The Point of building markets

[Waleed]

I've always wondered sine Rome what's the point of upgrading markets. If you select them and check in your income scroll most of the time you only get like 20-60 more florins per month compared to a multi thousand florin investment. It says it increases the number of tradable resources but what exactly does that mean?

[OMGLAZERS]

I think research on the levels of market increasing income needs to be studied, but the more merchants you have on resources, the more markets should provide for you. Also, docks and roads are important.

Just a market won't do diddly for you.

[Prodigal]

In RTW if you didn't upgrade markets then you couldn't access the higher level blacksmiths, so it restricted your armour & weapons upgrades. Also you get better spies & assassins, and finally it increases population growth & the cash you get from trade.

[Freedom Onanist]

I think the OP has a valid point. When you consider the price of upgrading markets in your cities what is the pay off? What opportunity cost are you loosing by not spending on troops?

Merchants are very hit-and-miss for me. No matter how long they have been standing on a resource, no matter how far they go and no matter how much profit they are making they seem to be very easy prey to other merchants. Again, I am not convinced they are worth it either given their price. I know about taking other merchants and you can't stand 2 merchants on the same resource, you have to have 2 similar resources in the same province. But even then the return is relatively minimal.

[Kobal2fr]

It all depends on the number of ressources in a given province. Higher markets give a bonus on trade, so if the province has low trade to begin with it's not that much of a benefit, but in rich province who have many types of ressources, the bonus is quite substantial.

Also, I believe that merchant efficiency is bolstered by buildings which increase trade, because I've seen the same ressource be worth much more money later in my campaign as they did early on, for equal experience merchants. What I don't know is wether only the buildings in your capital have that effect (since ressource types are worth more the further they are from your capital) or wether it's an empire-wide bonus total.

[Quillan]

It does seem to vary depending on the size and resources of the province. Markets in Constantinople pay off very well (two silk, one wine, one grain resource). Also, the educational line of buildings require great markets and merchants quarters to build.

[WesW]

I did some tests, by destroying the various economic buildings I had built and analyzing the results on trade income.
The results:
All buildings, as well as Governor effects, are based upon the base trade amount, and thus are not cumulative (this means the buildings' percentage effects are added together, not multiplied).
Ports are the most important improvement by far, which I doubt is any surprise to anyone. They appear to at least double trade income. What was more interesting is that Wharves' effects don't appear to be affected by the level of Portage in the province.
I couldn't verify it by destroying them, but I feel sure that roads are the next most lucrative improvement. All of the building effects listed are based upon provinces with Paved Roads.
Grain Exchanges increased base income by 20%, and each successive improvement adds an additional 10%. Therefore, Exchanges give you a value of 10% per 300 florins, while Great Markets cost 4800f per 10%, a 16-fold increase in cost. It seems to me that a better system for cost increases would be an arithmetic or algebraic one, rather than the current exponential system, but that's another topic.
Wharves increase income by a comparatively stunning 40% for their 1200f cost, a return which would cost a total of 4200f to achieve through the Market line (600+1200+2400). Warehouses add an additional 10%, and I assume that the higher improvements would follow this pattern.
Merchant Guilds add 10% to the base trade income, while Master Guilds add only an additional 5% for their 2000f cost, meaning you will probably only want to accept them in one of your very wealthiest cities.

So, I hope this helps.

[Kobal2fr]

All buildings, as well as Governor effects, are based upon the base trade amount, and thus are not cumulative (this means the buildings' percentage effects are added together, not multiplied).

That is the very definition of cumulative. You're thinking "not exponential".

Ports are the most important improvement by far, which I doubt is any surprise to anyone. They appear to at least double trade income. What was more interesting is that Wharves' effects don't appear to be affected by the level of Portage in the province.

As alpaca hinted in another post (well... ok, he kind of explained it to me in detail. Twice. But I took the hint ! ), ports and wharves trade properties are inverted, despite the fact that "trade fleet +1" is listed as a property both on the wharves info card AND the descr_buildings.txt file.

I couldn't verify it by destroying them, but I feel sure that roads are the next most lucrative improvement. All of the building effects listed are based upon provinces with Paved Roads.

Stone roads are a massive improvement. They already were in RTW. With even only a grain exchange built you can get a 400+ bonus per turn just by building said roads. Plus, of course, your armies move faster, but that's just an added perk

[Foz]

Merchant Guilds add 10% to the base trade income, while Master Guilds add only an additional 5% for their 2000f cost, meaning you will probably only want to accept them in one of your very wealthiest cities.

