Questions tagged [trade]
For questions involving the economic exchange of goods or services.
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Effects of industrialisation via runic magic in a Fantasy Economy
So, how would industrialisation via runecraft affect the economies involved in a high fantasy world?
I have some worldbuilding down below that you can use if you want, but you can also just use this ...
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Why would a space civ trade with a primitive civ?
A human space civilization once established a colony on a planet. Now, several centuries later, the people on this planet are only at a medieval level of technology. Whether by accident or on purpose, ...
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Would salt mines, lakes or flats be reasonably found in high, snowy elevations?
I have multiple regions in my fantasy kingdom one of which is largely high elevation tundra, ice fields and snow covered mountains (the ice fields and tundra are not in the same area of the region). I ...
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Which Planets of my Galaxy Would Have the Most and Least Developed Economies? [closed]
While there are hundreds of thousands of planets in the galaxy my story is set in, only a handful of them are habitable, and over many millennia, each planet has more-or-less broadly coalesced around ...
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Can a "criminal" country exist in the modern world without getting blockaded and invaded?
In my world, there is a remote island country (unofficially named Banditland or Sin Island) started by cartel/mafia kingpins and unethical businessmen from across the world. In this country, very few ...
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Ideal conditions for Star Trek cultists with nuclear weapons to force the rest of the world to roleplay with them [closed]
A handful of extremely intelligent and resourceful Star Trek fanatics have, over the course of 2-3 generations assembled an arsenal of nuclear weapons in secret. Upon completion, they plan to ...
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Why do wild creatures carry money?
It's an extremely common trope in Role Playing Games (RPG's) for wandering monsters to carry lootable currency (gold, moolah, dinero, big ones, cash, large, green, etc.).
Now, it makes sense that non-...
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Litmus test for discerning worthy counterparty of medieval trade
Medieval Europe tends to be regarded as an example of significant fragmented sovereignty. That is to say multiple entities would stake claim to the same land and/or inhabitants. Of course there were ...
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How to Supply a City on top of a Vertical Cliff?
In my fantasy series, there’s this city called Pharcos situated on top of nearly vertical 3,500ish foot high sandstone cliffs above the river it uses for water.
This river, called the Clazelis, along ...
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What do I need to do to define resources and economic exchanges? [closed]
How to define the resources of each country/state and the trade route (road)?
I would like to define:
the resources of each country/state in my world;
the trade of goods (economic exchanges) between ...
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What alternative monetary unit can serve as the basis of a reserve currency while preventing a long term debt cycle?
The Bretton-Woods system established the rules for commercial and financial relations among the United States and its allies, and established the U.S. dollar as the world's reserve currency. The ...
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How to build roads in a windy desert
The world is a desert, and it's awfully windy. The wind is as unpredictable as possible with an average speed around 150km/h. It's usual to see wind reaching 300km/h once every three days.
The human ...
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How can I justify an Iron monopoly?
In my world, only 2 cultures (who share a common ancestor, but are rivals) regularly use Iron, which they have for hundreds of years now, the rest of the many, many cultures have naught but bronze, ...
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A Unified, Global Bronze Age, How It Would Affect America [closed]
Here are the points of departure to this scenario:
China, not Southwestern Asia, began the Bronze Age in 3300 BCE
Either China or the nearby steppes of Central Asia, not Eastern Europe, was the ...
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How would you build a harbor in a world with *intense* tides?
Long story short, my world is set on a habitable moon of a gas giant, and as a result has some very intense tides (about 5x those of Earth, averaging a few dozen foot difference between high and low ...
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How fast might technical knowledge & culture spread in the pre-colonial Americas?
Unbeknownst to the majority of the continent, there is an alien invasion in progress. Finger-sized and not particularly threatening, they've been confined to the coasts of North America by the unique ...
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How do submariners contribute to the surface-world?
If there are people living deep underwater swishing around in nice submarines, how will they provide value to normie landlubbers?
http://theoildrum.com/node/4558 all but rules out the possibility they ...
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How far could material cableways stretch if carbon nanotubes were used?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Material_ropeway is an elegant technology, popular around the 18th century, that transports bulky cargo along highly-trafficked routes with minimal energy requirements.
...
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Are vactrains a good choice for cargo?
It seems like all the discussion of vactrains is about transporting people.
But what about a smaller-diameter vactrain that could shuttle cargo around the world at thousands of mph? You could have a ...
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Maxed out charisma
The Feridians, marine fauna, kings of the ocean and for centuries unmatched with no predators and capable of eating and surviving on any source of food, even plankton.
This thing evolved perfectly to ...
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What would two planets connected by traversable wormholes trade that is worth the travel risks?
I've posted here before about the realism of my wormholes and such, but I feel this question better fits the forums context of how it wants questions.
I have multiple wormholes that are within the ...
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How would a world with limited access to modern technology work?
The setting is a semi-modern fantasy world with pockets of population separated by huge expanses of wild land where monsters and other predatory creatures live, keeping civilization from expanding too ...
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What makes for a good/bad port city?
What are the factors that would determine whether a city on the coast will become a bustling metropolis or whether it will always remain a modest fisher's village?
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Reasons for insanely huge precious metal deposits?
In my book series, there is this extremely rich Earthlike planet called Aurea whose claim to fame is supplying the vast majority of the galaxy’s precious metals (gold and silver for the purposes of ...
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How do I fix the unit of money/coins? [closed]
Ok so here's the thing, how is the the value of a coin and the value of items you buy with it decided?
After production is enough to fill the needs of the population, item to item trade comes to an ...
