Trading

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Contents

Trade Mechanics

Classes of Goods

Common Goods

I think that these are boring, no-extra-mechanics goods.

Luxury Goods

Gems, jewelry, rarer spices. So far, they work the same way as Common Goods, except that they are harder to buy and easier to sell.

Bulk Goods

Bulk goods can only be bought or sold in the party's current location. In contrast, other classes of goods can be bought and sold in the nearest reasonable cities of the neighboring countries rather than the whole neighboring countries. Other than that, they seem to work like Common Goods.

Rare Goods

Rare goods are fancy, nigh-unique items. The buy and sell rolls are opposed by some NPC rather than just a target number.

So far, we've only bought one Rare Good:

      1 silver-chased masterwork sword (x5) with a crane imprint beneath the
      maker's mark, and characters etched into the blade
      (Wolf-Slayer)

Bought for 99 li (8 successes) vs (5 dice + 15 skill) (?? successes, prolly 5) Sold for 134 li (7 successes) vs (8 dice + 5 skill)+1 friction (8 successes)

The ROI was close to expected, so Rare Goods don't seem to suffer from the half-sale-price problem of magic items. Or at least, this non-magical one didn't have that problem.

Mechanics Discoveries

  • "Friction" pushes profits down.
  • "Barriers" crossed pushes profits up.
    • Barriers are things that keep the locals at the selling location from easily getting goods from elsewhere. The blockade of an island is a significant barrier. The hassle that used to surround the Port of Propitious Voyage when the Dragon army was there, probably counted as a barrier. Geographic features, like the Mountains of Heaven, can also count as a barrier. Barriers have levels depending upon their size. Each level of barrier crossed by a trader adds the equivalent of a negative friction level to a transaction.
  • There was "friction" on the Butterfly-> Arcade move.
  • There was no "barrier" on the Butterfly-> Arcade move.
  • Clever insights into the market can result in extra successes.
  • Bungles or hurried transactions can result in negative successes.
  • You can invest in multiple classes of goods simultaneously, but must make a different trading roll for each class (so it's harder to use Fortune, but you need fewer successes).
  • when you "go over" a city's limit and thus cause a level of friction, that friction level stays there for further transactions. This affected both transactions in Gate of Shen, so the first one had a friction level, and the second one had two.
  • A tier 1 city generates friction when performing a sell transaction for 134 li. I suspect that the cut-off is 100 li.
  • Each type of modifier boils down to an independent multiplier on the money invested. The multiplier starts at 1, and each +/- 1 in modifiers changes that multiplier by 1/10. So, a +4 profit modifier (like the Talisman) results in an independent multiplier of 1.4.
  • The Buy and Sell rolls are each independent modifiers, just like friction or barriers. So if you beat the target number of successes by 2, your money is multiplied by 1.2.
  • Security costs for trading amounts >1000 li and <2500li add 1 friction (or a 0.9 multiplier).
  • Spent 99 on Bulk goods with 8 successes. Sold with 3 successes and 1 friction for 150. If that had been 4 successes with 1 friction, it would have sold for 169. Verifying math:
    • 3 successes needed for buy: x1.5
    • 5 successes needed for sell: x0.8
    • 1 friction: x0.9
    • Talisman: x1.4
    • 99*1.5*0.8*0.9*1.4 = 149.7
    • 99*1.5*0.9*0.9*1.4 = 168.4
    • That's close enough for me. The errors probably depend on when you round.
  • Sometimes the sell mechanic uses the buy price for calculating the number of successes you need, and sometimes it uses the sale price for calculating the number of successes you need. Must clarify that.


Amounts >50 li but <100 li

Common Goods

  • 3 successes on each roll needed for buy/sell to break even.
  • Moving to a "bordering" country counts as three successes on sell roll.

Amounts >100li but <250li

Common Goods

  • 5 successes on both rolls needed for buy/sell to break even.
  • Moving to a "bordering" country counts as two successes on sell roll.

Luxury Goods

  • 5+1d3 successes needed to buy and 5-1d3 successes needed to sell to break even.

Amounts >250li but <500

Common Goods

  • 7 successes on both rolls needed for buy/sell to break even.
  • Moving to a "bordering" country counts as one success on sell roll.

Luxury Goods

  • 5+1d4 successes needed to buy and 5-1d4 successes needed to sell to break even.

Cities

  • Daizhou is only a tier three city. When your sell transaction produced a value greater than 500li, you went over its cap, leading to an automatic level of friction.
  • Gate of Shen is a normally a tier two city, but is currently down to tier 1 due to loss of population.
  • Stone Drum is a Tier 5 city, but applies one friction on all transactions due to heavy fortification/security.
  • Port of Propitious Voyage is Tier 4.


Examples

Common

Base = 463

Seven successes needed for >=250li but <500

Buy: 10

Sell: 8 +2 for country move

Stone Drum carries one friction due to heavy fortifications/security.

Caravan Security at 1000g level = one friction (but no bandit attack!)

PPV is Tier 4, Stone Drum is Tier 5, no friction for overage.

Base = 463

Buy = 1.3

Sell = 1.3

SD = 0.9

Security = 0.9

Talisman = 1.4

Final: 877

Luxury

Base = 249

Buy 9

5+1d3 successes (8)

Sell 8

5-1d3 successes (3)

No travel bonus for lunxury goods after only one country move.

Stone Drum carries one friction due to heavy fortifications/security.

Caravan Security at 1000g level = one friction (but no bandit attack!)

PPV is Tier 4, Stone Drum is Tier 5, no friction for overage.

Base = 249

Buy = 1.1

Sell = 1.5

SD = 0.9

Security = 0.9

Talisman = 1.4

Final: 466

Bulk

Base = 249

Five successes needed for >=100li but <250

Buy: 7

Sell: 7 +2 for country move

Stone Drum carries one friction due to heavy fortifications/security.

Caravan Security at 1000g level = one friction (but no bandit attack!)

Stone Drum is Tier 5, Basewatch Hill is Tier 3, no friction for overage.

Base = 249

Buy = 1.2

Sell = 1.4

SD = 1.1 (Bulk good take inverse friction bonuses from "terrain")

Security = 0.9

Talisman = 1.4

Final: 579