Actually, does anyone remember if we got some WoG on the True City tax being applied at a specific point in the turn? I seem to recall something like that, but I can't find it. Maybe when we had a Heroic Admin?
If it is at the end of the turn then the Festival plan is fine, but I don't remember if it was at the start, end, or an admin roll (adjusted by hero)
Admin roll. Province actions assume it happens at the start of turn.
Economy failure is irrelevant because no combination of actions reaches negative Econ(0 is not a crisis).
Trelli are our only rivals in the salt trade, so they are.
Two that we know of from a single short expedition. There is no way an entirely different region only has two trade goods to offer. Not to mention the massive boon that the trees would be for us.
And those five boosted goods aren't all going to be dominated goods, unless I missed something, so that increase is not all that valuable. Compare that to being the only supplier of furs and amber to the civs to our east.
Actually looking to the trade goods chart:
-Amber
--North - Available, but quantity is low. Should bring us to Leading as it's a Precious Stone good, but takes time setting up local operations or contacts to become Dominant.
--Trelli - N/A
-Fine Dye
--North - No immediate source, though access to northern wood will expand alchemy down the line as their reagents hit the market.
--Trelli - Secures Dominance further as we buy up the Saffron hitting the market. No immediate impact however.
-Fine Textiles
--North - No source.
--Trelli - None becomes Trading. Boosted value from Dye dominance as well.
-Furs
--North - Available, but quantity is low. Should bring us to Leading as it's a Fabric good, but takes time setting up local operations or contacts to become Dominant.
--Trelli - No source.
-Gems
--North - No source
--Trelli - Imported Gems. A Trelli Trade Post would allow us to buy them out better, taking us from Significant to Leading.
-Gold
--North - No source
--Trelli - Imported Gold. A Trelli Trade Post would allow us to buy them more cheaply from the Khemtri, moving from Lesser Trading to full Trading.
-Incense
--North - No source
--Trelli - Imported Incense. A Trelli Trade Post would allow us to acquire some of these before they're sold out, taking us to Minor Trading.
-Silver
--North - No source
--Trelli - Imported Silver. A Trelli Trade post would allow us to buy it more aggressively to take us to Dominant(but at no profit because it's consumed internally). Considering we're Leading and STILL don't have enough...this is to relieve stress on the economy.
-Spices
--North - No source
--Trelli - Imported Spices. A Trelli Trade Post would allow us to acquire some of these before they're sold out, taking us to Minor Trading.
-Wine
--North - No source
--Trelli - Secures Dominance further as we buy up the Wine hitting the market from the Trelli. No immediate impact however.
-
Copper
--North - No source
--Trelli - Imported Copper. Leading becomes Dominant as we buy out the traders before they sell it.
-Bronze
--North - No source
--Trelli - Minor becomes Minor + Minor Trading. Not significant.
-Tin
--North - No source
--Trelli - Minor + Trading becomes Minor + major trading. Would probably yoink away the Trelli lead.
Short version:
-North
--Do this if you want novelties, more things to study or the very long term benefits.
--Main risk is breakaway, economic crisis from weather, and difficulty of meeting Lord's Loyalty
-Trelli
--Do this if you want to Dominate Copper, and increase our Silver and Gold supply to meet the needs of our economy.
--Main risk is military intervention from the Trelli, though it would become double suicide if they fight us since they depend heavily upon controlling access to Ymaryn trade goods.
If the Trelli Trade Post is the river east of them, then I'd more readily support it being built rather than the Northern Trade Post, as it would be much easier to expand up to there and integrate it.
One concern about the Northern Trade Post is that with all the hunter-gatherers around there, it could potentially become the nucleation site for settled peoples, which might make it more prone to breaking away because they would have ready-made vassals of their own.
Worth noting that AN had mentioned at present we are the most likely origin of the Vikings. A breakaway Ymaryn North trade post would probably become just that over time.
I don't believe we can steal dominance of Trelli-sourced goods without blockading the Trelli.
Otherwise, people will just bypass us to get the goods cheaper.
Trelli produced goods, certainly, but as far as we can tell the Trelli don't actually gain dominance by production in anything but wine and bronze. They don't have the land for it. It's ALL imported, so it's uniquely fragile.
