WIP Merchant passport should not negate the influence of commerce skill on prices

[Grey Roger]

I agree that the Merchant Licence should not negate commerce skills and perks. The main, and indeed originally intended purpose, is to allow you to amass ship's wealth without needing to switch to payment by dividing plunder, which in combination with a LoM is a massive bonus. (By the time I finished with "Tales of a Sea Hawk", I had a couple of hundred million!)

If we're going to add merchant offices for all nations then the Portuguese one would need to go at Sao Jorge and would need to be disabled in "Revolutions" and "Napoleonic", when Portugal no longer owns the colony. Likewise, the American one would need to go in one of the Eleuthera towns and be disabled in all periods except "Revolutions" and "Napoleonic".

If you're going to have ship types only available for sale if you have a Merchant Licence then I recommend the Heavy East Indiaman and the Fast Merchantman. The former is a "versatile" ship, a good fighter and a good trader, as likely to be used by a navy as by a merchant, and as capable as some purely naval ships which can't be bought except at high enough rank. The Fast Merchantman is basically a converted frigate, perhaps converted to the merchant company's specification and at the company's expense, for use by its own people. (The Fast Merchantman is not currently available to America. We'd either need to restrict some other, America-specific, ship, or make it available to America just so we can prevent American characters from buying it without a licence. )

 

[Levis]

Okay this idea probably will piss people off but it might be worth considering.
What if we restrict the amount of goods you can buy on an island. So say you can only buy 100 of a specific good on a island (per week or something like that) so if you want to get your hull filled you would need to wait for a while on that island and buy the amount each time (we could have this time delay automated after a prompt appears to warn you you will need to wait so many days to make it less annoying).
If you have a merchants licence you can buy as many as you want without restrictions.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I agree that the Merchant Licence should not negate commerce skills and perks. The main, and indeed originally intended purpose, is to allow you to amass ship's wealth without needing to switch to payment by dividing plunder, which in combination with a LoM is a massive bonus. (By the time I finished with "Tales of a Sea Hawk", I had a couple of hundred million!)

Yep, LoM + Merchant License is exactly the only thing that it would be good for once that other effect is removed.
It is a huge exploit, for sure. But that is what it is intended for because some people insisted on being able to do that.

If we're going to add merchant offices for all nations then the Portuguese one would need to go at Sao Jorge and would need to be disabled in "Revolutions" and "Napoleonic", when Portugal no longer owns the colony. Likewise, the American one would need to go in one of the Eleuthera towns and be disabled in all periods except "Revolutions" and "Napoleonic".

Same logic as for the governors, I imagine, with their Emissaries in periods where they don't have an actual colony.

If you're going to have ship types only available for sale if you have a Merchant Licence then I recommend the Heavy East Indiaman and the Fast Merchantman. The former is a "versatile" ship, a good fighter and a good trader, as likely to be used by a navy as by a merchant, and as capable as some purely naval ships which can't be bought except at high enough rank. The Fast Merchantman is basically a converted frigate, perhaps converted to the merchant company's specification and at the company's expense, for use by its own people. (The Fast Merchantman is not currently available to America. We'd either need to restrict some other, America-specific, ship, or make it available to America just so we can prevent American characters from buying it without a licence. )

Okay this idea probably will piss people off but it might be worth considering.
What if we restrict the amount of goods you can buy on an island. So say you can only buy 100 of a specific good on a island (per week or something like that) so if you want to get your hull filled you would need to wait for a while on that island and buy the amount each time (we could have this time delay automated after a prompt appears to warn you you will need to wait so many days to make it less annoying).
If you have a merchants licence you can buy as many as you want without restrictions.

Not an inherently bad idea, I reckon. There may be some potential there.

 

[Levis]

Yep, LoM + Merchant License is exactly the only thing that it would be good for once that other effect is removed.
It is a huge exploit, for sure. But that is what it is intended for because some people insisted on being able to do that.

Maybe have it tied to realism settings? on higher realism settings you can't have both and if you do one of the things becomes obsolete?

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Maybe have it tied to realism settings? on higher realism settings you can't have both and if you do one of the things becomes obsolete?

It is specifically intended to be able to have both. If you can't have both, then it might as well not exist.

 

[Grey Roger]

Okay this idea probably will piss people off but it might be worth considering.
What if we restrict the amount of goods you can buy on an island. So say you can only buy 100 of a specific good on a island (per week or something like that) so if you want to get your hull filled you would need to wait for a while on that island and buy the amount each time (we could have this time delay automated after a prompt appears to warn you you will need to wait so many days to make it less annoying).
If you have a merchants licence you can buy as many as you want without restrictions.

