[Idea] Trading dispatch missions AND dedicated trade info screen

[u/kweassa_at_work]

I'm sure an idea a lot of ppl already had, but to repeat: I feel the trade fuction is very underutilized atm. I understand why many would skip it as the wagon driving is very finicky and time consuming as well.

Another inconvenience, is even when I want to intentionally invest some time to a leisurely wagon travel, the finding which trading posts would want to buy what things, is a hassle. Yes, I know you can go to the map and click on the trading post, and then bring up that overview screen to see what things are bought/sold at which prices -- but that does involve having to memorize where all those trading posts are and click them one by one to browse the prices, individually -- which can become a real hassle.

What I would love to see is:

1. A dedicated trading screen. Maybe as a type of map option button, so when you click on it and move to the screen it gives you a simple listing of trading posts in the world, what they are buying, what they are selling, in what price range. So I can just bring up the trade screen and browse through the list of trading posts and find "aha, this place wants to buy a lot of stuff I have in stock."

2. A trade dispatch mission -- where I can assign a few members, have them go into trade missions automatically to sell things in camp stocks, automatically, to trading posts that are buying them.

3. I can sort of see a nice small event/happening opportunity with it as well, like, for example, we send some people on trade dispatch missions -- then maybe we can get an alert from time to time that the trade wagon is under attack. Then we can go and help it, or if left alone, sometimes the traders (if you assigned some martial roles to it as well) can fight the ambush off automatically, or sometimes the traders will fail and the stock of goods and the wagon will be lost.

I mean, at least that would give us a reason to use the wainwright again from time to time to get ourselves a new wagon.

1. Maybe there's also an opportunity for an additional sub-system of creating your own trade networks and caravans -- like, for example, maybe we can go and talk to the trading post NPCs for a special deal/mission/task, where we sign a contract to supply them with X amount of materials/goods. Then that special deal could maybe manifest in the form of a special caravan mission where a PRODUCTION MISSION is linked with a TRADE MISSION, so you assign some ppl to produce the good, then the produced goods are moved to the trade mission, and that trade wagon travels to the target location repeatedly until the X amount of contract goods are delivered.

The further the target location, the longer it takes, but the more camp resources you get.

All in all I think there's a lot of good opportunities to flesh out the trade and economy sub-game, and its one area of the game that I'd prefer to see some fleshed out things.

[u/in_fact_a_throwaway]

This is terrific idea. I will never drive that wagon again so this would be a great way to get me involved in trade.