trade seems unbalanced

[boaronthefloor]

importing food seems to be nonviable, as the import cost of meat or grain is usually on par with the export cost of some of the most valuable finished goods.

[Ninephoenix]

In the very initial stages it's rough. But It's good once you get the perk that reduces the import tariffs, after that and some industry going you can run a everything on just food imports. Food can be pretty slow, inconsistent and labour intensive to make so It can end up more productive.
Got the merchant achievement.

[boaronthefloor]

yeah im just struggling to make trade break even in the early game without investing all of my perks into the trade tree in the early game

[Shard of Manus]

I highly recommend the tariff perk. Just focus on growing your village to the point where you can at least obtain 3 perks.

The tariff perk makes it so that you can basically buy whatever your region lacks, and still make massive profit by just selling what you have in abundance.

Also, you can import resources to craft items that sell for more and maintain a safe profit that way - i.e. build a blacksmithy or armourer and sell the gear they make. Even if you're in a region with little iron, you can just import iron cheaply and make the gear to sell for a hefty profit.

EDIT: Also, grow your town. Import food, build more blacksmiths and armourers. Build multiple trade posts. Just maximise the rate at which you can import and export.

[Ninephoenix]

Originally posted by boaronthefloor:

yeah im just struggling to make trade break even in the early game without investing all of my perks into the trade tree in the early game

I found the exporting clay roof tiles, leather, the planks from the saw mill and to a lesser extent firewood can keep you going long enough to make it to get to the tariff perk.
After that I think most buildings are productive enough that you can easily expand just importing raw materials and food and exporting finished goods. My only bottleneck was people moving into the houses.

[Humble]

I think it's fine as it is, this is very helpful in region are very limited resource, I don't want game over because of region limited resource, I had region that I can't build farm, all red, and yellow, not much green. That's where trade is must (with perk) without Perk, it's too much coin to paid food, with perk, it's seem reasonable, each house product (2 level) one coin per month! that is not enough to cover whole trade we need.

My only problem is that limited point spend.

[FAIR]

Invest all perks in trade to become rich and then buy anything you need.