Trade

[Havoc134]

Well Mount and Blade is primarily a fighting game that focuses on combat and battles.  There is however the other way to make money.  I no that there have been threads about trading and the economy in the past and that a few people are going to flame me for not necroing an old thread, but i cant really do that.  There are new towns, skills have changed, prices fluctuated, and all of this in rather recent versions.  So i just wanted to ask everyone on the fourm to post their thoughts on this other feature of Mount and Blade.  Is it worth it, do you have any strategies, or guides. Whatever you want to post about trading, post it here.

 

[Spawn Of Achilles]

Trading is an immersion aspect that the Devs put in to create a sense of actually being there. Don't get me wrong, its a great addition to the occasionally repetitive hack n' slash play style. If your a big RP guy (or girl  ) then you can easily appreciate this nice change of direction. The best part about it is: the AI actually make use of the trading to increase village/city prosperity and to make money. Depending on what your trading it can be worth it or not, you can also escort caravans for extra money or you can even raid them if you like. Raiding caravans is a good way to get good food, and other raw materials for you to sell, as long as you have a good sized army to fight with.

 

[kaeldragor]

In my opinion, the trade system needs tweaking to compete with Sea Raider hunting.  Hopefully they did something along those lines for 1.0

It may seem silly, but I liked feeling (back in .808, etc.) that Trade was the best way to build a large coffer before taking on the more formidable forces out there.  But with practice and luck, 3-4 heroes and I can take out 16-20 Sea Raiders before any of us are level 10, as long as we're mounted.  That's on difficulty 92%, but I'm sure others have managed even better than that, earlier in their careers.

So for me, the issue is that I enjoy it as an immersion tool, but it isn't lucrative enough to keep me interested.


As for strategies / guides: the main imports/exports of the towns from before .960 remained the same, with the new town fluctuating and focusing more on food items overlooked by the other towns.  So I follow my old trade on paper, though it looks different on the map (route-wise) than before.

 

[MountainBlade]

It should give you xp. Not too much, but you should be able to level in a different way than just slaughter.

I barely use it myself. I never put more than 3 in my (companion's) trade skill. If I'm buying food and I see a lot of a certain trade item and I got the money I'll buy it and sell it somewhere else, but I don't go out of my way to find good deals.

 

[guyinthecrowd]

Its a good alternative to Sea Raiders and village raiding if you are willing to travel long distances. It may start off slow if you dont have much money in the first place as you cant buy large amounts of things and sell them for high profit, only small amounts of things.

 

[DanAngleland]

But with practice and luck, 3-4 heroes and I can take out 16-20 Sea Raiders before any of us are level 10, as long as we're mounted.  That's on difficulty 92%, but I'm sure others have managed even better than that, earlier in their careers.

You do well to manage that many Sea Raiders. I've beaten a few with a small band, but I rarely take the chance anymore because with their big axes and missile weapons low level cavalry (saddle horse) is too vulnerable. On most occasions I get taken out by a wayward throwing axe, which are particularly hard to avoid because of their unpredictable flight path. Galloping headlong into any missile weapon can get you knocked out (although I play at higher difficulty settings I think).

Anyway, I personally trade early on to get enough cash for NPCs and decent gear, then when I have a few heroes and some troops I go after Sea Raiders for their lovely loot. However, I will rarely chance a Sea Raider group of similar size to my party in the first few in-game weeks since the troop loss or even being captured is too high a price to pay. Unless they're really small, like 5 or 6, but that's rare. I always put 3 in my own trade skill at the start, so that when I do start trading and selling loot I can make cash  quicker. I usually only use trade at the start of a game though, as a way of getting my foot on the ladder.

By the way Kaeldragor, thanks for doing that NPC compatability list a while back, I've started using your suggestions recently and it's a big help.

