Trade Question

[Tony Furze]

I notice Hungary has very little in the way of trade goods.

Does that mean the ships are no good for trade? Say, Moldavia has grain and you build a trader there, can the port of Croatia be used to trade that grain, or is trade only with neighbours?

[macsen rufus]

Inland provinces only have "local trade" - I never bother building trader buildings there, as it takes centuries to pay back the investment. I always thought there should be land trade between provinces but it doesn't seem to happen.

[Csargo]

Inland provinces only have "local trade" - I never bother building trader buildings there, as it takes centuries to pay back the investment. I always thought there should be land trade between provinces but it doesn't seem to happen.

I think there is land trade between provinces. I'm pretty sure there is.

[Vladimir]

I think there is land trade between provinces. I'm pretty sure there is.

[Csargo]

Oh I guess I was wrong I'm so sorry it was an accident.

[mfberg]

On an 800 florin invesment, a return of 40 years required on payback of 20 per year. So internal trade is not worth building larger buildings unless you have nothing else to spend the cash on. For the ocean provinces even one trade good is worth more than that because you get internal plus possible external trade (that is if you aren't at war with everyone else on the planet). I always build the first building, but only after all my farm/mine/horsebreeder builds.

As Hungary trade is very worthwhile the instant you go beyond your borders. Venice, Constantinople, Kiev, and Khazar are your immediate goals, with Naples a little bit behind. All are trade giants with multiple trade goods and strategic importance.

Internal trade to any great degree is probably only worthwhile in the three trade good regions of Armenia and Edessa.

mfberg

[bamff]

One query re: the florin fluctuation I have noted in my trade from one year to the next. I realise that anyone that I am currently at war with will not trade with me, but is there any difference between allies and neutral states? In other words, do allies make better trading partners than neutral states?

[Sensei Warrior]

In a word, no. That's the simple answer, ally or neutral if they trade with you they trade the same. Of course I'm not one for simple answers so here is the long version.

Fluctuations in your trade income can be attributed to a number of factors, some of them you can control the rest you can't.

1. Increasing your shipping lanes (putting one of your ships into a new sea section) will increase your capital if there is a port to trade with in that sea section.

2. Improving your trade buildings aka. going from a merchant to a mechant guild will increase your trade.

3. The military actions of other Factions has an effect. If a faction attacks a city with a port you are trading with and the port disapears than you will stop trade with that Provence until the Port is rebuilt.

4. A tradeable faction builds a port in your shipping lanes will cause an increase.

5. A faction that you are at war with takes over a Provence you were trading with. You can no longer trade with that Provence until you make Peace with the faction you are at war with.

6. Pleasure Boats. This is the affectionate term for the single ships owned by a Faction you are at war with leisurely cruising up and down your shipping lanes. At best it will shut down trade with the sea its currently in, at worst it will shut down a large portion of your trade into a region, like if it is in the sea at the mouth of the Med. For example You are playing the English. You have a trading Empire that Encompasses the whole map. You own all of the British Isles, Ireland, Flanders, and Normandy. You are at war with the Almos. The Almos have a ship sitting at the sea section that comprises the mouth of the Med. That one lone ship is going to block all trade from happening in the Med because all your Ports are in the North Seas and the one ship is sitting at a chokepoint in the Med.

I am sure there is more but that's the bare bones for starters. Any number of the above could be going on all at the same time. So more often than not your trade will fluctuate from year to year.

I swear a whole Guide could be written on trade, how it works, how it doesn't work, and the various effects things have on it, but it would be tedious to write, and probably read. The general rule of thumb is not to rely on it too much or it could very easily sink you.

[bamff]

Do one's own provinces trade with each other? I have a vague recollection that I read a post somewhere that said they don't, but I cannot recall where....

If this is the case, I imagine that invading a trading partner province would also act to reduce the influx of florins...In my current campaign (as Sicilians - thanks to whoever it was who suggested them, I'm having a ball) I have just taken Tripoli and Palestine from the Eggies. My trade has increased, but this could be the result of actions elsewhere on the map.

As for "pleasure boats", yes that is a major pain, especially around choke points as Sensei Warrior mentioned - and even more so if you are a Cath faction and your pleasure cruising antagonist is another Cath faction....because taking appropriate action could result in old mate Popie beating you with the excom stick.

[Sensei Warrior]

Your own Provences do not trade with one another. Another sad fact of MTW.
If your playing domination it gets increasingly more difficult to keep earning money as you conquer more territory.

Yes, if you invade a trading provence or start a war with a Faction you once traded with then you will reduce income.

I thought about adding the Catho thing in, but I figured if you didn't know about it you would find out sooner or later.

7. Attacking a rebel owned provence will cause all rebels not to trade with you.

8. No trading takes place during a seige. So if your seiging a Provence or another faction is trade will not take place in that Provence.