So for instance like in the interlude, we can steal Tin dominance from them by simply buying up all the Tin for better prices than they can offer.
My point was that a trading post doesn't really make it easier to buy from the Trelli. It helped with the MW because they are far inland, and a trade post could stockpile goods for trade without having the MW traders remain at the sea. The Trelli city is literally a trade post.
Their trade post. Warehouses storing their goods. Their docks which get fees from docking, port operations and other sundries. Having our own set of docks and warehouses nearby means that we don't need to lose money for being in port with a fleet without trading.
Which means we can exploit timing better. Large fleets or ships unloading a lot of goods at once causes the value of your goods to crash, meaning you get less than you could if you had the means to send 1 small ship every day.
That's how relative advantage works.
We can't easily integrate the Stallions without shedding Martial first. And the best way to do that is with a mercenary company (eats 5 Martial and lets us maintain our borders). And to safely maintain mercenaries, we need reliable Wealth, which means salterns not markets. And by far the fastest and cheapest way to get more saltern Wealth is to build a second trading post to boost the second saltern.
Raise Stability so we can tolerate temporary Red Martial. Then just found a Trelli Trade Post and take a Main Support Subordinate twice, which gives them a large local garrison and plenty of Econ to build docks with.
Siphon*
But, that would make sense if the Tin Tribes were on the east side of the Trelli. They're not, they're north, closer to the MW. We likely already get a significant chunk of their tin through Greenshore. In either case, putting a TP between Greenshore and Trelli makes little sense for unloading bulk goods, given that we are already doing that at greenshore. If I had to guess, it would be placed on the eastern side of Trelli, closer to Hatriver. It's a more direct route back to the core.
It's actually a pretty major improvement.
The Greenshore and Trelli round trip might take 2 weeks for instance, while the Trelli trade post means that we'd actually have our own docks and warehouses within a 2 day round trip.
What does this mean for our trade?
Current process:
-Greenshore loads up the shipments in a generic spread based on normal demand in their monthly routine.
-They arrive at Trelli 2 weeks later, and discover that the Saffron Islanders have a ship in port which depresses the Saffron prices causing them to drop. The Saffron Islanders are looking for wine, but we only brought our regular stock, so the Trelli snaps up all the Saffron.
-We could send a ship back to Greenshore to bring more wine, but by the time they make the trip the Saffron Islanders are long gone, and the Trellie are doling out the Saffron slowly to keep prices high.
Trelli Trade Post process:
-TTP agent in Trelli learns about the Saffron Islanders arriving. They send a ship back to the trade post.
-Trade post loads up a ship with nothing but wine.
-Ship arrives and begins competing with the Trelli to buy out the Saffron stock.
-We ship the Saffron over to the trade post, where part of it is sent to Greenshore or Hathatyn as part of regular shipments, while the rest is warehoused for when the Tin Hills show up and compete with the Trelli again for their Tin. Rinse and repeat.
-Over time, what this means is that traders from distant places know that if they wait a few days the Ymaryn traders will be able to give them a better deal overall, so they can. The Trelli are forced to either play along, or deliberately undercut the trade by buying below market value to screw us.
As with the roads, with trade, turnaround time is critical.
And you can probably see why the Trelli would be annoyed...but they have to deal because it makes them a
more popular trade center, because you can be assured that if you are looking for Tyrian Purple, Salt or Wine, it's always available within a few days, which means the Trelli make mad bank in docking fees...but lose the docking fees from the Ymaryn, who could just leave one small boat in port for messenger purposes and their traders only need to dock for long enough to unload and load goods.
Disclaimer: I do not support starting up additional Trade Posts until we resolve the tax crisis. They'd greatly complicate things. But the facts must be laid out.
No we don't need slaves. I am talking about trade income. We don't trade iron, ergo we don't get trading bonuses for dominating it.
Trading dominance in a strategic good likely pays more wealth (or diplomacy?) than a luxury good. That means that the Trelli are have a higher income, and more influence, than many are assuming.
And no, I'm not advocating getting into the slave trade.
I don't think dominating strategic goods actually pays out more wealth(because strategic goods are often volume based commodities, raising the price is a threat big enough to trigger military action if it rises above their utility value), but it
does give non-wealth benefits, see for instance the Khemtri offering to give up a major concession in exchange for releasing our temporary Tin dominance.