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Is there a way to cross my volcanic ocean?
In my world there is an ocean that separates the two main continents. The problem is that I think it's impossible to navigate these waters as there are active volcanoes on the bottom of the ocean that ...
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Despite proliferation of graphene, why is gold still so expensive in the future?
Right now I can think of 3 important factors determining the trading value of gold and why is it so expensive:
Factor 1 is longevity; this element rarely if ever reacts with anything, particularly ...
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Why is monster index still going strong?
An index is a measure of how a stock market is performing. Even the monsters know how to build up their portfolio.
When a kill is secured -- say a human being -- or a carcass is recovered, they are ...
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Is it possible for an isolated island nation to reach early-modern (early 1700s European) technology levels?
Background: I am currently writing my first fantasy novel and the nation/continent on which my story takes place is an island roughly the size of New Zealand. It consists of two nations who split off ...
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Assuming that the environment of Earth and Mars are similar, is there possible trading between Earth and Mars in current technology?
Let's assume that Mars has an atmosphere, oceans, plants, and animals, even there is some native civilization like John Carter.
Is there any possible trading between Earth and Mars?
I noticed that ...
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What basic goods do I need to make a functioning High-Fantasy trade system
This is my first time ever posting. Please let me know If I've done anything wrong and I'll do my best to correct it.
This is my first time attempting to create a functional world in D&D5e and I'm ...
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Is the composition of the major asteroid belt bodies different enough to make trade between colonies worthwhile?
For my question I'm assuming that we're talking about colonies on the very biggest bodies that are 100s of kms in size. I'm assuming that by this point humans have become cyborgified/roboticized ...
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How can I build an inter-dimentional transportation system between pocket realms?
The world is broken down into 5 continents: North America, South America, Eurasia, Africa, and Austrailiartica. These landmasses exist in separate dimensions called realms, and are separated from each ...
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How can I reinstitute the gold standard in the current global economy?
The gold standard is a monetary system where a country's currency or paper money has a value directly linked to gold. The U.S.A (United States of Amestris) operated on this standard, allowing the ...
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What would America lack if cut off from World trade for years?
North and South America totally cut off from world trade for years in modern times. No intercontinental except between the two. Would there be any current technology that couldn't be made due to lack ...
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How does an empire rise, work and fall [closed]
So let’s say that an empire is rising. How does that work? How do the people form an empire? They would need to have some land, a leader, and some natural resources to trade? So now the empire has ...
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Despite slain monsters continually yielding gold coins, why does gold's trading value seem to remain constant over the years?
Set in fantasy medieval times, monsters can be seen loitering around the kingdom. People discovered that the slain carcasses of these monsters contain a certain quantity of gold coins. The rest is ...
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How to perform important transactions over vast distances?
I asked a similar question on the History Stack Exchange, but it was suggested I might get better feedback here.
How can you guarantee atomicity of a transaction in a high-latency system?
High-latency ...
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What would keep traders away from a specific area of the ocean?
This is a WIP map of a continent in my world:
The small portion of land you can see in the topmost area is another continent, to the north of which the sea is almost always frozen and thus almost ...
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Why would an advanced civilization even want slaves?
In a world where people have advanced robotics and A.I. to the point that most people can just have a machine do things for them, is there any reason for slaves to be used also?
Obviously nobody needs ...
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Most important trading resources for the US [closed]
After Bob brought the American flag from the moon into his possession and convinced the majority of the American people that it is true, President Prumptin is not very pleased of this idea. While he ...
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What kind of tradable resources would come from the ocean in a Renaissance era culture that would be different from our own society?
Ocean sourced Trade goods in a Renaissance era Earth
I am in the process of writing a fantasy book that is set in a post-apocalyptic late medieval/renaissance era society.
This is on Earth, about 1300-...
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How to teach the Mesoamericans seafaring?
I want to have a powerful Mesoamerican civilisation by the 1100s; one that decides to sail east and discover Europe. Earlier versions of the story had them contacted by Zheng He in the 1400s, but I ...
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Can a city develop without exterior trading?
I’m exploring different scenarios for a future D&D campaign. I want to know if it’s possible, for a growing settlement, to develop without trading with its neighbors.
Let’s assume that they can ...
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"African" states alliance?
To start this off I will dispel preconceptions: Africa had great empires and was not technologically inferior to Europe before the invention of guns. They had quilted armor (the equivalent of ...
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Is a privately owned nomadic trading fleet economically viable?
A popular trope with some basis in history is the "travelling merchant", who visits remote villages carrying merchandise both common and rare, and many stories from strange lands.
I've got a scenario ...
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What valuable resources or features could a city state have to keep themselves independent and a dominant local power? [closed]
Trying to build a coastal region of feudal/renaissance city states surrounded by small feudal kingdoms. Looking for resources that are valuable beyond their access to sea, its bounty and the trade ...
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Why is there a cap on magical currency despite unlimited magic power?
Set in the modern day, only a small portion of the population is aware of magic and some of them has unlocked their innate magic potential at a young age. There is a governing body that ensure fair ...
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What environmental conditions would create compounds not found on earth?
My world is spread across thousands of planets in thousands of star systems, with a sort of United Nations (of Planets) acting as intermediary to ensure peace and prosperity between the planets.
Each ...
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How could pirates reasonably transport dinosaurs in captivity, some of them enormous, across oceans?
In my novel, there is money to made in the capturing and selling of 'exotic' animals from a distant, jungle-covered continent, though for various reasons (notably that it is illegal under Roman rule) ...
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