are some trade prices fixed?

[Footman Connaisseur]

never really payed attention to trading. Started doing it in my current run currently im buying donkeys for 50 and selling them for 200, are there any ressources that give high prices in certain cities? or is it always random

[Clovis Sangrail]

Things I have found ==

Mules and horses from Aserai and Khuzait lands sell well in the west and north.

Dates from Aseria also do well in Vlandia and Sturgia.

Sheep and wool from Sturgia and Khuzaitland sell in Aseria.

I'm still trying to figure out how yo incorporate all that fur in Sturgia into a trade route. The damn stuff is useless as a raw material, and you can't even eat it.

[Swordmouse]

Every game is a bit different as far as who goes to war with who, which cities get razed, whose supply lines get cut off, whether a merchant just rolled in and bought everything driving up the prices, and to an extent the actual workshops can be kinda random too.

**BUT** the village resources never change, so you will know generally where things are cheaper and more expensive, based on how close (or far away) those resources are produced.

If a city has a horse village tied to it for example, or a castle has a horse village and that city is the closest allied settlement, then horse prices will generally be cheaper there, and have more plentiful stock. If the next city over doesn't have a horse village, then chances are you can make a quick profit there. Good catch, BTW. Donkeys really do seem to be the meta, which I think is hilarious.

Just off the top of my head, and I'll probably miss a bunch, but *generally* speaking...

The South: Iron, Oil, Tools, Wine, Hardwood, Salt, Fur, and Silver Ore are all scarce, and thus profitable to sell.

The East is similar, except they have a decent amount of Iron, Tools and Hardwood, but cheap Wool, Salt, Silk and of course livestock.

The West has cheap Wine and Oil.

And the North has plenty of Fur, Iron and Hardwood.

Overall the West and North pay a lot for what's in the South and East and vice versa. The middle is basically a gradient bleeding into those extremes, though there's still great profitttsss to be made. I generally loop around the map though, so others might be able to offer more insight.

Certain resources feel a bit random, since they're dependent on whether or not a city spawned with X workshop - velvet and jewelry seem to fall into the category. I've noticed velvet SEEMS to usually be more common in the East, but I'm not sure everyone's game will be the same.

Note that certain cities can still be duds if you're unlucky and merchants have already traveled there recently with the goods you're carrying, even if they're generally rare in that area. Supply and demand and all that.

[Footman Connaisseur]

Thanks for the replies how many mules/horses would u recommend as Caravan mounts? So i can effectivly haul Goods without being to slow.

[saintsfan36]

Originally posted by Zhong Xina:

Thanks for the replies how many mules/horses would u recommend as Caravan mounts? So i can effectivly haul Goods without being to slow.

That depends on how large your party is. you can expand the info tab in the lower right corner and there is a speed icon there. Go to trade in a town and you can add/remove horses, mules, livestock and watch your speed rating. If it starts dipping too low, stop buying herd animals. Go sell that batch, then do it again. Always watch the prices though. As you trade, you change the prices as your alter the supply/demand mechanic.

[Swordmouse]

Yep, what Saintsfan said. The amount of herd animals you can bring without a speed penalty is directly tied to your party size, so it can go pretty high once your game gets going.

I generally like to run with at least 20-30K capacity if I'm doing dedicated trading. I always seem to see more deals to buy than to sell (probably just me being greedy) so sometimes I go over. Anything after that though goes to horses to speed up infantry.

If you really want to be sneaky, since you mentioned donkeys, a literal army counts for your herd limit, so once you become a vassal you can do a full-on yeehaw donkey drive on your king's dime. You won't be as fast as you'd be in a party, obviously, but how else are you going to buy 800 donkeys for 20-30 gold in the South/East and resell them for stupid amounts of profit in a single trip?

[Clovis Sangrail]

Rule of thumb -- You can have 1 horse per mounted soldier and 2 horses per foot soldier without adversely affecting your map speed. Pack animals count against this although they don't help your speed any. You men cannot ride sumpters and mules (even though you and your companions can).

Other animals also count against you.

So if you have X mounted and Y foot units, optimum number of horses/war horses for speed is X + 2Y with no pack animals or herd animals.

But when I'm on a trade run, I load up as many sumpters, mules, horses and war horses as I can get my hands on. On my last trip, I had over 700 each sumpters and mules plus another 400 horses and war horses plus some sheeps. My speed sucked -- 1.8 in the daytime across the desert. But I brought back lots of horses to sell.

[Gwizzz]

Another tip on trading: The green, light green, yellow, red highlight colors affect how much trade experience you get when selling items.

For instance, if you bought 200 furs at 33 Denars and the price to sell them to a town is bright green at 56. As soon as you start to move the items from your inventory to the merchants inventory, their quantity of goods will start to increase, lowering the the price they are willing to pay for the very next item. If you dumped all 200 at once the price might go from green, to light green, to yellow, to red. You'll make some money just on the quantity, but you'll miss out on a lot of potential money and trade experience if you would sell just a fraction of the total at one time.

I've found the fastest way to get trade levels is to start moving items into the merchants inventory until the sell price color turns light green.. then take an item back so it goes back to bright green. Maybe I only sold 37 furs to the first town instead of the full 200. But the trade XP I get for that one transaction would be greater than if I sold all 200 at once. If you sold all 200 furs to the vendor and the sell price turned red, you would make some money, but wouldn't receive ANY trade XP. I found this out after I traded several large stacks of items and received zero trade XP for the transaction. Then I did some experimenting where I noted my trade XP and sold until the sell price was yellow, but right before it would go red. and I received about 1800 trade XP. Then I reloaded and sold when the price was light green, one item away from turning yellow, and I received 2400 XP. I sold less and received more XP. Then I reloaded and sold when it was bright green, right before it would turn light green, and received 2845 XP. Less money per town as I was selling less overall quantity at one time, but more money and trade XP overall after I unloaded it over several stops.

You will still receive trade XP if you sell when the sell price turns light green, but the amount you get would be less than if you sold at bright green to multiple towns.

So now I buy in bulk when the price is cheap, then sell only enough of any one item in each town to keep the sell price bright green. Using this method I've made up to 4 trade levels at one stop selling different wares at bright green and my overall trade level has soared.

In some towns the sell price for some items are already light green, yellow, or even red. No problem, sell what items they want (keeping the sell price bright green), buy items that are selling cheap at that town, and move on. It's a traders life.

I can make a whole lot more money selling a crafted 2H sword but I'll get 0 trade XP.

The trade XP and increasing skill I get will reduce the overall trade penalty so I'll get more money when buying and selling items including those crafted swords. And several of the trade perks are worth getting. Artisan Community gives 1 renown per profitable workshop per day. I have 4 shops so that's an extra 120 renown per month. Every renown helps when you are trying to get your clan to level 6.