Research on campaign mechanics - post results here

[sapi]

Can enemy merchants not seize the assets of a merchant in a fort? Seems like an exploit if not.

No, they can't, so i'd class it as an exploit, but the jury's still out on it (see above)

[ArchieGremlin]

I did a bit of digging in order to work out what effect the various trade buildings have on the value of a settlement's trade routes and I thought you might like to see the results.

The short answer is that anything in the building browser with the property "Increase in tradeable goods" will increase your trade income by 10% or 20% of the base value.

It's hard to tell how much extra money you'll make when you're choosing which building to construct next. However, the increase in trade value will affect all land trade and sea export routes in the settlement with the new building. It will also increase the value goods imported from this settlement by other settlements.

For example, if Bruge exports cloth to London then upgrading Bruge's Market to a Fairground will increase the value of London's sea import route from Bruge. (But not the other import routes in London.)

I you want to work out a settlement's total trade bonus then just add the bonuses for each building together. For example, if London has a Shipwright, a Great Market and a Merchant's Guild then the trade bonus is 90%. (30% + 50% + 10%) This means that the value of each trade route is 190% of the basic value. (i.e. 1.9 x base value) The bonuses are all listed in the table below.

Note that the bonuses aren't multiplied together. If you add Merchant's Wharf to London then the value of each trade route won't increase by 20%; it'll increase by a factor of 210/190. (about 10.5%)

A good strategy for maximising your income is build ports first and then the other improvements starting with the cheapest.

I don't know what determines the base value for each trade route.

I haven't looked at the effect of roads on trade.




The buildings listed in this table are the ones that are shown in the game with the property "Increase in tradeable goods". (This matches the "trade_base_income_bonus bonus" property in export_descr_buildings.txt.)

* I've checked the behaviour of most buildings but the ones I couldn't check are marked with a *.

# The "Sea Trade" buildings have the property "Trade fleets available x". As far as I can tell this has no effect on the value of trade. Does anyone know if this property does anything at all? (It maps to the "trade_fleet" property in export_descr_buildings.txt.)

enjoy,
Archie

[ArchieGremlin]

Nuts. I've made a mess of the table and I don't seem to have the right to fix it. Please can a kind admin fix the table for me or allow me to edit it myself.

cheers,
Archie

[sapi]

Nice work on the research there mate!

It seems to me, looking at that, that the best things to build are ports (because they produce naval units, are relitively cheap and also increase trade) and printing presses/houses (for the happiness bonus)

The problem that you will have had with the table is that spaces are automatically condensed.

You can fix this by using another character (such as -) to space the columns or hosting the spreadsheet offsite (at a location such as google spreadsheets)

[d3nn16]

Hi,
I'm playing with Venice and the pope was a pain in the ass (at least as long as he was in Italy before I moved him to Caffa ).
I don't know if this was talked about in other posts or if you all know that already and it's worthless to post it.
How many of you sent an assassin kill an agent after saving the game then reloading it because he failed ?
Personally I tried this as soon as I could get assassins and I remarked that the succeeding of an assassin depends on the movements and actions your other agents and generals did before.

So a little test you can do in your campaign right now is choose an assassin and give him a target (you saved the game before) and see if he fails. In this case reload the game and move only one other agent or general and retest with the same target : a very likely result is that your assassin succeeds (this is how I managed to have 13 cardinals, get rid of the pope each time he's nasty and move him to Caffa, kill all Mongolian Generals and transform them in rebels [in most cases when many generals die in a turn the faction is destroyed], and become master of the world ).

Still, if your assassin has 5% chances most of the time he will fail (at least I don't insist much when the assassin has low skill level). When I killed the Mongolian Generals my assassins had 9/10 skill level and 16-20% chances (I had to move other generals and captains around the map and even fight some battles before they succeeded in the same turn).

The trick works with other agents too : priests when burning heretics, merchants (I once succeeded in buying an egyptian merchant with 5% chances), it must work with princess too but I didn't try it.

The first agents I move around a map at the start of a turn are my assassins (sometimes they all get killed except one that succeeds after what the others succeed as well).

Some of you already think it's not their style of gameplay, and prefer more hard games. I agree, and I'll try it in my next campaign.

[Darkarbiter]

I seem to remember if your priests are garrisoned while your building or upgrading churches they tend to gain piety through traits or retinue. Can anyone confirm or deny this?

[sapi]

I'll test it later this arvo - i've got a bunch of priests in jerusalem with nothing better to do.