I'd tend to agree. The primary benefit of the Merchants Guild is the plus to merchant starting level, not the minimal boost to the income of the settlement. The Masters guild gives that merchant boost (regular guild does not), so having the one masters you're allowed is a very good idea because your merchants will make a lot more money over the course of the game if they come out with 1 higher level.

[andrewt]

The first three port buildings give a sea export trade route each. The game description says it's supposed to be for the wharf series.

The later buildings aren't really cost effective. I just build them cause I usually have tons of cash when I get to that point.

[Foz]

Grain Exchanges increased base income by 20%, and each successive improvement adds an additional 10%. Therefore, Exchanges give you a value of 10% per 300 florins, while Great Markets cost 4800f per 10%, a 16-fold increase in cost. It seems to me that a better system for cost increases would be an arithmetic or algebraic one, rather than the current exponential system

Hmm. I think this is a bit more complicated than we've pieced together yet. Allow me to explain.

There are many factors which affect the amount of trade a place is doing. I'm sure everyone has noticed that trade goes up when you build a trade improvement. However, it also typically goes up when you don't. It just goes up all the time, period. Why?

As far as I've been able to tell, the primary reason is that it must be linked to population. This makes sense from an economics point of view, since increased populations represent increased supplies of exports and increased demand for imports, and thus mean more trade in general. An interesting side effect is that the best trading areas not only have rich resources, but also are populous regions to drive up trade between those settlements.

Anyway, back on point - as population seems to drive the base value of trade up (since no bonus changes are occurring, yet trade increases) we can assume that 10% of the base for the 2nd level market is not going to be the same as 10% for the 5th level market when you get to them. The value of trade will have increased substantially by then, meaning you can't just look at a bonus-to-cost ratio, since the bonus becomes more valuable as time goes on. You'd have to look at an actual income-increase-to-cost ratio, since it would account for the higher trade value available later in the game.

Put another way, in theory (if CA has balanced everything right) the markets should have roughly the same ROI - basically they should scale along with the cash flow to represent increased initial outlays and likewise increased eventual gains. The thing we have to try to figure out, then, is if the base value of trading increases an appropriate amount between each market level to make that the case. As the cost of the building typically doubles each time, this means we expect the basic value of trade to double as well by the time a new market becomes available and is completed. If the value has doubled, then the 10% each higher market grants is in line with what it should be (since its doubled cost is counterbalanced by its 10% bonus being twice as valuable in terms of real cash). The end result would be that they are equal prospects when they become available, which seems to be the best definition of balance between the buildings of the series.

Note: For the purposes of balance discussion we should probably ignore the initial building of any series, since it is typically a huge bonus by comparison and so always a far better value than other buildings will be.

[Monsieur Alphonse]

Well actually is it more complex. I started a game as Milan and made a log about Genoa. I used the trade details.

At the start of the campaign Genoa had a port. With a population of 3000 the total income was 968. I kept the tax rate at normal.

Tax income 592
land trade 61 (trading with two cities 37 + 24)
Sea import 49
Sea export 100
Farming 166 (no farms)

Six turns later I had build: dirt roads, grain exchange and land clearance. My income with a population of 3217 was now 1155.

Tax income 603
Land trade 121 (trading with 3 cities 44 + 49 + 28)
sea import 31 (two cities but different goods)
Sea export 190 (trading with Palermo after granting trade rights to Sicily)
Farming 190.

Since I had no desire to play a entire campaign I loaded a save game of my English campaign where I also had Genoa. The city had all the trade buildings and a merchant guild. The population was 31750 and the total income was 4623

Taxes 1072
Land trade 944 (256 + 273 + 415) 415 = Marseilles
Sea import 277 (trading with four cities)
Sea export 1613 (trading with two cities 851 + 762)
Farming 367
Mining 350

I looked also at some other cities. So here are some conclusions:
- Ports and shipwrights add the most trade because they add an extra trade fleet which is responsible for extra sea export.
- All the other trade buildings add trade goods.
- If extra trade goods will be beneficiary depends upon the cities being able to sell them. Cities with valuable trade goods will earn more than cities with worthless goods.
- Trade rights are worth it in the beginning of the game. Later you will 'own' the trade partners.
- I don't know what the effect is of merchants but i think they have no effect upon trade.

