The Wheels of Commerce

Fernand Braudel, the great French historian, wrote a book with this title in which he explained how mercantile capitalism developed in Europe during the period 1500 1800. It's a fascinating book, although perhaps a little too eggheady for most people. I think that it provides the basis for a great game. The mechanics of trade back in those days were nowhere near as well developed as they are today, and the legal structures to support trade just didn't exist, so merchants were (metaphorically) more likely to pack a six-gun than a briefcase.

The player in this game would have to make choices as to the type of merchandise to deal in and where to get it. Your ship leaves Amsterdam with its load of textiles and sails for Sweden, where it trades the textiles for lumber, which it carries to England to trade for coal before returning to Amsterdam. At what point should merchandise be converted into cash? And what about the problems of international finance? You can't just carry lots of coin around with you that makes you a target for pirates and robbers. Better to get letters of credit that can be redeemed at the desired location. But how do you know those letters of credit will be honored? And if you think that currency speculation in the twenty-first century is wild and crazy, you should see how it worked in the sixteenth.

Another big issue is market intelligence. You keep agents in most of the major ports, and they'll write you if prices for any particular good suddenly become attractive but letters move slowly in this world, and those prices could change by the time your ship arrives. Suppose a colleague tells you that cotton prices in Egypt have collapsed now is the time to grab tons of the stuff. Is he genuinely sharing good fortune or does he want to distract your attention from silk prices in Istanbul? There's plenty of room for rich gameplay in this situation.



Chris Crawford on Game Design
Chris Crawford on Game Design
ISBN: 0131460994
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2006
Pages: 248

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