TLR v1.9 Beta - Trade and Resources Discussion

[Averroës]

The resources do need some work. Here is the current distribution of resources in TLR 1.9 beta 5, by number of uses.

timber 72
iron 50
furs 42
silk 29
wine 26
dyes 24
cotton 22
slaves 21
sugar 21
wool 21
silver 19
sulfur 16
amber 10
coal 10
fish 10
gold 8
grain 8
marble 7
tin 6
textiles 5
tobacco 4
ivory 3
chocolate 2

Total 436

Clearly it needs some work. Does anyone actually put a merchant on timber? It can be cut down. Furs too. Iron is probably a bit overdone. And silk.

And spices are missing. Salt was one of the most valuable resources in medieval Europe, often being worth more than gold. Frederick Barbarossa's family grew rich and powerful in Swabia because of its control over most of the salt mines. The search for better trade routes to the eastern spices in general instigated the great Portuguese and Spanish naval explorations of the 15th century and sent Marco Polo east as well.

There are a total possible of just 199 provinces, yes? Even if every one was a town and had a grain exchange, that's still only 199 possible merchants on the map in the most extreme circumstance. To me, then, 436 resources seems a bit much. Maybe a compromise in between somewhere.

Right now, I'm researching medieval sources for the main exporting regions for each. I'm finding all manner of useful information, such as dyes - especially Polish cochineal, an insect which produces a vivid red dye - which were the leading export of Poland and Lithuania in the 15th century. Or that sugar cane was introduced early by the Moors into Spain and was produced near Lisbon and Seville. Scandinavia was a leading exporter of sea ivory - ivory from large sea mammals like walrus and whalebone traded to them from the Finns further north, and the Hanseatic League trade in that type of ivory directly competed the Italian monopoly on African and Indian ivory trade leading to much contention between the two great merchant powers.

Fun stuff. Typically, I'll end up losing myself in all this and come out the other side in a few days with an utterly useless knowledge of something only marginally related but which was highly engrossing. Heh.

[tornnight]

I like the idea of more exclusive resources. Makes trade agreements more important as well.

[Lopus]

Is it just me or is there a boost if you control ALL the sources of a certain resource?

[Averroës]

Is it just me or is there a boost if you control ALL the sources of a certain resource?

If you control all of a resource in a province then you seem to get the Monopolist trait line - capitalist, etc.

It's the Trigger Agent33. But what a "TradingMonopoly" is must be buried somewhere in the packed data.

[Averroës]

That was my thinking. Things like amber and ivory had very specific locales. Marble can be limited to those areas famous for a particular type, like Penteli marble from near Athens, Macael marble from east of Granada, Proconnesus marble from the isle in the Sea of Marmara (make it mid-Anatolian coast of Marmara), and Carrara marble from between Florence and Genoa.

[Lopus]

Hmm, never noticed or heard of such a thing. That would be neat.

Definitely, I sent merchants to the three ivory locales, accompanied by armies so that they become part of my extended Danish empire. At first, I was only earning about 200 florins, but when I got to the last one, they jumped to 950 florins (my best merchant @ 7 stars) and 650 florins (my next to best merchants @ 5 stars). Take note, the 200 florins thing was from my best merchant.

That was my thinking. Things like amber and ivory had very specific locales. Marble can be limited to those areas famous for a particular type, like Penteli marble from near Athens, Macael marble from east of Granada, Proconnesus marble from the isle in the Sea of Marmara (make it mid-Anatolian coast of Marmara), and Carrara marble from between Florence and Genoa.

Well if you are doing the resources, I guess I'll take the slack with the titles thing. Although I'll just reuse the BBB shields because I have absolutely zero ability to draw (even on a computer). Although I think my platter designs are nice (but that's food).

[Averroës]

Well if you are doing the resources, I guess I'll take the slack with the titles thing. Although I'll just reuse the BBB shields because I have absolutely zero ability to draw (even on a computer). Although I think my platter designs are nice (but that's food).

