[Discuss] Travelling Tradesmen (Power to the Simple Knights Part 6)

[psymann]

Hi all,

To recap, Parts 1-5 are at these links:
http://news.battlemaster.org/archives/discuss/2007-November/028247.html
http://news.battlemaster.org/archives/discuss/2007-November/028248.html
http://news.battlemaster.org/archives/discuss/2007-November/028249.html
http://news.battlemaster.org/archives/discuss/2007-November/028250.html
http://news.battlemaster.org/archives/discuss/2007-November/028251.html

Here's a new one to add to the collection:

-----The Idea: Travelling Tradesmen-----

Travelling Tradesmen

Ok, another idea to give simple knights something to do.  This is 
potentially a bit heavy on coding requirements for new things, but hey, 
worth a try:

Imagine the introduction of an NPC, a Travelling Tradesman.  The 
Tradesman does his rounds, moving around from region to region in a part 
of an island.  For example, here is the route one Tradesman on Atamara 
might make:

Riverholm (staying there for 4 turns)
Wynford (1 turn)
Worav (1 turn)
Veshin (1 turn)
Yacon (1 turn)
Lerss (2 turns)
Ser'quea (3 turns)
Barnlure (1 turn)
Rogeshore (1 turn)
Stargard (4 turns)
Meldeen (1 turn)
Craigmore (1 turn)
Taree (2 turns)
Atblane (1 turn)
Stargard again (4 turns)
Ambermel (1 turn)
Lurgrod (1 turn)
Matakonis (1 turn)
Monagle (2 turns)
Rustton (1 turn)
[back to Riverholm and repeat]

It's quite long; this one takes 17 days to complete.  It's also quite 
meandering and hard to follow.  It could be harder still if the 
Tradesman could move faster than one region per turn at some points in 
the route.  But it is predictable and remains the same for each lap of 
the circuit.

There could be, say, eight traders on the Island of Atamara.  Some of 
their paths overlap, but each of their routes are different from each 
other, and take different lengths of time, passing through different 
realms.  Every six to nine months (or when too many people have learnt 
their routes), their routes might be changed, and new ones introduced, 
that would then remain constant again.

The Tradesmen would sell a few different items:
   - food (which you could send on to your realm, like a trader)
   - metal (which you could either send on to your realm, or use to 
repair your equipment damage)
   - equipment (buying this could increase the equipment % of your troops)
   - weapons (buying this could increase the weapons % of your troops)
   - slaves (which you could put into your estate, to increase the 
amount of gold you get on tax day)
   - fine trinkets (which could increase your prestige if you owned them)
   - swords (which could improve your swordfighting by one point)
   - information (such as the current location of an infiltrator, or the 
current food stored in the region)
These could all be available everywhere, or could vary from region to 
region, or from person to person.  He could have limited supplies and 
run out periodically.

Furthermore, there is an option for enhancements to traders and 
infiltrators:
- traders could sell food to tradesmen as well as buying from them
- infiltrators could set slaves free from estates, or steal them, to 
give to a trader, for him to sell on perhaps

So the effects of buying something from a Tradesman would be:
- you spend some of your gold
- you could end up, as a result, with more gold, better troops, higher 
prestige or a thankful realm.

If a Tradesman is in your realm, you wouldn't necessarily know.  There's 
a 1% chance that you might see him (like a sage for adventurers).  But 
you can spend 5 hours to look for Tradesmen, which would be almost 
guaranteed to find one if he was there.  In many cases, that would be a 
waste of 5 hours, since there's unlikely to be a Tradesman there.  But 
while Lords are saving their hours to hold court to balance the enormous 
tax rate they've just initiated, council members are busy with politics, 
and marshals are busy telling people to go left, right and centre to 
attack small bands of monsters, you could be off looking for Tradesmen.



The idea, then, would be that a simple knight could go looking for these 
Tradesmen.  At the moment, a simple knight out of his realm is almost 
always either doing something bad, or generally being useless.  This 
would allow simple knights to set off in search of Tradesmen while being 
good and doing something sensible.  Finding them, following them, 
working out their trade routes, finding out what they sell.  This sort 
of information could be sold on to other knights, or could just be used 
to locate the Tradesmen again in future and buy what is desired.

Not only does this add something for knights to do, especially during 
peacetime, but it also gives people an excuse for drifting into 
neighbouring realms.  "I'm just looking for the Tradesman.  And so are 
the other fifty knights here, and all their troops.  Honest."  And 
there's always potential for wars to start in order to free a realm's 
slaves, because it's a mean and horrible thing to do.

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Comments?

psymann