Am I missing something with trading?

[Toblerone]

I tried making a character with a sidefocus in trading and cant for the life of me gain exp in it, which is supposedly by making profit. I have the first perk for trade goods which shows the price in green when im making a profit, and that is almost never the case, its either yellow or even reddish. Doesnt matter which town or culture. Ive travelled to literally africa and back and the prices are almost always dogwater and the trade rumors most of the time are ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. Its like "ooouh you can sell those furs in Razih for 400" and after lumbering over to the place they wanna give me 122 or some ♥♥♥♥??? If on rare occasion the price is actually green, its either for some ♥♥♥♥♥♥ grapes or fish or if I sell 2 pieces it sinks to yellow again. Bro I already have 85 men and in this time couldn't even reach the second perk in trade, im losing my mind here.

[Maero]

I mostly trade with caravans,good deals are hard to find but if you do it's jackpot

[RJboxer]

Originally posted by Maero:

I mostly trade with caravans,good deals are hard to find but if you do it's jackpot

This is second time I read "trade with caravans".

I've never seen a profit there. ever. Admittedly I dont look often, as they are a pain to catch.. and have not NEAR enough money or goods to bump trade by much..

Still, I;m interested how people "took trade 200 to 300 only using caravans" (other thread)

I find it difficult to believe.

[Maero]

I was the one who wrote that,mind you I didn't write that it was fast.I just find it better than trading with towns.

[Maero]

Like here for example if I wanted I could sell to that caravan Olives (bought at around 18denars each from villages),grapes (around 20ea),hardwood (10 ea) withouth the price going down.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2927029568

[RJboxer]

Originally posted by Maero:

Like here for example if I wanted I could sell to that caravan Olives (bought at around 18denars each from villages),grapes (around 20ea),hardwood (10 ea) withouth the price going down.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2927029568

Yes... but there is a HUGE disconnect I think.

1- Caravans have limited money (very very limited).

2- Caravans don't have Much to buy.

3- yes they have money yes they have good to sell, but NOT as much as a developed town.

4- To go from trade "200-300" is an absolutely ENORMOUS undertaking, even at Social 10, Trade 5. It is a LONNNNNNNG time grind.

5- High prosperity towns buy things for ridiculous prices.

6- I will explain REAL WORLD, NO CHEAT how it works.

A--- You want to level 200-300... that is MILLIONS of xp. (I dunno real number, but loooottttts). You go to a caravan. Cool he's buying "olives" for 45... and you bought them for (?) 20 (?) let's say 15. So you make a cool profit of 30 for olives.. Nice.

How many olives were you carrying? 500 (which is an INSANE number to accumulate. and takes YEARS, if you arent ONLY hanging around olive villages.. and farming them. forever. ). But YOU got 500.. Nice.. You now made 500 x 30.. A whopping 15,000 xp. Nice.. You only need to do that roughly 30,000 more times. Or more. And if u notice, the caravans is probably NOT buying multiple items for great profit. But alas.. it "does increase".

Now..

B-- You can get in your trade party mindset. Run to the north (buy your stuffs.. like tools), run mid, buy your stuffs (like velvet), run west blah blah blah. now you probably are sitting on 200? olives? but also 400 Tools, 150 velvet.. etc..

You can now run SOUTH to aserai, and assuming it is mid/late game (when a person on legit would hit Trade 200).. you'll see that Sanala is buying velvet for 490.. you bought them for 140. It is also buying tools for 350.. and you bought them for 40.

This is the ONLY way I can possible envision Trade hitting 300, in under a DECADE or longer time frame.

Does caravans make profit? yeah. but not enough to justify chasing them.
Do Towns make WAY more profit? yes. have way more denars to spend? yes. Have other goods to buy while your there? (i.e. oil while down in sanala, or grain/fish) yes. And can you sell hundreds and hundreds of luxury goods (which is KEY in late game) for massive profits? yeah.

So for me.. (and I did try caravans after reading the 200-300 post a week ago.. it sucked.. and I tried it in 2 different campaign ages.), I think trading with sanala for 180,000 profit. Then walking to Qasira for 80k. then Asker for 90k.. is much much much better than trying to make 30k. catching a caravan who HOPEFULLY will give u that.. And you having to carry 500 of a heavy item. (since it appears caravans have LESS demand than towns, for multiple goods).


Anyway. you say it works? cool. I'll believe ya. but for me, in the 2 times I tried it over the last week. it is about 50x slower. And I cant imagine ANYONE hitting 300 trade (from 200) in less than another 20 years if they use caravans.

perhaps I'm wrong. but I just outlined HOW it works.. With real numbers.. That I have seen multiple multiple times. So I know they are legit.

[Maero]

The best deals with caravans I had were mostly with silver and furs, buy those from villages,villagers or from caravans that circulate in the zones of those villages and then go to a town that has a demand for those and talk to every caravan entering that town. Tools and date fruit are also great

[jpb]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJi_kSShgCs&t=214s

This works and is actually pretty easy and the guy explains it well. I just used it to get to 300 on one of my campaigns.

If anyone is annoyed because this is an exploit, I apologize. I'm not going to tear my hair out doing it the grindy way. This was actually a little grindy when I hit 288 and had to wait for my 8th point in Social.

[jpb]

The main thing that seems to be true, and why this works, is that the caravan goes by the pricing of the closest town and you can take advantage of that by stopping the caravan right next to the town and going back and forth using a large stack of Steel that you buy and sell to the town to create scarcity, while buying and selling the same large stacks of the other metal smelting materials. (crude, iron, fine steel, etc) to the caravan while it is stationary next to the town.