Works for me. After the resources, I'll see about finding a way to extend the heraldy shields for the new settlements. Dearmad appears to have used many town coats of arms, so it seems reasonable to keep that trend. The trick will be figuring out how to make them into the .tga files of the right size and palette. Not sure I can do that any better than you. I'm at the 2-year old with crayon level when it comes to computer graphics.

[tornnight]

Hmm, never noticed or heard of such a thing. That would be neat.

[Lopus]

Hahaha, well, I guess being "more experienced" does have some side benefits though, I've time to NOT work if I don't feel like it.

Okay, I'll try to upload an updated BBB for TLR within the next few days. I think it's time to use up some of my accumulated vacation leave, since I'm already at 60++ days of it.

[tornnight]

Hmm, maybe we should ask some of the folks at Deus Lo Vult. They have some nice ones they are developing.

There was someone who offered to help with graphics. Can't seem to find the post.

[tornnight]

Great news, acegogo has offered to help with the graphics.

I'm going to start yet another thread dedicated to titles and ancillaries.

[Averroës]

Wonderful! That means I can concentrate on my strong point, which is basically not doing much but complaining loudly. We must all go with our strengths!

Actually though, I should have a decent first draft of a possible resource restructuring by the end of the weekend. I definitely need to get it done before SxSW starts, when I'll be going without sleep for the entire week of live music and partying here.

[Lopus]

SxSW???

What's that?

On topic: What new resources are you considering?

[Averroës]

South by Southwest music, film and interactive festival. Austin has lots of clubs with live music, we call it the "Live Music Capital of the World" because it has more live music clubs 7 nights a week than any other city in the world. Every year for the last 20, SxSW has hosted an international live music conference, with bands from all over the world playing 30-45 minute "showcases" over 4 days. Draws music industry people and celebrities (bah) from all over the world. Pete Townsend of The Who will be the keynote speaker this year at the opening banquet/party. Over 1300 bands will have showcases this year. Can't see them all; but from 4pm-2am every night from the 14th to the 18th, I can see a lot of them! And the independent film festival and interactive festival start on the 9th. Great time to see music and films I wouldn't otherwise get to see; but sleep will be a distant memory by the end of that week.

On the resources, I hadn't thought about including new ones. Jut redistributing the existing ones, reducing the number of mostly useless timber and fur spots, and bringing back spices because they were so very important to the economies of the Middle Ages.

Should I just try to redistribute them for 1-2 per province with maybe a 3rd near the really important cities? Or should I clump them together more creating areas of high value with 2-4 resources while some towns get nothing? What does everyone, especially Tornnight, think?

Oh, and getting the monopoly trait doesn't seem to require a monopoly. Last night, playing Milan, I shipped my first and only merchant off to one of the silver mines near Cagliari. Withing a few turns he picked up the first in the monopolist line, capitalist. He ended up getting all the way to the third level. At the time, he was my only merchant and he was sitting on one of two of the same resource. I can't figure it out. Perhaps the TradingMonopoly trigger which is buried somewhere in the files is based on being the one merchant on a particular resource type? Maybe my merchant was the only one on silver at the time. If so, then that makes timber and furs and such more useful. Use them to start the mopopolist trait line then move somewhere more lucrative. At some point, I should unpack the data files and try to figure it out.

[Lopus]

RE: Monopoly ... strange.
RE: S&SW ... nice.
RE: Resources ... spread out in logical placements would be my vote. But since torn is removing America (thus no access to chocolate) we could add more resources yes? What is the limit on number of resources anyway?

Speaking of resources, we might want to hold off because I remember seeing that in patch 1.2

Metallic Resource now support Mines

I'm not certain what that means, but it do sound interesting neh?

[tornnight]

Hmm more mines? More Money.

I think resources should be slightly more exclusive.

1. It would give more benefits to trade rights.
2. Merchants would be more interesting. It would be more of a challenge to
acquire the best resources.

I don't think provinces should automatically get a resource. If the area was truely barren then, no resource for you!