There is a couple more to chew on.

[bamff]

Wow! Rule number 7 is one I was NOT aware of - and hadn't really considered, because I figured that all of the reb's were independant. Potentially it is a biggie, too (provided the rebel prov's have ports - because if they don't, they wouldn't trade anyway, right?). So tumbling 1 tiny little rebel prov could suddenly get you locked out of a whole heap of the map....that is food for thought.

[Sensei Warrior]

Right no port = no trade.

With the rebel thing I probably should have added that this only goes on as long as it takes to take the rebel provence. This is one of the ones I'm a little sticky on because I haven't really paid too much attention to it.

I think it has something to do with the way the Rebels are coded in the game. The game sort of treats them as all one Faction. The good news is, in theroy they are a little absent minded. Once you have taken the rebel provence and dealt with the rebels the other rebels on the screen go back to a neutral state and will trade with you again. At least thats what I've gleaned from the various threads.

I should note that by the time I have gotten trade up and running, and I am at least partially dependant on it, there are very few to no rebels left on the map that I could trade with. I also say I am a big proponent for sucking up the rebel factions ASAP. I think they are easy pickings, diplomatcally or martially.

[bamff]

Does anyone know if there is any way to mod the way that trade works (or perhaps the rules that govern trade) to allow things such as "intra-empire" trade (so that a factions own provinces can trade with each other) or for inland provinces to trade with others?

[Sensei Warrior]

I don't think anyone has figured that out. I know all trade buildings do a certain amount of local trade but it is nowhere near what inter-faction trade does. Although MTW has been around so long I figure people must have tried. If thats the case then the answer it probably can't be done. It could be hardcoded.

The thing I do know is WesW somehow figured out how to trade overland. I am not to sure how he did it but using an agent he created called merchant he somehow figured out a way to get landlocked regions to trade. That is in Wes' MedMod series.

I know VikingHorde fiddled with the Agriculture to have Provences produce roughly 30% more money from farming. Thats in XL.

I know you can add trade goods and adjust the prices of revenue trade goods garner, although I've never done it myself.

[caravel]

If you're at war with the rebels (or any faction for that matter) but would like to trade with them, the thing to do is break contact, if possible. To do this you first need to ensure that you're not besieging any of their castles, and that you don't share any borders with them, which is not always possible of course. After this you should move your ships away from their coasts for one full year. This should achieve a ceasefire, and get trade going again.

[macsen rufus]

A couple of other trade tips for you:

You can check where a province is trading with through the trade scroll. In the list of provinces, click on one that shows a trade income, and this will open the province's own trade scroll. This lists all trading partners, including "local trade". This shows that your own provinces are never traded with. I guess there's no import/export tax if it stays within the empire

Note that trade goods are only traded when they are not available in the other province -- ie if you have a grain province, and set up a shipping route to another grain province, even with trade buildings and ports at both ends, there will be NO TRADE (or rather only local trade).

[Sirron]

Just a short one, to underline Sensei Warrior´s notion of NO PORT = NO TRADE:

The rebellions incited by your spies tend to destroy the ports quite often.

I have a personal experience with inciting rebellions in provinces of my allies, which led to disruption of the trading.

[Sensei Warrior]

All good points. I'm telling you there are more trading nuances then you can shake a stick at.

[bamff]

VERY valid point from Macsen Rufus!

Of course - the "empire" is generating income via taxes...it would be the various merchants within the empire that are actually doing the buying and selling and profit-making....so trade between provinces within the empire would result in taxes raised being offset against credits claimable by merchants....The taxes must be some form of "activity tax" rather than an "income tax"....

Sorry - I just like to be able to take stuff that happens in the game and find a sensible, in-context explanation for "why it should be so"...

[Tony Furze]

Just come on to say thanks. I ve been reading everything and I m still digesting a lot of it.

No doubt I ll have some questions relating to all you ve all said.

Again thanks for all the replies.

[Marquis de Said]

With the rebel thing I probably should have added that this only goes on as long as it takes to take the rebel provence. This is one of the ones I'm a little sticky on because I haven't really paid too much attention to it.

I think it has something to do with the way the Rebels are coded in the game. The game sort of treats them as all one Faction. The good news is, in theroy they are a little absent minded. Once you have taken the rebel provence and dealt with the rebels the other rebels on the screen go back to a neutral state and will trade with you again. At least thats what I've gleaned from the various threads.

As someone else mentioned, you can only get the rebels back to neutral if you completely break contact with them, that is have no bordering rebel provinces and no ships of your own next to their provinces.

And I think you will go to war with all the rebels if you have a rebel (bandits, religious rebellion etc. but not a loyalist rebellion) in your own lands and decide to fight it.

