The goal:
To create a more immersive, logical and fun trade system that seamlessly interacts with existing mechanics and isn’t more complicated than it needs to be.
It is inspired by the change from manual pop movement towards naturally flowing pop movent our dear Arheo created for patch 1.2. Several mechanics will be shared between the two systems.
The basic principles:
Example:
Within “province A”, there are two settlements that produce livestock (X and Y). Settlement X has 3 slaves and produces one unit of livestock every year. Settlement Y has 5 slaves, 3 freemen, 2 tribesmen and a “Farming Settlement” building, it therefore produces much faster – one unit of livestock every 3 months.
This sums up to 5 units of livestock per year in province A. If we assume that the monthly consumption by the pops in province A is two units of livestock, we get a surplus of 3 units of livestock per year.
Once province A has produced enough surplus, the excess livestock will automatically move to the neighboring province B that doesn’t produce any. A certain amount is kept in province A as reserve.
Theoretically, once enough units of livestock have moved from province A to province B, there could be enough surplus in province B to allow for a further distribution of goods! Even though province B has no livestock production of its own, the healthy influx from province A could mean that province B nevertheless gives surplus livestock to province C that also needs it.
In the long term, a strong surplus production would result in a distribution to several provinces, even if they aren’t direct neighbors to the province where the trade good was originally produced. But since there is local consumption in each province along the way, the supply will never be enough to “feed” more than a few provinces.
The system is very similar to pop migration, where pops move from overpopulated settlements towards settlements with sufficient pop capacity.
What would be the role of trade routes?
Trade routes would have a totally different role than in 2.0.
They would be used as a way to exchange all kinds of trade goods between two provinces that aren’t direct, natural neighbors.
As an example, assume that the province of Athens has two natural neighbors – Corinth and Sparta (just an example). If a trade route is created between the harbors of Athens and far away Alexandria, they would nevertheless count as neighboring provinces for the purpose of trade good distribution. There would no longer be a difference between local trade good movement between Athens and Sparta and long-range trade good movement between Athens and Alexandria.
As a requirement to establish a long-range trade connection, you would have to connect two harbors (or two cities along the same road) with a trade route.
This would have huge advantages, especially for immersion:
Also, as the main benefit of harbors would be province-wide, Rome would no longer be incentivized to move its capital towards Ostia!
The role of diplomacy:
Of course, trade goods would not move towards the provinces of your enemies! To allow trade to flow between provinces of 2 different nations, they would need to be at peace and to have a trade agreement.
There would be 4 types of trade agreements:
Option 3 and 4 would be for those situations when you want to trade with a potential rival for the time being, but don’t want to give them access to your strategics (we don’t want everybody to have horse archers and heavy infantry just because we boosted our own production, do we?).
This would make diplomacy much more important than it is currently!
To make sure that you get all that you need, you would need several local allies or at least a lot of naval trade routes and a fleet to protect them. It would also be a problem if a nation along an important road would turn hostile towards you, e.g., blocking the influx of silk and spices and angering your nobility.
Dynamic stories would unfold about wars to free the trade routes or about important allies that assure your supply. There’s even the potential for a new Casus Belli when someone cuts off your trade routes!
What would be the role of pops?
Slaves would stay in their role as prime producers of trade goods.
Freeman and tribesmen would also contribute to the production of trade goods, but at a significantly slower rate than slaves (They would have other benefits instead such as manpower generation, just as it is now).
No longer would you have to fill an arbitrary number of slaves to get a second, never ending stream of goods. They would be produced more immersively by all lower-class pops in a settlement without arbitrary thresholds.
All the individual production powers of all lower-class pops would be summarized to get the actual rate of production for each territory. This would of course by further modified by buildings, pop happiness, civilization level, wonder effects, …
Citizens and nobles would have a different role. Their buying power would serve as a magnet for trade. Just as “migration attraction” pulls pops towards a territory, nobles and citizens would pull trade goods toward your land. If two provinces compete for the same trade good to be delivered there, the province with more upper-class pops would have a higher chance to receive it. Also, their “magnetism” would keep a larger reserve of trade goods within the province.
