Amber in Africa and other Nonsense

[everybody's darling]

Hello dears,

first I have to say, that TLR is my favourite M2-Mod - for the moment at least. But what does amber (as tradeble good) do in anatolia oder middle east? And why is it possible to recruit mercenary-units from the renaissance in the year 1100? I find this a little strange.

kind regards,
everybody's darling

[Ketzerfreund]

Indeed.

And spices in England. What could English spices possibly provide to make it interesting for traders?

Some other trade resources are placed weirdly, too.
This needs to be looked into. Somehow the concentration of certain goods in certain regions look kind of lost.


-Der Ketzerfreund.

[Xeno_cws]

Maybe spices represents tea there?

[Condottiere SOG]

Maybe spices represents tea there?

But tea(the popular kinds-not herbals mainly used for medicine) was only mainly established after a treaty with China many centuries later

[everybody's darling]

The point is: No one looks for amber in Anatolia. So what's next? Ivory in Lithuania instead of amber?

[Irishmafia2020]

Maybe the placement of certain resources represents trading interests rather than exclusively the resources themselves. For example, the English may have specialized in trading spices (from elsewhere) throughout Northern Europe, rather than growing them in England. That's just a theory...

[Ketzerfreund]

Maybe, but in this game specializing on certain resources means sending more merchants to them than to others.

What makes your theory less likely to be true is, that I can't imagine who in anatolia ever specialized on amber to make it historically noteworthy.

Tea... good joke. But seriously, if one trading resource should represent another one, then it should just be another one or the monopoly-aspect of trading in Med2 is damaged. It would still function, of course, but it would feel weird.

And it does feel weird having to send merchants down to anatolia and the middle east for establishing the monopoly on amber, to stick to this example.

Be it as it may, I would still like to see trading resources placed on the map in a way that makes sense.


-Der Ketzerfreund.

[Ludicus]

Maybe the placement of certain resources represents trading interests rather than exclusively the resources themselves. For example, the English may have specialized in trading spices (from elsewhere) ...

Until 1500,from Venese;after 1500,from Portugal,and Portugal from India.

From Seyfert:

As to spices not all spices come from the far east,

The one thing that pepper, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, ginger, saffron, and a whole series of other spices had in common was their non-European origin. They all came from the Far East.

From Xeno_CWS:

Maybe spices represents tea there?

(England)

From China the Portuguese took to Europe, tea - it was introduced to England by Catherine of Bragança,on her marriage to King Charles II.

[Ketzerfreund]

There is Ivory up in Scotland and/or Scandinavia, as far as I can remember.
I guess it is meant to resemble Whalebones/Walrusteeth. I'd rather see it taken out and let ivory be ivory and make it possible to establish a monopoly on it by searching the respective places and not some other place which offers an actually different product.

The placement of resources needs some kind of consistency, and that is, where this mod lacks severely, I'm afraid.

But that's nothing that can't be fixed, of course, so let's just wait for the next version...

-Der Ketzerfreund.

[everybody's darling]

There is Ivory up in Scotland and/or Scandinavia, as far as I can remember.

Mother of god! Enough!

And what about the fact, that in TLR units from later periods are available in 1100? Why create a superb modifikation like TLR and then include such obvious Mistakes? That's a real shame. Well, let us hope for the next version that will hopefully include Genoa instead of Milan too.

And please, someone take a look at the harbor of Constantinople and reset it directly underneath the Settlement. It looks horrible, when the merchant-ships sail into the black-sea, just to reach Constantinople.

[XDex9]

Does monopolizing a resource really add to its value? I always just sent my merchants to the one that gave him the most profit/turn (regardless of type) and had him sit there until he died. If monopolizing a resource really adds a bonus, I'll have to do that. And do you have to be sitting on each and every one of those, or is it just a cumulative effect. It'd be painful if I had to find each and every grain resource in the game!

XDex9

[seyfert]

Mother of god! Enough!

And what about the fact, that in TLR units from later periods are available in 1100? Why create a superb modifikation like TLR and then include such obvious Mistakes? That's a real shame. Well, let us hope for the next version that will hopefully include Genoa instead of Milan too.

And please, someone take a look at the harbor of Constantinople and reset it directly underneath the Settlement. It looks horrible, when the merchant-ships sail into the black-sea, just to reach Constantinople.

Actually a perfectly valid comment, and correct. Ivory is not, and has never been, solely from elephants. As to spices not all spices come from the far east, this is the 11th century there were plenty of local versions, not everyone went to Waitrose and bought the latest Chinese allspice. Salt is a spice too remember?

Amber could just as easily represent precious and semi precious gems.

BTW there are two redundant spices, tobacco and chocolate. Could they be re-used to vary the current tableau?

[Ketzerfreund]

But that's exactly how monopolys work. Put a merchant on every resource of one kind. That gives every merchant the according trait adding to his skill. Never accomplished that myself, I had just found that trait in descr_character_traits.txt.

As far as I know you are also supposed to get more out of each resource belonging to that monopoly.

-Der Ketzerfreund.

[Irishmafia2020]

It would be easier to monopolize a rare resource like gold than a common one like grain or fish I think... Of course you can always use the old exploit wherin you place a fort on the resource and then nobody else can use it while you can pack up to twenty merchants into the fort... but that would of course be cheating!

[Ketzerfreund]

We all (hopefully) know that ivory is not solely from elephants. What I talk about, however, is the impact of the resources' placement on the map on the game mechanics.

Go on and place invory in the north, but still, make it a different product!
Same for spices in England, although I still doubt that any English spice has ever been relevant enough to justify it being represented in the game at all.

Local goods are represented in the game as, well, local goods. Check the trading details of some of the provinces in the game.

And salt would actually deserve to be a resource on it's own in the game. A valuable one, that is. After all, whole wars have been fought just for salt.

No resource in the game should "represent" another one (I mean your amber example) - we are talking about historically relevant(!) resources. That's why a resource like goods not represented on the map exists in the game, after all.

-Der Ketzerfreund.

[seyfert]

Ivory is still ivory so no I think having the resource available at some point in the north is justified.

As to spices this is a very generic term that covers everything and anything used to make food palatable, it is in fact really the only 'generic' resource. AFAIK all the others refer to a specific resource (gold, tin et al) I have no problem with amber covering semi precious stones, less so in fact than silk deposits everywhere.

I suspect the main problem is that the game doesn't really possess enough slots to give a better flavour.

[everybody's darling]

Amber could just as easily represent precious and semi precious gems.

In this case any further discussion is obsolete... and after all the ivory-item in the game doesn't look like from a spermwhale. Sorry, with such arguments you're out of the game.

We all (hopefully) know that ivory is not solely from elephants.

Thank you.

No resource in the game should "represent" another one (I mean your amber example) - we are talking about historically relevant(!) resources. That's why a resource like goods not represented on the map exists in the game, after all.

Thank you.

[Gigantus]

If you want to get reasonable profit out of the merchants you need the high value resources far away from your capital. Having ivory next to London and sending an English merchant to Timbuktu wouldn't make much sense.
Examples: wool in England, wine in France and Italy, spices around the Baghdad region, silver in Iberia.
Grain shouldn't be area specific as it seems to increase the food resources\growth rate.

I did some sorting for 'Pro Deo Et Rege' and utilized the dog and camel resource as glass and olive oil respectively (still haven't got the proper cas files for them though). Adjusted the tool tips and the icon in the city trading screen to reflect the change.

Point is: stop complaining, it can be changed easily.

[Freedom]

Personally, I'd rather see spice in London if it means the AI will have a better economy than make everything be perfectly accurate, but having sugar in Vilnius or other major goofs is stupid.