I think the spread should be something like 0-3 with 3 resouces being for exceptional regions.
0 - Barren Region
1 - Average Region
2 - Developed Region
3 - Exceptional Region

What do you think?

[Averroës]

Hmm more mines? More Money.

I think resources should be slightly more exclusive.

1. It would give more benefits to trade rights.
2. Merchants would be more interesting. It would be more of a challenge to
acquire the best resources.

I don't think provinces should automatically get a resource. If the area was truely barren then, no resource for you!

I think the spread should be something like 0-3 with 3 resouces being for exceptional regions.
0 - Barren Region
1 - Average Region
2 - Developed Region
3 - Exceptional Region

What do you think?

That is a sensible plan. I like the idea of having them grouped by type of region. Also, it would make someone thinking about a war against the the very rich, i.e. exceptional, regions have to consider the effects of losing trade rights which also lowers the money received from a resource in the province you're warring against. Since the really important trade centers at the time were all involved in the spice and silk route, that means lowering your income when you go to war against whomever owns Baghdad, Antioch, Cairo, Constantinople or the Italian end of the silk and spice route at Milan and Venice. This would make those 6 settlements part of the "Exceptional" regions.


My idea was to add spices back in, since they're already in vanilla and use them for all spice types, including salt. Some along the major cities of the spice trade route, which would be Baghdad, Cairo, Antioch, Constantinople, Venice, Milan. And some for the major centers of medieval salt production from mines (although many areas produced salt of some kind, along the sea shore). The major medieval salt mines would be near:

East of Zagreb - on the border with Hungary, SSW of Buda
Salzburg (of course, that's where the name comes from), Austria -between Innsbruck and Vienna
An-Salt, Jordan - between modern Amman and Jerusalem
Wieliczka, Poland - just east of Krackow (Wieliczka Salt Mine)
Halle, Germany - south of Magdeburg

On the mining, my impression of patch 1.2 was that the building of mines and improved mines would now apply to all metal types, not just gold and silver. So towns with iron, tin (and presumably lead which we aren't using in TLR) would now have the option of mining buildings.

If, at a later date, we add in some new resources, a good candidate is wax, which seems to have been one of the major Hanseatic trade resources from the far north to the south, and was one of the major sources of trade income for Scandinavia along with furs, fish, iron and sea ivory.

[Averroës]

Ok, here's the preliminary breakdown of resources. I haven't placed them yet, so no X-Y coords.

There are a total of 180 resources, not including those in the Americas which I'm leaving alone until they're removed from the map.
I made sure that every starting faction (of those we have so far) has at least one metal type - tin, gold, iron,
to take advantage of the change in patch 1.2 which allows mines to be built on all metals.

List of resources by type (not including the resources in America, which I'm not counting at all)

spices	19
grain	17
iron	13
tin	12
furs	11
wine	11
slaves	9
wool	9
textiles	8
amber	7
fish	7
gold	7
silk	7
silver	7
dyes	6
sugar	6
cotton	5
coal	4
ivory	4
marble	4
sulfur	4
timber	3

And here are the resources by settlement, from those with 3 down to those with 0 resources nearby:

		

These settlements are the major trade centers and have 3 resources nearby:
Alexandria	cotton	sugar	spices
Antioch	silk	cotton	spices
Baghdad	silk	sugar	spices
Bruges	textiles	fish	grain
Constantinople	silk	spices	dyes
Genoa	silk	dyes	spices
Novgorod	slaves	amber	furs
Venice	silk	spices	tin