[caravel]

On the trade subject, I'm a big advocate of land bridge removal to create true islands of sicily and britain, to divide sardinia and corsica and split spain from morocco to try and reflect how forces would have to invade these islands or cross channels historically, and this is how I play the game: modded in this way, but I've often wondered if MTW wouldn't benefit from losing the less than perfect trade and shipping thing altogether and go back to, almost, doing it "the shogun way", this would achieve, among others, these goals:

1) Stop the player taking advantage of the poor AI naval management and easily achieving total naval domination by the high period. The AI just can't "play the naval game", it can just about manage on land. The player can 'jump' armies from scotland to the sinai in one year without those vessels making port or the army getting lost or getting blown off course, and also scotland to northumbria in one year, both seem unrealistic but the land province movement time cannot be altered, the sea travel can, it can be stopped altogether.

2) Prevent the player reaping a huge trade profit and thus a seriously glutted economy while the ai gains little.

3) Force crusades/jihads to take the land route, as they probably would have historically, only using virtual shipping when they could "borrow" it at friendly ports to ferry across a strait or channel (land bridges). Three alternative land bridge routes would be created for crusades. (see below)

4) Stop the "re-emerging faction isolated on island" problem (i.e. the byzantines in crete, the italians in sardinia/corsica or the english in Ireland)

5) Get rid of the bugged naval warfare system and allow the player to concentrate on the land warfare which is what it's all about after all.

To achieve this some changes would have to be made to farming incomes and the tech tree. Only shipyards would need to be removed, as this would effectively stop ships being produced. Trade goods within provinces would need to be increased to boost local trade. The base farm incomes for all provinces would need to be boosted carefully as would the incomes from mines to make them more worthwhile.

I would place the new land bridges between the following provinces:

1) cyprus -> anatolia/lesser armenia/antioch
2) rhodes -> niccea
3) crete -> greece/cyrenacia †
4) greece -> cyrenacia
5) malta -> sicily/cyrenacia †
6) sicily -> tunisia
7) wessex -> normandy
8) ireland -> wales/scotland
9) sweden -> finland
10) corsica -> genoa/tuscany †
11) sardinia -> tunisia †
12) denmark -> norway
13) livonia -> finland

† crusade routes

Or something like that anyway. These would represent, what I feel would be, common shipping lanes between these provinces and islands, without the actual ships being part of the equation. It would allow muslim factions to branch out into the meditteranean islands and pose more of a threat.

This may not appeal to some of course, though it does to me, because I dislike managing ships and find the naval battles to be quite uninteresting. I can beat the AI every time when it comes to naval deployment, so there is virtualy no challenge only annoyance. I also find the cut off provinces (islands) to be a real nuisance in that most of the time I can't be bothered trying to capture them because they provide no incentives. If they were connected by land it would make it easier and worthwhile, as they would become stop off choke points between north africa and europe. The AI can't handle the islands, the way I see it is the more obstacles you put in the AI's path, the more it fouls up, keep it simple and it's fine.

[Marquis de Said]

@ Caravel,

have you tried the XL mod?
That mod increases farm income a great deal, reduces trade income to the extent that you can't rely on trade to fill your treasury, especially with it being threatened by the occasional AI sneak attacks, and it also increases trade income in landlocked provinces. It has also removed the existing land bridges.

As far as your suggestion for linking the Mediterranean islands to the mainland with "land bridges", for me it sort of contradicts your first statement of removing the existing land bridges. I'm not trashing your idea or anything and I can see the point you are trying to make, which is scrapping the naval aspect altogether, but it just seems to alter the map in a huge way that is quite unrealistic. After all, Mediterranean islands held out quite long against large powers close to them, as in the case of Rhodes against the Ottomans, Cyprus against the Egyptians etc. Moreover, several crusades did actually take the sea route: Richard the Lionheart sailed from England to Sicily, then from Sicily to Cyprus, which he captured from the Byzantines and finally on to the Holy Land. Louis IX sailed directly to Egypt, or possibly with a stopover in Cyprus, IIRC.

Once again, I'm not dissing your idea, just presenting a couple of thoughts. If you, however, do mod the game in the way you mentioned, please post some screenies and reports to show us how the game runs. Maybe it would actually improve the land wars.

[Deus ret.]

