Trade good prices in beta 1.4.1

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Durby

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Has anyone else noticed trade good prices have been altered in 1.4.1 making some goods more expensive on average and others cheaper?

I started a new game and the first few cities I visited had pottery for under 40g which is listed as 50%+ below average so I bought a bunch. I went to every city on the map and it seems pottery was cheap at every city so I have nowhere to sell it to make a profit.

I found the opposite with hardwood; it is expensive at every city including cities with villages that produce hardwood. It seems weird.
 
I've started a new game recently and i was wondering the same, i had Hardwood at 70-75 in every town of Kuzait/Aserai and a few empire ones early game, but it eventually stabilized with time/caravan. I don't know if it's because i never really paid attention in other early games play-through or if it's a new issue
 
They completely changed which workshops are present by default in each city, so whatever strategy you had trade-wise before the patch for the most part will no longer work, nor will any of the guides or spreadsheets to this end.

I believe it's part of a larger effort to revamp the campaign map as a number of cities are in the wrong location (Sargot is in the wrong place for example), workshops producing goods without any villages providing supply, etc
 
I've started a new game recently and i was wondering the same, i had Hardwood at 70-75 in every town of Kuzait/Aserai and a few empire ones early game, but it eventually stabilized with time/caravan. I don't know if it's because i never really paid attention in other early games play-through or if it's a new issue

It's definitely new to this patch; I've got over 150hrs played on multiple playthroughs on the various beta patches. I've always made early game cash through trading and prices just seem out of wack early game this beta patch.

Good to hear that prices stabilize as the game goes on thou.
 
They completely changed which workshops are present by default in each city, so whatever strategy you had trade-wise before the patch for the most part will no longer work, nor will any of the guides or spreadsheets to this end.

I believe it's part of a larger effort to revamp the campaign map as a number of cities are in the wrong location (Sargot is in the wrong place for example), workshops producing goods without any villages providing supply, etc

Yeah but changing workshops should have nothing to do with the price of hardwood. Hardwood is a raw material and all it requires is a nearby village that produces wood. In 1.4.1 even at villages which produce hardwood and at nearby cities, hardwood is far above average price.

It seems like they changed something else because this was not the case in previous patches. If anything before hardwood was cheap early game and became more expensive later on the game as wars became more common, villages got raided, and caravans and villagers get attacked while traveling.
 
Has anyone else noticed trade good prices have been altered in 1.4.1 making some goods more expensive on average and others cheaper?

I started a new game and the first few cities I visited had pottery for under 40g which is listed as 50%+ below average so I bought a bunch. I went to every city on the map and it seems pottery was cheap at every city so I have nowhere to sell it to make a profit.

I found the opposite with hardwood; it is expensive at every city including cities with villages that produce hardwood. It seems weird.
yes, I've noticed that. Prices are different across the board, to included on crafted weapons.
 
Haven't found any cheap hard wood anymore .. but I haven't examined the entire Calradia yet. Silver price difference between miners and city buyers is reduced, less profits. Grain is still a good profit maker - buy 10-12c , sell 18-20c .. depends on stockpiles. I've converted to harvesting looters to make $$$$.
 
Yeah but changing workshops should have nothing to do with the price of hardwood. Hardwood is a raw material and all it requires is a nearby village that produces wood. In 1.4.1 even at villages which produce hardwood and at nearby cities, hardwood is far above average price.

It seems like they changed something else because this was not the case in previous patches. If anything before hardwood was cheap early game and became more expensive later on the game as wars became more common, villages got raided, and caravans and villagers get attacked while traveling.
I haven't read the code by just from observation as far as I can tell there are three main things that affect the prices:

  1. Stock levels
  2. Town prosperity. This has a huge effect, more than stock levels except maybe at the extremes. Higher prosperity = higher prices
  3. Workshops. There seems to be an added offset to the prices of their relevant goods on top of the actual stock levels. So beer in a town with a brewery is automatically cheaper than beer in another town with no brewery, even if stock levels and prosperity is the same. Same for the things they consume, grain will be more expensive even if there is tons of it.
I could be wrong about some of that but it certainly seems that way.
 
Yeah but changing workshops should have nothing to do with the price of hardwood. Hardwood is a raw material and all it requires is a nearby village that produces wood. In 1.4.1 even at villages which produce hardwood and at nearby cities, hardwood is far above average price.

