How to export?

[Emelio Lizardo]

Running a -8000$ deficit (apparently the creditors don't care) but I don't seem to understand how to make money. When messengers show up I try to fulfill their demand but I can't tell if anything is actually sent fulfill that order.

The only consequence so far of running a deficit seems to be I can't hire messengers.

What is the proper way to set up sales?

[Mobscene]

All you do is make the deal. Set the amount you want to sell and the messenger from the other town sends a wagon to pick it up.

You need to have worker(s) there to load it, and the items there to be loaded.

That's pretty much it.

[Emelio Lizardo]

Does it matter if some of the order is in wearhouses or in the trade depo?

[Mobscene]

Not sure about that. I generally only do the trade for stuff I have in the trade building.

[Cat on Linux]

Originally posted by Emelio Lizardo:

Does it matter if some of the order is in wearhouses or in the trade depo?

you have to haul all required goods to trade post. if your order says "8000 sunflower oil" you need to have 8000 units at the trade post (for land or for water trade you use different trade posts, so make sure to check which town is that) and you need to have available workers to ship it manually when the cart/boat arrives. better to have fully staffed trade post because workers tend to wander to haul goods or need to rest. least you can have is 3 workers out of 4 (even then you risk to miss ~20% of cargoes).

[Trim]

You can tell whether it was actually exported or not by looking at the economy screen. There is a pair of columns for exports (last year and this year to date).

All the goods need to be in the trading post (or trading port for export by boat).

You need at least one worker in the trading post. It used to be that wagons waited for a very short time and you needed two or three workers in the trading post to make sure you did not miss a wagon arriving, but in my recent games I've just had the one worker. However, I have turned on all the other resource supply options as well, so my worker isn't always fetching stuff.

[Emelio Lizardo]

Really need to either have workers automatically move needed goods to the trading post or simply dispense with the distinction. It is unjustified drudgery.

[Cat on Linux]

Originally posted by Emelio Lizardo:

Really need to either have workers automatically move needed goods to the trading post or simply dispense with the distinction. It is unjustified drudgery.

what do you mean? you have option to hire haulers if there's anything to haul. what else do you need? you just have to tick one checkbox to make it happen.

[Cat on Linux]

Originally posted by Trim:

in my recent games I've just had the one worker. However, I have turned on all the other resource supply options as well, so my worker isn't always fetching stuff.

lucky you :) I had bad luck adding eggs to the list. my workers had to spend all their working time on carrying 7-10 eggs across the whole map. even 3 of them had very little help to service carts. their availability will greatly depend on trading list and if any haulers available to help.

[Emelio Lizardo]

It means I have to manually move stuff around, which is silly. The trading post should draw the necessary goods to it from all sources as needed without my intervention.

[Cat on Linux]

Originally posted by Emelio Lizardo:

It means I have to manually move stuff around, which is silly. The trading post should draw the necessary goods to it from all sources as needed without my intervention.

you don't have to move manually. explanation:

1. you want to sell few goods at land trade post. sunflower oil, coal and clothes.
2. you hire 3 workers, open hauling settings and tick everything including workers, carts.
3. most important part that will set your goods to be hauled - set list of goods you want to sell. in our case you set 3 types of goods: sunflower oil 8000, coal 8000 clothes 1000. you set it by pressing + in trade post.
leave icon blue that will mean this is ongoing trading offer so your haulers will maintain the max quantity at all times (you sold 4000 of coal, they immediately start to haul 4000 to keep it at 8000). if you want to sell only once use red icon so no new goods will be hauled once you sold it.

[Trim]

Originally posted by Emelio Lizardo:

It means I have to manually move stuff around, which is silly. The trading post should draw the necessary goods to it from all sources as needed without my intervention.

It does but you need to set what you want first. In my current game, my trading post permanent list is
Charcoal 8000
Flour 1000
Sunflower Oil 3000
Salt 3000
Clothes 2000
Chicken Egg 3000
Salo 3000
There's often a temporary item as well, so at the moment I have 2000 Potato, not because anyone is asking for them but because I have a surplus clogging up my granaries.

I'll add shoes when I've got a good leather industry running, and I'll probably drop flour. I'm not entirely convinced that exporting clothes makes economic sense now at default wages, with the considerably increased tailoring times, but I'll carry on exporting clothes anyway till do the analysis.