Towns and Trading

[Grotty]

I'm having a bit of trouble trying to figure out the trade system. How often does a town's "bank account" reset? I can go to a town one week and trade for a load of money, but then go back a week or so later and they have next to no money.

Also, do *I* have to be the person trading things between towns in order for certan industries to keep producing items? For example, in the tribal area, the whole economy of the area seemed to go tits up after I stopped doing the trade routes and focused on the quests instead. The old man was still producing lots of insects, but Lintu's wool production dropped off and Pullid's yarn production followed. Kivi's supply of jackets then dried up and that was it - I was forced to move on to the next area because there was really nothing left.

What gives?

[GreenOwlHead]

that's odd. I never experienced pause of wool production from Lintu. Yet, first region is not ideal for long stay, because it is relatively small economy with very long time for stabilizing prices (e.g. selling massive amounts of jacket)

[fractalgem]

I don't entirely understand how towns get money either. Do they generate money when end stage goods are slowly consumed by the citizens?

There's clearly a money source somewhere in the code, or towns would allll run out of money pretty quickly just from maintaining and upgrading their industries, nevermind rival caravans and the player taking all the money for themselves, but I don't fully understand where that source *is* or how it works.

That said, from what I understand the starting area is nearly useless in the mid game except for maaaybe as a source of bulk tallow to sell to new serino to make lubricant, while late game its useful because it's (relatively) easy to take the area over even without the industry dlc and specifically has NO caraans, meaning you can treat it as a personal fiefdom.

Especially in the first and second area, it can even seem/become necessary to run trade routes at a loss in order to pump excess moneyout of whichever town HAS tons of money (especially new serino, since lubricant is such a convenient trade good to sell wherever you go).


Anyways...exactly how money actually gets generated will significantly altar what strategy is needed to best maintain a town if you plan to be in an area for a long time, so I'm very very curious as well. (e.g. is it better to sell a little lubricant, shirts, andshoes at a time? or to occasionally flood the market and then come back after a long while so that the town can make a profiit off of the under priced goods you sold it?)

[cbg4th]

I'm not certain however it seems that money is generated when towns (or you) pay out business expenses. the robbery industry seems to pay out 100% to the town (that makes sense i think though. For example, town pays out 4000ish money per day and gets 8000ish money in return. well the initial 4000 is paid to the town for the business to operate and in process the town earns 8000-4000 the remaining 4000 made after pay is like all other goods produced and is the property of the town as well). So when determining money production per day i believe that you should add up all expenses per day unless that business is robbery, if robbery add the produced amount only.

production and money regeneration seems to take place when the clock AM and PM status changes (50% of pay and production is calculated and distributed 2 times every 24 hours in game).

the big money transfers seem to happen when caravans enter cities. I'm not entirely sure how caravans work but it seems to either deplete or replenish cash depending on whether they are buying or selling.

towns also seem to generate money when goods are sold to the assumed local population (look at statistics page then look at consumed)

money used to purchase industries seems to just vanish but money used to expand business or storage in a town is given directly to the market.

Downsizing an industry directly pulls money from the market. Downsizing for money can always be done even when the market has no money. doing this seems to lower the wealthiness number and can be useful when trying to lower the value of other industries (wealthiness might be representative the towns true money amount and the market might be just be the money they are willing to spend at any given time)

i said it just above but wealthiness affects how much the town expects you to pay when buying an industry. it also can effect the price of the daily expenses of your robbery industry. lower wealthiness lowers the daily expense of robbery (only matters when you own it though) and it seems to lower the cost of purchasing an industry from a town (you can also lower the wealthiness buy increasing the population. low population areas will be affected more that high population areas)

travelers likely have some effect but i doubt the 1 or 2 travelers will shake things up to much (unless that traveler is you lol).


that is the understanding i have developed from playing the game. (i might be wrong on some of it but i seem to make money pretty fast going off these assumptions so effectively this should fit your needs)

when in the second region try to sell to orth immediately after a caravan comes through and buys up a bunch of their goods they have over a million money on hand normally for me (if they just sold goods then orth might not have any money)

[fractalgem]

Thanks! That's very helpful!