DYNAMIC TRADE SYSTEM

[Drazer]

I know that with everybody waiting for Royal Court, nobody is taking much about a trading focus DLC, but I think it would be a great adition to the game. This is how I think it should be implemented:

TRADE REGIONS: a trade regions should be a large map region, at least as big as two kingdoms, but maybe as large as an empire. Trade is only possible between neighboring trade regions. The trade regions and its possible neighbors should be fixed, all other trade configuration should be dynamic (trade routes, trade value, trade capitals, etc).


TRADE CAPITALS: every trade region should have one TRADE CAPITAL. The trade capital is a very important center of trade in the TRADE REGION. Controlling it means having a lot of control over the trade income and trade routes. The realm who controls this capital should be TRADE CONTROLLER.

How do you define the TRADE CAPITAL? The trade capital should go to the most developed city in the TRADE REGION. This means there should be a dispute over realms on who have the most development in the region. This also means there is an extra incentive to try to improve the development of your capital or to try to conquest a rich center of trade (like Constantinople).

TRADE ROUTES: trade routes should spontaneously form between two TRADE CAPITALS of neighboring TRADE REGIONS. So, trade routes are DYNAMIC and not static like in EU4. Like in CK2, having a trade route pass over your territory is beneficial and should increase your income and chances to improve development. For trade routes to form, a certain TRADE SCORE should be reached.

The path TRADE ROUTES also depends on the TRADE COST each country in this path should have. This cost should be determined by geography (ex.: plains are better than mountains), type (travel over sea is cheaper than land), country control and trade infrastructure.

The number TRADE ROUTES a TRADE REGION gets depends mostly on the TRADE SCORE between regions: after the first route, every extra TRADE ROUTE would demand more score to form.

TRADE SCORE: each TRADE REGION have a specific score with each neighboring TRADE REGION. To determine this score, we start with the default TRADE VALUE of a TRADE REGION.

The TRADE VALUE is determined by some modifiers: 1) the sum of all development in the region (richer more populated region = more trade), 2) the amount of TRADE ROUTES that arrive in the region, 3) the stewardship score of the TRADE CONTROLLER, 4) if the same TRADE CONTROLLER controls more than one TRADE CAPITAL, it will have penalty. It will also have a penalty if this is not in your home duchy and outside your dejure land; 5) maybe a TRADE GOODS modifier.

The TRADE ROUTES will prefer to flow between the highest TRADE VALUES, but the final TRADE SCORE also has modifiers: 1) the TRADE COST will diminish the SCORE, 2) the opinion between the TRADE CONTROLLERS (trade will flow more easily through realms with good relations) also diminish the score, 3) war between the TRADE CONTROLLERs should be very negative as well.

DEVELOPMENT REWORK: for this idea to work, there should be an overhaul in how do countries increase development. As you know, the revival of trade in Europe is heavily tied with the grow of population and city grow. Perhaps the introduction of: specials laws, special innovations (agricultural revolution), creation of corporations as special vassals, ways to interact with the merchant class, etc. Basically ways the player can pursue a TALL strategy.

FINAL THOUGHTS AND WHY I THINK THIS IS GREAT FOR THE GAME: this suggestion can change the way wars are fought and can give new ways to play the game. Perhaps starving an enemy of trade is a viable strategy? A plot to sway a neighboring realm can be greater to your economy than a violent war. Even supporting a claimant in a neighboring kingdom could significantly boost your economy (since opinion increases trade). It is also historical, as the crusades increased trade in the mediterranean for europe and trade did increase in the game time frame.

This also opens the door for a myriad of great additions to the game: slavery, piracy, naval warfare, playable merchant republics with unique mechanics, plots to steal silkworms, etc.

 

[DukeLeto42]

As you know, the revival of trade in Europe is heavily tied with the grow of population and city grow.

This is true, but does this suggestion model the city-city tendency of medieval trade flows, focusing on the balance between control over and wealth from urban areas and markets, or does it model trade flows of an early modern state, focusing on goods control and global trade movement?

Perhaps starving an enemy of trade is a viable strategy?

It certainly shouldn't be. Staple foodstuffs aren't really the money-makers of long-distance trade at the time.

It is also historical, as the crusades increased trade in the mediterranean for europe and trade did increase in the game time frame.

Right, but that's because of a suite of factors - Outremer as a site for trade outposts for the growing city-states, innovation spread from returning Crusaders, attention to and interest in goods encountered in the region.

 

[Blk82]

Why would the trade go to the top liege, though? In the era when vassals could wage war on each other, tariffs would have been controlled by county holders, not the top liege. The Mediterranean trade was primarily enriching the Italian city states, not the HRE. Likewise, the trade of the low countries was benefitting the Duke of Burgundy, not the Emperor. Depending on the centralization of the realm, and how many subvassals are commerce and the top liege, not much income will trickle up to the top.

 

[Drstrangelove5]

Why would the trade go to the top liege, though? In the era when vassals could wage war on each other, tariffs would have been controlled by county holders, not the top liege. The Mediterranean trade was primarily enriching the Italian city states, not the HRE. Likewise, the trade of the low countries was benefitting the Duke of Burgundy, not the Emperor. Depending on the centralization of the realm, and how many subvassals are commerce and the top liege, not much income will trickle up to the top.

Agreed.

I'm not against having a historical trade system that provides bonuses where bonuses make sense, like in seaports or river ports. I think it works well in tandem with ideas for adding piracy, Mediterranean city states, "eastern - western" exotic trade like jade, pepper, wootz, and silk, for emulating Viking trade across eastern Europe, etc. But I don't support the idea of a generalized increase in liege revenue under the guise of something like trade (or tariffs), that just springs up everywhere where none would have existed.


E.g., during the middle ages, it was commonplace that river tolls were exacted at each and every location along a river where people were able to block river traffic. This was because 1) there was no centralized regional or kingdom level way to regulate, collect or manage river tolls and 2) a lot of river trade was still local. Ground traffic was obviously even harder to tax and regulate in an era where highways and paved roads didn't exist (which represents most of the map.)


Moreover, most bulky, low value items, which represented the bulk of most production, could only be traded over a very short distance of travel because goods were shipped on carts using animals over uneven surfaces or dirt paths. The cost of shipping goods this way in the middle ages (outside of water ways), was more than the cost of the goods within a relatively small distance. We're talking distances well under 100 miles, closer to 25 miles. (The radius of an average county in CK3 is ~50 miles. So this in intra-county trade, not kingdom-wide or regional-wide in any sense. )


The things that were effectively taxed (at higher levels of authority) were those things that had to go through major seaports (like exporting wool), or that in some way was too obvious to hide from the authorities (like exporting slaves), or something where selling goods needed a liege's support (like setting up shop in a town, starting a trade, etc.) Items like foodstuffs, animal products, handicrafts, which anyone could produce and barter to a neighbor, which was over 90% of the economy, could not effectively be taxed as part of trade.


So, a historical trade system would, for the most, provide that over 90% of the trade occurs within 30 miles, or otherwise favor river counties and sea ports. It would effectively penalize large areas of the map, located inside continents or lacking water ways, where trade would be almost exclusively bulky, low value, local and mostly untaxable, while it would effectively reward river ports and seaports, (and maybe a few roads) with most of the world's low bulk, high value, highly taxable trade.