Why Trade uses "desired surplus?"

[halfmonkey]

I'm not an economics genius by any stretch, but the use of "surplus" wording at the trade panel makes me crazy.
I figured out early on that adding to any zero amount imports items (clothing and barley in my case) each cycle.

Now I'm trying to export exorbitant amounts of iron from a rich deposit, but every time the trader passes, only the clothing and barley I selected arrives. I have the ore set to 'Export' with "0" -as in "zero desired surplus."

Am I supposed to use a negative number here or what?

I thought a trade-based economy in a poor region would be fun, but it's just confusing and ill-explained... My soon to be starving peasants can't eat iron ore and I need more regional wealth to expand anything.

[Rikktherek]

The surplus is the amount that is not currently being used for something else (like in construction) At the Trader, if you aim for a surplus that is lower then what you have in surplus and you are allowing exports, the merchants will sell until the desired surplus is reached. If you have less than the desired surplus and you are importing, the merchants will bring the items until the desired surplus is reached

[Clovis Sangrail]

In other words, you want to export all that iron and turn it into cash, correct?

I think you are doing the right thing. That's how I export all the tools I make. I set the surplus to zero. It never gets it all, but it does a nice chunk every month.

I do have a trade route for tools because they are a major trade. You don't have to have a trade route for iron ore, but you could try that. I would be sure to save first because buying a trade route for iron will jack up the price for all future trade routes you want to buy.

I built my bloomery right next door to my iron mining pit, and then set up a burgage as a blacksmith two doors down from the bloomery. The ♥♥♥♥ just shuffles right out the door, and Tools sell for 6 while iron ore only sells for 3.

[CatPerson]

A dedicated trade route for a good costs money. In return you get a more reliable (time/visits wise) Trader/s - I think they can also carry/buy more at one time? Someone else can confirm/deny, never really looked.

At any rate, sometimes the random traders (or even dedicated ones) can be a little slow re: monthly visits. Depends where they're coming from and where your Trading post is, a little, too.

That said if one has a surplus of many hundreds or even 1000's, it's pretty hard to ever get rid of it all - at least if you never stop/reduce production of the good in question for a while.

[Fortigan]

You do want a trade route for this, but foreign traders don't come by that often. Don't rely on them. You need horses assigned to your trading posts. In a town of about 80 I am running 5 fully staffed trading posts with 2 horses each, in order to keep up with exporting Bows, Shields, Swords, Tools, Roof Tiles, Shoes, and Planks. The more trading posts with horses you have, the better your exports will be. Exports seem to have some kind of priority as to what the workers will take to the trading post. I've noticed after adding all the other items to my exports list, my tiles started backing up. So that is when I added the 5th trading post.

[Batfish J. Macaque]

When you buy a trade route the game spawns 2 or 3 horse and cart traders that constantly go back and forth between the trading post(s) and the off map trading points. Every trade route you buy increases the cost of all the other routes you haven't bought yet by 75% so you need to decide which routes are going to be worth buying and which aren't.
Workers in the trading post will also import and export items as well as collecting the items from the granaries and storehouses and taking them to the trading post.

Items in the trading post are split into two types, minor and major.
Minor items can be imported and exported without a trade route though you'll be reliant on your own workers and the occasional passing (on foot) trader but major items need a trade route set up to be imported or exported.
Major items can be set to import/export without a trade route but all that will happen is that the trading post workers will start piling up the item in the trading post, it wont go any further until the trade route is bought (I suspect the way this currently works will be changed a bit in the next update).

[halfmonkey]

Thanks All for the breakdowns.

I discovered that because I built a bloomery and a storehouse directly next to the iron pit it stores all that ore and slab locally, then takes a ridiculous amount of time for the workers to bring any of it to the traders or marketplace- which is far across the map.

I'm guessing this is a case where I want to assign families and a pair of oxen to the storehouse there?
And another horse to the trading post?

Also appreciate and will heed the advice to turn the ore into something else and sell that instead/as well.

If I build homes so far away from my market, though, won't those remote locations suffer from the way household needs are met? I've been struggling with 42-47% approval already...

[adobo]

Traders are the ones who stocks the trade building for things to sell. Build them close to the trade building or build more trade buildings so you have more traders doing work.

The only use for the horse is for the trader to take off and sell the goods themselves.

[halfmonkey]

Originally posted by adobo:

Traders are the ones who stocks the trade building for things to sell. Build them close to the trade building or build more trade buildings so you have more traders doing work.

The only use for the horse is for the trader to take off and sell the goods themselves.

That makes sense. I didn't even think to build a second trade post nearby.

I hope there is a at some point a perk or upgrade for larger carts (like horse-drawn) or a better means to control (at least see) inventory flow to identify hangups.

And while I'm griping... I get the "realism" of placing wells over underground water, but there really should be an option for water storage.
If a brewer, malt maker, and bakery can produce goods by magically getting water without a peasant fetching it from a well, then I'd appreciate a "magic" way to get access to water during fires.

The more I play this "difficult" map...with low fertility, low food options and sparse water...the more I wonder if I'm some kind of sadist.

[Fortigan]

Build your bloomery next to your mines and disable iron in your storehouse. This will prevent time being wasted on extra logistics. Your storehouse should be near your marketplace and your traders should be near your storehouse. This system results in all the things you wish to sell being right next to your trader.

My setup has the market in the middle of town, my granary on one side of this and my storehouse on the other. I have food production on the granary side and industry production on the storehouse side. For the sake of explanation well say Granary West of market and Storehouse East. Then I'll put the Malt house, Brewing, and Tavern South and the Traders North. This puts everyone logistically close to where they get their goods from.

Here is an example of one of my villages. The bloomery is where it is because my iron mine was very close to town.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3263859377