Doesn't the woodshop consume hardwood? I thought it did, but I admit I didn't double-check.
 
Doesn't the woodshop consume hardwood? I thought it did, but I admit I didn't double-check.

Yes, I think you are right. So maybe they added more woodshops and it's making work more scarce and driving up the price?
 
Yes, I think you are right. So maybe they added more woodshops and it's making work more scarce and driving up the price?
That is how it works, yes. So in practice, a town with wood supply and a carpentry shop will have higher priced hardwood on its market than a town that has wood supply and no carpentry shop (all else being equal).

No idea how significant of a factor that is to the new observations on 1.4.1 though. There are likely to be other things at play as well.
 
Pottery and hardwood and all the trade goods still can make profit -- it's just not to the level which in previous versions would almost always make profit in large volumes.

In the starting phases, start with collecting trade rumors and acting upon it with small volume sales, and don't expect to be able to 200~300+ volume sales to make huge profit quickly. Those instances still do exist, but you really have to look for them -- such as cities that were under a siege with shortages in all products.

Another very interesting thing, is there seem to be a certain phase of inflation in towns with high prosperity, where the stocks of products are all very plentiful in the market, but still have high buying prices. If you run into one of these towns, it's a good chance to try a mass volume sale for that sweet 4~5 trade skill points earned with a single trade. (...if you can deliver products before other caravans arrive and normalize the prices, that is...)
 
An unwritten part of the last couple of patches is a near complete rework of trading. Several things I have noticed include:
Caravan prices halved for sales, doubled for purchases.
Bartering for cities prices have been multiplied by 10-20 times.
Selling to villages price halved.
Prices of bartering with nobles have doubled or tripled on other items.
Gaining charm skills by bartering cut significantly.
Pricing in trade goods has become less extreme between cities.
Selling to cities causes more severe price drops.

Overall any trader only style playthrough has become significantly hindered or destroyed as what once took say 50 hours playing to build 500k now takes 3-5 times that amount of time. Building an empire through trade only has become nearly pointless. Kind of feels like they are forcing everyone to be a combat toon now.
 
An unwritten part of the last couple of patches is a near complete rework of trading. Several things I have noticed include:
Caravan prices halved for sales, doubled for purchases.
Bartering for cities prices have been multiplied by 10-20 times.
Selling to villages price halved.
Prices of bartering with nobles have doubled or tripled on other items.
Gaining charm skills by bartering cut significantly.
Pricing in trade goods has become less extreme between cities.
Selling to cities causes more severe price drops.

Overall any trader only style playthrough has become significantly hindered or destroyed as what once took say 50 hours playing to build 500k now takes 3-5 times that amount of time. Building an empire through trade only has become nearly pointless. Kind of feels like they are forcing everyone to be a combat toon now.

This kinda sucks since it was already way more profitable just to beat up on enemy Lord's and sell all the loot/ransom for cash. I don't know why they would need the merchant playstyle so hard.
 
Considering in 1.3.1 you could attain an insane income within a few hours of play (following investment first into Caravans, then once maxed, Workshops). This was largely because some cities never had any of the resources their Workshops needed (hardwood was a biggy here). So rectifying this is likely a good idea in the long run, as it will also have a positive impact on weapon/equipment stocks in towns.

You can still make a decent income, but the initial capital required is a lot higher (you need a greater volume per run to make a good profit for the time spent, which means you need more gold to not only buy the higher initial quantity of goods, but also more pack animals).

Downside is that hostile clans and bandits now have a real risk on your ability to make a profit.
 
You can still make a decent income, but the initial capital required is a lot higher (you need a greater volume per run to make a good profit for the time spent, which means you need more gold to not only buy the higher initial quantity of goods, but also more pack animals).


So you are saying exactly what my point was. 10-20 hours of playing just to make the money to get the pack animals now so you can buy more in higher quantity. Then selling This quantity was nerfed as well. So now you are selling to 3-4 towns to turn a smaller profit which means 3-4 times the time for sales. This also means even more time because the profit is now 30% less overall even with the extra invested time.

I am in agreement that being able to make stupid amounts of money quickly after a certain point was a bit off. However what I am saying is that to slow the snowball effects of the late game, they nerfed the early part of the game. Instead of fixing the snowball they simply added grind to achieve it. Grinding is never fun.

They needed to use a scalpel. they used a nuke.

