Dev Blog 25/04/19

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[parsehtml]<p><img class="frame" src="https://www.taleworlds.com/Images/News/blog_post_87_taleworldswebsite.jpg" alt="" width="575" height="290" /></p> <p>Conducting trade runs between towns as a merchant has always been one of the most fun and profitable activities for players in our games. Bannerlord’s trade system improved on this aspect of the game in many ways, by displaying trade rumours on the inventory screen, tracking player profits, awarding trade XP accordingly to characters, etc. which makes playing as a merchant much more fun and rewarding.</p></br> [/parsehtml]Read more at: http://www.taleworlds.com/en/Games/Bannerlord/Blog/107
 
The screenshot has something interesting.
1) what's that purple three-person icon at the right corner? I have no clue myself;
2) the two bandit parties (at least seems so given its small party size) have a placeholder for their faction logo? Is there anything TW is trying to hide from us for now?
3) some sort of merchant just purchased iron and cow from Rhotae? Does the UI always show this information within the player's, say, radius of merchant's instinct which will go up as the player trades more? Or is it just the player's party?
 
So that's a big thing. If the economy is really that deep I hope they give us ways to interact with it, say sending caravans rather than having to lug all the goods ourselves, or setting town consumption focus, such as buy more arms and armor to improve garrison strength, or buy more tools to increase productivity. It would be somewhat of a shame to have put this much effort into the economy to only watch it simulate itself, having to resort to raiding or trading yourself to get the outcome you desire (which could get old if you own 3 towns and want to build the garrison up in all 3, having to go to wherever to buy the weapons/armor, then travel to all 3 towns to sell it off so they can use it).

Or perhaps I'm reading more into this than is actually there, and I just want to play the damn game already  :iamamoron:

Edit:

RK, took a look at the pic and you're right, seems there might be some info to glean (or speculate about, anyway).

1: several ideas crossed my mind, all of which I immediately rejected. Best guess, party/clan/army screen to bring up that info. I'm open to suggestions on this one

2: They do seem placeholdery, but all of the flags in that screen looked photoshopped in after (I hope that's WIP/compression etc., looks kinda fake). I would guess that bandit "banners" would be relatively bland, so as not to be confused with "important" flags (although irl I would expect them to be the most decorative).  All in all, I don't think there's anything really there.

3: Seems to me Garios is either the PC or an "important" NPC (lord, king, etc.), and has sent out there own caravan (hopefully confirming my hopes in my op.), which has just done the purchasing. Info on what your enemy lords are buying could be very useful, as an enemy suddenly buying a **** ton of swords and armor doesn't bode well for you.

Anyway, there's my thoughts, hope ya'll enjoyed em.
 
Good blog. I see that you guys have been working hard to make this game realistic. I sincerely hope to play this game soon! :grin:
 
okay nice blog  i still do not like the fact that price instantly go higher as soon as you purchase let's say a blacksmith has 3 of the same sword i want to buy all the three swords for me and my two companions why do i have to pay a different price for each one? why don't i take the three swords for 250 denars instead of 300?  at least if you gonna keep it do not say it's realistic because it isn't.
 
And here I thought that the underlying (and largely invisible unless you look at the code) economic system in Warband was too complex for its own good. It was "balanced" by internal kludges such as forced convergence of prosperity that kept the system spiraling out of control.
I'm not convinced that more complexity brings more intuitive gameplay, as more complex systems are prone to more failures. There is a certain kind of programmer, usually quite good, that likes to indulge in creating complex mathematical models of reality beyond reasonable requirements, which leads to over-engineering the problem and ultimately to more work in fixing that vulnerable system with kludges.
TL;DR: there will be bugs and economic chaos.

It's interesting that they try to connect consumption to town bonuses though, I just hope the town interface will make clear to see what bonuses are active and why.
 
zyad137 said:
okay nice blog  i still do not like the fact that price instantly go higher as soon as you purchase let's say a blacksmith has 3 of the same sword i want to buy all the three swords for me and my two companions why do i have to pay a different price for each one? why don't i take the three swords for 250 denars instead of 300?  at least if you gonna keep it do not say it's realistic because it isn't.

I agree with you, but the way Callum explained it does kind of make sense. Rather than being at one blacksmith's shop, you've gone to all three blacksmiths in the town and commissioned a sword from each one, as obviously three people working on their own project will yield better results than one man working on three. Since you've visited three different shops with three different owners, they all charge a different price for the work (which is realistic). All of this is abstracted into one screen, as having to go to three different shops in character could get tedious.

