Get Rich and Prosper; Extended Cultures Economy Guide.

As many of our player-contributors have already noticed, XC Economy is different from the vanilla world of milk and sugar.For those of you that still have no clues about how XC Antiquity world economy operated, I decided to conduct a shopping tour in the XC World to live well and prosper.

In the world of vanilla, economy suffered from chronic inflation, resulting in a lot of money since mid-game... to the point of not knowing how to spend it all in late-game, while all trade commodities seem suffer from Romano-centricitis: every trade resources on map are seemed to exist for an aspiration to reach Rome someday, although they could only go to provinces nearby or destination port only...Economy of antiquity before Roman Imperial era was far more complicated than that! Every area has its own economic network with a function of their own!

Young equestrians and merchants! Bored of vanilla ice-cream? Now it is time for a real hard drink...

Trekking Along Trade Routes:As the RTW engine does not allow us to bring silk from Kashgar to Rome directly, we established building groups/branches to represent trade routes instead. Trade routes are very lucrative as they are the few buildings that still retain trade bonus(as now Temples to Sea Deities and Temples to Prosperity Deities give additional tax rather than trade bonus). There are 6 branches of trade routes:

1) Silk Road

The most famous trade route of all, starting from Kashgar at eastern edge of the map and splits into 3 branches. The southern branch passes India to Patala, Eastern branch passes Bactria, Persia, and Mesopotamia to Antioch and Sardis, while Northern branch goes across Central Asia and European Steppe to Tanais, whose richness could be enhanced by silk trade resource.

2) Frankincense Road

Another luxury goods of the day with value in weight of gold, Frankincense, Myrrh, and Murr from Southern Arabia and Punts were the most praised incenses of ancient world. Their route takes course from South-eastern Arabia and transfer by caravans to the north to Petra and reaches the civilized world.

3) Trans-Sahara Gold-Salt Road

Deep areas of Africa produced a lot of luxury products for the Mediterranean world for millennia. Trans-Sahara trade have 5 routes which divide into Eastern Africa to Nubia and Punt for gold, Ivory, and Incense, Central and Western Africa branches across Sahara which yet had to untap its full potential. Salt was a commodity with value almost equal to the weight of gold in antiquity but quality salt in large amounts could not be found in wet and dump areas of Mediterranean. Major source of quality salt came from Sahara. This Salt trade from sahara and gold trade from Sahal regions was in Garamantine and Carthaginian hands for centuries but not yet fully developed. The coming of domestic camels from Asia around the time after reforms will untap the potential of this lucrative trade.

4) Amber Road

Amber was valued as mystical gemstone from the Baltic. Value of Amber was quite high in antiquity yet varied from group to group. But no one gave its value more than Romans who valued it with weight of gold. Original trade route was taken from the Baltic along river Dnieper or across the Moravian Gate and down stream along the Danube and ended up in the Black Sea, but as Romans grew in importance, the Amber Road will give alternative routes from Danube across Pannonia to Italy.

5) Indian Ocean Trade

Trade along Indian Ocean and Red Sea existed since ancient Egyptian time but Greco-Roman were known to exploit it during late Hellenistic age with their discovery of Monsoon winds (which Persians, Indians, Arabs and Ethiopian people knew about for ages). By exploiting Monsoon wind, trade on luxury goods from India boomed, especially on Spices.

6) Tin Trade

The Tin trade route was one of the oldest trade routes that still operated in Hellenistic era, its origin was in Bronze age to bring tin that was a rare metal to extract form major sources in south-western Britain and Armorica for use in bronze production. Tartessos, Carthage, and Massalia competed to control this tin trade network. Tartessos and Carthage controlled the sea route which sailed from the Cassiterides along Gallic and Iberian coast to the Pillars of Herakles to major Mediterranean distributors of tin, Carthage, while Massalia controlled inland routes which transported tin along rivers Gaul with the city of Massalia as destination hub.

Shopping in the Market:With this in mind, we redesigned the economy based on zonal/regional economies of antiquity (as RTW engine supported this function better, especially when we have 200, provinces that are about double of vanilla's). Trade resources have been reorganized and changed to represented real trade commodities during Antiquity that covered the whole area from Mediterranean to Northern Europe and Middle-East to Steppe and Deep Africa and Indian Ocean. Trade resources in XC are...

