SP - General Trading: Base Price

[Lord Earl]

It seems there are two ways to trade, in this game.

1. Write down every price of every commodity you see down on a spreadsheet.
2. Ask around town for ages until you find one or two goods which will sell at a good price at your destination.
3. Trading is bull****, forget about it.

In M&B, there was an option to assess trading prices. I didn't like it much, it was kind of hard to use. But... we do need SOMETHING. Otherwise, people will just not bother trading at all, and you take out one of the core loops.

I suggest having something like a Base Price stat, for commodities like grain. This would be something like the average buying price for that item, or maybe just the base price in its code. This simple fix would at least mean we could say, "gosh, that's cheap!" So that we have a chance to sell it somewhere. Trading games often have a lot of cool features, like reminders of how much you bought a commodity for when you mouse over it, or ways to look up prices for commodities from all the places you visited.

We need some more features like that... but I'm suggesting the very bare minimum to make trading at least somewhat playable.

 

[Gibby Jr]

you can unlock the ability to see the average price by leveling up your trading skill.

unfortunately, leveling skills up takes absolutely ages - particularly with some of the harder-to-get ones - so you probably can't reach it without 5 hours of grinding trade skill.

 

[Lord Earl]

Ah.... OK, that's really bad design, as I have no incentive to trade without that feature. They should AT LEAST make certain skills easier to level up than others, at least up to the point where they are useful. Seriously, in the game you are constantly selling and buying gear, so it should NOT take long to get your trading stat up to par.

 

[Finu]

I would really enjoy to see - what prices you paid for your goods from trader - because often you got tons of those and you forget price you paid but overall trading in Bannerlord is gr8 fun for me.

It required some experience - but thanks to that, that it is a bit challenging, its not so boring and require from you some thoughts and not just simple buy in town A look on tooltip so we go to town B sell and again to town A etc - grind. Now you have to risk a bit, do those rumors are correct, Do I remember price correctly, or the margin is to small to risk keeping those good in cargo for few weeks before you'll find occasion to sell it without loss


You can use those tooltips but after one or two games playing as trader - you basically know if those good are worth buying. Well you got your "persistent" experience tells you if you can sell them with profit.


If you want to earn as trader just invest when creating character some points to it. It's like you would expect that without inserting any point in 1h weapons you can hit perfectly. It's a skill like any other in game.


Usually I buy when I see that price is low for particular good and then like caravan from town to town looking for occasion to sell but also buying whenever I see good price. Also visiting villages to buy good it's good way to obtain goods on constant price usually lower then in town but not always.

 

[Lord Earl]

A lot of that risk is just because it's not worth our time to write down the figures, though....

 

[UkMikeyboy]

I made a trading character right off the bat and it was fine by me. If you don't make a character that is capable of trading, why bother at all? It's the same with the other M&Bs. If you don't have trade as a skill and can't get any rumours, you're basically arguing about the same thing!

The downside to said character is that his combat stats are very much lacking and I heavily rely on companions to fill in rolls of other areas.

As Finu pointed out: It's quite a fair bit of luck as well and if you have the gold to spare along with the carrying capacity, you can end up making a good bit of coin. Just look at the coin symbols of the items, some of them say how much cheaper or more expensive they are. Never go for anything in the red, try and get it in the golden (I'm colour blind, so my mistake here) yellow sign they have. Go to next city over, is the price in the red for it because it's so low in stock? Sell it. Boom!

My advice is be aware of how much you're actually buying, since the more of it you buy the more expensive it'll be and less of a profit. Buy small stacks of items and then sell as you go. Cities that have HUGE quantities of grain/fish that sell at a price margin of 9 will make you some easy starting cash anywhere. Including getting your trade skill up in no time!

"Seriously, in the game you are constantly selling and buying gear, so it should NOT take long to get your trading stat up to par. "

If by gear you mean things that you get off the battlefield, I am quite with you on that. It should give you some trading experience but nothing intense. Since your character isn't actually doing any back-n-forth haggling with a merchant. He's simply picking up a rusty blade off the floor without any sort of original price tag and tossing it to the next guy he sees.

 

[Lord Earl]

Trade wasn't random, though... You could speculate and take risks, sure, but there were always commodities desired in one place or other which were cheaper somewhere else. The idea of having to go off rumors is silly.

