What do I need to do to define resources and economic exchanges?

Question

How to define the resources of each country/state and the trade route (road)?

I would like to define:

• the resources of each country/state in my world;
• the trade of goods (economic exchanges) between the countries/states;
• trade routes and shipping lanes.

I did a lot of research on the history of international trade on Earth: I looked at how it works, and I looked at the different trade routes and shipping lanes in history. But! it's still very unclear. I don't understand how it works. I find it too complicated to understand (maps of trade routes and shipping lanes, goods, etc.).

My question: Can you explain to me what I need to do to define:

1. The resources of each country/state..
2. The trade of goods between the countries/states (economic exchange).
3. The trade routes and the sea lanes.

You can see my World Map if you need.

I hope my question is clear and easy to understand.

Answer 1

Give someone a fish and you feed them for a day...

It shouldn't surprise you that we're not going to tell you what resources to assign to any geographical area or where your trade routes should be. To be honest, that's doing too much of your work for you.

...Teach someone to fish, and you feed them for a lifetime.

On the other hand, I think it's more than reasonable to offer advice for developing resource lists and the nature of what a good trade route would be.

There's a point to be made here before I continue. Whole books... Whole libraries of books... have been written about resources and trade. You need to determine just how complicated you want all this to be. Frankly, I'd start really, really simple and make it more complicated later as you develop your world. You don't want an entire book describing your world's resources and trade. You want a couple of pages of paper. If you're feeling like the process is overwhelming, that means you're trying to reach for a solution that's too complicated. Simplify... Simplify... Simplify... With experience will come the ability to see how to make it more complex (if that's even necessary).

OK, let's continue.

Resources

One of the reasons why we won't tell you what resources could or should be where is that resources depend too much on the details of what you want to do with your world. There are literally millions of resources that are valuable for trade. Where would we start? You, on the other hand, are in a great position to create a list of the resources you want to have in your world. Write them down. If you've listed more than 10-20 items, you're biting off too big a chunk. But nothing's stopping you, but I recommend keeping the list as small as you can in the beginning. For now, I'll use one Terrestrial resource to use as an example.

Grain.

1. Using your favorite search engine, discover where grain likes to grow. Obviously it's a bit hard in a desert, but that's good to know because desert dwellers would be willing to trade something to get grain! You'll also discover it's not much of a mountain-side crop. But in the valleys, where there's good irrigation or appropriate (ah, appropriate, you need to do a little research into grain! You might even need to pick just one...) you can grow grain. Armed with this information, you can match grain to your climate zones and geographies.

Let me pause for a moment to mention something. Resources can be raw resources such as agriculture/hunting/husbandry, mining, and lumber/forestry, or it can be manufactured resources like tools, weapons, vehicles... And I'm not even touching on intellectual resources like technology, education, philosophy... Remember what I said about complexity. Start simple! Keep that list short! Once you get a hang of how this all works, it's not hard to make the list longer and more complex.

2. Next, you need to identify two statistics for each resource: how much is needed (say, per capita, but that's just one of a number of metrics) and what it takes to move it. Not surprisingly, people need a lot of grain! And it's heavy. That means trade routes need to be capable of hauling a lot of grain at once, or they must be capable of hauling smaller amounts frequently.

3. Finally, you need to identify one more statistic, excess. I call it "excess," but you can measure this statistic in a lot of ways. The point is, how much of the resource is available for trade? A lot? A little? This will matter when it comes to how valuable it is as a trade commodity.

BTW, if you haven't played that ancient but wonderful video game Sid Meier's Railroad Tycoon or one of its many descendants, go find a copy and play it. You can keep resources and trade really simple — or you can complicate the snot out of it. I'd vote for keep it simple, but that's up to you. BTW, I'm repeating myself for a reason....

Trade

Now that you know where your resources are, how much are available, how much is needed for consumption, and how painful it is to move it... let's start making some money!

Trade is a lot like water — it follows the path of least resistance unless there's a compelling reason to take a harder path. Nobody will move grain over the top of a mountain... unless the starving people on the other side are swimming in lumber, which you desperately need! They'll also not move grain to a location that won't pay for it (for whatever reason) no matter how easy it is to transport it.

1. For each resource, identify the areas of your world that lack that resource. The more fundamental the resource (like Grain) the more likely it will be needed to some degree by almost everyone. The more rare and/or specific the resource (like jewelry), the less likely anyone will need it.

You can already see how easy it is to make trade really, really, really complicated. Jewelry could be desirable to everyone for one reason or another. But it actually isn't needed by anyone. I strongly recommend that you focus first on necessary or raw resources (e.g., food, building materials, defensive materials, tools...) You can complicate this by creating, for example, a 0-10 scale representing how much an area "lacks" a specific resource where "0" means the area can completely supply its own needs for that resource and "10" means the area is desperate for it. But I'd advocate that you start with a 0-1 scale, or maybe a 0-2 scale and build complexity later. Keep it simple!

2. Next, for every pair of locations (a source for the resource and a need for the resource), look at your map and determine the path of least resistance to move the resource from A to B. Start with pairs and build chains later. The most viable pair (right now) will always be the closest pair or the pair with the shortest distance or easiest route between them. That's your first trade route!

3. Next, for each pair you identified in #2, determine if there's a need to return something along the route! A one-way trade route is less valuable than a bi-directional trade route. One-way trade routes are, therefore, less likely to develop unless the value of the trade is higher. Here's where you might erase a short or easy one-way trade route in favor of a longer or harder bi-directional trade route.

