Were there other economy changes besides the ones to caravans and pottery workshops? The cities in my 1.2.0 campaign are all extremely poor. I haven't been able to sell my loot for a week now. A city spends all of its coffers before I can even hand over all of my 30g scarves in the trade menu.
That doesn't seem to be the case, my engineering has hit a hard wall and according to the learning rate factors it shouldn't have just yet.