Create a new order:
TARIFF <city> <rate> <id+>
TARIFF sets a tax rate on transactions in the city identified. It can
only be set by the castle owner who controls the province, and defaults
to zero for uncontrolled cities. The rate can be anywhere from 0 to
100, representing the percentage of the transaction the seller pays for
the privelege of trading in the city. Thus, nobles buying riding horses
from a city do not pay a tariff, but traders selling rare goods (or
other items, such as pikes and ships) do. Also, the castle owner can
identify factions and individual nobles using the <id> parameter that do
not have to pay the tariff.
Then, add a flag to the sell command to pay tariff or ignore tariff.
This allows the trader to ignore the tariff in a city, but the castle
owner is notified of the transaction. Traders who choose not to pay
tariffs run the risk of gaining a bad reputation, but this is their
option. The flag should default to paying the tariff.
Three other changes--
I'd raise the number of rare items that a city can trade to four
I'd make each rare item bought by a city increase the civ level by .25,
thus allowing a total possible increase of 1.
I'd change the profit structure to reflect distance, so routes of 8
provinces get 50% of the listed profit, increasing by .0625 for each
additonal province until routes of 16 provinces or more would get the
full amount.
Comments? I think this would allow landholders the option of
restricting trade in their cities if they so chose, and even better, the
option of restricting trade to those they have an agreement with. It
also encourages trade by the civ level bonus. It encourages interaction
by allowing players to open their cities to trade--advertising a 5%
tariff might make you quite popular with the merchant class. Finally,
the distance factor would encourage interfaction trade routes.
EXAMPLE:
Yellowleaf buys Chocolate for 34 gold, quantity 100. The city has a
tariff of 10%. Schlomo wishes to sell his chocolate to the city, and
chooses to be a good citizen and pay the tariff. Thus, when the
transaction is completed, Schlomo gets 3,060 gold instead of 3,400, and
Moishe, the owner of Yelloleaf, gets 340. If Schlomo bought his
chocolate only 8 provinces away then his profit is pretty diminished--he
should find another market farther away, or cut a deal with Moishe to
lower the tariff if he promises to increase the volume of trade.
Rob