Apart from this, upper-class pops could still contribute to the number of trade routes, just as they do in 2.0.
Finally, you would need citizens and nobles to actually be able to profit from high-tier trade goods. Only nobles and citizens would convert exclusive and powerful trade goods into powerful effects (e.g. papyrus à science, or marble à civilization). Papyrus, precious metals or marble would be more or less worthless to tribesmen or freemen. They would neither demand it nor get a positive effect from it.
Would the effects from having a trade good in your empire be the same?
The benefits from trade goods would need to be overhauled for sure!
You haven’t mentioned strategic resources yet?
They wouldn’t be consumed by pops, but by your military in a very similar way like manpower works.
Replacing a light infantry soldier after attrition or losses would only need 1 manpower, just like it works now. But replacing a light cavalry soldier would require both 1 manpower as well as 0,001 horse trade good (assuming that 1 horse trade good represents approx. 1000 actual horses).
When hiring legions, we would get this cost:
I deliberately didn’t make the costs 1 cohort = 1 trade good to make it more likely to have some “leftover change” to cover losses.
Levies would not cost strategic ressources when they are first levied, but they'd need them to recover losses (very similar to manpower). It is assumed that the initial levied force brings its own equipment.
Wouldn’t all those moving trade goods slow the game down a lot (from a technical point of view)?
This could actually happen if we have too small units of trade goods. If one “Horse” represented an actual single horse, it would drive the system requirements up a lot and clutter the interface.
But, if each “Horse” trade good represented approx. 1000 horses, it would be much more manageable. Remember that one pop also represents approx. 1000 people!
Also, partial trade goods should exist on a provincial level (for example, the population of a province could consume 0.135 units of fish per month), but they should not be traded. Only whole trade goods should be able to be moved between provinces. Once a trade good is partially consumed, it should be stuck in a province.
How would money be earned from trade?
You would earn money from import and export taxes, similar to the current system. The big difference: monthly ticks would be replaced by counting each moved trade good.
The most profitable thing would be exports, so each time a trade good leaves your country, you earn 100% of the trade goods value.
Imports would earn you smaller amount of money from import taxes, too, because we never want trade to cause any negative effects, especially when it should work automatically most of the time!
This would also mean that you’d earn money from just letting trade pass through your country, allowing dedicated trade cities to exist!
Would it be possible to create a small but tall trading nation (like Tyre or Rhodes were) with this system?
Yes! This would actually be one of the major advantages!
It might be necessary to create a special building to make a trade city work, though!
A strategically located large city with a lot of buildings, civilization level and nobles could have many good trade routes and attract a large influx of trade goods and also pops.
The large number of nobles would pull a lot of trade goods towards their city in this system, but usually not significantly more than they consume. A trade city would need to pull a lot of trade goods towards the city, but it would also need to release the surplus easily.
Market buildings could fulfill this purpose.
Markets would pull more trade goods than the population needs, but would also allow those trade goods to move on (They would "pull" trade goods in the same way as nobles do, but they wouldn't "hold" additional copies of a luxury in the province as nobles would do). A trade city with 10 trade routes and a level 10 market in Byzantium, Rhodos or Antiocha would earn loads of money from connecting regions with different trade good compositions.
How would all this interact with existing mechanics?
One great synergy would be with the pop migration system.
Pops would usually move along the same trade routes that exist for trade goods. This would mean that your provincial settlements would not only feed your urban centers with trade goods, but also with pops. Movement between 2 countries should be slower than internal migration, though.
Pops would also automatically towards provinces that have a highly desirable trade good to increase production (lower class pops would go where the workplaces are, especially slaves!)
Another great synergy would be with conquest and raiding.
Remember, rich provinces with many nobles and citizens would serve as a “magnet” for trade goods, so there would be a lot of loot to get from there. Imagine how cool it would be if conquering a territory would not only give you slaves, but also steal a few trade goods? Plundering a rich trade city would be extremely profitable. Piracy would finally become a meaningful gameplay mechanic.
Finally, exotic trade goods could be a great reward for missions and events! (As example: traders from far away bring exotic goods to your capital, but they also seem to bring a plague - do you let them in?)