 

[Tsewe]

I would really enjoy to see - what prices you paid for your goods from trader - because often you got tons of those and you forget price you paid but overall trading in Bannerlord is gr8 fun for me.

Totally agree. I've thought about this many times because I had forgotten how much I had paid for some goods. It would be really useful.

Seriously, in the game you are constantly selling and buying gear, so it should NOT take long to get your trading stat up to par.

Well, I kind of like they seperated "Loot trading" and "Goods trading" in the perk tree, since it would be too esay for any type of character to just boost straight up your trading skills from the beginning by only selling your loot. You don't get that much experience by selling the same Hood and Armwraps over and over

The most important aspect to me that no one mentionned here is... why are the goods prices not based on their scarcity and climate? I thought about starting a thread about this.

I mean, I was a bit shocked to find out that wine and olives are cheap in northern areas, while expensive in the Empire, which does not make any sense at all. Olives grow in a mediterranean kind of climate, not in Scandinavia. Same about wine production, mostly. Furs are even super expensive in some northern cities too. Some products make sense, like hides being cheap in Battanian cities. Some other cities like in the Aserai kingdom don't even have a single good worth buying & selling, everything is just expensives except dates...

Basically, I believe the goods' prices need to be rebalanced for sure, and be based upon the climate of the city and scarcity.
No?

 

[Lord Earl]

I don't see how bartering off loot and armor would be that different. Looters are another kind of merchant. The underworld has its own forms of trade.

 

[Vellarain]

I am kind of salty that all the trade goods I plunder from caravans and villages to sell off don't give me any trade skill. After all, I paid zero for the goods and sold them off for pure profit, that makes me the best damned trader ever.

 

[Lord Earl]

Bandits are often very good businessmen. I can't believe TW doesn't let you get trade skill off of this... I'll just hack up my trade stat, and subvert their worthless system.

 

[Tsewe]

I am kind of salty that all the trade goods I plunder from caravans and villages to sell off don't give me any trade skill. After all, I paid zero for the goods and sold them off for pure profit, that makes me the best damned trader ever.

Haha imo it makes you the worst trader ever because you don't trade, you steal!

 

[goruu]

The minimum I want is the game tracks what price I bought an item for.

 

[Lord Earl]

That would be an acceptable minimum, yes. I don't want to have to write that down in spreadsheets... I will do my taxes on my own time.

 

[Ugbukk]

The minimum I want is the game tracks what price I bought an item for.

I agree with this to an extent. If anything you would want the 'Average' price you paid for the item. Since each purchase potentially makes the price change. But if that is done, it should reset every time you fully sell out of that item.

 

[UkMikeyboy]

The minimum I want is the game tracks what price I bought an item for.

+1. This would be very handy.

 

[Vellarain]

Haha imo it makes you the worst trader ever because you don't trade, you steal!

What? Nooo, they either gave me those items or accidentally dropped them when I was passing by.

 

[goruu]

I agree with this to an extent. If anything you would want the 'Average' price you paid for the item. Since each purchase potentially makes the price change. But if that is done, it should reset every time you fully sell out of that item.

It shouldn't be hard. No need to compromise for an average. It is a text box that is being changed, not a whole new game.

* You have 100 Furs.
* You bought 50 Fur from Jelkala for 20 denar.
* You bought 20 Fur from Varcheg for 10 denar.
* You found 30 Fur from various places. (Such as raiding a caravan.)

The number of Furs in each variable goes down from cheapest to expensive. If you sell 29 Furs, it becomes

* You have 71 Furs.
* You bought 50 Fur from Jelkala for 20 denar.
* You bought 20 Fur from Varcheg for 10 denar.
* You found 1 Fur from various places. (Such as raiding a caravan.)

I don't want an average price because if I bought an item for 30 denars when the average is 40 denars, Then sold an item for 29 denar because the average is 20, I would make a loss. Average price doesn't tell me anything.

 

[Tsewe]

What? Nooo, they either gave me those items or accidentally dropped them when I was passing by.

Oh right! Then it's perfectly fine I guess. Even if your blade happened to fall on their heads. Accidents happen.

 

[ozturka]

Here is my spreadsheet. I hope it would be useful for some of you.

It helps me a lot ?

Here is the link for the excel file: Link