Strategus Trading Guide (Out of date, due to crafting)

[RandomDude]

Out of date as of 11th October 2011

I will update when I have more knowledge/info.

Q. Why cant I buy any goods? It always say 0 available.
A. You need troops to buy goods. The more troops you have, the more goods you can buy.

Q. I bought a few goods and I want to buy more but now I cant, there's only a sell optnion.
A. Currently when you want to buy goods you have to buy them all in one go. There's currently as many goods as there are locations and you cant mix them right now.

Q. Where should I buy/sell?
A. Buy from low prosperity settlements and sell to high prosperity ones. You might have to travel to a few before you find one.

Q. What is fief prosperity?
A. It affects the price of goods being bought/sold and is randomly generated as far as i know. A good tactic is when you get to a fief, if the fief shows a + prosperity, wait for the price to go up before you sell.

Q. You said something about Distance Modifier Bonus in another thread, whats that?
A. The further you travel, the more of a bonus you get, to simulate goods from foreign lands bringing in more wealth. I dont know the maximum distance bonus you can get.

Q. How many types of goods are there?
A. Theres as many different goods as there are locations.

Thats it I think. Post with questions/answer and ill update.

Maybe this should go in the Guides section - but are people looking there or here for strat help? All the topics ive seen so far about it are in this forum.

[Erasmas]

Nice, thanks.

I bought 1 "good" (lol) and that is what I see:

Trading goods:
Good price: 15 gold
Fief prosperity: +0
Good transaction tax: 1%
Faraway goods bonus: -80%
Selling price: 2.97 gold

How far away I need to be (in current state of affairs, ie with prosperity 0) to get decent ratio? Is is really random?

[Bjarky]

depends on how far u go, i'm on my way to another fief with goods.
lets see how much the goods bonus will change 

[RandomDude]

If you sell at the same place its -80% I think.

I didnt take a note of how much it dropped travelling to adjacent places.

I think it might be as little as +2% but Jacko reported a 200% bonus from travelling 1/2 the map I believe (sorry if I got the details wrong jacko).

Trading is better than working for money if you're willing to travel for some time - looking for higher prosperity settlements is good too. Also you need more than a few men to make it worthwhile.

[BaleOhay]

the rate of sale better be crazy high considering how slow the movement rate is. otherwise I do not see much selling going on.. interesting that number of troops lets you buy more. Do you need to keep that troop count with you when you travel? Or can they stay home for defense once you purchase what you need.

will the troop upkeep be higher outside of a fief like it was at the end of strat 2? if you need to bring them with you on trade runs that could really hurt the trading profits.

[RandomDude]

the rate of sale better be crazy high considering how slow the movement rate is. otherwise I do not see much selling going on.. interesting that number of troops lets you buy more. Do you need to keep that troop count with you when you travel? Or can they stay home for defense once you purchase what you need.

will the troop upkeep be higher outside of a fief like it was at the end of strat 2? if you need to bring them with you on trade runs that could really hurt the trading profits.

I cant answer any of that really as i dont know.

It would be interesting to see if you could buy goods and then garrison troops home while keeping your goods. It would certainly be a bug though and not be working as intended if that was possible.

As for trading, I can imagine that once a trader finds or is told about a low/high prosperity settlement then some kind of trade routes will form until the settlements prosperity changes too much.

I dont think a traders life will be nice early on but after some experimentation it will be very profitable.

[Erasmas]

One more thing: following my purchase of "goods" the fief did not get the price I paid. It may go to the fief owner, which is obviously "0" atm, so it's hard to say.  I am not sure about tax, as it was only 0.15, and the cash in the fief raised by 1.

EDIT:

Once you purchase some goods, you cannot buy some more in the same location, even if you leave and enter again, only SELL option is active. I guess it works if you move to other location as well (to be verified). So forget about traveling around buying and selling some stuff in various places; you need to buy in one place and sell in others, and you are unable to buy more unless you sell everything you have.