All that being said, now that they've explained it this way I almost feel that this has to be part of the game. For example, you go to the weapon trader screen and get the usual screen, but each item has a number, how many units of that item are for sale from that particular shop. Two arming swords, same stats, for sale from two different shops at two different quantities, say shop 1 has 20 for sale at 100 denars apiece, while shop 2 has 5 for sale at 125 apiece. You could then buy 5 swords from shop 1 at one time, paying the 100 denar price. However, as soon as the transaction occurs, the price change happens, which could cause shop 1's price to then exceed shop 2, meaning if you then wanted to buy one more sword you would want to go to that one.

But that's just me being nitpicky I think
 
Sounds interesting and a lot more realistic.  As others have said though I hope there are ways for me to use this background mechanic to make it not only more profit but to understand why I am making that profit.  This of course provides more immersion.
 
Roccoflipside said:
3: Seems to me Garios is either the PC or an "important" NPC (lord, king, etc.), and has sent out there own caravan (hopefully confirming my hopes in my op.), which has just done the purchasing. Info on what your enemy lords are buying could be very useful, as an enemy suddenly buying a **** ton of swords and armor doesn't bode well for you.

Garios is the General proclaimed Emperor by the Western Empire. His caravan bears his logo (double headed eagle on a purple background), while the player’s flag is a yellow stag’s head on a black cross with a green background.
I suspect the reason we see its trade transaction and the purple (imperial) three soldier army icon is that the player is a detached mercenary party within Garios’s army. The trade transaction suggests the caravan trades with a town without entering it, which is quite different from Warband where caravans disappeared into destination towns.

The fact that one of the three claimants for the imperial throne has a caravan suggests these might also be used to shuttle between source towns and armies to resupply them.
 
Roccoflipside said:
zyad137 said:
okay nice blog  i still do not like the fact that price instantly go higher as soon as you purchase let's say a blacksmith has 3 of the same sword i want to buy all the three swords for me and my two companions why do i have to pay a different price for each one? why don't i take the three swords for 250 denars instead of 300?  at least if you gonna keep it do not say it's realistic because it isn't.

I agree with you, but the way Callum explained it does kind of make sense. Rather than being at one blacksmith's shop, you've gone to all three blacksmiths in the town and commissioned a sword from each one, as obviously three people working on their own project will yield better results than one man working on three. Since you've visited three different shops with three different owners, they all charge a different price for the work (which is realistic). All of this is abstracted into one screen, as having to go to three different shops in character could get tedious.

All that being said, now that they've explained it this way I almost feel that this has to be part of the game. For example, you go to the weapon trader screen and get the usual screen, but each item has a number, how many units of that item are for sale from that particular shop. Two arming swords, same stats, for sale from two different shops at two different quantities, say shop 1 has 20 for sale at 100 denars apiece, while shop 2 has 5 for sale at 125 apiece. You could then buy 5 swords from shop 1 at one time, paying the 100 denar price. However, as soon as the transaction occurs, the price change happens, which could cause shop 1's price to then exceed shop 2, meaning if you then wanted to buy one more sword you would want to go to that one.

But that's just me being nitpicky I think
i think the price should be preset on the shop menu i mean like there are 3 arming swords available at 100 denars each and there is 2 other arming swords available at 125 denars each with the two deals being available from the beginning instead of instantly raising the price you can buy the 3 avilable at 100 then buy the other two (or if you feel too rich and generous you can only buy the two priced at 125 :lol:)
 
During the development of the new trade system, an interesting point came up. As you probably know, in Warband, as in many other trading games, the price point changes every time you purchase an item from or sell an item to the market. This sometimes feels counter-intuitive since as soon as you purchase a desert horse for 100 denars, you see that the price jumps to 106 denars. And once you pay that for the second horse, the price now becomes 113 denars. You were perhaps expecting a discount for buying multiple items in one go, but instead, you got a price hike.

If the scarcity price hike was delayed until the player finished trading, it would allow him/her to buy up all of a resource, creating a local shortage to exploit by selling say half of those goods back at a higher price, making an unrealistic profit for zero effort.
 
Great thoughts behind trade! Please do not be afraid about variables which town comsumption depends, culture, issues, season etc.
Edit: purple stuff should be about party, which was also in previous blog. I assume screenshots are taken from observer view so there is no party.
 
This is very, very interesting indeed. It was spoken before, but did not have the depth this one had. Im even more interested in doing trade stuffs in the early game.
However, i do require more info on caravans and delegating chores (less micromanaging). I do honestly hate micromanaging prices and travelling atround for a 2p price increase in profit. I am not a great trader, even less so in real life. So i want the AI to do that for me. I want to know about that now. I got seriously interested in doing  trading around for a few hours every now and then.
 
"For example, a town with a prosperity of 5000 will allocate, say, 500 denars to spend on grain, 400 denars to spend on meat and 200 denars to spend on butter each day."

Only 200 on butter?  :facepalm:
 
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