Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[CyberGenesis]

Found it

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Explore the town of Groaning.

Groan's port is small for a Storm Coast state, surprisingly so.  Only a handful of ships can dock at any one time, which leads the port to be rather crowded.  Commercial industry seems to be equally restricted, but soon enough you discover why - there is no Storm Coast Guildhall in the port.  Groaning is one of the few Storm Coast states that refuses to do business with the Guild, instead operating off independent traders.  You notice the tell-tale flag of a St John privateer in port - Groaning's independence is the only reason they can dock so close to the Guild's centre in Vasir.  If you sail near the Mirish Coast you might wish to fly Suulian colours to avoid piracy.

The city of Groaning itself, in stark contrast to the rather small and semi-developed port of Acre, is a bustling city.  Two storey buildings are common, the streets are packed with foot traffic, carts and ponies and there is an everpresent background hubub of thousands of people clamouring and labouring.  In the same district as the palace, the massive and imposing Clothworkers' Guildhall speaks of the importance of the local cloth and weaving trade - the port and local markets are full of bolts of cloth and tailored clothing of local and Vasirian flaxen linen, of Elbrethan woollens and even of exotic Oriental silk.

There is a fair amount of variation in the port; beyond the locally produced grain, pork, flax and cloth you can find distant wines and metals for sale, but not as much as one might find in Vasir or Suul, and certainly not as much as Miring had available in its heyday.  Groaning clearly suffers in its trade relations from its lack of association with the Guild.

Groaning might not be as prosperous as Vasir, but what it lacks in trading might it makes up for in the acres and acres of open fields beyond the city walls.  Much of the land is converted over to flax production, with Aching producing most of the grain and pork to feed the teeming masses of Groan and Acre, but there is much land to be had and all of it fertile.  Groaning does not maintain much of a standing army, beyond the city guard and watch, but it can clearly draw upon massive reserves of manpower should war arise.  One would expect local barons managing much of this land, but it appears that the elective government does not support a system of vassalage - private armies of any kind are outlawed, though bodyguards appear to be permitted.


There is a fairly healthy service sector of professionals, part of which includes the small jewellers' district.  Drua, you make inquiries in the area [1] but not only do you fail to find anyone skilled in the techniques you mention, you attract some unwanted attention because of the illegality of the processes involved.  [2] The local private guards escort you out of the district and ask you in polite but definite terms not to come back.  It seems you will not get much of this sort of help here.

Worse for Hanja, the vast swathes of open land also mean that local grain is freely available, as are all other staples (-2 staple base demand), with local grain fetching only [3] 0.4d/tonne.  On the other hand, exporting grain or livestock from Aching (where the staple base is -5) will always be profitable.

Groaning, Aching

[thatkid]

Danke

Will begin working on the Acre/Groaning posts now.

[Iituem]

Been busy last few days, moving south on Saturday.  Shall start catching up with threads etc.

[CyberGenesis]

*makes a note to become guildmaster of SCTG* I've been drawing out plans for LARGE trade networks - entirely automated. The profit margin is acceptable, the sheer funds involved both in trades, escorts and bribes (i mean SPECIAL RELATIONSHIPS) rivals several kingdoms. Only thing that makes it a non-threat to any kingdom is that the funds required also generate a ridiculous tax revenue

Gods i should have been an accountant instead of a Software Engineer

[Taricus]

You wouldn't have the creativity to think this up if you were an accountant though

[ashton1993]

So will Ardas and CG compete or team up? We may never know, until it happens of course.

[Iituem]

*makes a note to become guildmaster of SCTG* I've been drawing out plans for LARGE trade networks - entirely automated. The profit margin is acceptable, the sheer funds involved both in trades, escorts and bribes (i mean SPECIAL RELATIONSHIPS) rivals several kingdoms. Only thing that makes it a non-threat to any kingdom is that the funds required also generate a ridiculous tax revenue

Gods i should have been an accountant instead of a Software Engineer

Apart from some system overhauls I've been working on (Python automation, for great justice and more in-depth numbers with much less workload for me!), I have strongly been considering giving merchants the opportunity to set up trade routes to automate most of the trade side of the game.  After all, it's fairly roll heavy, so if we keep it in for starting out merchants or pure merchant adventurers (explorers in particular) and do the larger-scale trading in broad sweeps it will allow merchant players to still make a fair deal of money whilst taking the load off GMs.

What do you think?

[ashton1993]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

*makes a note to become guildmaster of SCTG* I've been drawing out plans for LARGE trade networks - entirely automated. The profit margin is acceptable, the sheer funds involved both in trades, escorts and bribes (i mean SPECIAL RELATIONSHIPS) rivals several kingdoms. Only thing that makes it a non-threat to any kingdom is that the funds required also generate a ridiculous tax revenue

Gods i should have been an accountant instead of a Software Engineer

Apart from some system overhauls I've been working on (Python automation, for great justice and more in-depth numbers with much less workload for me!), I have strongly been considering giving merchants the opportunity to set up trade routes to automate most of the trade side of the game.  After all, it's fairly roll heavy, so if we keep it in for starting out merchants or pure merchant adventurers (explorers in particular) and do the larger-scale trading in broad sweeps it will allow merchant players to still make a fair deal of money whilst taking the load off GMs.

