Best location for Merchants' Guild is ?

[andrewt]

I only got Antioch to 7k at the end of my Turkish game. When I played the Rus, I had Stockholm at over 10k.

[hisn00bness]

Odd I can't seem to get Stockholm over 6k so far as Russia. Granted it's relatively early in the game; but still.

[Xehh II]

Cabbage question here but why is Stockholm so good at tarding.

[hisn00bness]

I have no idea...

but I think its good at trading because of the central position relative to the other main ports to the sea there (arhus; helsinki; novgorod; riga) and has plenty of silver to draw from. Also I hear the salmon's not bad.

[b_black68]

Trade income is determined by many factors.

first off, each trade_base_income_bonus point is a 5% increase in income, so a merchants guild, trader, dirt road only gives a 5% increase, mmg gives 10%, etc.

Port location is very important, the farther the port that is being traded with is from your cities port, the less money the trade is worth. Two ports that are nearly adjacent to each other make an insane amount of money, even without many trading upgrades. Constantinople and Nicea would be the ideal situation, but the game seems to refuse to let them trade with each other.....

Likewise with land trade, the closer the city, the more money you will make(all other variables constant)

The trick is to get the game to have your trade fleets go to the right ports(ie, the closest ports) which it doesnt seem to do.


One more thing, import value is equal to 20% of the trade between the cities, so if a route exported from antioch makes 1000 and ends up in jerusalem, jerusalem will get 200 income from the import. Thus, increasing the trade value of neighboring cities increases the income of all the cities nearby.

From this standpoint, venice and antioch have very strong land trade opportunities, and many ports that are decently close. Constantinople and stockholm are weaker on land trade, but have the potential for massive sea trade from long distances, and very close ports(if you're lucky and the fleets go there). Also, venice is nearby many strong trading cities which can help to increase its income even more.


Hope this helps, and maybe someone knows how to make the trade fleets find the optimum port?

[Kobal2fr]

Cabbage question here but why is Stockholm so good at trading.

1) it has umpteen ressources. From the top of my head : 2 iron, 3 furs, 2 amber, 1 silver, and maybe some fish as well
2) Most provinces it trades with also have amber, which is an expensive ressource
3) it's central and borders two seas, meaning it gets to trade with russia, poland, hre, flanders and even england sometimes.
4) the mines are awesome, which makes it a doubly good town
E) it's usually far away from your capital, so merchants trading amber make fortunes.

[andrewt]

1) it has umpteen ressources. From the top of my head : 2 iron, 3 furs, 2 amber, 1 silver, and maybe some fish as well
2) Most provinces it trades with also have amber, which is an expensive ressource
3) it's central and borders two seas, meaning it gets to trade with russia, poland, hre, flanders and even england sometimes.
4) the mines are awesome, which makes it a doubly good town
E) it's usually far away from your capital, so merchants trading amber make fortunes.

I don't include merchant income, just the city itself. A far away capital would have corruption destroy that income from Stockholm.

A few assorted thoughts regarding b-black68's post:
1. Constantinople and Nicaea has a land bridge in the game so it's considered land trade.
2. While I was plaing the Moors, Timbuktu's trade to Marrekesh went up from 200 to 500 when I upgraded from dirt to paved roads. I didn't see the other provinces get anything from upgraded roads. I'm wondering if there's some distance thing that got hit by it.
3. If both provinces have the same resource, it doesn't get traded. A province that doesn't have resources or if the exported province has all its resources only trades common goods. Still, some provinces like Rome that only exports common goods still get a ton of money.
4. What penalties do castles get versus cities on trade?
5. How much does population count?

[Kobal2fr]

2) stone roads give a HUGE boost to land trade. Seriously, in Venice or Vienna you can easily witness a 600/turn jump merely by upgrading the roads, and that's early in the game without banks/guilds/markets etc...

Shame M2 doesn't have the 3rd level of roads

4) Castles get the shaft big time. They can't build any +trade building, and AFAIK only get a percentage of the region's real trade values. The most I've ever seen in a castle is maybe 120 measly florins. Try turning a castle with a port into a city (or vice versa) to see what I mean. You'll notice the trade income is very different, all other things being equal.
The Moorish caravan building makes them a lot more profitable though.

5) Nothing. Population is used in taxation only, not trade nor farming nor mining.

[Shahed]

Kobavelli roads do nothing for trade in vanilla.