Trading system.

[Wiseus]

Hello guys! First of all, I would like to thanks the great team that made up this superb mod, witch recreate my interest at Rome 2, from a total degradation of the pathetic vanila.

But, back to the topic.

Could, someone explain for me, how is the trade system works? It is depending on the recourses, game difficulty, diplomatic affairs or something?

We're jump to head to head campaign at very hard( it is really very hard DeI is as hardcore as it should be) with a friend of mine as a Massaltia and Pergamon in the idea of creating Empires from small hellenic colony and then struggle in the fight for Homeland - the Hellas.

But, we face a problem: no-one want to trade up with us. We checked in single for Roma and arabs, in different difficulties, the is no such a problems. But for Pergamon and Massaltia there is in any difficulty!

However for us the trade agreement status is always low, even when we get 2-3-4 tipes of resources, even with very good affairs with other factions.

The only way we could establish the trade is for dealing some horrible agreements, like I'll join all wars, pay 5000 to you and only for that you'll trade with me. That is horrible. 2-3 generals with diplomatic skills helps a bit, but neverless it is very hard to get an agreement even with our culture brothers.

Maybe there is some other way to establish trade routes, other that in other TW? I require some help from the experienced mod players. Thank you!

[Dresden]

Usually you have to try to establish some sort of relationship first, either a non-aggression pact or gifts. Also, if you don't have any desired resources it is hard to get a trade agreement.

[Wiseus]

Usually you have to try to establish some sort of relationship first, either a non-aggression pact or gifts. Also, if you don't have any desired resources it is hard to get a trade agreement.

Thank you for fast answer! However, I need to know, why is the problem appears only for greek colniys? I just can't get it. For exaple, to test I started(on very hight) right now for the Araveni and make trade agreement with Massalia. Massalia payed 1500 for training agreement. But brothers-celts don't want to trade or do want for giving me some money. If I'll play as Massalia, Araveni don't want to trade.

I see no logical explanation for that. May I knew some kind of formula that is suited to the trade? Is that CA idea or some regularity form DeI? Could you please add some information about trade and diplomacy to the great mod manual?

[Ravenhaart]

I started quite a few campaigns as a Massalia (on Hard usually) and also found it difficult to find a trading partner (a bit easier on Normal) but that is basically true for any faction that starts with only one region and has no resource or a very common one. However when I, as Massalia, take the Arverni home region and get a firm grip on the Gold I rarely get any refusal when proposing Trade Agreement, if only relations are at least close to neutral. Many factions even started to propose to trade with me by their own! I could easily trade with entire Medditerean if I wanted to.

I can hardly tell the precise formula, but I believe it is based mostly on all these things: player resources, relations with the particular faction and difficulty level. There may be even more like distance between capitals (as it seems to slightly increase the tariff income?) and player faction power related to the particular faction power (the bar on the diplo screen) but these have probably minor influence, if any at all.

[rjacko10]

trading follows a snowball effect.

like Dresden says, the more resources you have the more factions want to trade. however additionally the larger you are (to an extent) the more they want good relations with you, and trade is a good way to get good relations.

so don't worry about trade straight away, get a couple of provinces then start it'll be easy.

[Wiseus]

I appreciate all answers! However, I must admin that the main core of my question is not "I can't trade", the question is "why do trade works that way", why did factions just don't want to get benefits form free trade with each and everyone and extra benefits form the resources. Maybe the problem is, that my language skills in poor.

So, I tested trade 3 times (at hard and very hard difficulties) for little factions and there is common situation for most of them: 95% of other faction have got a "low" chance and faction with cultural affinity have got "moderate" to getting trade agreement right from start.

I hired 2 fleets to sail across the Mediterranean to explore factions and get agreements, owning just 1 or no resources.

I tried 2 ways of getting the covenants:

1) By diplomacy: entering the wars with far-far away(or close to end enemys) of future trade partners.
2) By giving gold to them.

1st option is free, that is a major plus, however, you're haveing huge diplomatic problems in the future, becouse of the relations with others, that could be affected by the wars.

2ed option is superb, becouse all cultury-close factions can be "seduced to trade" just for 1500-3000 gold, and others for 3000-5000. It's qute a lot, especially at the beginning, but, you'll get it back for 10-50 turns and then - pure profit, but the good plus into the treasury right away (if the faction still exist).


Fighting for recoures( I guess we need 4-5 or some of rare) or growing huge to have good trading chances is unprofitable. Ignoring the trade opportunities we're loosing more gold, that we could get from one Mediterranean trade trip with gifts for the trade. Just for 30 turns for Massaltia I got ~ 5000 from trade, having only one source of olive oil. Every new resource increase that sum. And with that it'll be easey to get a couple of provinces. Also I had great reletions with Araveni(very friendly) and even millitary alliance, but they don't want to trade, untill 3000 gold coins.

Hence, I'd like to make a conclusion:

There is just 2 pillars of trade:

- diplomatic relations
- recourses

More recourses you got, less good relations you need (or money, to establish them).

Your power or size doesn't matter, cause bigger size = more resources and, maybe, better relations with some factions.

So, the trade system works just like in the ***** life: the more (gold you invest) the better (profit you'll get).