Comments on Big Burthen

To : N.Robin Crossby
From : Ron Kanwischer (Scottsdale, Arizona)
Date : June 15, 1989

My experience in running shipping expeditions has taught me that the most expensive part of transporting cargoes is that the cargos are always destined for ports all across western Lythia. My players generally pick a certain direction to travel, and only agree to transport lots going in that directi- on. Not snapping up every lot offered costs the ship a little more time in port (while port fees and crew wages rack up), but ends up saving time in the long run because the ship does not have to make numerous uneconomical side trips.

My players have long been saying that the ideal solution would be to only transport cargoes to a few large ports. That would save on travel time, and consequently save on wages and spares. It would also save on port fees because less stops would have to be made. However, waiting in port for cargoes to show up that are destined for those particular markets would take so long that the ship would be bankrupt before filling its hold. Your idea provides an excellent solution: hire an agent to consolidate cargoes by use of purchase options and/or a ware- house. Thus, cargoes bound for the same destination could be accumulated while the ship is doing more productive things than sitting in port.

While I love your idea, I am not thrilled by the way you implemented it. I have two problems with your implementation: a conceptual one and a practical one. The conceptual problem is that accumulating several small cargo lots into one large cargo lot implies that all of the lots consist of the same goods. This would not necessarily be the case. It would be easier for the agent just to gather together all cargoes destined for the same port, no matter what kind of goods they were. The practical problem is that having a large lot would not be desirable anyway, as ships are usually forced to "dump" large cargoes in order to sell them.

My Suggestion

1. The ship tells the agent what port(s) it wishes to transport cargoes to.
2. The GM determines the length of time available to the agent to accumulate cargo lots before the ship shows up.
3. The GM rolls up cargo lots for each day of that time period, pursuant to the rules in Pilots' Almanac. The agent will buy options on all cargo lots destined for the port(s) chosen by the ship. The value of each lot is determined individually using the rules prescribed in Pilots' Almanac. The agent will negotiate the ship's percentage and the option price for each lot. (Ship's Percentage is calculated pursuant to Pilots' Almanac.)
4. When the ship arrives in port, it will have a list of cargoes waiting for it that are destined for conveniently located ports.
5. At the destination, the cargo lots are sold individually using the demand rules prescribed in Pilots' Almanac.

If you find my suggestion to be feasible, I would also appreciate a suggestion as to what the option price should be. I used my program to perform a trial run of my suggested method. I attempted to accumulate cargoes from Cherafir destin- ed for the fourteen large, conveniently located ports listed in the table below. In three game months, I accumulated the following cargoes:

---------------------------------------------------------------
                  # OF       # OF         TOTAL      EXPECTED 
  DESTINATION     LOTS       TUNS         VALUE       PROFIT  
---------------------------------------------------------------
  Sonau            4          13          1,716d        672d 
  Berema           4          25          4,656d        936d 
  Parahal          4          34          5,040d      1,080d 
  Mengovik         7          41          7,512d      1,380d 
  Tarkain          3          28          4,656d      1,128d 
  Kirgaras         3          17          3,372d      1,020d 
  Murshel          1           7          1,176d        264d 
  Anegon           2          14          3,048d        948d 
  Chedilo          1           3            828d        216d 
  Darlon           0           0              0d          0d 
  Habala           4          29          5,076d      2,124d 
  Kanoga           3          28          3,696d      1,500d 
  Rindiro          2           7          1,476d        624d 
  Janora           7          55         10,500d      4,308d 
 ---------------------------------------------------------------
     TOTAL        45         301         52,752d     16,200d 
 ---------------------------------------------------------------

At a cost of 240d per month for the agent and options, as suggested in Cargolot.txt, the ship would have to spend only 720d to acquire these lots. This seems to be rather cheap. Paying half of the hawking fee, as also suggested, would cost about 3956d, assuming Cherafir's hawking fee of 15% and a declared value equal to the actual value of the goods. This may be a bit steep.

(Incidentally, this brings up an interesting question: how low of a "declared value" [as a percentage of real value] could a typical mercantyler generally expect to get away with, and how much of a bribe would it generally cost him?)

Thanks for your time. Keep up the excellent work!

Ron

Part II - Response

From: N.Robin Crossby
To: Ron Kanwischer, (Scottsdale, Arizona)
Date: 1989-06-16

Did you know that you have a tendency to ask me long, complicated and HARD questions? anyway...

I disagree with the notion that a cargo lot, whether it's a big one or a small one, is necessarily comprised of a single type of cargo. The vessel, owner and/or crew often do not know what't in the lot; a three tun lot could consist of half a tun of wine, one and a half tuns of linen and one tun of teak (or it could be three tuns of refined lead). When a mercantyler assembles a cargo lot, his primary consideration is that the goods are all headed for the same general destination. This is the only thing that the goods necessarily have in common.

The other factor is, as you have observed, that it is no use acquiring a large cargo if you can't sell it. Well the essence of the system is that the VTR determines the vessel's SUPPLY TUNS and the Skill of the Supercargo determines DEMAND TUNS. A good VTR will get the ship a big, valuable cargo, a good supercargo will be able to sell it and the vessel will make lots of money. If the vessel has a poor VTR or a lousy supercargo, the vessel will go broke.

Not withstanding all of this, your suggestion seems as good (if not better) than the Cargolot system I proposed. However, it is, as you pointed out, a lot harder to handle, especially for those who don't have the hardware and software to handle the procedures involved.

As for the cost of assembling the cargo. Obviously it's negotiable. Assuming the agent is competent, the cheapest method will be for him to purchase the lots outright but this requires a warehouse. You are right that purchasing options at 50% of the Hawking Fee is high but the lot owner must wait in port until the vessel arrives and time is money. Another alternative would be for the vesseal's agent to pay the bonding fee, but this creates serious scheduling problems...

After I've collected a few more comments from other people out there. I will do a rewrite of Big Burthen, and let you all know about it. It will probably appear in Harnlore eventually too...

Thanks for your points, Ron. I Hope I've answered your main concerns at least?

Robin