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[Digital Hellhound]

Ah well, better you than me. Also, did Aulon tell Trubaldsome he was going to Elbreth to meet with the King? Or did he just wander off? I can't remember...

Well, I presume he let Trubaldsome know eventually. I hope. >_>

[Iituem]

Is Iiteum doing his play today or tomorrow? Guess he'll be back soon  *pause* and taking breaks

Don't push your luck; extra work related things came up and I'll be too busy all this week to do much with the game.  Deadlines.

What amuses me is that from a neutral standpoint, Trubaldsome could actually have survived this if he had sent the letter himself and had taken care to delineate the order of events clearly enough.  The massacre of the crown troops, after all, was more or less a direct response to Taric's order to arrest him on false charges of treason - forcing him to commit actual treason or be killed.  The massacre might not even have happened had not Taric just gone genocidal - which puts Erik in the wrong believing the Mirish got what they deserved.  Again from a strictly neutral viewpoint, the Royal Infantry got what they deserved for following that sort of order.  Not that Trubaldsome is innocent by any means, but in this case he is actually in a rare case of being right.

This irony is what I find funny - Trubaldsome is finally going to get killed for something that wasn't his direct fault.  Which will be a fitting end for what was otherwise a Karma Houdini.

Unless, of course, he can wangle his way out of this yet.  When I do have time for a post, Elbreth and Miring are going to get an event to stir things up.

Also, I thought production just gave a -2 cost reduction to resources, not -3?

[thatkid]

According to the little mini-tutorial thing you gave me (With Port alpha and stuff) it gives -3.
Sec, I'll get a link to the post...

Spoiler: The Post (click to show/hide)

I still don't fully understand the merchant rules, but I'm willing to figure them out. So go ahead and start making actions, Ardas.

Short Version

1. Buy goods in Port Alpha.  Decide what good you are going to buy and then consult the Wiki page for the province and the Merchant Adventures spreadsheet (there is a permanent link to it on the Resources page in the Wiki).  The Base Price of the resource is the price you should start from.

1a.  Roll a d6 to determine the number of 'increments' to adjust the base price by.  On a roll of 3 or 4, make no random adjustment.  Every point less than 3, decrease by 1 increment.  Every point above 4, increase by 1 increment.  Give a bonus or penalty of +/- 1 to this roll if the merchant rolled a 5 or 2 on their travel roll (see point 2).

1b.  Now apply the province modifiers.  If a resource is produced in the province, reduce by 3 increments.  If it is a staple, industrial or luxury good, adjust according to the modifiers on the Province page.  If the resource falls into multiple categories, apply all relevant modifiers (they stack).  If the resource is illegal in the province, increase by 3 increments.

1c.  If the province is in a state of war or siege, or is still recovering from one, increase the value of staples and military goods by 2 increments and decrease the value of luxury goods by 3 increments.

1d.  When you have arrived at the final increment total, multiply this by the 'increments' value from the spreadsheet and apply it to the base value.  This is the final price at which the good may be bought.  Up to 6 units of the good may be bought from a province that produces that good.  Goods not produced by the province are available in lesser amounts (see the OP for details).


2.  Having purchased your goods, travel to either Port Beta or Market Gamma by ship or caravan respectively.  Roll 1d6 once to determine any difficulties experienced during travel.

2a.  On a 3-4, the journey goes as normal.  On a 5+ the journey goes particularly well and the merchant arrives in time to get the best deals: add a +1/-1 bonus to any sales or purchase rolls made at the next port (whichever would be more favourable).  On a 2 the journey goes poorly and the merchant arrives late, receiving a -1/+1 to any sales or purchase rolls at the next port (whichever would be less favourable).  On a 1- the ship is attacked by pirates (if any pirates are in the region) or caught in a storm (see 2c).  The same events apply to caravans, except that the caravans would be attacked by bandits instead of pirates.

2b.  Every bandit regiment or pirate ship in a province decreases the travel roll by 1.  Travelling in a convoy increases the travel roll by 1 but merchants will not receive the competition bonus for a 5+.  On land, roads improve travel rolls by 1.

2c.  If caravans or ships are caught in a storm, each caravan/ship must be rolled for separately.  On a 1, the caravan or ship is destroyed.  On a 2, ships but not caravans are destroyed.  On a 3 or better, the vessel survives with all cargo intact.  Any survivors reach the port/market late and suffer the competition penalty for a travel roll of 2.  Due to a strange quirk of the gods, ships can only get hit by pirates or a storm on the same journey.