That ought to upset pirates, privateers and naval characters, who are likely to need more than 100 planks and sailcloth. It's also liable to upset anyone with a large enough ship to need more than 100 food or rum for a decently long voyage.

Do smugglers lose the merchant licence if they're caught? If so, they'll then need to buy another one if they intend to do large scale smuggling, so that's them upset as well.

Anyone wanting to do a fetch quest which asks for more than 100 of a commodity isn't going to like it either.

The net result is that you can't do large scale trading without a merchant licence, and you can't afford a merchant licence without doing a lot of trading, assuming you're trying to play as a peaceful merchant and don't want to indulge in piracy or privateering.

Summary: probably not a good idea, whichever way you like to play.

 

[Levis]

That ought to upset pirates, privateers and naval characters, who are likely to need more than 100 planks and sailcloth. It's also liable to upset anyone with a large enough ship to need more than 100 food or rum for a decently long voyage.

Do smugglers lose the merchant licence if they're caught? If so, they'll then need to buy another one if they intend to do large scale smuggling, so that's them upset as well.

Anyone wanting to do a fetch quest which asks for more than 100 of a commodity isn't going to like it either.

The net result is that you can't do large scale trading without a merchant licence, and you can't afford a merchant licence without doing a lot of trading, assuming you're trying to play as a peaceful merchant and don't want to indulge in piracy or privateering.

Summary: probably not a good idea, whichever way you like to play.

We could exclude some stuff from it. 100 was also a arbirary number, it could be tweaked depending on what is needed.
Fetch quests can be done in more then 1 run. also I could tweak it so that it wont ask you for larger quests if you don't have a licence (but the rewards will be less also ofcourse).

At the moment I believe you don't lose your licence if you are caught smuggling. This we could add though sounds reasonable.

If you would be able to buy a merchant licence per nation/island we could make them a bit cheaper and as a peacefull merchant you might be able to get one pretty quick. We could change the working of the licence a little bit so for example for EACH licence you have you can have more money without the crew minding it, and if you have more then X licences they wont mind at all...

 

[Pieter Boelen]

That ought to upset pirates, privateers and naval characters, who are likely to need more than 100 planks and sailcloth. It's also liable to upset anyone with a large enough ship to need more than 100 food or rum for a decently long voyage.

I imagine any "ship operational goods", e.g. non-trade goods like food, sailcloth, planks, etc. should be exempt from that for sure.
This would also immediately add a difference between "trade" and "non-trade" goods, which we've thought of before, seemed to agree had potential, and then never did anything with.

Anyone wanting to do a fetch quest which asks for more than 100 of a commodity isn't going to like it either.

I imagine that, just like a Governor Ship Hunting Quest serving as "single-use LoM against a specific target", having a Fetch Quest could serve as a "single-use Merchant License for a specific type of good".
That would actually add an extra bonus to Fetch Quests, since it'd be a way of getting more from trading without being required to have a Merchant License.

Do smugglers lose the merchant licence if they're caught?

Not at the moment, no. Unless you actually take a relation hit. But I don't think just getting caught triggers that.

The net result is that you can't do large scale trading without a merchant licence, and you can't afford a merchant licence without doing a lot of trading, assuming you're trying to play as a peaceful merchant and don't want to indulge in piracy or privateering.

If you put it that way, it really does sound silly!

Summary: probably not a good idea, whichever way you like to play.

You happen to have a better idea of what the Merchant License should do?

 

[Grey Roger]

The main purpose of the merchant licence is to allow the massive fortune available by not having to divide plunder while privateering. Given how much money you can make by doing this, that alone is a good reason to get it. The licence was originally introduced as a way to get rid of the toggle to allow unlimited wealth without upsetting the crew, why not just leave it at that?

Maybe also allow the merchant licence to override, or at least influence, the check on relations in a hostile port. If you have a merchant licence and don't have a hostile LoM then you're a peaceful trader and the store should allow you to trade. (If you have a hostile LoM then you're not just a peaceful trader and you're getting the benefit of massive wealth without needing to share it with the crew. ) The merchants' guild has friends everywhere and by having a licence which shows you're in the guild, they're your friends too. That doesn't mean you can fleece them but it does mean you can trade with them where other people can't.

