Securing Harvest

Is it possiable to send merchants out into the countryside to offer to buy the coming years harvet. They can set the price & improve the farmers lot. If it works in my own lands then could this be expanded into neighbouring lands? Would it mean I could secure the surplus in another country for myself?

I think the answer is basically no. Surpluses and famines are one of the strategic events of the game, and there isn't an easy way around them. If you buy up the harvest from your own farmers, then you'll have a shortage somewhere in your country.

the only ways to avoid it are to give farmers moe grain each year to plant more and to bid/buy from other countries, most will assist you for free some will want paying. Also start buying and making silos/storage for excess or the grain you buy...

I have been buying as much as I can from anyone that I can. Last month 1 million tons arrived and was placed into storage. Don't plan on having nothing to eat that is for sure!

revvaughan wrote:I have been buying as much as I can from anyone that I can. Last month 1 million tons arrived and was placed into storage. Don't plan on having nothing to eat that is for sure!

Yes, but the point is that you've been buying/getting it from player positions, yes? You can't just go out on the market and buy grain.

Correct... Should have been a little more clear. There is plenty there for the purchase and for the right price.

Is it then possible to speculate on future harvests ? Send agents into my own or others countryside to get farmers to sign up to selling surplus harvest to my agents after the next harvest. They would be legally bound to sell to my agents before the grain went onto the open market.

and I would arrest them if they did

Isn't that agaist free trade, they are not doing anything technically illegal.

There is no free market in this period. Attempting to export a grain surplus could well be a treasonous crime.

Perhaps you could establish agents to steal other people's grain, but I think you'd have to do something like that. There is no open market per se to buy it on.

Articles in the newspaper will be the best method. Request to purchase grain from others.

Or just check to see who has had good harvests and write them directly to ask them.

If anyone is interested in the historic grain trade in the Baltic can I suggest a book called "The Struggle for Supremacy in the Baltic 1600 to 1725" by Jill Lisk.

Essentially, why ports on the south Baltic coast like Danzig and Riga mattered so much in this period was that they controlled the export of Grain from the great estates of Poland, Prussia & Russia to the West. They were also key souces of Naval supplies to the Western powers and beond.

If Glory du Roi was played strictly historically, and the UDP did not get grain exports from the Baltic its people and Cattle would starve. Since by 1650/1660 Dutch farming had switched to more profitable Dairy/cattle farming and most of its food grain came from the Baltic Region.

Venice & Northern Italy had also moved away from Grain and into Wine production etc and relied on exports from Sicily and Greece esp the Morea.

While the huge population of Constantinople sucked in supply from all over Rumelia, Anatolia and the North of the Black Sea.

I assume for playability Glory du Roi just considers these export trades to be a part of a countries "Harvest" and the only "free grain" which can be purchased is that from good harvests and the like.

This normally means seeing who has had a good harvest and seeing if you can buy any. But sometimes its worth trying to buy a "future" grain surplus from one of the big exporters like Poland. Basically you give lots of cash to Polish Nobles and they agree you can have surplus grain as and when its produced.

Alternatively, if you are starting to play a position like Poland, Prussia with lots of land in relation to its population but little cash and no grain surplus you can always try to sale future surplus for cash. The theory being someone gives you cash to spend on improveing your estates and the improvements generate the surplus grain to pay them.

Someone who has just had a famine is the best type of mark (I mean investor) for this type of plan to improve your farms with outside investment.

Yes, my reading is a lot of the west depending upon grain imports.

I think for playability, Richard has done as you suggest, since the potential stranglehold on other nations if exploited as a game player would, would lead to serious game imbalances.

But it would be an interesting idea to buy grain futures, but then you'd have to have some way of enforcing it. If someone ships money now, how can they confirm they get their grain later...

Well I think I'll give it a try. the worst that can happen is that it will go totally wrong. I'll let you know if it works or not.