- Precious Metals: Allows building mines. Differing from Vanilla, apart from mining and minting, you could inject them into the economy by trading them with nearby provinces.Silver 5Gold 7- Base Metals increase settlement's tax value if settlement have blacksmith buildings groupIron 3 requirement for building FoundryTin 4Copper 2Lead 1- Hinterland Harvest Products increase settlement's tax value if settlement have road buildings groupTimber 3Marble 3- Agricultural Products Most of them produced from cash crops, increase settlement's tax value if settlement have cash crops buildings branch.Vegetable Oil 3 Change from Olive Oil as people outside Mediterranean also had oil trade but not made from olives.

Wine 3 Also give additional tax base from Temple of Ecstatic.Honey 3 Also give additional tax base from Temple of Ecstatic.- Pastoral Products: Give additional tax based and food production in settlement with pastured buildingsHides 3Horses 3- Fishery Products: give additional tax base from port buildings.Fish 1 also give additional food bonus for Thalassocratic factions after upgrading port buildings- Industrial Consumer Products:Pottery 2Textiles 2Glassware 4- Luxury Product:Salt 4 give additional trade base from Trans-Sahara Gold-Salt Caravans and Trans-Saharan trade buildings.Ivory 5 requirement for building Elephant Ground and Elephant Trainer Expensive Dyes 6 Changed from Purple Dyes, give additional tax base from port buildings.Incense 6 give additional trade base from Incense Trade and Frankincense Trail buildings.Silk 6 give additional trade base from Silk Trade and Silk Road buildings.Spice 6 give additional trade base from Spice Route and Indian Ocean Trade Network buildings.Gemstone 6 Replaced Amber as there also major gemstone's producer in Arabia and Central Asia and India

All market values of resources have been sharply reduced from vanilla and Mundus Magnus to fight global inflation but they add value to people taxation as market in settlements increase its significance.

For historical factoid of those trade resources, you could read it when put cursor over them.

Where does XC-ians' bread come from?If you stay in some local town or village in XC, it quite sure that the wheat, barley, oat, rye,

or rice you eat during our travel is local growth. But if you stay in big cities, your bread surely came from some regional breadbasket. During Antiquity, development of major cities could not sustain food security of their own as agricultural technology was still not well developed or organized enough to produce surplus large enough to feed local cities except when that land was exceptionally fertile. Most cities relied on grain imports from lands which produced food and grain at large surplus and grain trade was also lucrative for farmers and tax-men too. Grain exporter regions were called "Breadbasket" and among those baskets, there are bigger and smaller ones according to the surplus they produced. And, yes, bigger basket means bigger tax base. Here are grain exporters by Region...

Italy:Arpi (major)Capua (minor)Tarentum (minor)

Gauls:Lemonum (major)Patavium (major)Cenabum (minor)Mediolanum (minor)Samarobriva (minor)Atuatuca (minor)

Britannia:Camulondunum (major)

Baltic:Duna Urbs (minor)Drusa (minor)

Thrace:Buridava (major)Byzantium (minor)

Greece:Larissa (major)Elateia (major)Pella (minor)

Egypt:Alexandria (major)Memphis (major)Thebes (major)Pselchis (minor)

Anatolia:Sardis (minor)

Iberia:Gadir (major)Arsa (minor)

Sicily:Syracuse (major)Lilybaeum (major)Messana (minor)

North Africa:Carthago (major)Hadrumetum (major)Sabratha (minor)

Steppe:Olbia (major)Tanais (major)

Eastern:Seleucia (major)Charax (major)Opiana (major)Patala (major)Zadracarta (major)

Red Sea:Axum (major)

Major Business Centers in XC World:

PatalaPatala situated on Hindus Delta, ideal location for export India's richness to the world. It

may look unattractive at first but if you develop it, it could sustain an entire stack.

SeleuciaMajor city of Babylonia, surround by provinces and rich in goods and food production to

feed themselves and export.

CarthagoThe Richest city in the western part of the map. Make sure that this cow does not slip out of

your hand.

AntiochOne of the richest and major key port of Seleucid, they will suffer major financial setback if

they loose this settlement.

BactraKey inland hub in the east, when in hand of a faction with commercialistic policy available,

it will produc money around as if you have port in it.

AlexandriaJewel of East Mediterranean, Egypt's major Mediterranean port. This is Egypt's real sacred

cow.

MemphisThe Richest Settlement with a port attached to the Red Sea, suffers from lack of trade parter

and underdevelopment in commercial structure during early game so they need a lot of investment in infrastructures.

GadirThe Richest port in Atlantic, Home of special temple of Melqart-Herakles at Pillar of

Herakles. Another nice cow to milk.

CamulodunumThe Richest port in the North which have potential to be richer than mediocre majority ports

in Mediterranean, could feed and help itself but you need to develop their trade parter to made this settlement prosper as well.