CHANGES TO EXISTING TRADE SKILLS, CARAVAN SPEED & MAXIMUM NUMBERS PLUS 2x NEW SKILLSWhat you can carryThere's a restriction placed on the types of goods you can carry from a town, based on skills researched.
This
restriction says that - for example - your caravans can't carry Swords
until you have a L10 marketplace and the Trading skill, and you can't
carry Saddles until you have a L15 Marketplace and the Mercantilism
skill.
We've never really liked that restriction - it's a bit too artificial and limiting.
How many caravans you can haveWhilst
we've discussed it in the past, we are still undecided as to whether
caravans should cost upkeep to maintain - largely due to the potentially
depressive effect this may have on trade and economic interactions come
the full implementation of Trade v2.
However, we're also well aware that Trade is currently hampered by the 40 caravan restriction per town.
Equally,
we've never really liked the current "one caravan maximum per level of
marketplace until you hit the Cartels skill and then you suddenly double
this number" rule.
The changesFrom
this point onwards, if you have something you wish to carry, you can
now carry it if you have a caravan available, and the related trade
skills (Haggling, Bartering, Trading, Mercantilism) have now been
repurposed to effect the number of caravans your marketplace can
support.
The cartels skill remains available at Marketplace L17,
but has become a raw number increase to the number of caravans, rather
than a doubling.
The existing trade skills now provide the following benefits:
- Haggling - Allows up to 5 caravans in your town
- Bartering - Allows an additional 5 caravans in your town
- Trading - Allows an additional 10 caravans in your town
- Mercantilism - Allows an additional 10 caravans in your town
- Cartels - Allows an additional 10 caravans in your town
So,
as before, at this point with a Marketplace L20 you can have 40
caravans, and in fact get it slightly earlier with the Cartels skill
available at Marketplace L17.
We have then added in
two new skills -
Commerce, and
Enterprise - that now give additional caravan count increases.
- Commerce - L18 Marketplace, allows an additional 15 caravans in your town
- Enterprise - L20 Marketplace, allows an additional 15 caravans in your town
The maximum caravan count available per town is now 70 caravans.
The
Caravanserai skill
also performed a dual function - doubling carrying capacity and speed,
which we never liked much either. So this skill now
only doubles carrying capacity,
not speed.
Caravan speed is now directly related to your marketplace level.Caravans move at a speed of 20 squares per hour +1 for each level of the Marketplace.So
a caravan at a L20 Marketplace continues to move at 40 squares per
hour. There will be further abilities to increase this speed in the
future.
Skill descriptions on uk1 and ui2 have both been updated to reflect the new skill functions.
Caravans currently on trade missions, harvesting etc are unaffected until they return from their last job.
Regards,
SC
Edited by GM Stormcrow - 14 Mar 2011 at 09:42