Farm income puzzles me. London has an excellent harvest and an income of 477, Paris with equal population and farms has poor harvest and an income of 450.

I hope this all make some sense

Alphonse

[alpaca]

1. Merchant trade revenue does only depend on your capital's trade modifier
2. Paris has a higher base farming value than London
3. The effects of markets are very minor in all settlements that aren't your capital (assuming you use merchants). They add 10%/15%/20%/25%/30% to your base trade revenue, so the increase in each level is only 5% of your base except for the corn exchange which you should always build anyways. This means if you have a base of 1000 you get 50 florins extra by building it, which is not much.
4. Ports are the best thing as has been mentioned. They grant an extra sea export route (to a maximum of 3) and increase trade by the same percentage as the markets (except that they only have 4 levels).
5. Sea trade buildings are as useless as markets giving 10%/15%/20%

Don't assume CA took the time to balance this properly, because they didn't. A way of increasing the performance is to increase the boni of markets to have 10% increases for each level (I think the total maximum bonus is capped to 100%), and triggering more good traits and ancillaries off of them, and give the higher levels a higher merchant agent limit.
A way to work around the port/sea trade bug is to make the port the sea trade line and the sea trade line a warport. Of course I'm talking about modding because I'm a modder, but some of you might be interested in it. I use these settings in my own vanilla campaigns, although I admit that the increase in the merchant limit probably benefits me more than the AI.

[Monsieur Alphonse]

Did some further testing. This time I looked at Stockholm (English campaign)
Stockholm has; paved roads, shipwright, docklands, merchants' quarter and a merchants' guild. The total trade income is 4514.

I only look at the land trade, sea imports and the sea exports.
Land trade is with Oslo (393 / 3 goods) and Aarhus (345 / 3)
Sea import is with Stettin (91 / 1) and Thorn (32 / 1)
Sea export is with Stettin (1809 / 6) and Thorn (1488 / 6)

When destroyed the merchants' quarter the sea imports didn't change. Land trade did go down to 295 (Oslo) and 345 (Aarhus). Sea exports did go to 1357 (Stettin) and 1383 (Thorn). The total amount of trade was now 3417. The growth from 3417 to 4514 is 32%.

Next I destroyed the docklands. Total trade did go down from 3417 to 2684. after this I destroyed the merchants' guild and the trade got down to 2502.

So the idea that all trade buildings add 10% trade to a base amount is flawed.

Trade income is earned with land trade and sea exports. This means that building roads (dirt and paved) and ports (port and shipwright) will be the best investment. The other trade buildings (market and warehouse) add extra trade but not 10% for each building. The exact number is possibly hidden in the deep dungeons of CA.

PS the maximum amount of trade fleets is two

[Kobal2fr]

Farm income puzzles me. London has an excellent harvest and an income of 477, Paris with equal population and farms has poor harvest and an income of 450.

Farm income doesn't have anything to do with population, only soil fertility matters (base farming value in the descr_regions.txt file). Each province has its own value going from 1 (desert mudhole) to 10 (Nile delta goodness ). Each point gives 60 florins per turn and .5% growth, each level of farms adds 1 to the fertility level as far as I can tell. As does each level of Good Farmer from the governor.

@Foz : not sure trade has anything to do with population. I'd say the variance from turn to turn even if you don't build anything trade specific has to do with the provinces you trade with having built some, rebels cutting the trade paths either in your own lands or your trading partners' etc...

Obviously the only way to test this would be to give yourself all the provinces in the game, do nothing, watch pop. grow and check the trade values.

[WesW]

When destroyed the merchants' quarter the sea imports didn't change. Land trade did go down to 295 (Oslo) and 345 (Aarhus). Sea exports did go to 1357 (Stettin) and 1383 (Thorn). The total amount of trade was now 3417. The growth from 3417 to 4514 is 32%.

Next I destroyed the docklands. Total trade did go down from 3417 to 2684. after this I destroyed the merchants' guild and the trade got down to 2502.

So the idea that all trade buildings add 10% trade to a base amount is flawed.

You have made the same mistake I did when I started my testing. If you want to see the percentage effect of any given building, you have to destroy all other trade buildings beforehand, including the Shipwright, as well as remove the governor, if present.
In your example, your trade was 2502 with the Shipwright still present. The 1097 you lost when you destroyed the Merchants' Quarter is 44% of 2502. If destroying the Shipwright brought trade down to 1828, which seems very reasonable, then 1097 would represent 60% of the base, 1828.
Just to confirm this, you will notice that destroying the Merchants Guild removed 182 from trade, which is exactly 10% of 1828.

