Is trade still viable?

[yarnosh]

Hey, I am only 16 hours into the game (several restarts) and I'm finding the trade guides to be not very useful. First I found: http://zemalf.blogspot.com/2011/04/mount-blade-warband-trading-guide.html But I think that's outdated. I couldn't find goods under/over those buy/sell prices. I might find something close the maximum buy price, but when I'd go to sell, I'd never get anywhere near the sell price that I am supposed to in the specified towns. Profits were meager, at best. Hardly worth the effort. Especially when I can only buy 3, maybe 4 units, at most even in towns. I might buy Tools for 383, and the best sell price I could get anywhere would be 396 or so. But the guide says 380/450. I could find places selling tools for 450+, but they woudl never buy at that rate.

Then I found updated wiki page (2013) http://strategywiki.org/wiki/Mount%26Blade/Trade which has slightly different information. But still not accurate. For example, it says Ichamur always has salt for cheap. It had NONE. I found like one unit in a surrounding village (for an OK price, but not amazing). Tulga was supposed to produce spice, it had NONE. So I went all the way from Nord territory to Khergit for nothing.

My party has a combined Trade skill of 4, BTW. Dunno how much that affects things.

Has trade been completely nerfed in more recent versions? It seems like the only way to make any real money early on is to farm Sea Raiders for gear and slaves. Which works, but I am surprised there aren't more paths to make the thousands of denar needed to buy land for regular income. I haven't tried being a mercenary and raiding enemy villages because I've never been able to catch the King in his castle to talk to him.

Is there a more up to date trade guide? Or should I be relying on the ingame marketplace trends and not external guides and known trade routes?

[G. Alexander]

I don't think that trading is viable. I tried doing it before and got nowhere.

[Seal Enthusiast]

Just buy spice and raw silk in Rivacheg, tulga and Ichamur and sell it to the people of suno and praven, Insta gold rush.

[Mr Chill Chill]

You have to try and find better deals on goods, that's all. Once you start buying things from small villages, these villages will begin to accumulate some $$$, where you can then start selling them goods in return for cheap food and other supplies. I also believe that the more you do business with villages, the more goods they can offer you in the future.

Playing a WFAS campaign right now, and if the prices are similar, then the prices I would recommend are as follows.....

Tools<250
Oil<250
Fresh Meats<50
Dried Meat<50
Flax<100
beer/ale<50
wine<50
Hides<50
Butter<90
Iron<150
Pottery<50
Hemp<50
Furs<225
Bread, cheese, applies<30
Salt<150
Spices<600
Velvet<800

Typically cities or forts that are being sieged will pay more for some items, and you can easily quadruple your $$$ with some of the smaller goods like fresh meats. Just make sure that you write down or remember which city has very good prices. Same goes for villages.

[Darth Cannabis]

You also need to keep in mind, prices will change based on trade you do. All guides are eaqually flawed, in that it changes game from game based on what YOU do. If your trading lots of one good to one location, you will drive prices down. Nothing is set in stone. Every villager you see traveling on the map, effects trade. Thus the only way to truly succeed at trade is to have your main or a companion with the Trade skill. This allows you to more effectively checkprices from city to city. ANY guide you look at is invalid after say 50 days into game, much less 100 on.

If your main or a companion has a decently leveled Trade skill, then you should have noproblems. The trade based character has by far the greatest income amongst my mains, especially after settimg up businessed in 5 to 6 towns.

[yarnosh]

Originally posted by renault5216:

Just buy spice and raw silk in Rivacheg, tulga and Ichamur and sell it to the people of suno and praven, Insta gold rush.

Honestly haven't seen much spice. And only a couple raw silk here and there. Certainly not enough to make any real money.

Originally posted by Starchild:

You have to try and find better deals on goods, that's all. Once you start buying things from small villages, these villages will begin to accumulate some $$$, where you can then start selling them goods in return for cheap food and other supplies. I also believe that the more you do business with villages, the more goods they can offer you in the future.

The prices are often so BAD though in villages for anyting but their main product. Most of the time they just dont' have the main product. I would lose money doing what you say. And I'd never be able to build up funds to buy the real stuff I want to trade.

What "other supplies" do you mean? A trade caravan needs so little food. I dont' need anything villages have.

Originally posted by Starchild:

Tools<250
Oil<250

I have NEVER seend prices like this. Never. Not even close. Tools never go below 380 from what I've seen. Same with OIl.

Do you have some mod that changes trade prices?

[yarnosh]

So, I have seemingly conflicting advice. One person says I can just do a bunch of trades in silk and spice and get rich. But another person says that I will just drive the price down if I do this.