Wouldn’t this system hurt tribal nations too much?
They would probably need a few buffs to compensate. One thing that comes to my mind is “tribal trade routes”, which are generated by tribesmen and have no road requirement (only available for tribes, of course).
Wouldn't this all be too automated? What would be the active part for the player?
Finally, you should probably be able to buy a trade good manually via the diplomacy menu for an even steeper extra cost.
Final words:
Thank you for reading! I put a lot of thought into this and strongly hope that a similar system will exist at some point in the future. I’d love to hear your feedback!
To create a more immersive, logical and fun trade system that seamlessly interacts with existing mechanics and isn’t more complicated than it needs to be.
It is inspired by the change from manual pop movement towards naturally flowing pop movent our dear Arheo created for patch 1.2. Several mechanics will be shared between the two systems.
The basic principles:
- Trade goods would no longer represent an endless stream of a certain good, but exist in countable quantities (main change!!!). This means: 1 horse trade good will represent approx. 1000 horses, just like 1 slave pop represents approx. 1000 slaves.
- The biggest difference between pops and trade goods: pops exist on a territory level, while trade good stockpiles would be counted per province.
- Trade goods would be produced by slaves, tribesmen and freeman. The more of those pops exist in a territory, the faster a unit of the trade good is produced. Certain buildings may also boost the production of trade goods.
- Trade goods automatically move from a province that has a surplus to a province that needs them (very similar to pop migration).
- Most trade goods are consumed by pops. Slaves only need basic food resources, while nobles need all kinds of luxuries to be satisfied, but also convert those into powerful effects upon consumption (e.g. papyrus --> science, or marble --> civilization)
- Strategic trade goods like iron and horses aren’t consumed by pops, but by your military (in a very similar way as manpower is consumed).
Example:
Within “province A”, there are two settlements that produce livestock (X and Y). Settlement X has 3 slaves and produces one unit of livestock every year. Settlement Y has 5 slaves, 3 freemen, 2 tribesmen and a “Farming Settlement” building, it therefore produces much faster – one unit of livestock every 3 months.
This sums up to 5 units of livestock per year in province A. If we assume that the monthly consumption by the pops in province A is two units of livestock, we get a surplus of 3 units of livestock per year.
Once province A has produced enough surplus, the excess livestock will automatically move to the neighboring province B that doesn’t produce any. A certain amount is kept in province A as reserve.
Theoretically, once enough units of livestock have moved from province A to province B, there could be enough surplus in province B to allow for a further distribution of goods! Even though province B has no livestock production of its own, the healthy influx from province A could mean that province B nevertheless gives surplus livestock to province C that also needs it.
In the long term, a strong surplus production would result in a distribution to several provinces, even if they aren’t direct neighbors to the province where the trade good was originally produced. But since there is local consumption in each province along the way, the supply will never be enough to “feed” more than a few provinces.
The system is very similar to pop migration, where pops move from overpopulated settlements towards settlements with sufficient pop capacity.
What would be the role of trade routes?
Trade routes would have a totally different role than in 2.0.
They would be used as a way to exchange all kinds of trade goods between two provinces that aren’t direct, natural neighbors.
As an example, assume that the province of Athens has two natural neighbors – Corinth and Sparta (just an example). If a trade route is created between the harbors of Athens and far away Alexandria, they would nevertheless count as neighboring provinces for the purpose of trade good distribution. There would no longer be a difference between local trade good movement between Athens and Sparta and long-range trade good movement between Athens and Alexandria.
As a requirement to establish a long-range trade connection, you would have to connect two harbors (or two cities along the same road) with a trade route.
This would have huge advantages, especially for immersion:
- Trade routes could finally be visualized on the map by moving trade ships or caravans.
- Roads and harbors would finally have an important purpose.
- As it is in reality, coastal provinces would be very important for trade. Landlocked provinces would be at a disadvantage until roads are built.
- Isolated, landlocked nations would be limited to the locally available trade goods. Getting access to the sea or at least a road or major river would be a top priority for those who want to improve their nation.
- Navies and ships would finally be important to protect harbors and trade routes.