3.  Having arrived in Port Beta, sell the goods.  Repeat the same process as for step 1, but with the province page for Port Beta.  If the merchant is lucky and has planned his journey well, he should make a profit!  Be aware that most provinces will charge a Sales Tax as a percentage of whatever he takes from his eventual sale.  He may then also wish to purchase more goods, and the cycle rinses and repeats.


A merchant "kingdom" would be a good idea, especially if it combined with a Trade Guild.  Also, there is the nefarious 'Storm Coast Guild', but only players who deliberately start out as merchants get their credit scrip and eventually they will get demands from the Guild which they will either have to accede to (and get a higher credit rating) or leave the Guild and strike out on their own.

It's in 1b. I didn't bother to double-check it because it made sense for a need for advanced production/consumption in a region to cancel out when combined with the resources actually being native so I figured that was just how it was.

[Iituem]

Whoops.  Yeah, that one's my mistake.  Should have been -2.  >_<

It was originally -3 but I thought that would be too unbalanced.  I don't know, what do you reckon?  We can take it down to -3 if that would work better.

[filiusenox]

Hey Iituem, where did my men drop of the handless Ztaharian?
And may if buy two tons of copper if its for a building project?

[thatkid]

Well, the -3 lends itself well to keeping the prices at their base. Which I suppose is a tiny bit realistic?

On the other hand, having it be -2 allows for people to still maybe make a profit when selling to regions where the good is produced natively. Which doesn't make much sense.

Honestly, I don't really know. This sort of thing is not my strong-point.

[Iituem]

Well, the -3 lends itself well to keeping the prices at their base. Which I suppose is a tiny bit realistic?

On the other hand, having it be -2 allows for people to still maybe make a profit when selling to regions where the good is produced natively. Which doesn't make much sense.

Honestly, I don't really know. This sort of thing is not my strong-point.

Eh, CG is the self-proclaimed economics master here, so he'll probably have a good idea.  Balance-wise, I actually put it up to -2 because I was afraid of people making too much profit.  When I get some time I'll take the numbers for the resource prices, run the math and figure out how much profit people are making proportionally per unit of goods , assuming all goes well and they always get a 5 increment return.  I should point out I actually did this math already and grain makes a return of 130% per trip after ship hire costs, whilst gold makes a rather pitiful 42% return (but has a much higher value to return on).  What I really need to calculate is what average percentage to make piracy or storms cause goods loss during transit - losing 1 unit of grain might not hurt much if you have a few ships running, but losing 1 unit of gold seriously will.

He was dropped off at the edge of Lonemine.  You can buy copper, yes.

[CyberGenesis]

Not an economics master, just able to see patterns and abuse the math

Given my wine purchase, fail roll on haggle combined with the production in that area keeps it at base. As thatkid said, for something like that it makes sense.

The flax roll bothers me though, without a production business -in- the province to use the resource, i really dont see how the modifier comes into play unless you're also balancing this with a -2 where there is a business to process it. Otherwise there's no way to come out ahead without a 1 on the haggle roll.

I dunno, i'm with iituem, maybe crunching the numbers a little will help smooth this out. If cheap goods are running too high, maybe cut the inc to .2 instead of .3?

[thatkid]

Ghazkull,
Sir Joseph is unavailable for the meeting with Corv as he's currently being apprehended by McKinley forces.

[Ghazkull]

did i read something wrong?
 

*realizes that the post of elfeater was towards the patrol not towards the Jarl....*

ok darn it....editing

[thatkid]

No worries. I didn't realize that "Jarl" was a term that the Manskinner brought with him to the Weylands. Will have to change the way the McKinley's refer to their leader from here on out

[filiusenox]

Is it legal by game rules to have an in char conversation via pm in order to keep the contents secret?

[vagel7]

Is it legal by game rules to have a conversation via pm in order to keep the contents secret?

Using info from other people's posts is metagaming I believe and the GM has to know what is going on.

[thatkid]

I think the only incident we've seen of people using PMs for IC actions has been for Trubaldsome dealing with his "disease", and in that case it's almost entirely RP and has no real game mechanic effect...I think. Maybe all his posts were made public during that and I just missed something?

In any case, I'm going to say no. It isn't.
But if you're really set on doing it I guess you can PM Iituem, and if you get the Ok from him I guess it's OK? Though I'd still like if it you kept myself and Iituem, as well as the other GMs, listed in the "Send to" thing so we all know what's going on.

[Ghazkull]

i actually figured it that Corv tried to establish a complete new social order in the Weylands. The landseti,Hersir and other stuff wasn't there before. I envisioned it that he treid to turn the Social Order of the Highlands into  something of a mix between roman and norse Culture...although that hasnt really shown up to now...i need to end these wars and establish proper cities and trade routes....wel that will happen after the pacifying of the Weylands...