Most profitable trade routes?

[Kind of Human]

I'm thinking of starting a new game as a Sarranid trader to try and make as much money as possible. I'm wondering how I should make my character, what I should do first, and the best trade routes I can do.

[Morbiusly a Beast]

I know Rivacheg typically has a lot of raw silk on the cheap side. Selling it to maybe Jelkala where velvet is produced could turn a good profit.

[Tuidjy]

A merchant has to be able to either travel very fast, or be able to fight reasonably well. Preferably both.

So you need high Path-Finding skill, decent Scouting, and a few extra horses in your inventory to counteract your trading goods. Also, you probably do not want too many non-mounted troops, if any at all.

For the fighting... you need some player skills. Some people can take on 50 bandits with 8 companions, but those skills come with experience.

As for the best route... For years, I have been using Charisma as a dump stat in Native. As in, I have not put a single point in it, and my last few characters have all been Charisma 7, Leadership 4 charmless brutes or eggheads. But before that, around 2015, the best trade route was a circle starting in the Nord lands and going something like this:

Vikingland
- buy salt and linen
-sell (S)Iron, (H)Spice, (W)Velvet and (W)Flax

Slavlands
- buy Iron and Silk
- sell (V)Salt, (V)Linen, (H)Spice, and (W)Velvet

Horselands (Khergits and Sarranids)
- buy Spice, Dyes, Salt, and Linen
- sell (S)Iron

Westernlands (Rhodocks and Swadians)
- buy Velvet and Flax
- sell (H)Spice, (H) Dyes, (S) Silk, (V) Salt, (V) Linen

And then you do it again. For best results, fight in tournaments, save lords from imprisonment, clear bandit infestations and lairs, and kill any outlaws.

But personally, if you do all of the above and only trade occasionally, you'll do just as well, and travel much faster.

[ricklong]

My issue with trade in native is that the towns only have so much cash to spend.

That said, while doing the route, check villages that source towns because often they will have some inventory and will sell it even cheaper. Pay attention because for some goods villages will pay full price, so you can use that to offset the cost of whatever they are selling. This comes in particularly handy at Dashbigha and Dusturil.

[Happyscientist]

Buy grain at Dhirim and its villages and sell pretty much anywhere else

[beThePaladin]

I created a spreadsheet simplifying what to buy and sell in each city, I hope it helps

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18UdWQyj0gXu3Pp4GaM2DtuGQS9aCC2mzZy_xWW_nAIA/edit?usp=sharing

[livin']

theres a good guide on steam in top rated but the general route is buy wine from sargoth, go to wercheg buy salt, sell salt in rivacheg and buy raw silk(until you have a dyeworks in the city), buy iron from curaw's villages, maybe buy tools in curaw if they're cheap enough(can't remember where to sell iron and tools), head down to ichamur buy spice and salt if you it's a good price, buy salt and spice from tulga, go to barriye buying any cheap dates or dyes you find in villages along the way, you can prob sell wine in barriye, buy spice maybe salt not sure, while in the rest of the sarranid region continue to buy dyes and dates from villages you pass, go to ahmerrad and sell wine, salt and spice(note don't offload all spice and salt in one city since the price drops with every one you sell and those two are high value goods), go to durquba, same deal sell salt wine and spice, buy dyes and dates, go to shariz and it's the same. IF you have a decent size army, good inventory management and good map speed you could also buy pottery for very cheap throughout sarranid region but note it's heavy and lower value so high percentage profit but each one isn't going to net you a whole lot, just do it if you have extra space and it won't kill your map speed. next go towards jelkala while checking it's villages for cheap silk(hit or miss if it's cheap), buy a velvet from jelakla, sell the more high value goods(salt and spice, you should be able to sell these anywhere left on the route by this point), buy wine from veluca, only go to yalen if you want to offload more goods and buy some cheese and grapes in large amounts from it's villages, go to if you went to yalen you'll go west to east for these next 4 cities if you didn't it's just backwards for the next 4, go to praven sell goods, buy ale if it's cheap, buy ale from suno sell goods, uxkhal can have cheap grain so grab some if you need it for traveling but not much else of note there so just sell what you want, go towards dhrim, on your way buy grain for extremely cheap from it's villages to sell/use for village quests/feed your army, go to dhrim buy bread for extremely cheap(the bread and grain in this route give decent morale with just the 2 and have low cost so it's great to keep morale and avoid starving). now you head back sargoth and repeat.

if you want another non-fief related method of money making you can become a slave merchant/bandit kidnapper, grab a horse, buy a sledgehammer or two handed iron mace, hire any manhunter prisoners you save(they use blunt, pretty sure upgraded tiers do too), give your companions blunt weapons and hunt small groups of sea raiders and gradually go for larger groups. The loot they give is also pretty valuable.

buy a weavery and dyeworks as soon as you have 10k in rivacheg(you'll have to do like 2 or 3 favors for the initial lord since he starts out with -3 relationship with you)

[dejvid221h]

Check out the Saranid villages as they often sell dates, pottery and dyes at absurdly low prices. And you might gain some honor as if you check a bunch of villages is likely that one will have a bandit infestation that needs clearing.

[Mooselager]

Selling futa potions yields the greatest results

[Wizard of Woz]

Originally posted by Tuidjy:

A merchant has to be able to either travel very fast, or be able to fight reasonably well. Preferably both.

So you need high Path-Finding skill, decent Scouting, and a few extra horses in your inventory to counteract your trading goods. Also, you probably do not want too many non-mounted troops, if any at all.

For the fighting... you need some player skills. Some people can take on 50 bandits with 8 companions, but those skills come with experience.

As for the best route... For years, I have been using Charisma as a dump stat in Native. As in, I have not put a single point in it, and my last few characters have all been Charisma 7, Leadership 4 charmless brutes or eggheads. But before that, around 2015, the best trade route was a circle starting in the Nord lands and going something like this:

Vikingland
- buy salt and linen
-sell (S)Iron, (H)Spice, (W)Velvet and (W)Flax

Slavlands
- buy Iron and Silk
- sell (V)Salt, (V)Linen, (H)Spice, and (W)Velvet

Horselands (Khergits and Sarranids)
- buy Spice, Dyes, Salt, and Linen
- sell (S)Iron

Westernlands (Rhodocks and Swadians)
- buy Velvet and Flax
- sell (H)Spice, (H) Dyes, (S) Silk, (V) Salt, (V) Linen

And then you do it again. For best results, fight in tournaments, save lords from imprisonment, clear bandit infestations and lairs, and kill any outlaws.

But personally, if you do all of the above and only trade occasionally, you'll do just as well, and travel much faster.

How do you mention the skills to take without mentioning the Trading skill?

[Danny]

Early game in the villages around Dhirim you can buy EXTREMELY cheap grain.
Like between 1 and 4 denars.