Also, as the main benefit of harbors would be province-wide, Rome would no longer be incentivized to move its capital towards Ostia!
The role of diplomacy:
Of course, trade goods would not move towards the provinces of your enemies! To allow trade to flow between provinces of 2 different nations, they would need to be at peace and to have a trade agreement.
There would be 4 types of trade agreements:
- all trade goods, equal priority
- all trade goods, internal trade prioritized
- no strategics, equal priority
- no strategics, internal trade prioritized
Option 3 and 4 would be for those situations when you want to trade with a potential rival for the time being, but don’t want to give them access to your strategics (we don’t want everybody to have horse archers and heavy infantry just because we boosted our own production, do we?).
This would make diplomacy much more important than it is currently!
To make sure that you get all that you need, you would need several local allies or at least a lot of naval trade routes and a fleet to protect them. It would also be a problem if a nation along an important road would turn hostile towards you, e.g., blocking the influx of silk and spices and angering your nobility.
Dynamic stories would unfold about wars to free the trade routes or about important allies that assure your supply. There’s even the potential for a new Casus Belli when someone cuts off your trade routes!
What would be the role of pops?
Slaves would stay in their role as prime producers of trade goods.
Freeman and tribesmen would also contribute to the production of trade goods, but at a significantly slower rate than slaves (They would have other benefits instead such as manpower generation, just as it is now).
No longer would you have to fill an arbitrary number of slaves to get a second, never ending stream of goods. They would be produced more immersively by all lower-class pops in a settlement without arbitrary thresholds.
All the individual production powers of all lower-class pops would be summarized to get the actual rate of production for each territory. This would of course by further modified by buildings, pop happiness, civilization level, wonder effects, …
Citizens and nobles would have a different role. Their buying power would serve as a magnet for trade. Just as “migration attraction” pulls pops towards a territory, nobles and citizens would pull trade goods toward your land. If two provinces compete for the same trade good to be delivered there, the province with more upper-class pops would have a higher chance to receive it. Also, their “magnetism” would keep a larger reserve of trade goods within the province.
Apart from this, upper-class pops could still contribute to the number of trade routes, just as they do in 2.0.
Finally, you would need citizens and nobles to actually be able to profit from high-tier trade goods. Only nobles and citizens would convert exclusive and powerful trade goods into powerful effects (e.g. papyrus à science, or marble à civilization). Papyrus, precious metals or marble would be more or less worthless to tribesmen or freemen. They would neither demand it nor get a positive effect from it.
Would the effects from having a trade good in your empire be the same?
The benefits from trade goods would need to be overhauled for sure!
- Grain would only have the effect of providing food.
- Luxury foodstuffs like wine or honey would increase pop happiness while being available (especially for lower class pops). They would also give a small amount of nutritional value.
- Livestock, fish, and vegetables would be somewhere in between, giving moderate nutritional value and moderate happiness. Vegetables could also be an inferior version of grain, while fish could be an inferior version of livestock.
- To make citizens and especially nobles happy, you would not only need a varied diet, but also other luxuries like precious metals, jewels, amber, glass, …
- Then again, providing luxury goods to your nobles or citizen would have other benefits, like increasing civ value or ruler legitimacy.
- Some trade goods, like papyrus and incense, would give special benefits like science or omen power, but only while being consumed by citizens and nobles! Just having them in a province wouldn’t give you any benefit, you’d also needs scholars or priests (=citizens) to benefit from them.
- As said above, the automatic trade distribution wouldn’t even deliver advanced trade goods to underdeveloped provinces.
You haven’t mentioned strategic resources yet?
They wouldn’t be consumed by pops, but by your military in a very similar way like manpower works.
Replacing a light infantry soldier after attrition or losses would only need 1 manpower, just like it works now. But replacing a light cavalry soldier would require both 1 manpower as well as 0,001 horse trade good (assuming that 1 horse trade good represents approx. 1000 actual horses).