[RandomDude]

One more thing: following my purchase of "goods" the fief did not get the price I paid. It may go to the fief owner, which is obviously "0" atm, so it's hard to say.  I am not sure about tax, as it was only 0.15, and the cash in the fief raised by 1.

EDIT:

Once you purchase some goods, you cannot buy some more in the same location, even if you leave and enter again, only SELL option is active. I guess it works if you move to other location as well (to be verified). So forget about traveling around buying and selling some stuff in various places; you need to buy in one place and sell in others, and you are unable to buy more unless you sell everything you have.

The fief will get gold from the taxation of it, not the full buying cost. It's not a communal settlement, the farmers get most of it I guess. The actual money you can see is the Elder's budget, rather than everyones gold pooled together.

It's like when you buy equipment - the fief you're in doesnt get it, the arms merchants do (and they're invisible for all intents and purposes).

I'll add in the guide about not being able to buy more. There's no reason to buy in seperate locations unless it's cheaper but then you could always sell your current goods (for a small loss?) and then rebuy up to your maximum.

[chadz]

Q. How many types of goods are there?
A. Theres only 1 type of goods for the entire map.

That is not 100% correct - actually, there are as many goods as there are locations. Also, you can't mix goods of different types for now.

[RandomDude]

That is not 100% correct - actually, there are as many goods as there are locations. Also, you can't mix goods of different types for now.

Thanx for that - ill update.

[Keshian]

How is prosperity raised and lowered??  I just bought 11 goods from a village with -1 prosperity (can't remember if it was -1 before or after I bought them) and am travelling halfway across the map with them.  Does this mean if the other village has -1 prosperity that the 100%+ bonus multiplier for my travelling for 3 real-time days is useless (0*anything still equals 0)??

Also, does buying/selling in castle/city make a difference for prosperity or price??  Also, when are villages, castles, and cities going to have different populations and amounts of gold again?

Lastly, I am moving .24131 speed on plains with 11 goods and troops, is that the troops effect, goods effect or both??  It seems rather steep, get 300 goods and you will move 0 speed.

[Teeth]

Thank you!

[Phazey]

Lastly, I am moving .24131 speed on plains with 11 goods and troops, is that the troops effect, goods effect or both??  It seems rather steep, get 300 goods and you will move 0 speed.

You cannot take more goods than you have troops, i think?

Edit: ah, i get it. Dunno, probably > 0 but i do get the feeling large armies will be very slow.

[Keshian]

You cannot take more goods than you have troops, i think?

Im saying if you have 300 troops + 300 goods ,movement rate =0 or logarithmically so close to 0 that it would be the same difference??

[RandomDude]

How is prosperity raised and lowered??  I just bought 11 goods from a village with -1 prosperity (can't remember if it was -1 before or after I bought them) and am travelling halfway across the map with them.  Does this mean if the other village has -1 prosperity that the 100%+ bonus multiplier for my travelling for 3 real-time days is useless (0*anything still equals 0)??

Also, does buying/selling in castle/city make a difference for prosperity or price??  Also, when are villages, castles, and cities going to have different populations and amounts of gold again?

Lastly, I am moving .24131 speed on plains with 11 goods and troops, is that the troops effect, goods effect or both??  It seems rather steep, get 300 goods and you will move 0 speed.

prosperity is worked out randomly for all fiefs, nothing any player dose affects it

the -1 just tells you that the prosperity is decreasing and the price of goods bought and sold will be decreasing (good for buying)

+1 is opposite (good for selling)

It's worthwhile, as a seller, to sit in a fief with + prosperity, as your goods will sell for more. The distance bonus is multiplied by how much you're selling goods for so - (selling goods worth 100 with a distance bonus of 10% should sell for 110 i believe)

I have no idea about goods affecting moment speed etc

Im pretty sure larger armies will be slower like phazey says, and i presume cost more upkeep than if they were seperate armies (can someone confirm this?)