After I made my initial post, I noticed that the FAQ and Strategy Guide had been updated with data taken from the game text. It matched my findings regarding markets and the Merchants Guild, but differed significantly regarding Ports, Wharves and Master Guilds, probably due to the bug with extra export routes.
If there is a bug in the game in regards to export trade routes, then it's conceivable that there is also one in regards to Master Merchants Guilds. (Guilds seem to have been given short shrift as a whole in the game.)

One more note: In this example, the Docklands added 40% to the base value, which is exactly what they should have according to the text file. I don't know why this line of improvements seemed to add an additional 20% to my game, where I was the Venicians.

[andrewt]

PS the maximum amount of trade fleets is two

You get the third one from dockyards. Try not to destroy everything before gunpowder.

[alpaca]

Ah I see, then each point of trade_base_income_bonus gives 10% not 5%. My mistake.
Which bug with the Merchants Guilds do you mean?

[Foz]

@Foz : not sure trade has anything to do with population. I'd say the variance from turn to turn even if you don't build anything trade specific has to do with the provinces you trade with having built some, rebels cutting the trade paths either in your own lands or your trading partners' etc...

Obviously the only way to test this would be to give yourself all the provinces in the game, do nothing, watch pop. grow and check the trade values.

Well I didn't do quite that, but something nearly as definitive. I yanked all governors from settlements, built absolutely nothing, changed absolutely nothing, and watched London's trade amount each turn. I wasn't surprised when it arbitrarily decided to go up on turn 13.





I checked my leader to make sure his stats had not changed, and indeed they had not, yet somehow London's trade goes up. I ran off turns for a bit, but it didn't go up again. I feel sure it would have, but I was too impatient to wait for it.

Next, I restarted w/ England, removing all governors again, but this time I built farms and happy buildings like mad, set taxes to low, and tried actively to generate population in London and Nottingham without any actual trade buildings being built.







As you can see by the turn numbers in the screenshots, London's trade goes up much more quickly now - turns 9, 13, and 19 all see gains. Again I checked the faction leader each time it changed, be he still had his usual starting stats. The only thing I can thus far attribute the change to is population levels, a theory which is strengthened by the fact that trade went up more frequently when I was attempting to force growth.

I will also point out that the 2nd and 3rd shots, which both show London's trade becoming 50, likewise each show populations of 48xx. This makes it almost certain that a population amount in that vicinity is what has triggered the trade growth from 49 to 50. So I feel we can pretty reasonably conclude at this point that population does directly affect the base trade value of a settlement. The rules of exactly how it affects it, however, are not entirely clear as yet.

It should also be noted that though the increases I just demonstrated seem small, they will in fact become large as the game goes on. They are likely multiplied by every trade bonus you get, will be applied across all open trade lanes for a settlement, and will probably be even more influential in sea trade since it has such higher values to start with. What was a 1-point increase due to population early in the game could become a several hundred increase once settlements are high-tech. The implication is that the best late-game planning you can do for your empire is to focus on growth early, not economics, since you benefit more from growth the earlier you have it, not only in taxation but also in trade. The tax level then becomes a balancing act between later prosperity and immediate funds, with the latter stunting growth and thus limiting your abilities later on (through giving you lower populations) while the former hinders your economy some now for the promise of a more capable future.

So from one perspective, you could look at the tax level as a selection of what style you want to play: lower emphasizes development and slower play, and promotes chivalry which aids most in development. Meanwhile higher taxes emphasizes expenditure and faster play, and promotes dread which likewise aids most in conquering. Interesting - I never looked at it quite that way before.

[WesW]

Which bug with the Merchants Guilds do you mean?

You mean there's more than one?
Anyway, I was referring to the fact that the text files give Master Merchant Guilds a 20% bonus to trade, but from my in-game observation they only gave 15%.

[Jambo]

I was under the impression that each trade bonus increment gave a 5% increase, not 10%?

[Scooter]

With absolutely no testing or evidence for this, I wonder if there are network effects here being ignored?

Example: Province A is exporting by sea to province B, and is doing land trade with provinvces C and D.

Building a market in A will clearly increase the revenue gained in city A from all of these trade routes.