And personally I've no objection to allowing a couple of ship types to be only buyable if you have a merchant licence because I tend to buy my Heavy East Indiaman with grapeshot, not gold.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

The main purpose of the merchant licence is to allow the massive fortune available by not having to divide plunder while privateering. Given how much money you can make by doing this, that alone is a good reason to get it. The licence was originally introduced as a way to get rid of the toggle to allow unlimited wealth without upsetting the crew, why not just leave it at that?

Because there is potential for so much more?
Also, if it does only that, then anyone who isn't a Privateer also has zero use for it.
Regular honest merchants don't need it and it doesn't work for Pirates anyway.

Maybe also allow the merchant licence to override, or at least influence, the check on relations in a hostile port. If you have a merchant licence and don't have a hostile LoM then you're a peaceful trader and the store should allow you to trade. (If you have a hostile LoM then you're not just a peaceful trader and you're getting the benefit of massive wealth without needing to share it with the crew. ) The merchants' guild has friends everywhere and by having a licence which shows you're in the guild, they're your friends too. That doesn't mean you can fleece them but it does mean you can trade with them where other people can't.

That's an interesting thought, actually!

 

[Levis]

I imagine any "ship operational goods", e.g. non-trade goods like food, sailcloth, planks, etc. should be exempt from that for sure.
This would also immediately add a difference between "trade" and "non-trade" goods, which we've thought of before, seemed to agree had potential, and then never did anything with.


I imagine that, just like a Governor Ship Hunting Quest serving as "single-use LoM against a specific target", having a Fetch Quest could serve as a "single-use Merchant License for a specific type of good".
That would actually add an extra bonus to Fetch Quests, since it'd be a way of getting more from trading without being required to have a Merchant License.

I like where this is going acutally.

I also like the relation idea.

It does sound kind of logical to have a licence for a specific good ...

 

[Tingyun]

I love @Grey Roger 's posts on this. Either of his proposals, or both, (those 2 ships reserved or the overriding of diplomatic checks for trading) would be perfect substitute instead of negating commerce. Both very flavorful, fun, and useful to a merchant character!

I dislike the idea of limiting goods trading without a license, for the same reasons Grey Rogers states. Also, I don't think trading should be modeled as such a regulated industry in this age--if there is profit to be made, they will sell to you. The contraband items already represents the influence of regulation, it shouldn't be more so.

EDIT: you could erase the trustworthy perk, and have the merchant license grant that ability. That would make some sense, the license grants the authority to trade in regulated goods. Smuggling remains an option for higher prices.

 

[Grey Roger]

Please leave the "Trustworthy" perk exactly as it is - a way to get rid of contraband without having to go to the effort of smuggling. It should not be tied to the merchant licence.

 

[ANSEL]

I like @Grey Roger 's proposals too and agree with most of what he says.

 

[Tingyun]

@Grey Roger , I'm not really advocating it affecting trading in goods at all, but I would much rather it affect trading in contraband than it affect trading in normal goods. Either way, I like your two ideas best.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

So then....:
- Merchant License unlocks proper large merchant ships for purchase
- Allows you to do business with merchants in hostile towns (provided you have no hostile LoM), NOTE: It would be tricky (but not impossible) to distinguish here between merchants and other characters!
- DO NOT: Affect skill/perk influence on pricing
- DO NOT: Limit trading in any way

As I see it, that doesn't really make it a fully-fledged feature yet. But then, it wasn't anyway.

 

[Levis]

We've done quite a nice job on the LOM/navy character side already. Maybe in a later stage we can flesh this one out more too. For now I'd say this looks like a good option.
Maybe one more things we could do with it is something with the price of food and crew. If you are a navy character everything is arranged for you, maybe as a merchant you are able to buy food and rum etc for lower prices because you would normally buy them from the trading compagny instead. Because we don't have that yet we could do something where we just give you a discount on the food etc

 

[Tingyun]

I actually think for a merchant character gameplay the balance between profits and operating cost should be emphasized, not deemphasized (ie, the opposite of naval crew). So I'd say they shouldn't get a discount on food or crew, because that just further removes their operating costs and efficiency from being a relevant consideration.

In the longterm, I'd like to see merchant characters having the ability to invest in towns, influence comododity prices (perhaps even monopolizing), and generally have routes to change the economy in ways calculated to make their trading more profitable.

But I think Pieter's list is the right steps for now!

 

[ANSEL]

A discount for merchant's is reasonable, could be an good idea.

 

[Tingyun]

It is reasonable in theory, but it would mean merchants care less about operating costs (crew salary, food) than privateers, when good gameplay would point to the opposite result- they should care at least as much.