Who Likes The Traveling Merchant Buildings?

[DeletedUser29287]

@Frost Knight i read the post last post. You should definitely go searching for an active fellowship to get more trading partners besides your neighbors. Until then make sure you are putting up 3 star trades in case though have a neighbor needing your goods and you haven’t discovered them yet but they discovered you.

In Winyandor I’m more dependent on a couple of my neighbors taking my trades than my fellowship taking them.

 

[crackie]

A Traveling Merchant I at my level makes 196 unboosted T1s and my steel factory @ max relic boost makes 2320 in that same 3hr, which is 11.8x more than the merchant. If we're going to look at it by footprint, my steel is the size of 3 merchants. So 11.8x Traveling Merchants is about the size of 4 steel factories. The amount of space those merchants take up to match 1 boosted factory, I would have added 3 more factories for +30x more T1s compared to the merchants. Even if we're generous and say instead of 4 steels, it's only 1 steel and the rest of that footprint is for the residence and workshops to support the steel...it's still over 10x T1s making only boosted goods!

Now if we look at it from a TIME perspective, It would take about 35.5 hrs for the Traveling Merchant to make what my factory makes in 3hrs. Let's say I make a batch of steel in 3hrs, I have 32.5hrs for my steel to sit in the trader before converting to unboosted (my trades don't even sit more than 3hrs in the trader). While I'm waiting out my steel to be traded, I can make 10 more new batches of steel to be traded out again in the time that Traveling Merchant is still working making the same amount of T1s as my first batch.

So by footprint or time, making only boosted goods is the better option to Traveling Merchants bc math.

 

[Lady Dastardly]

This is exactly what I was getting at:

A player with a lot of traveling merchants either
a) Doesn't trade as much as they should
b) Doesn't get as many trades as they should

Either one points to the owner not placing as much importance on trades as they perhaps should.

I am coming at this from a fellowship perspective. When I recruit I look for players with boosts that will compliment the existing trade balance in the FS. My experience has been that players with multiple traveling merchants of each tier are less likely to view the trader as the primary way they should be obtaining their non-boosted goods, and as a result, do not trade as frequently or at as high a volume. It also most likely means they are not producing as much of their boosted goods as they could. This is because the space they could be using for more or bigger factories is being taken up by merchants. The math laid out by @crackie shows just how inefficient this is. The end result is that there are less of that players boosted goods flowing through the trader to the rest of the fellowship. That, in turn, shifts the burden to other players with those boosts to increase their productions to cover the short fall created by the player who isn't trading, otherwise a trading imbalance develops.
These players also tend to get stuck as they get farther into the game and the demands on their goods increase but their production isn't able to keep pace.
To be clear, I'm talking about players with multiple traveling merchants (I've seen as many as 3 of each tier, so 9 total in some cities), not players who are using a couple to get past a tight spot in their game.

 

[Laochra]

Yikes! @Frost Knight, I'd find another FS anyway - you've got 14 out of 24 players inactive. That's probably a huge part of the trading problem.

Per @TanaCS here, Atlas is willing to merge, so they might be looking to take on another Ceravyn player outside of just merging.
@JerseyMeeko76 posted here that their FS, Sovereigns' Rogue Pirates, is looking for new members, all levels. They're a 10 chest FS, too.
@Laochra has posted requirements for their FS here. It was updated yesterday, so they're probably still looking for players.

I checked ELvenStats as well. It looks like there are now only 9 active members & only one is steel boosted. I have sent a group message to your active members { @Frost Knight }, offering you all a new home with The Brothers' Grimm. We've had a few members retire from the game and have been recruiting for plank boosted players. You would all be most welcome.

 

[Laochra]

This is exactly what I was getting at:

I am coming at this from a fellowship perspective. When I recruit I look for players with boosts that will compliment the existing trade balance in the FS. My experience has been that players with multiple traveling merchants of each tier are less likely to view the trader as the primary way they should be obtaining their non-boosted goods, and as a result, do not trade as frequently or at as high a volume. It also most likely means they are not producing as much of their boosted goods as they could. This is because the space they could be using for more or bigger factories is being taken up by merchants. The math laid out by @crackie shows just how inefficient this is. The end result is that there are less of that players boosted goods flowing through the trader to the rest of the fellowship. That, in turn, shifts the burden to other players with those boosts to increase their productions to cover the short fall created by the player who isn't trading, otherwise a trading imbalance develops.
These players also tend to get stuck as they get farther into the game and the demands on their goods increase but their production isn't able to keep pace.
To be clear, I'm talking about players with multiple traveling merchants (I've seen as many as 3 of each tier, so 9 total in some cities), not players who are using a couple to get past a tight spot in their game.

That's what I have mine for. I only keep one of each tier & as I progress in the game, I am upgrading them to a higher level. Usually this happens when we are in a FA & I have to produce the insane Residues.