BUT: will it also increase the revenue in cities B-D? I wonder if part of why the effect of markets look so weak, despite a "feel" of much higher revenues late game with more buildings built, is that building a market in A will also increase the trade revenue from imports in B and from land trade in C and D.

I think there might be a similar effect with roads. Building a paved road in A feels (again no hard evidence) like it has a smaller effect on revenue if C and D do not have any roads compared to if they have at least dirt roads already.

Does anyone know if there is any truth to this?

[Kobal2fr]

@Foz : Neat research ! I stand corrected.

And yeah, I always felt that way about low/high taxes, or rather... There's a specific population level at which the city just goes BOOM and you just zoom by the tech levels. I don't quite know what it is, but at a certain point you can almost get the "city upgraded to large city" right after you've finished building the large stone walls. Same goes for castles. Before that weird booming point, your city can spend centuries with its puny little pallissade, with it's stupid little grain exchange and town militia.

I don't quite know why. I figured it was because a 5% growth out of 10.000 people is bigger than a 5% growth out of 500, but that can't be all the story since growth % is non-linear (or maybe that's just in LtC ?).

But anyway : low taxes makes you reach that booming point faster, and then it's only a matter of turns before you get to 0% growth and 40.000 population.

[andrewt]

It's because it takes 3x to get from 2000 to 6000 while only 2x to get from 6000 to 12000 and 12000 to 24000. When you start the game, most towns start at large town level as well, so it takes quite a while to get to 6000. Buildings during that time are faster to build to so you run out of things to build fairly early.

It's the same with castles. They start out at really low pop and you get fortress at 4500. Going from that to 9000 just needs 2x. There's also a ton of stuff to build after getting a fortress so it doesn't feel like it's taking too long.

[Kobal2fr]

*nod*, but that's not the whole story either I think - LtC tweaks the pop levels, and I upped them some more because Lusted also upped the base farming values which made the pop level tweak less marked. My current levels are 1000/5000/10500/18000/28000, I still find that going from "stone walls" to "huge stone walls" is way faster than it oughta be. But maybe it's also because a lot of the City buildings have a health bonus on top of their normal use ?
The other factor I'd say is trade itself : trade boosts growth, and if pop boosts trade as Foz proved, it's a non-vicious circle.


Anyway, no matter the reason behind it, my point's still valid : good city management means reaching that booming point ASAP, and that means low taxes early on, when OTOH you need all the money you can get to support your early invasions (and garrisons too - many factions start the game with Spear or even Crossbow militia without even a basic drill square built. France and HRE particularly). Interesting little balance to maintain :)

[alpaca]

Kobal: Squalor will build up until the point before you build a new wall. This means with your settings that before 5000 it'll be really huge compared to what happens after that, so after you built that wall the drop is significant (like 3-5% probably) which means you'll get a pop boom.
There's also the fact that you'll often get trade bonuses to pop growth which are naturally more frequent in large cities because I think they tend to get more sea import routes.

On another note: Trade bonuses don't influence the income your city generates in other settlements (at least not for land trade routes which I tested)

[Rhedd]

This is a bit off-topic, I'm aware, but it seemed lame to start a whole thread just for this one question...

Is there a file that lists what all of the trade goods in the game are? Just a .txt file of names for them would do it. I just need a list.

Now back to the extremely interesting subject.

[Kobal2fr]

You mean like... descr_strat.txt ? :)

EDIT : oh, all right, if you absolutely HAVE to get a proper list : coal, fish, amber, coal, cotton, furs, gold, marble, ivory, silver, tobacco, chocolate, wool, wine, timber, textiles, cotton, sulfur, amber, sugar, slaves, silk, dyes, tin, iron, spices, grain, fish.

[Rhedd]

You mean like... descr_strat.txt ? :)

EDIT : oh, all right, if you absolutely HAVE to get a proper list : coal, fish, amber, coal, cotton, furs, gold, marble, ivory, silver, tobacco, chocolate, wool, wine, timber, textiles, cotton, sulfur, amber, sugar, slaves, silk, dyes, tin, iron, spices, grain, fish.

Yep! descr_strat.txt was the info I was looking for. I figured there was a file like that out there somewhere. ^_^

Thank you very much for taking the time to write the list out, though!

[Hermann the Lombard]

I really appreciate all the thought and research that went into this thread. Having read it all, my head is spinning (well, maybe that's the demonic possession, but I digress...).

Anyway, could someone summarize the State of the Art regarding increasing trade, and in particular the value/cost effectiveness of the market line?