That said, I just scanned a weekend's worth of messages and have a
couple of comments. I said earlier that using historical comparisions
to Oly is dangerous, and what I just read bears it out. Although there
have been some great trading empires, including Venice and Holland,
eventually they lost out to military powers simply because of a shortage
of other resources. Money will only buy so much in the real world. In
Oly, that isn't the case. A castle owner who controls 50 provinces
can't raise 500 peasants a month and train them into soldiers, he simply
doesn't have enough nobles to do the job. A single faction can only
raise and train maybe a 100 troops a turn, and that is pushing it. You
can do that in 8 provinces if you have a city or two. So a trading
empire who has tons of gold has the same ability to raise troops as a
large landholder, but he can support them indefinitely. This is where
Oly differs from the "Real World" IMHO.
Should trade be changed? Personally, I like the suggestion of adding the
REMOVE TRADE ITEM order. That might pit the traders against each other,
as they should be. I'm still for allowing city owners to set some sort
of tax on trnsactions too. Of course, there are other methods of
discouraging trade. Some of these "newbie" factions might want to go
into the piracy game. Remember, "real" pirates didn't spend much time
hunting down ships at sea--it's too damn hard to find a sailing ship
from another sailing ship, just ask Admiral Rodney. Nope, most pirates
made their fortunes raiding ports, just like in Disneyland. All that
trading gold has to be stored somewhere...
If Mark's naval rules are implemented in some form (which I support)
then that is also a good option.
Rob
> -----Original Message-----
>
>
> From: Rich Skrenta [SMTP:skrenta@pbm.com]
> Sent: Sunday, February 01, 1998 10:38 PM
> To: g2-list@pbm.com
> Subject: FYI
>
> Gold report
> -----------
>
> Common magic: 0 0%
> Lead to gold: 0 0%
> Pots and baskets: 6,584 4%
> Opium: 0 0%
> Trade to cities: 104,599 76%
> Inn income: 6,278 4%
> Taxes: 12,306 9%
> Times press: 0 0%
> Combat with indeps: 403 0%
> Petty thievery: 2,217 1%
> Temple income: 3,700 2%
> Pillaging: 16 0%
> Ferry boarding: 0 0%
> ----
> Total: 136,103
>
> Player combat: 15,206