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MOD: Specialized Trading Ports

Started by JamieIdle2.0, November 07, 2014, 08:09:56 AM

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JamieIdle2.0

This is my Trading Revamp taken in a new direction. It came to me over the weekend that there was no reason that there couldn't be more than one TYPE of Trading Port each with their own UNIQUE TYPES of Merchants. Merchants are defined within the Trading Port file so each Specialized Trading Port could have their own set of Merchants.

Currently I have the following Specialized Trading Ports in mind.

Seed & Livestock Port-Only has merchants that bring Seeds and Livestock. I am thinking no more than 2 boats per year and limit the number of seed types per year to say 4-5 and the Livestock types to 1-2. It would take you several years of ordering to get all the seeds and livestock. Once you do you can simply get rid of or replace this port.

Clothing & Textile Port-Only brings brings clothes and textiles. If you use something like the Colonial Charter mod this would include things like Flax, Linen, Cotton, and so forth. So there would be a Clothing Merchant, a Textiles Merchant, and a Clothing & Textiles Merchant. Not sure on the frequency of these.

Raw Materials & Goods Port-Only brings Iron, Stone, Coal, Wood, Firewood, and Tools. Could have some fairly limited merchant types here. A Mine and Quarry Merchant that only brings Iron, Stone, and Coal. A Wood and Fuel Merchant that brings only Wood, Firewood, and Coal. A Tools Merchant that brings only Tools. Not really sure yet on the types and frequency for these.

Food and Consumables Port-Only brings Food, Alcohol, and Health goods. Protein Merchant, Fruit Merchant, Grain Merchant, Vegetable Merchant, Fruit And Alcohol Merchant, and General Merchant (Fruit, Grain, Vegetable, Protein) are all possibles. Herbs would just be added to all of them as a bonus. Frequency is really tricky here as late game these are what you need the most of.

Other Possibilities
Fruit and Alcohol Port

Share your ideas folks!

Notes: I am going to create theses as a Trading Port sub menu so if I am lucky and code it right it wont be incompatible with other trading mods or mega mods like the Colonial Charter mod. I am designing this with the CC mod in particular in mind and may open the source up for the Blackliquid team.

@Nilla @slink @irrelevant @kralyerg @ShockPuppet @RedKetchup Tagging you to get your thoughts ^.^



rkelly17

This looks like an excellent idea and the breakdown of specialized TPs and merchants seems appropriate. My biggest question is what these various merchants will take in trade. For example, will the food and consumables merchants maintain the current food merchant's dislike of firewood? Will the seed and livestock merchants continue the current practice of only taking certain items in trade? I think I would be in favor of keeping some or all of these habits, but I'm not sure I'd want to go to extremes. I'm speaking here as a mod consumer, hardly a mod producer. This sounds like a lot of work to do.

JamieIdle2.0

@rkelly17 It isn't as much work as it seems. One I lack the art skill to create new models so it will just be the repeat of the normal Trading Ports. The internal code changes aren't really complex. Honestly more copy and past than anything to set this up once I create the metrics.

However, you hit on an important consideration. Obviously anything they sell they will also buy with the exception of those things that can't be sold like seeds and livestock. Typically if they were smart merchants they would only buy what they sell at reduced prices.

Honestly I really wish for something like gold or silver, which everyone would want, but that would be kinda limiting and require another mod altogether. The problem for these types of mods is there are only so many flags. I can't say for example this merchant only buys Apples it has to be Fruit, because modders can't create custom flags.

All the flags are listed below. So the Buy, Sell, Want of each Merchant is spelled out in these tags.

Options-Examples   
Tool-Iron and Steel Tools
Clothing-Hide, Wool, and Warm Clothes
Alcohol-Ale   
Wood-Wood
Iron-Iron
Stone-Stone
Fuel-Firewood and Coal
Textile-Leather and Wool   
Health-Herbs
Grain-Wheat and Corn
Fruit-Apples
Vegetable- Beans
Protein-Meat and Nuts
Edible-Any Food

The Vaniall General Goods Merchant looks like this in code. It is really rather elegant in a way.

      {
         StringTable _stringTable = "Dialog/StringTable.rsc:merchant";
         String _merchantName = "MerchantGoods";
         int _itemCount = 5;

         RawMaterialFlags _sellFlags =  Wood | Stone | Iron | Fuel | Tool | Textile | Clothing | Alcohol;
         RawMaterialFlags _wantFlags = Wood | Stone | Iron | Fuel | Tool | Textile | Clothing | Alcohol;
         RawMaterialFlags _buyFlags = 0;
      }

blackbird

I once commented on a foreign Trade port, that trades exotic stuff, you can't plant, grow yourself on the map, to give it a special higher value, fo ex. for use on unique buildings. To give an example:

Building a parliament - needs african black wood - can exclusivly be purchased by that foreign trader / foreign trading port
Building a Museum / new style road - need of Marble stone - traded at the foreign trader port

Spliting up the existing trading port into 4 or 5 ports seems to much for me. Maybe 2 but no more. Just my cent to it.  8)

JamieIdle2.0

@blackbird the original Trading Port would still exist this wont overwrite the vanilla port.

blackbird

ok, but you will have 4 or 5 specialized ports, that's a lot of ports and needs space, with all the ohter modded buildings that you need to build close to a river, hmmm.
But you can always give it a go. Let's see what comes out.  i would prefer an exotic trader with exotic stuff 8)

Bobbi

@JamieIdle2.0, my two cents: I think three ports would be good:
Livestock and seed - two merchants of one each
Food - Could have separate ones if you insist, but I think one is sufficient.
Raw Material and Hard Goods - if you insist on having a textile merchant, he could go here. I think the resource and general merchants could go here, and the general could carry the textile, no extra merchant needed.

