Market Effects

Hey everyone!

One of the main goals in Rise of the Merchants is to supply your own settlement with resources and goods. You trade and produce goods, sell them to your settlers, and they consume them. However, depending on which types of goods you acquire, they can have different effects. Today, I’d like to take a closer look at those effects!

Let’s start with the Produce Exchange:

There are 5 categories of resources, each affecting a different aspect of your settlement. The first two categories, food, affect your settlers’ health. Clay, stone, and wood are building materials - supplying these goods affects the maintenance of production buildings. Coal and ores affect production speed, while flax, animal hides, and sheep’s wool affect satisfaction.

If you meet the basic need (3 units in this case) for all 3 resources in a category, there is no penalty - as you can see in the example with coal and ores. If you only supply one of them, the other two will incur a penalty, as shown in the first food category. However, you can also earn bonuses by meeting 175% of the demand, as shown in the following example:

By clicking the boxes next to the raw materials, I can increase the number of units of each good consumed. This allows me to counteract a penalty with a bonus, or even turn it into a positive effect, as you can see with fish, meat, and salt. I can also try to boost an entire category to gain a substantial bonus. Here, I’ve done this with coal and ores to increase the production speed of my production facilities. This allows me to support my playstyle through targeted trading or respond to specific situations.

Once I’ve earned market rights, I can influence entirely new effects at the Market Place:

Here, the first category, preserved foods, allows me to influence the travel distance of my convoys! If I supply my settlement with enough beer, bread, and cider, I gain reputation - makes sense, right? ;) If I provide enough luxury goods, workers will even accept lower wages. Category 4 includes copper goods, pottery, and tools - all things that make life easier and can therefore increase life expectancy. As you can see, the Marketplace offers some powerful ways to influence your settlement!

That was quite a bit of theory and strategy this time, but the Produce Exchange and the Market Place offer plenty of ways to shape your gameplay experience - depending on which goods you acquire and in what quantities! You could even build production facilities that match a particular category to boost its effects regularly. I’m certainly looking forward to seeing which path you choose!

Best regards, and until next time,

Erik from Black Duke Games