From Patrician 4. Newbie questions.

[John Universalis]

Hi.
I played Patrician 4 RoaD for 200 hours and wanted to give a try to Patrician 3. But this game looks so different that I have some noob questions.

1-Which town produces what ?
In P4 I could see what that town produces via the town information screen along with housing, reputation, prosperity etc. Where should I look to learn theese informations.

2-Shortages
In P4 I used to sell by looking at the diamonds. Buy until 2 diamonds turn to 1 diamond and for the sell vica versa. In P3 there are no diamonds so I dont know how much I should sell. What can I do for this ?

[AlP]

1. Click on the statue in the town's center/market area. There are also several other clickable objects that aren't obvious (lighthouse).

The CD version of the game comes with a manual, quickstart guide and a map. See if there's a pdf map in your game folder. This is what it looks like: http://i.imgur.com/KowUifN.jpg

The manual is on the store page, but sadly not the map file.


2. It's less dumbed down than in P4. The manual suggests that there should be around 10% difference between the buy/sell price to avoid a shortage. You can also ballpark it by looking at the market building, and selling until the town has enough stock for two weeks.

[John Universalis]

Thank you.
And another question:
In P4, buy and sell prices were same (if you buy from market, both prices rise) in here there is a sell price and a buy price. How theese change ? I mean what happens if there is a shortage ? Buy price rise and sell price (supposed to be rise as buy price rises) down or what ? What is the ratio of it ?

[AlP]

Both prices increase when there is less of an item in the market. The difference between P3 and P4, is that P4 basically shows you an average price directly, while P3 lets you fine-tune your trading a bit more by having this gap.

A shortage is more about having an effect on the town's happiness, than it is about price.

[John Universalis]

So guide me "step by step": What should I do for effective trading ? How to use consumption screen, trading screen, shortages, popularity (I dunno there is popularity in P3) ? I see this game has potential but I cant understand the system.

[heervandering]

You can check my guides in the communityhub...

[John Universalis]

Thoose guides says "Buy x amount from there, sell there, buy there sell there" I must learn the process of the game mechanics, not prepared recipes. Dont give me fish, teach me how to catch.

[AlP]

Originally posted by El Commandante:

So guide me "step by step": What should I do for effective trading ? How to use consumption screen, trading screen, shortages, popularity (I dunno there is popularity in P3) ? I see this game has potential but I cant understand the system.

A town requires a certain amount of goods every day (check weekly consumption in the Market Hall). If it has a stock that is less than two weeks worth of goods, the selling price of those goods usually becomes at least a bit profitable (for example, for beer that usually means around 40g, that's where the price usually bottoms out when the stock is good enough), and selling them increases your popularity in that city. If there is a decent amount of goods, the town becomes happy and grows.

Each class of citizens requires different things to be happy. The poor primarily need beer, fish, grain and timber, the rich need meat and wine and so on and so forth. If there's a shortage (let's say there is not enough beer, so the town buys it at 50-60g), the people become unhappy and leave the town.

Each town produces a certain amount of goods per day (weekly production in the Market Hall is actually daily production), which you can buy with a minor popularity loss. Then you sell some goods that it needs, which gives you a big popularity gain. When both your popularity and company value reach certain breakpoints, you get promoted to a new rank.

So basically you decide at what price you want to sell things. If you sell at lower prices (beer at 40), you get less profit but more popularity. If your sell prices are high (beer at 50), you get more money but less popularity and a less stable population.

I would suggest hiring an administrator to automatically buy things your hometown produces effectively. Some goods are high-profit (iron goods and skins). Others are important for the people, but their profit margin is lower (grain, timber). You can take three loans to get more starting cash (you'll make enough money to pay them back pretty soon).

edit: *Market Hall

[John Universalis]

I am trying to both get popularity and cash so I must sell goods where there is shortage. You have a tip about detecting a opportunity via Market hall or direct Trade screen ? Example: I didnt understand the weekly consuption use. What I am supposed to understand from there ? I have to drop goods equal or double of the weekly consuption ? So if there is a 50 grain consumption, then I have to drop there 50 or 100 grain to both make them happy and get loads of coins ? If not 50 or 100, what is the formula ? Is there a way to understand the diamonds from the P4 ?

[AlP]

Originally posted by El Commandante:

I am trying to both get popularity and cash so I must sell goods where there is shortage. You have a tip about detecting a opportunity via Market hall or direct Trade screen ? Example: I didnt understand the weekly consuption use. What I am supposed to understand from there ? I have to drop goods equal or double of the weekly consuption ? So if there is a 50 grain consumption, then I have to drop there 50 or 100 grain to both make them happy and get loads of coins ? If not 50 or 100, what is the formula ? Is there a way to understand the diamonds from the P4 ?

If there is a 50 grain consumption, there needs to be a stock of 100 for maximum happiness, so sell until it has that.

The P4 diamonds are basically the equivalent of that if I remember correctly, the max happiness price:

http://patrician3.wikia.com/wiki/Trade_Prices

Also this:

http://www.patrizierforum.net/index.php?page=Thread&threadID=5252

Early on there are not many goods produced, so you won't satisfy many cities. You can pretty much focus on your own town, so you just go to other towns and compare their prices with your town's. Soon you'll have a feel of what prices are generally reasonable.

[John Universalis]

Thank you very much for your help.

[John Universalis]

Can I ask what do you do at the trading screen ? I mean how you understand which goods are good to buy and which goods are good to sell ? You use the prices from the wiki or checking the consumption rates every single time or you have a method ?

[AlP]

Originally posted by El Commandante:

Can I ask what do you do at the trading screen ? I mean how you understand which goods are good to buy and which goods are good to sell ? You use the prices from the wiki or checking the consumption rates every single time or you have a method ?

If you click and hold the mouse button when you buy, you can tell when the price is expensive by how fast it increases. When the town has a large stock of that good, the price will climb slowly, until the stock reaches the critical level. Then the price will start increasing very fast, and you can't buy much more of that. For example, if you see beer at 36, click and hold, it will slowly raise to 38-39, then it will very quickly pass 40 and will increase extremely fast after that. That's because you are probably buying out the two-week stock, and the demand increases sharply. If you buy Iron Goods, the same will happen between 300-330, and the price will start to quickly increase above 330. You just need to check what the town produces, you will not usually buy other goods from it (exception being wine in Lubeck, spices in west towns etc).

I also try to remember what a town needs, so if I see something I can sell there, I'll buy it on the way.

For example, I know that Gdansk is usually low on fish. If I sail there, I'll try to buy some cheaply elsewhere. If it's completely out of fish, the price will be 700, so I know I can make a profit if I can buy it for maybe 450-550. Worst case I'll get all of my money back, or I can just sail to Torun and sell it there instead. One of the two towns will usually be low on fish.

Then there are goods that are always in demand. Iron Goods, skins, cloth.

Later in the game, when I set up my auto-trade routes, I use the Market Hall. I typically reach the wiki prices naturally, without checking anything.