In case you haven't caught on, I prefer fewer, not more, merchants. That is why I use your trade mod instead of the one used in CC1620. I put it on top so that it overrides the one with two million separate merchants.

Bobbi

Also agree with @blackbird, with the water mill and other things now being built on the river, space is getting rather limited. So two to three ports max, I think. It would be swell to deconstruct the seed and livestock one after all the seeds are purchased.

JamieIdle2.0

Quote from: Bobbi on November 07, 2014, 09:27:54 AM
Also agree with @blackbird, with the water mill and other things now being built on the river, space is getting rather limited. So two to three ports max, I think. It would be swell to deconstruct the seed and livestock one after all the seeds are purchased.

If I was a better modeler I would create new narrow ports, but remember you can also reduce the number of ports by increasing the frequency of merchants.

Bobbi

I don't auto trade, so the constant appearance of merchants disrupts my game. Every time they show up, I have to stop what I am doing. Drives me crazy.

JamieIdle2.0

Quote from: Bobbi on November 07, 2014, 09:37:49 AM
I don't auto trade, so the constant appearance of merchants disrupts my game. Every time they show up, I have to stop what I am doing. Drives me crazy.

I don't either, but I like trading so I sometimes manage 20 or more ports manually lol

rkelly17

Quote from: JamieIdle2.0 on November 07, 2014, 09:51:23 AM
Quote from: Bobbi on November 07, 2014, 09:37:49 AM
I don't auto trade, so the constant appearance of merchants disrupts my game. Every time they show up, I have to stop what I am doing. Drives me crazy.

I don't either, but I like trading so I sometimes manage 20 or more ports manually lol

You guys are serious masochists! I not only auto-trade after 6 or 8 ports, I'd like to find a way to eliminate that infernal bong, bong, bong every time a merchant lands.

Seriously, I'm not sure that it would be a good idea to have merchants only accept what they sell in trade. It is trading, after all. I create a surplus of some commodity and trade that to you for your surplus of a different commodity. Thus, I'm looking for merchants who will take my surplus of ale or firewood or whatever and trade it for the things I'm short of. A merchant who said, "Well you have lots of ale, but I only trade in logs, iron and stone, so I don't want your ale." would be pretty useless. I'm trying to trade with him or her specifically because I need logs, iron or stone.

I can see one who says, "Well I have lots of firewood at home, so I'll tell you what: I'll take your firewood, but at a discounted price." Then I can decide whether or not I'm desperate enough for what the merchant has in the boat to trade firewood at the discount.

Nilla

I think it is a good idea, but it's really a very hard thing, to make a new model for the trade.

We use trade in such different ways.

Sometimes we just trade for some seeds and animals and maybe  sometimes some other things (food, tools) if we are in trouble. Some of us don't like mines and quarries, so we trade for stones, iron, tools, coal. Sometimes some of us build a heavy trading economy, with or without supporting farming.

The character of the trade also changes, as the game grows. It is a big difference if you have 1 or 20 TP.

So, what do you want to achieve with this mod?

I guess; merchants that brings what you want, without annoying you (arriving too often and/or bringing stuff you don't want)

Seeds and Lifestock- Port. YES .You want two different merchants; one for seeds and one for animals. With just one, that might carry both, there will be less annoying (maybe it will be too easy, but you can compensate this, if he arrrives more seldom)

Clothing and Textiles - Port - MAYBE (or perhaps together with raw materials). But in any case, not more than one different tradesman. In some games you might choose to buy clothing. Than you will have no production and will need no textiles.  More likely you want to buy wool (or other textiles) and make your clothes. In that case you wouldn't need to buy clothes. With different tradesmen for clothing and textiles, some would always be just annoying. (you send them away without buying anything)

Raw Materials and Goods-Port - MAYBE (or perhaps together with the textiles/clothing). More than one different tradesman might be annoying. (compare clothing.textiles)

alternative

Rawmaterials- Port (stone, iron, coal, logs, textiles) - one trader

Products-Port (clothing, tools, firewood, alcohol) - one trader


Food -Port -YES, but also in this case just one different tradesman. An example; if you want to build a large population, you mix farming and trade. You are selfsufficent on vegetables and grain but buy fruit and cheap proteins. In your suggestion with 5 different tradesmen 2of 5 would be uninteresting (=annoying) and no improvement.


Generally later in a game, I would prefere tradesmen arriving more seldom, bringing much. But how often and how much, is very hard to say, without testing. In the tests I made from your other mods, I could easily support 200 Bannies with one port and couldn't even buy everything.

















JamieIdle2.0

@Nilla the clothing and textile port was mainly because of the Colonial Charter. There are so many goods in that mod that it practically requires more ports or boats or something. I like your ideas though. I am still planning this mod out.

Paeng

Quote from: Nilla on November 08, 2014, 05:37:45 AMGenerally later in a game, I would prefere tradesmen arriving more seldom, bringing much.

Yeah, same here... and some really interesting thoughts in this thread - I'm still undecided which 'system' would agree best with my playing style  :o

However - I feel that you do need additional structures (models) for different trade ports, for varied sizes and layouts... I really hope you can convince one of our talented modelers to join up with you on this one...  :D
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