Another (although limited) remedy for the AI naval problem was found in MedMod. WesW identified the sea below the Adriatic, the Marmara sea and a few others as main the obstacles to an at least partially successful AI naval deployment. Their removal significantly increased the chances of the AI establishing ship chains. In addition, the strait of Gibraltar was changed into a deep sea square, thus cutting off travel & trade between the Med and the North sea....at least during early.

although some of caravel's points are valid, I'd opt against a purely land-based orientation. actually in my games the AI doesn't fare too badly naval-wise (could be better, though), it conducts quite a number of naval invasions and isn't easily outmatched by me. of course one has to abstain from spamming the seas with loads of ships as this would ruin the challenge....and also be highly unrealistic.

the factions reappearing on isolated islands are really a problem, though, and should be addressed somehow. all the more since islands are more prone to reappearances because they're more easily isolated from the king due to the not-always-that-perfect AI naval movements.... AFAIK there is no possbility to mod the reappearances in order to either provide a couple of ships when a faction respawns on an island or prevent reappearances from happening on islands altogether, but I'm not the greatest among modders so if anyone knows better....

[caravel]

It was just an idea, though I can see the valid points about the islands and other things. I have tried XL but couldn't get into it. Medmod I've never tried, I may do at some point.

[caravel]

Update: I've got it working. I'm now in the process of photoshopping the landbridges into the map. Then I'll need to tweak the trade and farm incomes. I'm going to give it a thorough testing to see if it's worthwhile or not.

[Deus ret.]

Notwithstanding my former scepticism I'd be interested in such a mod. Keep us informed!

[caravel]

The point you made about islands and separation, and reappearances being more likely on islands due to their being more easily separated. I was thinking that loyalty on (former) islands should be lower, as with provinces such as lithuania and portugal. This will force bigger garrissons and make for much more volatile choke points. At present my landbridges are as follows:

1) cyprus -> anatolia/lesser armenia/antioch

This is basically just to like cyprus to the mainland, It is so close to those provinces that I had to link it to all of them. Cyprus in this form would become a chokepoint. A cornered crusading force could hold out their for a while, though wouldn't be able to ship in convenient reinforcements every year from [wherever].

2) rhodes -> niccea

A simple link to the mainland, which it's much closer to than say, Wessex is to Flanders.

3) crete -> greece/cyrenacia †

A route from Europe to North Africa crete forms a necessary stopping off point for crusades heading there, and if in muslim hands needs to be secured.

4) malta -> sicily

A simple link to the mainland. Sicily reappearing here without a port would be pretty useless, now they can get back to where they were.

5) sicily -> tunisia

A route for the Almohads into Europe and for crusades going in the opposite direction. Sicily starts well fortified so initially the sicilians shouldn't have any problems holding off any attempted invasions.

6) ireland -> wales/scotland

Ireland is pretty useless to the AI and I've often seen it still in it's isolated condition well into the high or late periods. Sometimes the English will go for it other times they won't. Then of course if they do, there's always the chance they'll reappear there later... without a port.

7) sweden -> finland

It's linked by land, just off the map, so it makes sense.

8) corsica -> genoa/tuscany/provence †
9) sardinia -> tunisia †

Another route to north africa for crusades or invasions.

10) greece -> naples

This needed to be linked as it would be ridiculous if our "virtual shipping" couldn't ferry troops between these shores.

† crusade routes

Historically difficult voyages may have been undertaken during the 11th and 12th centuries though I can't imagine transporting 1000's of men by sea from Scotland to Palestine being just "a matter of course". Ships would have to have made port they wouldn't have simply sailed all the way between those locations non stop in the days before the invention of the compass, and in the case of the crusades they mainly went by land due their enormous size and the nature of those expeditions (the recruited as they travelled).

[Deus ret.]

Sounds interesting so far. One thing came into my mind: the zeal problem. By being forced to march those crusades through quite a number of low-zeal, non-catholic provinces, one runs a considerable risk of failure in these crusades. When I was new to MTW I always marched them overland and lost the greater part of them due to the awful Bulgaria-Big C-Trebizond-Rum-Lesser Armenia-wherever route which reduced most crusades to maybe 1/3 of their strength, making it impossible to hold onto any conquered provinces for a longer span of time. By sending them by sea it becomes necessary to pump up the crusade on one's own, but there are no losses, especially not to the elite core units.....any ideas?

[caravel]

No ideas on that one I'm afraid. This is the problem the AI has though. 90% of it's crusades go over land towards the Antioch/Tripoli/Edessa direction, and have to traverse the eastern european low zeal and orthodox region, then often try to fight their way through other muslim faction's provinces to get where they're going. For the player crusades can be a massive exploit, much easier to pull off, top up with your own troops and make the best of the influence boosting effect. If anything the land route would make me think twice before declaring a "spam" crusade. Crusades cannot be modded as far as I'm aware, so I can't do much about the quantity or quality of their troops nor desertion levels, recruitment levels nor effect on influence when successful or unsuccessful, neither can I do much about zeal.

Also, the AI will often declare a crusade and drop it directly by sea, or after moving a province into another factions lands and using their shipping, into the target province or near enough, and then simply lose or not attack because the crusade was not sufficiently manned. Forcing the land route should create bigger crusades.

Regards

Caravel