Automatic Trading

[MarkAnthony]

Good evening.

I'm almost at a 300 population in my current town and I only have two trade posts at the moment. I was wondering how exactly does auto trading work?

Let's say that every time a trader visits I want to buy:

   
• 200 Stone
• 200 Iron
• 200 Coal
• 200 Logs

My questions about the above are:

   
• Do I always have to have enough goods to pay for everything above in full, and if I am short and do not have enough - the entire trade visit fails?
• What if the trade merchant only brings 100 of each, does the trade fail because I requested 200 each?
• What if he has the quantities I want but only for two of the items? Does the trade get made, or does it fail because I requested four items, not two?

The other question about automatic trading is: what is the difference when selecting "Upon arrival" or "Upon departure"? Why would one choice matter over the other?

That's all I can think of at the moment regarding trading.

Thanks.
               

[kid1293]

  Try and see. That is what we all do and have a lot of fun.

To your second question.
'On Departure' gives you the choice to open the trader menu when the boat arrives and make adjustments.
'On Arrival' carry through the trade immediately.

[MarkAnthony]

Thank you @kid1293 , that's good to know.

[Nilla]

If you only have 2 ports, I wouldn´t use auto trade. It´s very undeveloped but seems to be hardcoded and not possible for the modders to change. To me, it´s a necessary evil if I have many ports where it´s too tedious to trade manually. But with less than about 10 ports I never use it.

You can choose the priority order to buy; the merchant starts to deliver the goods from the top of the list but you can´t choose which goods he takes in exchange.

I agree with Kid, you can explore it bit by bit and see if it fits your playstyle but don´t rely on it all too much.

[MarkAnthony]

If you only have 2 ports, I wouldn´t use auto trade.

To me, it´s a necessary evil if I have many ports where it´s too tedious to trade manually. But with less than about 10 ports I never use it.
You can choose the priority order to buy; the merchant starts to deliver the goods from the top of the list but you can´t choose which goods he takes in exchange.

   I only have two trade posts right now and the traders come kind of frequently; I would like to expand to more but not if I have to constantly hassle with them. That's why I am asking ahead of time how to operate the auto-trade, for when I do increase my trade posts in the near future.

I am not concerned about priority, I saw the change-priority button and I am not worried about what items they take in payment. I'm asking about the scenarios I described above for when I use the "Upon Arrival" option.

Thanks though.

[MarkAnthony]

My questions about the above are:

   
• Do I always have to have enough goods to pay for everything above in full, and if I am short and do not have enough - the entire trade visit fails?
• What if the trade merchant only brings 100 of each, does the trade fail because I requested 200 each?
• What if he has the quantities I want but only for two of the items? Does the trade get made, or does it fail because I requested four items, not two?

I guess none of that is really an issue based on a video series I'm watching. Basically it seems that if you want an item, and they have it, they will trade it to you up to the quantity you requested and can afford to pay for. If they do not have the quantity you requested, if they have any at all, they just trade you what they do have.

Thanks again to @kid1293 for his explanation between "On Arrival" and "On Departure". That helped. I was scratching my head saying, "What's the difference, why would it matter? The whole encounter when doing it manually in person only takes three minutes or less so who cares if they trade at the beginning of the three minutes, or at the end of it?  /shrug"  Now I know the purpose between the two.

I am still curious though: What if I wanted 2, 000 apples, they had 2,000 apples but my traders didn't resupply my inventory quick enough so I couldn't afford the 2,000? What if I only had enough inventory to pay for 1,000, would they trade the 1,000 or would the transaction just fail from the get-go?
               

[Nilla]

Yes, they will.

[MarkAnthony]

Thank you @Nilla.

[theonlywanderer]

One thing to note... as long as you have the trading post dialog open, the boat will not leave.  So you can add inventory, make a trade, add more inventory, do a trade....  until you close or hit dismiss, the boat stays.

As already mentioned, autotrade starts at the top and goes down in your purchase list.   If the boat doesn't have the first item, it skips to the second and so on until it has something you want and then will max out that item before going to the next.  So if you have 1,000 trade value and the boat has the qty of the first item you asked for, but requires 1,500 value, all you'll get is 1,000 of the first item.   So, for your apple example, yes you would get 1,000 apples if that's all you had enough to cover.   That's only with autotrade.  If you are doing a manual trade, it won't allow you to hit trade if you are underpaying.   It will, however, allow you to overpay.   So if you try and ask for 2,000 apples and only add 1,000 value to your trade, the trade button won't activate.   But if you ask for 2,000 apples and end up putting in 3,000 value for trade, it will allow it.  It says whether or not your are underpaying or overpaying at the bottom.

It will try and spread out what they trade you between the groups, so if you autopurchase 1,000 textiles and they bring 800 cotton and 800 wool, you will get 500 cotton and 500 wool.

You also can't control what it gives value wise.   So, if you need lots of food and want to purchase 3000 of one of the food groups, it may trade you items valued at 2,3 or 4 and you get a lot less qty food then expected.

This limited control makes autotrading a bit frustrating at times.   However.... we have ORDERS!

Orders is where trading shines!   Each trading post has a certain number of different merchants that will come, I don't recall how many, but they start to repeat.  So, you can keep track of each merchant and you can special order exactly what you want from them.   It costs a bit more, but it becomes more efficient and very powerful.   

So...M1 shows up you tell him to only bring the items you want.   This is where the Charts and online WIKI's come in to play to give you the values of things.   You have to manually select the items you want.  You can control all the merchants to bring only what you want.

So, in your situation, you tell certain merchants to only bring the 4 items you want, stone, iron, coal, and logs.

You make your way through the merchants until you have them sorted out the way you want.   Maybe all of them only bring the same thing because that's all you ever want to trade.   Maybe 3 bring the same 4 items, another 3 bring food, the rest all continue to bring mixed items.    This is where it's up to you to manage it how you want.

Purchase on departure gives you a chance to open the trading post to make adjustments or do the trade manually. 

Purchase on arrival gets the initial trade over with right away, but until the boat leaves you can still open the dialog and do more trades manually.

I hope this explains the trading post enough, if you need clarification on anything, just ask.   Let your mind wander at all the possibilities that trading posts can offer.

[MarkAnthony]

Thank you @theonlywanderer , that was well explained. Thank you for the time it took to do so.

[Nilla]

Good explanation @theonlywanderer: But you forgot one small thing; if you order something the merchant will add a fee of 25%. Fortunately, on food worth 1 and logs worth 2, 25 % is less than 1 and there´s no fee but on stone iron and coal there is.

[theonlywanderer]

@Nilla    I did mention it would cost more, but I didn't give specifics.  Appreciate that info.

[OnkelAqua2]

Always trade manually. Even if you have a 100 TP's

[irrelevant]

Always trade manually. Even if you have a 100 TP's

Depends on what you are trying to accomplish with your town. I can certainly see why you do manual trading in yours. And in Sink Mill, I did only manual trading, it's the only way you can buy enough food, especially fruit for ale.

In my town Gopher Prairie, I did only auto-trading for the last 9000 years. Even with only 12TPs, manual trading would have driven me insane, and auto-trading nearly always gave me everything I needed over time. I would occasionally manually buy all the fruit or iron in a boat or two, if I saw that I needed it.