You can pair this with the perk that gives you relations for buying over 10k of stuff from merchants and max rep with the merchants in the town while you're doing it (because you're repeatedly doing so in this process).

I followed his advice and did it at Sanala because of the pricing for smelting mats.

[RJboxer]

Originally posted by jpb:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJi_kSShgCs&t=214s

This works and is actually pretty easy and the guy explains it well. I just used it to get to 300 on one of my campaigns.

If anyone is annoyed because this is an exploit, I apologize. I'm not going to tear my hair out doing it the grindy way. This was actually a little grindy when I hit 288 and had to wait for my 8th point in Social.

cool enjoy it. Its single player.

In fact, why not just cheat mode it. Again, it is single player.

Sadly, not everyone wants to exploit or cheat mode.. or "very easy difficulty" it in options.

And I'm not saying I've never used cheat (trust me. I have). But this isnt a thread about "how can I cheat in trade". or "wow, I just cheated in 10,000,000 denars".

Yep its easy.

This is talking about TRADE, and how to DO IT.

using an exploit doesnt count for this conversation.

PS- I'm not annoyed. Kudos to u for finding some youtuber who posted a cool exploit. But again, that is not what a "thread about trade" is for. If it was, you could just answer every thread in the game "turn on console, add it" and the thread would be over.

[jpb]

I was just trying to help. Sorry.

(just to be clear, this isn't cheat moding anything in, it's trading between a town and a caravan without using anything outside the game...just clicking between a town and a caravan...)

[RJboxer]

Originally posted by jpb:

I was just trying to help. Sorry.

(just to be clear, this isn't cheat moding anything in, it's trading between a town and a caravan without using anything outside the game...just clicking between a town and a caravan...)

No I get it. And trust me, I have used more than my fair share of exploits too. But my friend just sent me a PM saying "dude,, there is no way ANYONE is getting to trade 200 let alone 300 using caravans without the exploit" and he is the Trade expert. lol

So, you are more correct than me. Meero was Most likely (99.9999999%) using the "caravan exploit" when he posted last week, and this thread as well. This explains why he was so sure it works (caravan to boost trade) yet I did it (no exploit) and it is comically bad. SUPER SUPER bad. so much worse than just buying stuff random and selling it to random towns. (Then again, OP wasnt talking about it..)

So, it is me who should apologize.. Yeah. Caravans are a joke for trade, without the exploit. I erroneously thought this was a "legit" thread.

and since it is not legit, your exploit has more place in it than my data

~cheers

(now if only they'd add a cool exploit to get stats. Because the grind for stats is sooooo long, and your character maxing out around lvl 38.. is terrible IMO). I'd be all over that one.. and use it nonstop.

[jpb]

No problem, man. I play vanilla and this is the only thing I've ever done that could be considered an exploit. I've never even opened the console. I just got frustrated with my trader playthrough and found this and was like, yeeeeessss. :D

[RJboxer]

Originally posted by jpb:

No problem, man. I play vanilla and this is the only thing I've ever done that could be considered an exploit. I've never even opened the console. I just got frustrated with my trader playthrough and found this and was like, yeeeeessss. :D

lol.. you bring up a SUPER good point.. Trade is super super grindy (way too grindy to be fun.. for anyone). This PROBABLY is less of an exploit than I cried about.. Since it is such a stupidly broken mechanic (trade grind).. and I imagine 99% of people will cheat trade to 300.. or use an exploit.

if I wasnt so cranky at having done trade 300 10-20 times over the years on legit. (and 50 times on cheat). i'd probably do the exploit too :)

As is, I'd rather just talk in forums about how this mechanic (grind) needs tweaked. badly.

PS- I have yet to make a TRADE thread.. but there have been 100+.. all talking about the same types of things :)

[Grubbs008]

Originally posted by RJboxer:

Originally posted by jpb:

No problem, man. I play vanilla and this is the only thing I've ever done that could be considered an exploit. I've never even opened the console. I just got frustrated with my trader playthrough and found this and was like, yeeeeessss. :D

lol.. you bring up a SUPER good point.. Trade is super super grindy (way too grindy to be fun.. for anyone). This PROBABLY is less of an exploit than I cried about.. Since it is such a stupidly broken mechanic (trade grind).. and I imagine 99% of people will cheat trade to 300.. or use an exploit.

if I wasnt so cranky at having done trade 300 10-20 times over the years on legit. (and 50 times on cheat). i'd probably do the exploit too :)

As is, I'd rather just talk in forums about how this mechanic (grind) needs tweaked. badly.

PS- I have yet to make a TRADE thread.. but there have been 100+.. all talking about the same types of things :)

300? Why not 1023.

[RJboxer]

Originally posted by Grubbs008:

Originally posted by RJboxer:

lol.. you bring up a SUPER good point.. Trade is super super grindy (way too grindy to be fun.. for anyone). This PROBABLY is less of an exploit than I cried about.. Since it is such a stupidly broken mechanic (trade grind).. and I imagine 99% of people will cheat trade to 300.. or use an exploit.

if I wasnt so cranky at having done trade 300 10-20 times over the years on legit. (and 50 times on cheat). i'd probably do the exploit too :)

As is, I'd rather just talk in forums about how this mechanic (grind) needs tweaked. badly.

PS- I have yet to make a TRADE thread.. but there have been 100+.. all talking about the same types of things :)

300? Why not 1023.

Doesnt it glitch when it gets that high? I had a Roguery at 600 using an exploit awhile back.. and man that was a BAD mistake lol