road would be a good example, which currently in the game doesn't seem to have any implementation. Certain missions perhaps could involve the building of proper roads along these routes- I could for instance see missions for China building a road along the Chinese portions of the route- the Grand Trunk Road in India should likely exist in the game as it was expanded by the Mughals in the games timeframe. But for other portions of the Silk Road without a physical road building there could be some sort of 'phantom road' that exists. These trade routes would still increase travel to a degree since they'd have regular supplies in pit-stops for merchants, and some degree of cleared vegetation, as well as being well mapped out areas. While physical roads have maintenance costs to them, these 'phantom roads' would not (and perhaps the increased trade would eliminate maintenance costs on them if you build along their path?). Even if goods aren't physically traveling across them in-game, it would help portray a larger trade-network in the world. Something similar could be done with sea-routes in the Indian Ocean, where provinces on the coastal waters getting some sort of money buff to these. And similar trade networks could be done for tribal trading and pathways in the new world (that colonizers often adopted), something that represents the Triangle Trade across the Atlantic, and so on.

 

[Fawr]

I hope trading isn't just pulling a good from a different trade node. If ships are picking up lumber from Sweden, then they are probably bringing something with them to sell in exchange and trying to make some money in both directions. Sailing ships completely empty was rare as there is almost always something you can sell for higher in each direction.

I'm less sure that we need bonuses to land trade routes like the silk road. Land routes are often well known for high value luxury goods. Only trade routes that are mostly sea or river routes can deal with the volume required to make low value bulk goods worthwhile.

 

[SAmaster]

I hope trading isn't just pulling a good from a different trade node. If ships are picking up lumber from Sweden, then they are probably bringing something with them to sell in exchange and trying to make some money in both directions. Sailing ships completely empty was rare as there is almost always something you can sell for higher in each direction.

I'm less sure that we need bonuses to land trade routes like the silk road. Land routes are often well known for high value luxury goods. Only trade routes that are mostly sea or river routes can deal with the volume required to make low value bulk goods worthwhile.

I'm not saying it needs to be there for all overland routes- just that something the silk road should have some sort of representation in the game.

 

[DiabloDeVille]

Why does the silk road need modifiers? Given it was increasingly replaced by maritime routes

 

[SAmaster]

Why does the silk road need modifiers? Given it was increasingly replaced by maritime routes

It shouldn't be like the wealthiest thing you can do in the game, but it was still relevant in the era, and players should have the ability to invest in it further in an alt-history scenario.

 

[Victor Emmanuel 2k]

The devs are trying to bring deeper immersion in commerce and economy.

 

[Fawr]

I'm not saying it needs to be there for all overland routes- just that something the silk road should have some sort of representation in the game.

If anything I'd represent it by allowing countries on the route to add taxes and skim off some of the profit for themselves.

Actually if trade has costs (which it should to cover the costs of livestock, carts, people, food, guides, etc) some of those costs should rub off on the people en-route for any trade route. The traders are buying food and fodder on the way. Paying taxes. Buying lodging. Buying replacement livestock. This should all come at a cost, and that cost should end up in the hands of the people in between the two centers of trade.

 

[SAmaster]

If anything I'd represent it by allowing countries on the route to add taxes and skim off some of the profit for themselves.

Actually if trade has costs (which it should to cover the costs of livestock, carts, people, food, guides, etc) some of those costs should rub off on the people en-route for any trade route. The traders are buying food and fodder on the way. Paying taxes. Buying lodging. Buying replacement livestock. This should all come at a cost, and that cost should end up in the hands of the people in between the two centers of trade.

Honestly, there should be some sort of 'tariff-free-trade' axis, where you try to allow more trade in the country by lowering trade barriers, while conversely trying to increase revenue on merchants entering your country.

 

[Fawr]

Honestly, there should be some sort of 'tariff-free-trade' axis, where you try to allow more trade in the country by lowering trade barriers, while conversely trying to increase revenue on merchants entering your country.

I'm thinking more of tolls than tariffs. That is taxes on goods moving through your country, not on them being sold in your country.

 

[SAmaster]

I'm thinking more of tolls than tariffs. That is taxes on goods moving through your country, not on them being sold in your country.

Yeah, but same basic result for the player- making more money from trade at the expense of making it more expensive for people to do trade.

 

[Fawr]

Yeah, but same basic result for the player- making more money from trade at the expense of making it more expensive for people to do trade.

