The trader is a central part of the game. Personally, I have to trade to get the finances in order. That is how I play the game. I have noticed some things that ihmo would improve the game experience.
Transporting goods to and from the trade centre is underdimensioned
I am sure the locations of the involved buildings can be placed smarter than I have placed them, but they are reasonably well placed. I have a setup where the trade centre is at the heart of the village and the storage is reasonably close by. Yet I often find that the 2 guys at the trading centre is not able to get the goods in time to the trade centre to be able to sell them to the traders. This situation gets worse when more traders arrive. Imho something need to be done at the trade centre. More traders seems to be the easy solution.
Traders to prioritize deliveries towards the current available traders
Traders does not seem to prioritize the getting of goods to the trade centre (?). An example can be when I wanted to sell fures, candles, coal and cheese to the first trader that arrived, trader no 1. But as the guys at the trading centre is understaffed, they didn’t manage to accumulate the goods in order for them to be sold before trader no 1 left. At the same time trader no 2 arrives and to him I can sell fures, and also baskets, but not coal or candles. So orders to get baskets are placed. But the guys at the trade centre are still getting the goods for trader no 1 that has already left. Then trader no 3 arrives. This time, fortunately, I want to sell him baskets as well. As it turns out, the 2 guys at the trading centre isn’t able to get the full amounts of any of the goods in time, only partial amounts of the orders. Which means lost sales and to little cash for the winter season.
Imho I think the trading centre would benefit form prioritization in the way that (a) the guys at the trade centre would always bring the goods to the traders that are currently at the trading station. And (b) they would prioritize with regards to time left if there are more than one trader at the trade centre. This would mean that they (c) would leave orders to get goods that are currently not posible to sell for a later time when there are no traders at the trade centre.
Alternatively there could be a button to press to indicate to the guys that they should leave the goods for later, i.e. go and get something else.
The goods (fure, candles, coal and cheese) for trader no 1 that the guys at the trade centre didn’t manage to pick up in time, are still being brought to the trade centre after trader no 1 has left the village.
When trader no 2 arrives a new order for getting baskes is placed. This is never executed as the guys at the trade centre is bussy picking up other goods for trader no 1.
Why do you wait until traders arrive before you put things in the trading post to sell? Anything I want to sell I make sure is in there before the next year starts then my trading post workers don’t have to run around trying to get stuff before they arrive and depart. If i do need to move something last minute because I have spares and the price is really good then my traders can usually manage to get most or all of what I want into the trading post before the trader leaves because, having pre-stocked the TP, they’re idle and have nothing to do when the traders arrive.
You can do that for goods that hold up well in storage. For other items you might like to trade, herbs for example, will rot in the trade center long before the trader comes to get them. I understand pre-loading the trade center with certain goods so you have time before the trader leaves, but you can’t do that with everything.
I also pre-load when possible. Most of the time from starting the village to reaching 1000 villagers, there are not enough goods/materials. So it makes sense to have them available to the villagers instead of having them locked up at the trade post. You could ask the trade centre to get all materials up to a limit directly as they are produced, but this also makes it imposible for the villagers to use any material utill the equota is filled. I am not sure about how well goods are kept in the store house vs. in other storages with regards to rot? And for the most part I find myself doing other things in the game than keepig track of materials and stocking them up before the trader arrives.
I never move all my goods for sale, I’ll only move some of them to the TP so there’s also some for the villagers as well. I’ve got 40 pottery; I’ll move 15 or 20 to the TP for selling and leave the rest in the storehouses for villager access. Doing that now with a town of less than 200 people atm.
I always preload the items during the ‘winter break month’. Nearly all storage close to Trade center, and store items like cheese that i produce only in the root cellars next to the TC. All the usuble items i want to trade i keep in stock 25 in a 300 pop city so i never run out. And last but not least, never transfer the amount of goods that you dont already have, it makes your traders walk for example to the soapmaker or the marketplace for just a couple of soap instead for bulksize soap in the storage.
Playing time after time with the F3 widget on max info will learn you a lot of your city productivity and especially the trader behavior.
This game has physical inventory meaning any item has a place and takes time to move. The trader in this game has to be micro managed to be at full efficiency that’s just the way this games mechanics works and changing that could break other aspects of the game.
It occurs to me that, an idea would be that the merchant does not leave the TP once started a transaction, until it is not completed. I’m not all the time pending of “how much” quantity of “which” product I have surplus, so that I can take it to the TP. Sometimes I am so busy in another matter that when I want to go to the TP half of its time has passed. A special case is when you get for example 2 traders and at the same time you have some invaders on you, what do you do? do you go to trade? or do you defend the village?
The best thing would be, hey merchant nº1 I sell you 100 soaps, 100 baskets and 200 sand, at this agreed price, ok? … (if they are not in the TP stock have them moved) … “transaction started” … when it is completed I leave, perfect (and if I am in the middle of a battle, when it is over, I leave anyway, but not before), it’s not fair.
If i do need to move something last minute because I have spares and the price is really good then my traders can usually manage to get most or all of what I want into the trading post before the trader leaves because, having pre-stocked the TP, they’re idle and have nothing to do when the traders arrive.