In the end it is not the developer or programmers job to stop someone from exploiting every flaw in a single player game. As a player you are only hurting yourself and ruining your own enjoyment when you do this. However providing a fun game that is reasonably balanced is the answer and let the modders take it from there.

This is not an easy goal. However I do have faith eventually they will crack it.

Raising the prices of cities was needed a bit. Let us look at it this way.

15k for a workshop. return 10-200 per day.
15k for caravan. return 500-2k per day with risk of 0 at any time.
1.5 million for a castle. return of 4-6k per day - garrison expenses averaging out to 1-2k profit
3 million for city. return of 6-8k per day - garrison averaging out to 1.5-4k per day.

Looking at the above numbers, return on investment is horrid for workshops. 50% of caravan profit tiered for trade skill of person running it would be logical. Castle and city income is not making sense. If it were to be changed to 10% of current incomes and the prices were changed to 1/2 of what they now are it would be much more logically in line with caravan and workshop numbers. Troop costs as well would need a roughly 50% reduction in per day costs.

For balance and coding reasons I understand the current system. But paying troops and receiving taxes done on a weekly or monthly basis would be considerably more logical. Gaining profit from caravan would make more sense if say one day per week your caravan reported to you to meet them at the city in which you started it to collect your profits or pay the bills. Workshops hold the money until you check in on them. They give you a report as to what resources cost and why they made said profit or loss. All of this was done in warband in the simpler form of weekly budget reports.
 
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So you are saying exactly what my point was. 10-20 hours of playing just to make the money to get the pack animals now so you can buy more in higher quantity. Then selling This quantity was nerfed as well. So now you are selling to 3-4 towns to turn a smaller profit which means 3-4 times the time for sales. This also means even more time because the profit is now 30% less overall even with the extra invested time.

I am in agreement that being able to make stupid amounts of money quickly after a certain point was a bit off. However what I am saying is that to slow the snowball effects of the late game, they nerfed the early part of the game. Instead of fixing the snowball they simply added grind to achieve it. Grinding is never fun.

They needed to use a scalpel. they used a nuke.

In the end it is not the developer or programmers job to stop someone from exploiting every flaw in a single player game. As a player you are only hurting yourself and ruining your own enjoyment when you do this. However providing a fun game that is reasonably balanced is the answer and let the modders take it from there.

This is not an easy goal. However I do have faith eventually they will crack it.

Raising the prices of cities was needed a bit. Let us look at it this way.

15k for a workshop. return 10-200 per day.
15k for caravan. return 500-2k per day with risk of 0 at any time.
1.5 million for a castle. return of 4-6k per day - garrison expenses averaging out to 1-2k profit
3 million for city. return of 6-8k per day - garrison averaging out to 1.5-4k per day.

Looking at the above numbers, return on investment is horrid for workshops. 50% of caravan profit tiered for trade skill of person running it would be logical. Castle and city income is not making sense. If it were to be changed to 10% of current incomes and the prices were changed to 1/2 of what they now are it would be much more logically in line with caravan and workshop numbers. Troop costs as well would need a roughly 50% reduction in per day costs.

For balance and coding reasons I understand the current system. But paying troops and receiving taxes done on a weekly or monthly basis would be considerably more logical. Gaining profit from caravan would make more sense if say one day per week your caravan reported to you to meet them at the city in which you started it to collect your profits or pay the bills. Workshops hold the money until you check in on them. They give you a report as to what resources cost and why they made said profit or loss. All of this was done in warband in the simpler form of weekly budget reports.

Yeah, plus you can lose your caravan/workshop at any time if it captured by an enemy faction. I find caravans mid to late game are worthless as they will always be captured before coming close to return on investment. Workshops are a bit safer but cities can always be captured as well.

So unless you stay an independent clan and never join/start your own faction it seems like trade is kinda worthless now.
 
For balance and coding reasons I understand the current system. But paying troops and receiving taxes done on a weekly or monthly basis would be considerably more logical. Gaining profit from caravan would make more sense if say one day per week your caravan reported to you to meet them at the city in which you started it to collect your profits or pay the bills. Workshops hold the money until you check in on them. They give you a report as to what resources cost and why they made said profit or loss.
I agree with this.
Daily income/expenditure is not only more of a pain in the arse to manage, but it's also less realistic. I especially like the idea of having to collect money from caravans and businesses when you visit them - the whole concept of an instant-access online bank account in a medieval setting has always irked me quite a bit.
 
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