I think the in game effects could be quite different. Tariffs increase prices for your people, and makes them buy less imported goods. Tolls other increases prices for other people in other countries and reduces the trade going through your country.

Tariffs tend to reduce imports and protect local production and are popular with the people doing that production. They are unpopular with consumers as it makes them poorer. Your earning power from tariffs depends on how many imports your country has. In game you would get money, and make some of your people happy, but most people unhappy (its downsides would be domestic).

Tolls tend to reduce traders moving through your country. They are popular in your country, but unpopular in both the buying and selling countries. If traders have alternatives they will start to bypass your country (trade in spices to Europe might move away from the Mamelukes and towards the Ottomans if the Mamelukes increase tolls). If traders don't have alternatives then it can be lucrative. Naval tolls often don't have any alternatives and deal with high volumes so are particularly powerful. But tolls can also be collected at points on the river for river traffic and for land traffic at bridges or fords, at towns, oasis or ports and at borders. In game their income would depend on how much trade is happening through your territory and how good the alternatives are. Its downsides would be diplomatic.

 

[DiabloDeVille]

It shouldn't be like the wealthiest thing you can do in the game, but it was still relevant in the era, and players should have the ability to invest in it further in an alt-history scenario.

What makes you think you wont be able to invest in it, compared to investing in other trade routes? An alt history scenario will still have maritime trade be far faster and more toll free as time goes on

 

[SAmaster]

What makes you think you wont be able to invest in it, compared to investing in other trade routes? An alt history scenario will still have maritime trade be far faster and more toll free as time goes on

Cause it seems like you order a good from another market, and it teleports into yours, like in Imperator.

I'm not saying the EUIV system is better cause it had even more abstractions with trade goods, but it at least showed certain trade routes existing even if they weren't fixed, while EUV doesn't seem to have any trade route system at all.

 

[Mart9203]

Seems like goods transport is represented on the map

We are working on a new schedule. Doing 4+ a week takes a fair bit of time, and the people working on them also needs to work on the game. There are also some holidays this week (MIDSUMMER!) and next week (Sant Joan), but there should be a TT tomorrow!


You'll get a screenshot from my current Oman game, where I finally managed to get my first town founded.. And you can see some trade on the ocean, one, where i am exporting pearls to India. My alerts are mostly my lack of lumber making things unprofitable, and my burghers wanting goods..


View attachment 1320139

 

[Ulfeldt]

Sailing ships completely empty was rare as there is almost always something you can sell for higher in each direction.

This is not really true, at least w.r.t. trade in the Baltic. For most of the games timeline, more than half of the ships going in to the Baltic were sailing in ballast.

 

[Sindai]

Seems like goods transport is represented on the map

The game has to pathfind between each pair of markets that anyone has at least one trade between so it knows the transport costs, but it doesn't actually model ships and caravans as anything other than models spawned occasionally to liven up the map graphically.

 

[SAmaster]

The game has to pathfind between each pair of markets that anyone has at least one trade between so it knows the transport costs, but it doesn't actually model ships and caravans as anything other than models spawned occasionally to liven up the map graphically.

And while that's certainly nice for livening up the map, I'm more concerned that nothing seems to represent the physical routes people had to take and how that impacts strategy- you want to control trade routes to control the trade, explore to find alternate routes, the routes bring with them new ideas and cultures, etc.

 

[Fawr]

This is not really true, at least w.r.t. trade in the Baltic. For most of the games timeline, more than half of the ships going in to the Baltic were sailing in ballast.

Certainly there is lots of evidence that ships were sailing with ballast into the Baltic. Ships sailing out took low value high bulk materials like timber, tar, hemp, flax, pitch, grain, and iron. Ships sailing in took higher value lower bulk materials to trade and needed ballast to maintain the ships trim.

This could be a ship filled with ballast and a chest of gold or silver to pay for the grain that it will take on the return voyage (historically Silver was most common). Or with high value textiles, colonial goods (cotton, tea, sugar, tobacco, spices, etc), wine, books, dyes and then lots of ballast to fill out the weight. While it's possible that they could have brought in paper money or IOUs to pay for the cargo for their return voyage that isn't likely to be the majority.

When you translate that into the game it's not so simple as ships travelling empty into the baltic. In the trade system gold and silver are goods, not just "money". So, this would be a trade of silver in one direction and grain in the other.

It probably highlights another important factor. The goods traded in both directions must be close in value to each other. When gold/silver has different prices, you don't bring it from the market where it has a high cost (the Baltic) into a lower cost market. This occasionally requires ships to be in ballast.