Grain is expensive in a settlement. In a trading game, that’s an invitation to bring grain. But that explanation isn’t enough for our world. Why is it expensive? What happens after a delivery? Can you come back tomorrow and repeat the same deal? The answers determine whether the market is a system or just a list of prices.
In Last Road, a price depends on the stock of a good relative to market demand. A shortage raises the price; a surplus lowers it, within set limits. Production, consumption, and deliveries change the stock. That gives the price an observable cause.
Count each setback once
A crisis or bandits can affect production and delivery. That already changes the amount of a good available. If we also add a special “crisis surcharge,” one cause would raise the price twice. The project’s model avoids that kind of duplication.
For you, this means you can reason about deliveries. A shortage doesn’t have to be a random icon added just to make a lucrative contract. It has a place in the movement of goods, and your caravan has a chance to affect it.
The warehouse has a limit
The market has finite capacity. Selling increases stock, buying reduces it, and consumption frees space. You can’t keep unloading goods at one good price forever. Nor can you count on an empty warehouse to refill itself after a while if it has no production or incoming deliveries.
We also don’t track a separate wallet for every settlement. Local buyers’ liquidity is outside the simulation’s scope. Supply is limited by stock, capacity, changing prices, and consumption. It’s a deliberately limited economic model, not a promise to recreate an entire medieval economy.
Numbers should help you choose
You shouldn’t have to work through a formula to make a decision. You need the deal total, the average price per lot, and the market’s expected remaining stock. Those details connect the visible result to your action: you can understand why the next sale is less attractive.
As we test the prototype, we’re checking that the calculation and the screen describe the same transaction. A correct formula is useless if the button shows a different total or updates stock at the wrong time. A market gets interesting when you can read it, make a prediction, and test it with your own delivery. Then an expensive sack of grain starts a train of thought about the road instead of being just a green number on a goods list.