The following settlements have 2 resources nearby:			
Adrianople	silk	grain
Arguin	ivory	iron
Arhus	amber	silver
Barcelona	textiles	grain
Bari	grain	textiles
Breslau	dyes	timber
Brindisi	wool	grain
Caernarvon	coal	tin
Cairo	sugar	tin
Cracow	iron	spices
Damascus	cotton	sugar
Dongola	slaves	ivory
Edinburgh	wool	tin
Florence	sulphur	marble
Hohenstauffen	timber	iron
Kiev	slaves	furs
London	wool	grain
Lubeck	amber	spices
Magdeburg	iron	spices
Marseille	silver	grain
Milan	wine	tin
Minsk	timber	furs
Nottingham	wool	spices
Oslo	ivory	fish
Palermo	tin	grain
Prague	coal	gold
Sarkel	spices	slaves
Southampton	wool	tin
Stockholm	amber	iron
Tbilisi	silk	spices
Timbuktu	ivory	gold
Turku	amber	fish
Uppsala	silver	amber
York	dyes	iron

The following settlements have 1 resource nearby:
Aberdeen	fish
Abydus	marble
Adana	grain
Ajaccio	wine
Aleppo	iron
Angers	textiles
Angora	wool
Antwerp	textiles
Athens	marble
Atil	spices
Azov	spices
Belo-Ozero	furs
Benghazi	spices
Bologna	grain
Bordeaux	wine
Bran	gold
Bucharest	grain
Buda	tin
Bulgar	furs
Caen	iron
Caffa	slaves
Cagliari	silver
Cashel	silver
Cherson	grain
Coimbra	wine
Copenhagen	fish
Cordoba	cotton
Corinth	iron
Dijon	wine
Dumfries	fish
Durazzo	sulphur
Edessa	tin
Exeter	coal
Famagusta	textiles
Fez	slaves
Frankfurt	silver
Granada	marble
Halych	spices
Iasi	wine
Inverness	fish
Iraklion	wine
Jerusalem	spices
Kozelsk	furs
Leon	coal
Limassol	tin
Lisbon	sugar
Lugo	iron
Madrid	wool
Marrakesh	gold
Metz	wine
Moscow	furs
Mosul	tin
Naples	sulphur
Newel	iron
Nicea	gold
Nuremburg	iron
Oporto	tin
Pamplona	wool
Paris	textiles
Peremyshl	dyes
Pest	grain
Poitiers	grain
Pratis	silver
Ragusa	slaves
Reggio	grain
Rennes	grain
Rheims	iron
Rhodes	wine
Riga	amber
Rome	textiles
Ryazan	furs
Salamanca	wine
Sevilla	sugar
Sijilmasa	gold
Sinope	sulphur
Smolensk	furs
Spoleto	wine
Stettin	slaves
Thessalonica	gold
Thorn	slaves
Toulouse	grain
Turov	furs
Tyrus	cotton
Viatka	furs
Vilnius	dyes
Wien	spices
Zagreb	spices
Zaragoza	wool

The following settlements have 0 resources nearby:
Arta	
Hamburg	
Trebizond	
Acre	
Agadir	
Algiers	
Al-Mansurya	
Assouan	
Attalia	
Ayla	
Bern	
Buraidah
Caesarea
Damietta
Donegal
El-Aghouat
Gaza
Iconium
Innsbruck
Jedda
Kutais
Lugo
Malta
Medina
Mekka
Newel
Ouahran
Oujda
Palma
Preslav
Qulzum
Samandar
Siouah
Smyrna
Sofia
Tabriz
Tara
Tmutarakan
Toledo
Touggourt
Tripoli
Tunis
Tzernigov
Valencia
Wexford
Yerevan
Zara

The following are the America settlements, which will stay the same as they are now.
No point in messing with them if they're going to go away.  They have tobacco, chocolate, gold, etc.

Caribbean
Cholula
Fortaleza
Miccosukee
Tenochtitlan
Tlaxcala

Comments and suggestions welcome, please. I've tried to be as historically accurate as possible. But being entirely historically accurate ends up with salt (spices), furs, fish and grain iron production all over the map. Furs and fish are reduced in favor of grain and spices. Most of the European spices are salt mines of the period, except for Venice and Genoa which reflect their being on one end of the Silk/Spice routes.

[Lopus]

Can we add in salt? I believe in medieval Europe it was very important?

[tornnight]

Was there a salt resource?
Otherwise spice would do.