Changing commodity (trade) prices in campaign

**sanderniet** · August 25, 2013, 08:55 AM

hello guys,

For the last couple of weeks I've modded my ETW in a lot of ways, but there is one thing i simply cannot get fixed; the prices of trade goods in campaigns. There is ofcourse the commodities sheet in the pack files, but even if i change them in both the mod and every single patch file through PFM, still in campaign it gives the old prices.

Since the 'indiaman' tradeship is based on the 4th rate model, i increased the price and upkeep on it (it's the same ship, just fewer guns, after all). This however means that i have to increase commodity prices as well..

anyone knows how to fix this? i couldn't find it in startpos.esf, or anywhere else for that matter. I hope it isn't hardcoded.

**Lethe1** · August 25, 2013, 01:51 PM

First of all: what you are changing in the pack files are the standard prices if I'm not mistaking. The actual prices you see in a game are based on the market equilibrium (where supply and demand are equal in size).
Supply is obviously the amount of the commodities that make it to the capitals of the producing countries and are thus available on the global market.
Demand is influenced by several factors (depends on the exact type of commodity), but I seem to recall the 2 main factors were the GDP (the income generated in the regions, not the taxes) and population size (which would make sense: more people = more demand and richer people = they can afford a higher consumption). One 'special' effect I recall is that the demand for cotton is influenced by the textile industry.
In other words: if you want higher prices, you should increase the economies and/or population sizes throughout the world to have a noticeable impact.

About increasing the cost for upkeep: it's true the are the same ship model, but upkeep is also heavily influenced (both in TW games and in reality) by the cost of wages. An indiaman has a very small crew when compared to a 4th rate, so you should keep this in mind if you're looking for realistic upkeep. As you mentioned yourself, there is also a significantly smaller amount of guns and as upkeep also accounts for the shots you fire in battles, as this is a routine expense for fleets, you might also want to take this into consideration.

**sanderniet** · August 25, 2013, 03:26 PM

Originally Posted by Lethe1

First of all: what you are changing in the pack files are the standard prices if I'm not mistaking. The actual prices you see in a game are based on the market equilibrium (where supply and demand are equal in size).
Supply is obviously the amount of the commodities that make it to the capitals of the producing countries and are thus available on the global market.
Demand is influenced by several factors (depends on the exact type of commodity), but I seem to recall the 2 main factors were the GDP (the income generated in the regions, not the taxes) and population size (which would make sense: more people = more demand and richer people = they can afford a higher consumption). One 'special' effect I recall is that the demand for cotton is influenced by the textile industry.
In other words: if you want higher prices, you should increase the economies and/or population sizes throughout the world to have a noticeable impact.

About increasing the cost for upkeep: it's true the are the same ship model, but upkeep is also heavily influenced (both in TW games and in reality) by the cost of wages. An indiaman has a very small crew when compared to a 4th rate, so you should keep this in mind if you're looking for realistic upkeep. As you mentioned yourself, there is also a significantly smaller amount of guns and as upkeep also accounts for the shots you fire in battles, as this is a routine expense for fleets, you might also want to take this into consideration.

Hi Lethe,

Thanks for your reply.

considering the commodity price; there has to be a baseprice to start calculating with, which is then influenced by supply and demand, etc. In NTW the commodity prices for example are much higher from the start. somewhere there has to be a starting number on which the price is based. you can find the supposed starting prices in the commodities table in the main.pack, which when starting a campaign are already somewhat influenced because of supply and demand.

Strangly, you can mod the price elasticity, and also the balans on how the price is influenced by global GDP ot TW (don't know what TW is supposed to mean in this situation), and this does work through ingame. when i changed sugar to be more based on TW then DGP, it's trading price when starting an new campaign was 3!

On the ship; I agree with you on the 4th rate / indiaman issue, the upkeep for the indiaman i put in is only 40% of the one for a 4th rate. you'll agree with me though that 50 upkeep for a ship of this size (or a 54-head crew, for that matter) is a little on the low side, right? I made it 170 in my game, basically between the upkeep of a brig and a frigate. I also increased the crew to 75 (I don't want to push it, if you overstaff your ship then at the beginning of a battle a few dozen just literally drop from the ship).

**Lethe1** · August 26, 2013, 07:14 AM

I guess TW= town wealth

**sanderniet** · August 27, 2013, 10:50 AM

Originally Posted by Lethe1

I guess TW= town wealth

The only thing i can think of right now to get the trading profits more interesting, is to mod some trading bonus to some building or so....

Anyone got any idea's?

I want the game to be more about trade so countries like france, england, sweden and UP develop more then russia and the ottomans, for example. this would be more historical in my view. when playing russia or the ottomans you are then more pushed to make trade a priority.

**Lethe1** · August 28, 2013, 08:07 AM

You could add or modify the factors and their impact. Just be careful with that, because the impact can be huge. I guess I don't have to go into detail about how you work with DB Editor since you clearly found the right tables

.
I don't know about your games, but in mine, the major trading nations are also the ones who develop most (which makes sense as the trade income is a bonus income on top of the income from taxes and diplomacy).

**sanderniet** · August 28, 2013, 01:12 PM

I tried it a bit, i got a 200+ price for ivory. i changed one number from 1,1 to 4,1.... well, at least i got what i wanted, more or less. Would like to know how it works exactly though.

**Lethe1** · August 31, 2013, 11:57 AM

Within a couple of weeks, I might look into it more thoroughly to find out how exactly it works, but I'm a little busy right now for such experimenting

**Slor** · September 28, 2015, 12:50 AM

Anybody have any further insight on this old thread? I've tried to no success in figuring out how to mod commodity values. Editing the values does nothing for me even though I'm trying the same methods as these guys. I've searched a bunch with no luck..