verney’s reworked trade goods (invictus)
Ave citizens!
THE VANILLA VERSION OF THIS MOD NOW RELEASED FOR INVICTUS! This mod was more of a private alteration of the trade goods in Imperator that I have recently decided to make available on steam incase anything should happen to my local files/if anyone else is interested in also using it. Ever wanted your trade goods to be more impactful and realistic? My worst gripes were with how Precious Metals, Gemstones, and Base Metals are handled in vanilla. Here is a list of all the changes I have made with this mod:
i) Precious Metals and Mines:
Having access to gold and silver mines often swayed the whole destiny of kingdoms and empires. Precious Metals now give a global tax modifier of +15%, signifying your country’s ability to make good quality coinage and more efficiently levy taxes on its population. This does not come without a price however. To balance things out, Mines are now a bit more expensive to build, take longer to complete, lower manpower reserves where they are established due to their serious labour needs, and cause a -15% happiness hit to the citizens and freemen who hate living next to the toxic fumes and scarred landscapes they produce. Local unrest also goes up slightly since the slaves have to work in horrendous conditions (+5%). Nobles own the mines, naturally, therefore they are excluded from this nerf. So, although the rewards are substantially greater for trading in gold and silver, this will now (hopefully) make you think twice about where and when you build mines.
ii) Base Metals:
When no silver or gold could be found, copper and brass were often used as substitutes for coinage. Base metals now give a +2.5% buff to global tax to show this, together with a buff to legion experience decay (-0.5%) since they are also a tactical resource (alloys of copper were often used to produce the arms and armour that kept legions well supplied).
iii) Gemstones
As part of your treasury gemstones now also give a small buff to national tax (+5%) when you have a surplus.
iv) Grain
I got tired of having to stack 100s of grain routes into my provinces just to stop my pops from starving. Grain now gives 10 instead of 6 food, but as with mines there are new, and hopefully immersive changes to balance this out. Your latifundia (slave estate building in-game), now gives a -10% to citizen and freemen happiness since it means they cannot find work in that particular tile or their land may have been bought out by a pesky noble. Slave working conditions also are not great (think of the servile wars), takes a -5% hit.
v) Everything that can be eaten
From wild game, to dates and olives if it can be eaten it now contributes something to province food (max 4 with olives). Olives also have a buff to commerce since they were such a big part of the Mediterranean economy.
vi) Papyrus
Having enough clerical material was important for record keeping and research in the ancient world. Having a surplus of this material now gives a +5% to technology speed in general.
vii) Iron
No longer gives a buff to province commerce, but does improve local manpower since more of your citizens and freemen can now be armed with good weapons and shields. It also gives the best buff to legion experience decay when you have a surplus (-5%), together with its vanilla buff to heavy infantry. It is balanced out by the aforementioned mine building nerf.
viii) All beasts of burden (except ellies)
This includes livestock, camels, and steppe horses. Apart from also being food sources, they were the life blood of any ancient economy; providing transport for goods and acting as workforce multipliers for a vast array of tasks, from agricultural needs to ensuring courier networks remained functional. This is reflected by a +2.5% buff they give to local population output wherever they are being traded.
ix) Dyes, Incense, Silk, Marble
They have better commerce values to reflect how scarce or hard to acquire these luxury goods often were (think Tyrian purple, Myrrh). The aforementioned mine and latifundia nerfs help balance out these buffs though.
