I think trade needs tweaking

[Ebbingford]

Playing as Britonae. My region of Ituna, Caledonia, is importing iron from Asturia. I am paying full whack for this to another country and it is getting shipped to me. My region next door to Itunae has iron as a trade good.
Why aren't I getting my iron from here?
It would be cheaper and easier.
Asturia is providing iron to three of my regions at the moment.
I think trade deals like this are one of the reasons for the huge fluctuations in the income tooltip. Is the tooltip thinking you will get your goods from a cheap source ( your own), but actually when the turn processes it is getting them from miles away and you have had to pay loads for them? This would explain some of the losses in gold that I am seeing on some turns.
Shouldn't trade happen between regions that are the same faction and closer before another more expensive source is used?
In this case both iron producing regions have a trade acumen of 3. I think in reality iron would have been used from the next region, not shipped in all the way from Spain in 154BC.
I think trade criteria should be firstly the closest source, with perhaps land having precedence over sea. Secondly from your own nation before another, especially if the trade acumen of the regions is equal.

[Gray Fox]

Pocus posted this about trade on Steam:

That's probabilistic, if you have a trade acumen of 3 and you have 2 foreign sources each with a TA of 3, then the weight are as follow

3 each for the foreigners
9 for your own source (triple weight bonus for your own resource)

So your probability of having your own resource used is 9/15.

As for the reasoning:

1. Gameplay and game balance. We want to have some trade tensions, trade wars.
2. Realism. This is not state governed economy. You don't decide who sell to who. There was rarely autarky in ancient time.

[Ebbingford]

Thanks for posting that
I still think it needs changing though.
If you have loads of foreign sources then the odds of you doing a cheap trade, one where you make money and trade with yourself, gets less.
Aren't the number of your own friendly sources factored in too?
I also still think the closer source should take precedence, and also land over naval.......

[Ebbingford]

Just seen a different problem with these trade deals.
They are definitely the cause of the huge monetary swings you see.
One of my regions is paying 9 for cattle as a missing trade good.
Yet it is available in the next region.
Why aren't I trading with my next region?

[Pocus]

This should not happen, either there is a bug, in a longstanding code, or your analysis is incorrect.

Please send me your save at pocus@ageod.net

Distance is not factored. I'm considering adding it once I'm at this entry in my todo list

[Ebbingford]

Just downloaded the two mods for trade and admin burden.
Thanks a lot Pocus
Will start a new game and see what happens

You can find them in the mods section of the Slitherine board

[Ebbingford]

I don't think the trade mod has worked very well Pocus.
I have a region that is importing cattle from a neutral region that is 3 regions distant. I produce it in the next region though......... It isn't getting sourced from here at a distance of 1, but from a distance of 3.

[Pocus]

I did not say closest distance would have 100% chance of getting the deal!