4. Finally, as you start identifying these pairs, start looking for patterns where you can chain a valuable trade item (oh, let's say, spices) along several pair-paths. Congratulations! You've just created your first Silk Road! A "silk road" trade route is a longer, more complex, but highly valuable trade route that spans nations. Such a route may include those short/easy one-way trade routes because they're a bonus when considering the entire road.

Obviously routes can move over the ocean, along rivers or lakes, and over land. Each has its pros and cons (the ocean allows you to move MASSIVE amounts of material... right up until that tsunami hits and sinks all your ships or some pirate privateer comes along and appropriates your cargo. See how complex trade can be? I'm not even going to discuss the consequences of crime on trade routes (a trade route that passes through a dense forest might allow for greater crime compared to a river route...).

So... There are the basics. You can easily see how an entire book can be written about this subject. Regrettably, the ability to write a book as an answer is one of the reasons a question can be closed, which is why all I've done is taught you the rudiments of fishing resources and trade networks. From here on out, if you need more help, you need to identify a specific problem along with why it's a problem and why you can't resolve it. And please keep that book rule in mind! If you're asking a really broad question, your first thought should be, "wait... What can I do to simplify this?" That's always good advice!

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Hey Worldbuilders! I have a challenge for you!

A list of games and/or simulators focusing on trade would be a great addition to our Worldbuilding Resources list. I've created a "Trade References, Simulators and/or Games" section. I was tempted to included Sid Meier's Railroad Tycoon as a first entry, but frankly, as useful as it is to see the basics of resources and trade, I think it focuses too much on managing trades to be a good resource for teaching resources and trade. There must be something better! If you know of any references, games or simulators that specifically focus on resources and trade (and I mean "specifically." Don't include your favorite MMORPG or shoot-em-up game just because it includes resources and trade), please go and list it! You'll be doing everyone a favor!

Answer 2

There is no clear cut. Reason is that it depends on technologies, economy, politics, your map(and more specifically what is not on your map), road systems of countries, wealth of countries, strategies they use, relationship between nearest ones(another angle of politics), geology and what do they have on their territories.

So there that many dependencies, and more than I hinted, so on one hand it makes near impossible to make map with legit routes, on the other hand for any routes map there is (most likely) a set of reasons which will be legit.

General rules:

cheap goods shorter routes, and bigger volumes longer the route

• in some 1800 time iron ore from Australia - no luck in transporting those
• but if you have to, then hey you have to, but it won't be cheap anymore

More goods are hightech easier it for them to take any route it needs to take.

If it isn't hightech it preferable to have it locally, but if some is outsorsing it it also possible, but it has to be compensated by producing hightech stuff locally.

In general map is not sufficient to say anything, or that much. It requires at least level of technologies, to certain extend higher is overal technological development more different stuff they can exchange and more routes there are. Energy efficienty however plays certain role here, if it more energy efficient to produce locally, then it makes sense to do so locally if conditions are rigth. And conditions can be or be not for all sorts of reasons technological, political.

All in all you need more details before you can ask the question or find an answer to it.

I suspect that if you do it right then you will be a first person in humankind who did it.

Next time provide more information.

Answer 3

Make them up

There will never be enough information in your world to decide things like this with any level of rigor. But you can take advantage of that by tactically leaving some things undecided.

What shape is the bedrock? Well I want rivers here, here, and here, so that means the bedrock will be whatever shape it needs to be to get those rivers.

Here is how I would start coming up with trade routes. Well first we need to know where the cities are. I propose there are big ones here:

Cities are built on estuaries because you have access to the sea for transport and fishing. You use the river to water your farms and ship the grain downriver. Maybe find metals in the mountains where the river starts, then boat them into the city.

Actually the city on the right has no river. But it should have a river flowing into the fyord. Let's add one:

By the way what's with these rivers?

Rivers flow from mountains to the sea. The ones above seem to flow between mountains. Is that allowed?

Maybe you can find ore in these places:

It looks like the left city has more access to ore than the right one. So they might fight over site 3 depending on what direction their rivers flow. There will be smaller settlements near the ore mines.

East city sends its ore out to places along their coast:

Maybe there are settlements here, here, and here? The northern trade route makes more sense if you add more mountains. Otherwise it is quicker to walk. The northern one might complete the trade circle using the river:

The settlements to the south need fresh water sources added somehow.

I predict the southern one has some exotic spices that it sends back north, since the climate is so different down south.

On the other hand East city has more access to wood from the rain forest. They send their wood out like this:

where I added a few more towns just for fun. Note the wood routes of East city are safer than the ore routes of West city, since the East routes are sheltered and the West are open ocean.

Just for fun lets add a Great Spice Road from East city:

You might want to remove some jungle along the edge of the mountains to allow this.

East City is now an influential location since you have to go through it to get the the Spices place. Before the West Sea route was discovered, the people of East City even had to buy their spices from West city!

This is only a start but hopefully it gives some examples of the sorts of questions you can ask yourself and then answer them and see what questions the answers generate.

Here is your homework

1. Decide which of the extra towns I added make sense. If not, then find better places for towns, or add new rivers etc to make my towns work.

2. What resources could the new towns be sending back in exchange for wood and ore? For example the North West one might send reindeer hides and the North East one might send whale oil. What about the others?

3. Where do they get their coal to smelt the ore? Where does coal come from in general?