Strategies for Manipulating Trade
The player's main tool for manipulating trade is where they place their cities, and what they build in each city. The more experience you gain with the complex interactions that arise from the economic systems in Ludopolis, the more strategies will open up to you. Here are some typical strategies:
The centre of trade strategy consists of building up a well-crafted trade city, and then creating satellite cities around your centre, spending only enough time on each satellite city to make it a good place for outside traders to do business.
The opposite strategy, the trade network strategy, consists of equipping most cities with trading ships.
The high-end export strategy entails scouting your economic region to see which commodity would fetch you the highest price, and then producing that commodity in a city for export. This is a common strategy for high-end workshops such as rugs and wine. Sometimes, you will need to occasionally "turn off" your workshop (by unclaiming it) to prevent your workshop from flooding the market. Remember to turn it back on (reclaim it) before you cripple any trade networks that may have grown up around that commodity.
When you want to weaken an opponent's city that depends on high-end exports, you might choose to use a flooding strategy. This consists of producing their main export in such quantities that it floods the markets, prices bottom out, and their city can no longer afford to import the food, durable goods, or luxuries they once could, allowing you to tempt citizens away from the city.
The low-end export or primitive currency strategy involves producing large amounts of a good that you know will be cheap, and then exporting it. In effect, this strategy creates a primitive currency — a good that is traded only to facilitate trade, and not because it is useful in itself.
Any strategy requires people. In a competitive game, it comes down to the issue of creating the most value out of the people that you have, and creating the best living conditions with the lowest working hours, in a bid to tempt away your competitor's population.
The centre of trade strategy consists of building up a well-crafted trade city, and then creating satellite cities around your centre, spending only enough time on each satellite city to make it a good place for outside traders to do business.
The opposite strategy, the trade network strategy, consists of equipping most cities with trading ships.
The high-end export strategy entails scouting your economic region to see which commodity would fetch you the highest price, and then producing that commodity in a city for export. This is a common strategy for high-end workshops such as rugs and wine. Sometimes, you will need to occasionally "turn off" your workshop (by unclaiming it) to prevent your workshop from flooding the market. Remember to turn it back on (reclaim it) before you cripple any trade networks that may have grown up around that commodity.
When you want to weaken an opponent's city that depends on high-end exports, you might choose to use a flooding strategy. This consists of producing their main export in such quantities that it floods the markets, prices bottom out, and their city can no longer afford to import the food, durable goods, or luxuries they once could, allowing you to tempt citizens away from the city.
The low-end export or primitive currency strategy involves producing large amounts of a good that you know will be cheap, and then exporting it. In effect, this strategy creates a primitive currency — a good that is traded only to facilitate trade, and not because it is useful in itself.
Any strategy requires people. In a competitive game, it comes down to the issue of creating the most value out of the people that you have, and creating the best living conditions with the lowest working hours, in a bid to tempt away your competitor's population.