It allows for players to use the different forms of concealment to avoid
the tarriffs.
It allows flexibility.
And it makes control of a city valuable to the landholder.
One other item I would like to see, though. I would like to see the
ability to sell a Trade Good in any city beyond the 8 region minimum
for a 1-2 gold markup over what it was purchased for. This way no one
is _stuck_ holding goods they cannot sell. Realistic as that possibil-
ity is, I don't think it much "fun" from a player's point of view.
Jim
Rodgers, Robert wrote:
>
> OK, after reading tons of ideas, here is a concrete proposal:
>
> 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