The two middles

One good, one port, four numbers

A market is one good in one port. Four numbers describe it.

The price comes from the stock. A low stock gives a high price (dear). A high stock gives a low price (cheap). The price equals the base price when the stock equals the target. One rule gives the price in every market. Only the good’s swing changes the size of the numbers (section 8).

The first line gives the price for any stock. The second line moves the stock, one day at a time. The page uses both lines in the tools below. The stock has no top limit. Very heavy buying can push a market below zero.

The two middles

The base level is shared. At stock = target, the price equals the base price. This holds in every market of the good. But the target is different in each market: 600 units at Banten, 2,800 units at Ternate.

The settle level is local. Every day, the world pushes the stock toward a settle level. The world does not push every market the same way, so every market has its own settle level. Sometimes the two levels are almost the same: Johor textile is one example. Then the bar works like a normal gauge. Often the levels are different. Then the two answers separate.

Try it. Drag the stock. Change the season. Watch the two answers change.

Worked example: Banten clove, day 0

The bar shows the stock from zero to two times the settle level. That is the game’s own drawing. The base level line is not drawn in the game; this page adds it, because it explains the prices. The slider covers the full bar. The model itself has no top limit for stock.

Will the price go up or down?

Four things move a market each day. Only four.

Nothing is random. The order inside one day does not matter: one big sale and many small sales give the same result.

Try it. Sell some units on a day you choose. The sale pushes the price down. The recovery then closes the gap. In the end, both lines meet at the settle level. One sale changes the day, not the destination.

One year, two settle levels

One year has two monsoons and two rests. West monsoon: 141 days. Rest: 30 days. East monsoon: 164 days. Rest: 30 days. In total: 365 days.

The settle level can change at the season turn, because the world’s pushes have a row for each season. Ternate clove settles at 2,898 units in the west, and at 3,152 units in the east. Malacca clove moves from 962 to 1,212. Some markets do not move at all: at Banten, clove settles at 481 units in both seasons.

The rests are quiet. No sailing and no trade. The authored pushes stand at zero, so the market holds still. One exception: a resolved situation keeps its push. The bill arrives at each rest. Upkeep costs 0.1 reals per day. The crew bills once per season: about 20 reals for the starting four hands, against a starting purse of 100 reals.

One good, many markets

Three clove markets, one morning: Banten reads +57% (dear), Ternate reads −72% (cheap), Malacca reads −57% (cheap). All three use the same base price, so the numbers are directly comparable.

The bars are not comparable, because each bar has its own settle level at the middle. In both drawings below: the solid line is the base level, and the dashed line is the settle level.

With the game’s drawing, the three bars look similar, but the prices are far apart. With one shared middle, the bars separate: left of the middle is dear, right of the middle is cheap. The dashed marks still show each market’s own settle level. The shaded area is the middle part of the swing, where the price still moves.

Why trade routes work

The same good, the same base price, but different settle levels. At Ternate, clove settles at 3.36 reals (below base). At Banten and at Malacca, clove settles at 8.21 reals (near the top). Buy where the price is low. Sail. Sell where the price is high. The difference is your profit.

The pack measured five routes and one short loop. The numbers below come from the game code. They include the sailing days and the ship upkeep of 0.1 reals per day.

A repeated route earns less. The first loop of the home shuttle earns 35.2954 reals. The next loops earn 33.1542, 32.7337, and 32.6509. The reason: every loop moves the market, and the market recovers slowly. A fast repeat does not give the market time to recover.

The fleet days

Two days each year bring big cargo to Malacca. On day 14, the India fleet leaves and takes 250 units of clove. On day 180, the China junks leave and take 400 units. Nutmeg and mace ride on the same ships. The day-14 landing moves the Malacca clove price by 1.13 reals in one day.

Landings appear in the journal. Future days appear in the list “Coming events”. A fifth cause class (dated events) is not built yet. Nothing else moves a price.

The swing and the hidden numbers

Each good has a swing: the farthest its price can move from base. Clove: ±75%. Rice: ±62%. Tin: ±17%. Five goods (camphor, iron, sago, salt, silver) sit at the floor: ±15%. The curve has the same shape in every market. Only the swing changes the size of the numbers, and the swing belongs to the good.

The last part of the swing is almost flat. Past 20% away from the target, the price is very close to the edge. The last steps are very small. So most of the curve is flat, and most of the bar is a price that cannot move.

Depth is never printed. Depth = target / 5. It tells you how much one trade moves the price. A starting hold of 10 units is 1.7% of Banten’s clove book. The upgraded hold of 40 units is 6.7%.

The swing is a design decision, not a law of nature. At the cutover (the day the new price rule went live), 17 cells had old prices outside the new swing. The designers moved those prices to the edge of the swing. Example: Banten clove rested at 8.40 reals; the top of the clove swing is 8.21 reals; so it became 8.21.

What the player cannot see

The prices are readable on purpose. The machine behind them is not.

The owner keeps one open problem here: a read that shows “where is this good expensive?” across the map, without breaking the rules above. This page is one experiment for that problem. It proposes nothing.

What is real on this page

Sources

Words on this page, and the same words in the game