What do you think?

Anything that simplifies something and helps the GMs out must be good, right?

[thatkid]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

*makes a note to become guildmaster of SCTG* I've been drawing out plans for LARGE trade networks - entirely automated. The profit margin is acceptable, the sheer funds involved both in trades, escorts and bribes (i mean SPECIAL RELATIONSHIPS) rivals several kingdoms. Only thing that makes it a non-threat to any kingdom is that the funds required also generate a ridiculous tax revenue

Gods i should have been an accountant instead of a Software Engineer

Apart from some system overhauls I've been working on (Python automation, for great justice and more in-depth numbers with much less workload for me!), I have strongly been considering giving merchants the opportunity to set up trade routes to automate most of the trade side of the game.  After all, it's fairly roll heavy, so if we keep it in for starting out merchants or pure merchant adventurers (explorers in particular) and do the larger-scale trading in broad sweeps it will allow merchant players to still make a fair deal of money whilst taking the load off GMs.

What do you think?

Anything that simplifies something and helps the GMs out must be good, right?

This.

Merchanting is honestly my least favorite part about any single GM post, so the less work needed in that area the better
No offense to the merchants out there.

[Iituem]

I'm thinking something along the lines of...

Establish Convoy

Convoys can either be established with hired ships or owned ships.  They need to consist of at least 2 cargo ships (or 6 hired cargo spaces) and 1 military ship (ship with a non-cargo upgrade, such as disciplined or sea raider - clipper does not count towards this).  The convoy travels at the speed of the slowest ship.  Hiring costs and upkeep must be paid as normal.

The convoy will travel between multiple selected ports within range in a season, and the merchant may dictate where to buy and where to sell goods, within the cargo limit of the convoy.

The convoy automatically buys and sells at the adjusted base rate for whatever province it is in - there is no random roll to adjust the price up or down.  At the same time, the convoy is never adversely affected by ill weather due to its size and is large enough that NPC pirates will not make an attempt on it (but deliberate attacks by hostile military forces are still possible, and by PC pirates).

Profits with convoys are not as volatile, but it is harder to strike it rich with one lucky sale.  They are guaranteed however, and save the GM a great deal of stress.


Establish Trade Caravan

Trade Caravans work like convoys, but require at least 6 caravans (6 units of cargo) to be hired, plus at least 2 Defensive Str of regiments (e.g. 1 Heavy Infantry, 2 Regular Infantry, 1 Cavalry, 1 Archer, 1 Disciplined but not 1 Berserker).

As with convoys, caravans buy and sell at the adjusted base rate, are not affected by ill weather and will not be harassed by NPC bandits.

What do we think?

[ashton1993]

sounds good to me

[filiusenox]

You know eventually this game is going to evolve into a MMORPG to rival major companies, right?
Oh i support whatever it is that Iituem suggest, cept for deleting my Account.

[CyberGenesis]

I have to bail for a bit to do some shopping, if you can find some math - i'll try to abuse it for you when i get back

This was one reason i wanted to create a trade guild (then you introduced the SCTG). I don't mind the mundane rolls, so thats why i was offering to do the rolls.

The automation part was because i -know- by year's end, since i cant roll my own trades, i'd be driving someone nuts with what i had planned to have. The automation was going to be required to prevent the micromanaging most players wouldnt want to commit (and the roll time of everyone not me)

To make the rolls easier, i was going to propose you do 'seasonal' prices on things - obviously modifiable by events like wars or epically poor rolls

You know eventually this game is going to evolve into a MMORPG to rival major companies, right?

Check out the Evil Genius game Terenos and I run...then ask me how many PAGES of word document i have on mechanics -.- and THAT started as a simple d20 IM game for us. *FML* And yeah, we've already broken this game from being a simple RtD

[Ardas]

Oh god, its like playing Patrician 4 all over again. Its a good game though, played it over last couple of days to get into character (Hans). And let me tell you, automated convoys was the missing element in here.

I want to apologise for the entire trading mess that started with me, it just seemed likea great idea and a vital part of the medieval politics. Just getting down and dirty with the actual goods shipping and coin counting was never in my plan though. Just for the sake of balance though, I just hope that the automated trade routes won't make too much money. It would be silly to see erik running at his usual income of 15-25d and me or CG at a 100 or god knows how much more if we unite into a supercorp. but the trade allowance of each city kinda takes care of it, doesn't it?

[CyberGenesis]

Actually I started this

Edit: yeah the allowance limits the trade income made per season by all players. The movement allowance on ships and caravans limits a single player