 

[Ringwraith #5]

I don't use trade. Like, at all. I'd have to make a chart of cities and goods prizes in them and keep constantly updating it. I used to like that sort of thing, back in the Elite/Privateer days, but I guess I've grown lazy or something.
Yeah, sure, there's that "assess prices" thing, which tells you what profits you can make buying goods here and selling them elsewhere. Only it invariably does this for goods that aren't in stock. Gee, very useful, that.
I'll just keep hunting those Sea Raiders, I guess.

 

[kaeldragor]

But with practice and luck, 3-4 heroes and I can take out 16-20 Sea Raiders before any of us are level 10, as long as we're mounted.  That's on difficulty 92%, but I'm sure others have managed even better than that, earlier in their careers.

On most occasions I get taken out by a wayward throwing axe, which are particularly hard to avoid because of their unpredictable flight path. Galloping headlong into any missile weapon can get you knocked out (although I play at higher difficulty settings I think).

....

By the way Kaeldragor, thanks for doing that NPC compatability list a while back, I've started using your suggestions recently and it's a big help.

That's the luck part, actually. I find it hilarious to go down with an axe in my head, so I'm generally willing to try before success is assured.  I just meant it CAN be done, though I have to reload from time to time.

...

And you're welcome.  Wish I could do something like that for trade, but as noted, the economy varies as the game progresses enough that even the standard items can't be relied on to always make a nice profit.  Or maybe I just had bad look with long Velvet and Spice routes.

 

[Taateli]

See, sometimes you get bored about eating apples in your castle, but not yet want to conquer another one (castle, not apple). Then there's nothing like a vacation travel! So, clear your inventory, take with you a party of your liking, maybe only Marnid, maybe only troops you want to level up, maybe your most lethal and dearest troops, and go travelling around! When did you last visit Tulga? Or Wercheg? But to get some profit 'bout this kind of travelling around, remember to look prices, ask tips from villagers, and then just buy some spice from Tulga with the money you got by selling linen from Sargoth and Velvet from Yalen! Have some horses with you, maybe roleplay and dress up like a merchant and only have caravan guards and Marnid with you!

I think that trade is a nice feature that allows player to do something else than fighting and siegeing for a while, like quests.

 

[Elmetiacos]

So for me, the issue is that I enjoy it as an immersion tool, but it isn't lucrative enough to keep me interested.

Some of it is lucrative, but there's too much emphasis on too few goods. Linen, for example, may as well not be in the game at all. I always end up making the same Khudan - Jelkala journey carrying the same goods.

 

[SanDiego]

Well, trade can e lucrative, but it is pain. You can get say twenty dried fish for 5 denars selling them across the map for 10 denars, generating 100 denars gain, but mostly you'll just generate gain of 1-2 denars per item and that is not enough even to keep your troops fed. It's better to hunt river pirates/enemy lords.

 

[Ringwraith #5]

Well there is one specific instance where buying and selling is extremely profitable. You buy a cow for ~25 denars from a village, slaughter it to get two pieces of fresh meat, and then sell those in a city for 400+ denars per piece. The trouble with that is finding a village that has cattle, because in my experience there seem to be only like five cows in the entire Calradia that the villages sell back and forth between them.
Related to that is the "deliver cattle to market" quest exploit. The guildmaster will give you a herd of 100+ heads of cattle - now that'd be a gold mine, if only you could slaughter them. Which you can't, not while the quest is active. So you just let the herd stand there for a month until the quest fails, which costs you a measly few points of relation with the town, massacre the poor beasts, and make an udgodly profit selling to the city the meat of their own cows.

 

[Corvus]

Trade is very nice for immersion, and for the first few months of playing M&B I did try working out and using trade routes myself to build up some denars.
However, the lack of anything else, just money, makes it really not good for anything but rp purposes. It got to the point in tedium that I reasoned with myself that in fact pressing ctrl+x on the inv screen was basically the same, but saved me a lot of time
If trade gave experience and other bonuses, like random events for rare items, large windfalls of money, special encounters... anything really, it would make it worthwhile.

 

[ImNotaAI]

i start trading when i want to get away from the hack and slash but that is for a short while