What's a "decently leveled" traded skill? Is 4 good? If a trade had you going cross the continent, do you really take that journey to move 4 units of something?

And what do you do about levelling your character if you mostly trade?

[Seal Enthusiast]

Originally posted by yarnosh:

Originally posted by renault5216:

Just buy spice and raw silk in Rivacheg, tulga and Ichamur and sell it to the people of suno and praven, Insta gold rush.

Honestly haven't seen much spice. And only a couple raw silk here and there. Certainly not enough to make any real money.

Originally posted by Starchild:

You have to try and find better deals on goods, that's all. Once you start buying things from small villages, these villages will begin to accumulate some $$$, where you can then start selling them goods in return for cheap food and other supplies. I also believe that the more you do business with villages, the more goods they can offer you in the future.

The prices are often so BAD though in villages for anyting but their main product. Most of the time they just dont' have the main product. I would lose money doing what you say. And I'd never be able to build up funds to buy the real stuff I want to trade.

What "other supplies" do you mean? A trade caravan needs so little food. I dont' need anything villages have.

Originally posted by Starchild:

Tools<250
Oil<250

I have NEVER seend prices like this. Never. Not even close. Tools never go below 380 from what I've seen. Same with OIl.

Do you have some mod that changes trade prices?

How long have you been playing? Prices will go down with time, they get this way after a in-game month or so

[Seal Enthusiast]

Originally posted by yarnosh:

So, I have seemingly conflicting advice. One person says I can just do a bunch of trades in silk and spice and get rich. But another person says that I will just drive the price down if I do this.

What's a "decently leveled" traded skill? Is 4 good? If a trade had you going cross the continent, do you really take that journey to move 4 units of something?

And what do you do about levelling your character if you mostly trade?

To gain levels partake in tourments, 4<x is good is a good trade skill, and have patience.

[yarnosh]

Originally posted by renault5216:

Just buy spice and raw silk in Rivacheg, tulga and Ichamur and sell it to the people of suno and praven, Insta gold rush.

Something is wrong with my game (Diplomacy mod) then because I just cannot make any money this way. There were about 6-7 silk in Rivacheg, just buying 3 jacked the price WAY up. So i stopped at 4. I ended up LOSING money by selling it Suno and broke even in Praven. This is a new game. I'm about 30 days in. Trade doesn't work. I'm done with it. THis is a ridiculous waste of time.

[Fane]

Yeah, I have diplomacy mod and trading isnt viable in my game. I found it better to just loot the sea raider and set up my first brewery/ironwork at Curaw and try t swindle lords to get money for Rivacheg. Once u get Rivacheng's Dyework up and running, it snowballs from there. It when i usually join a faction and fight for them/

[yarnosh]

Originally posted by iKhan, King of the Andals:

Yeah, I have diplomacy mod and trading isnt viable in my game. I found it better to just loot the sea raider and set up my first brewery/ironwork at Curaw and try t swindle lords to get money for Rivacheg. Once u get Rivacheng's Dyework up and running, it snowballs from there. It when i usually join a faction and fight for them/

What do you mean by swindle lords? I want to do that!

[Sohei]

Diplomacy can seriously mess up trading. You can modify this to some degree in the mod options menu to minimize the economy changes.

[Sohei]

Originally posted by yarnosh:

What do you mean by swindle lords? I want to do that!

Embezzlement. Do a tax collection quest then keep all the money for yourself and let the quest fail. You will create a debt with that lord and he won't like you but it can be a good way for some quick cash in the early game.

[luigimcloud]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=327231975

[White Knight]

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=835752135

Guides that try to tell you what items are going to be in which markets for set prices are all wrong. The markets fluctuate, it's variable. Certain goods have a tendency to be available in certain places, like spices in Tulga, for example.

My guide was written recently and I've been enjoying playing as a traveling merchant in many games for thousands of hours. It might be a lot to read, it might not be pretty to look at (the ship's guide has pictures) but the information is excellent and up to date. I'd say it's the best guide out there from a player's perspective, but then I'm biased. There is one from a developer's perspective that has a lot of detailed information that I don't have access to.

The trick to guides is to look around. Take the best from each one and you might get somewhere. Believe everything you read and you'll be having some problems.

As for the spice thing, unfortunately I agree. I think some recent updates or patches or whatever (obviously not a developer) nerfed the economy slightly. Spice was difficult to find, only showed up in low quantities and the prices were evened out - more to buy, less to sell. Still, the profits on spices are the best in the game and it will always be worthwhile making the trip to Khergit lands to get some more.