When hiring legions, we would get this cost:
- 1 heavy infantry cohort = 500 manpower + 0,5 iron
- 1 light cavalry cohort = 500 manpower + 0,5 horse
- 1 heavy cavalry cohort = 500 manpower + 0,5 horse + 0,5 iron
- 1 horse archer cohort = 500 manpower + 0,5 steppe horse
- 1 war elephant cohort = 500 manpower + 0,5 elephant
- 1 war camel = 500 manpower + 0,5 camel
I deliberately didn’t make the costs 1 cohort = 1 trade good to make it more likely to have some “leftover change” to cover losses.
Levies would not cost strategic ressources when they are first levied, but they'd need them to recover losses (very similar to manpower). It is assumed that the initial levied force brings its own equipment.
Wouldn’t all those moving trade goods slow the game down a lot (from a technical point of view)?
This could actually happen if we have too small units of trade goods. If one “Horse” represented an actual single horse, it would drive the system requirements up a lot and clutter the interface.
But, if each “Horse” trade good represented approx. 1000 horses, it would be much more manageable. Remember that one pop also represents approx. 1000 people!
Also, partial trade goods should exist on a provincial level (for example, the population of a province could consume 0.135 units of fish per month), but they should not be traded. Only whole trade goods should be able to be moved between provinces. Once a trade good is partially consumed, it should be stuck in a province.
How would money be earned from trade?
You would earn money from import and export taxes, similar to the current system. The big difference: monthly ticks would be replaced by counting each moved trade good.
The most profitable thing would be exports, so each time a trade good leaves your country, you earn 100% of the trade goods value.
Imports would earn you smaller amount of money from import taxes, too, because we never want trade to cause any negative effects, especially when it should work automatically most of the time!
This would also mean that you’d earn money from just letting trade pass through your country, allowing dedicated trade cities to exist!
Would it be possible to create a small but tall trading nation (like Tyre or Rhodes were) with this system?
Yes! This would actually be one of the major advantages!
It might be necessary to create a special building to make a trade city work, though!
A strategically located large city with a lot of buildings, civilization level and nobles could have many good trade routes and attract a large influx of trade goods and also pops.
The large number of nobles would pull a lot of trade goods towards their city in this system, but usually not significantly more than they consume. A trade city would need to pull a lot of trade goods towards the city, but it would also need to release the surplus easily.
Market buildings could fulfill this purpose.
Markets would pull more trade goods than the population needs, but would also allow those trade goods to move on (They would "pull" trade goods in the same way as nobles do, but they wouldn't "hold" additional copies of a luxury in the province as nobles would do). A trade city with 10 trade routes and a level 10 market in Byzantium, Rhodos or Antiocha would earn loads of money from connecting regions with different trade good compositions.
How would all this interact with existing mechanics?
One great synergy would be with the pop migration system.
Pops would usually move along the same trade routes that exist for trade goods. This would mean that your provincial settlements would not only feed your urban centers with trade goods, but also with pops. Movement between 2 countries should be slower than internal migration, though.
Pops would also automatically towards provinces that have a highly desirable trade good to increase production (lower class pops would go where the workplaces are, especially slaves!)
Another great synergy would be with conquest and raiding.
Remember, rich provinces with many nobles and citizens would serve as a “magnet” for trade goods, so there would be a lot of loot to get from there. Imagine how cool it would be if conquering a territory would not only give you slaves, but also steal a few trade goods? Plundering a rich trade city would be extremely profitable. Piracy would finally become a meaningful gameplay mechanic.
Finally, exotic trade goods could be a great reward for missions and events! (As example: traders from far away bring exotic goods to your capital, but they also seem to bring a plague - do you let them in?)
Wouldn’t this system hurt tribal nations too much?
They would probably need a few buffs to compensate. One thing that comes to my mind is “tribal trade routes”, which are generated by tribesmen and have no road requirement (only available for tribes, of course).
Wouldn't this all be too automated? What would be the active part for the player?
- Setting up trade routes
- Negotiating trade agreements
- Assuring sufficient local production
- Creating trade cities in strategic locations
- Plundering rich foreign provinces
Finally, you should probably be able to buy a trade good manually via the diplomacy menu for an even steeper extra cost.
Final words:
Thank you for reading! I put a lot of thought into this and strongly hope that a similar system will exist at some point in the future. I’d love to hear your feedback!
Last edited:
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