Trading and caravans: traders, prices and the Logistics Center

You buy and sell with traders through the scale icon, and you move goods between your own towns with caravans from a Logistics Center. Traders only have so much cash to pay you with, so check it before you sell, and buy where the price is lowest: iron ore is 20 at Shrubby Glade and 30 at Deadman’s Wash.

Opening a trade: no scouts needed

Traders are places your scouts discover on the world map, and discovering one is the only time scouts are involved. After that, the publisher says: “You don't need to send your scouts to trade. Once you have the Trader at Shrubby Glade ulocked you can trade with them at anytime without scouts. Through the map or through the Scale icon on the bottom left of the screen. They have iron there.” The scale icon opens the Trading Panel, and its arrows flip between every trader you have found. Pick one, press Trade, and you get two lists side by side: what the trader sells, and what your town can sell.

Every deal is written up on a Wagon Manifest. Select one item, either on the trader’s list to buy or on your own list to sell, set the amount with the slider, and the manifest shows the total: quantity times the listed price. One manifest carries one kind of goods. Goods arrive with a delivery time of 7, and if you cannot afford an order, Accept stays greyed out.

What each trader sells

Prices are per unit; the number in brackets is how much the trader had in stock. Stock and cash change as you trade, so yours may differ.

Three buys worth planning for. Iron ore for the cannery is cheapest at Shrubby Glade, so 100 ore costs 2,000 there against 3,000 at Deadman’s Wash; more on iron is on iron, stone and wooden parts. Rosewood Clearing’s canned food at 2 each is the quick way past the 20 cans a new scout group or a new caravan needs; see scouts and expeditions. And of the three traders, only Deadman’s Wash sells rifles: First Contact wants 20 of them, which is 800 cash (Cattle for Natives and First Contact).

Traders run out of cash, and maybe stock

The number at the top right of a trader’s list is its cash, and every sale to it comes out of that. Later in the same game that Shrubby Glade showed 490, and traders have been seen at 0, at which point they buy nothing. A player ran into exactly this: “I tried to sell wood and planks there but the trader had limited money, so I didn't get money to buy enough iron.” Another player’s workaround is to buy something from the trader first, which puts cash back in its hands.

Whether cash or stock ever refills is not settled. One player who had cleared out the iron wrote: “I have bought all the Iron available from the traders, and they don't appear to ‘restock’ goods”. Treat each trader’s stock as finite and buy only what you need.

What your own goods sell for

These are the prices on your town’s sell list, per unit.

Gold bars are worth far more than anything else, but your debt is paid in gold bars, so sell only spares; the debt is on gold and the debt. A single bar also takes 200 out of a trader that may hold 550 in total. Moonshine is worth nothing to traders. Don’t count on flipping goods either: where your list and Shrubby Glade’s overlap, the prices seen are the same (logs 5, planks 6, iron ore 20).

Caravans between your own towns

There are no rival towns to deal with. An official forum account: “There are no AI rivals to trade with. Trade happens between your own settlements: once you've founded a second town, caravans move goods between them on the world map.” That second town is Sand Storm, and the publisher adds that “each settlement needs a Logistics hub to ship to the other settlement”. Founding it is covered on founding Sand Storm.

One caravan carries one resource. On its manifest you pick the destination, the goods, the quantity, whether to prioritize it, and how often it runs. One time is the setting you will see first; players also mention repeat and Nonstop settings. How often matters, because one player reports a finished caravan does not come back: “If you choose one time or 3 the caravan will disappear after it completes it's assignment”, while “The nonstop one stays forever.” The same player’s advice is to set regular runs such as food to Nonstop and, when you have sent enough, turn the amount down to 0 or 1 instead of scrapping the caravan, which saves building another one. The game’s own nudge is to “maintain a steady food supply via caravans”. Which food chains to scale for that is on food chains.

If it goes wrong

• A caravan vanished after you changed its cargo. A bug, says an official forum account: “that's not supposed to happen, it sounds like a bug.” The player who reported it found that “As long as I don't change my cargo, the caravan expedition keeps on going.” Leave a running caravan’s goods alone; to ship something else, use a free slot. Other stalls are on crashes and bugs.
• No scale icon. It appears once trading has started: “Once you start trading, then the scale icon becomes visible on the left side of the screen regardless of where you are and you can trade from there”. Until then, reach the trader from the world map.
• A trader will not buy. Check its cash. Sell smaller amounts, buy from it first, or sell to a different trader.
• Cattle for the natives. Players find a normal caravan can only be sent to Sand Storm; the herd goes from an icon above the Logistics building, as described under Cattle for Natives.