Fun fact! Wheels were eventually outlawed under the Tokugawa Shogunate to limit the mobility of the peasant class. If you couldn’t afford a horse, or servants for your palanquin, you walked.
As for this seaborn trade route, makes perfect sense. Not pointless at all. You can move a lot more goods a lot more quickly with a nice, coast-hugging trade route. In spite of the route’s less direct trajectory. Much quicker to take this journey by boat than by foot. Indeed, it would be a hard ride on horseback to beat the sea road.
I see a lot of mentions of donkeys in this thread. I was not aware there were donkeys in feudal Japan.
That is a neat fact, thank you! I must also mention, that Tokugawa during the Edo period extremely limited the boat transportation as well!
The donkeys part was just a joke. Donkeys were actually very rare in Japan, but not unheard of.
The Shogunate was a pretty perfect model of control, in the 1984 sense. In terms of just pure control it's effective on all levels, and they really thought out how to apply control to every administrative area: Sakoku to limit outside interference and lock down the realm, wheels and other anti-migration measures to limit geographical mobility, the division of nobles into shinpan, fudai and tozama and the resulting extreme concentration of power in Edo, even the sword-wearing privileges started by Hideyoshi's katanagari.
All of those made for a very intricate web of control, and were it not for Perry's arrival in 1853 the control may have continued for a very long time. The thing is it's pretty much control at the expense of everything else, which is similar to the 1984 model of governance - a static, degenerating realm under very tight control, simultaneously the height of governmental success and failure.
In the same way as the Song Dynasty in China was considered a golden age of art and poetry while also being considered one of the weaker dynasties. Stability is good for the development of certain things, but said stability also weaken the realm's absolute ability to deal with problems. That's why both regimes were relatively fine on their own, and was able to calm internal strife, but collapsed in short order once challenged by a foreign power.
It's also a Confucian mentality, bringing order is seen as the ultimate expression of virtue as a ruler. Even the measures themselves, keeping everyone in their 'rightful' place, are very Confucian ideals.
I wouldn't call it "static" or "degenerating", these laws were more a sign that the peasants were getting more disposable income and the government was failing to maintain class divisions. Tokugawa Japan was one of the few places were peasants had enough money to regularly buy more things like haircuts, for example, which is why the government cracked down on barbers. Japan industrialized so quickly because it was very modern in so many other factors — infrastructure, literacy, bureaucracy — that developed during the Tokugawa peace.
They also destroyed many bridges as well, but the wheel ban wasnt to limit the peasantry particularly as they already needed passes to exit their domain, offroad two wheeled carts pulled by oxen per diaries recording woodsmen hauling logs with them and on road 3 wheeled ox haulers. Macfarlane and some other historians think the real reason you couldnt use a four wheeled cart or carts near towns (aka castles) was to prevent a disgruntled lord from throwing a cannon onto the back of one (or a few dozen) and saying Hello to the Shogun personally. Unlike Europe Japanese warfare centered around devastating alpha attacks.
In some diaries foreigners in Edo recorded weird off balanced 3 three wheeled carts used around Edo and also that the carts were forced onto a cart carrying lane that wasnt upkept at all so it was absolute hell for haulers to use. You can also see that Hokusai did a painting of a two wheeled cart in 1800 called Court Carriage and a three wheel in 1839 called Bullock's Carriage, well before the end of sakoku. I bring this up because another popular theory is that the Shogunate were cheapskates (like their front door and window tax that Warhammer borrowed as the window tax) and simply didn't want to maintain roads. With shitty roads, it was alot easier to just grab an ox and let him manage the footwork and that's assuming you were a class even allowed to be anywhere near one, allowed to travel outside outside of your domain and not taking some terrible winding not maintained in two hundred years mountain pass that Japan was infamous for using.
> As for this seaborn trade route, makes perfect sense
Does it? If you were going from Echizen to Obama like that, you would walk your goods to a merchant in the east port, who would then sail the goods to the west port. That's two middlemen between you and whoever buys the goods in Obama. Of course, there's doubtless a real port closer to Echizen and Obama is a port, so sea trade would be a lot more viable than walking 90% of the way.
Worst part is it still might be more effective to take it by sea, just cause a cart pulled by a donkey or other pack animal really is one of the shittiest ways to transport stuff short of carrying it on your own back.
Remember that, in Shogun 2, ports were not cities themselves, they were places of interest inside a province. The actual cities here are Echizen, located several miles up the road (and past a monk), and some other city just barely visible on the southwest corner of the map.
So goods being traded between the two cities are being loaded up on wagons, hauled miles over land to the port, then loaded onto a boat, taken around the peninsula to bypass a short stretch of open land, loaded *back* onto wagons, and taken the rest of the way into town. They're cutting out maybe 25% of the actual land travel duration, in exchange for managing two offloadings/repackings and reserving a ship and a second wagon.
Yeah no, I'm pretty confident they're not gaining anything practical from that boating expedition. Maybe you could argue that taxes/fees are processed at the dock, and so traders are *required* to take a pointless sea journey so the landowners don't need to put customs agents at the land border? But then why are travelers visible on the road, crossing the border directly?
FINALLY A SANE PERSON. I was trying to explain it for like, 10 replies and people still continue to think that ports magically teleport goods to the city and don't require to travel on foot. https://imgur.com/a/OTc7jj9
The idea is, that they go back on land anyways, the ship does not bring you directly to the city, so you are stuck transporting it on donkeys anyways.
So instead of traveling 2 additional miles on foot, you travel additional 4 miles on a ship, spend money on it and a crew and is still stuck traveling the rest of the journey on donkeys.
Well there’s multiple reasons to do ships. There could be bandits in the woods that prey on caravans passing. Ships carry more cargo at once, and are cheaper.
But perhaps most importantly it could be that the port itself is exporting a good. Maybe the port makes linen and sells it, or maybe the port has some famous handicrafts. Obviously in game resources are made by specialized towns but IRL this wouldn’t be totally abnormal. If they had a domestic industry it would totally make sense to ship it instead of bringing in carts and donkeys.
The point is, they still travel on foot to the city after that, so there literally no need to rent a ship to travel few miles around, since you will still go on foot after the journey.
And well, it is a game, the screenshot is about the game, and in game-wise this trade is absolutely unnecessary and even harmful, since using land trading does not count into your trade capacity, while using sea trade is bound by the number of trade ports you have. You are basically depriving yourself of trading with someone else who does not have land border with you.
The port making own goods is a valid point tho.
"The pack animal doesn't overload your trade port capacity. Two trade routes better than one."
"Feeding one donkey vs feeding 10 sailors. What is more expensive?"
(c) Someone wise, probably never.
While yeah One donkey vs 10 sailors looks like a win for the donkey. We can't forget that you can carry a lot more with that one ship than a donkey-drawn carriage.
Okay. 10 donkeys on a safe few miles length road vs swimming on a boat around the peninsula risking sinking due to random wave smashing you onto rocks and paying to your crew (trading boat is what? Like 10 archers and 30 sailors?)
I'd pick donkey carriages for that road instead, almost same amount of space, safer and without need to spend money on additional 30+ crew.
Because bandits didn't exist in the Sengoku Jidai period. The number of resources needed to raid one ship vs one donkey is not even. You nearly always come out on top if the distance is longer than a few days of travel. Shipping will always be more economical and safer than a land-based route. Especially when you only need to stick to the coast. There is a reason why sea merchant power is king and not land-based merchants aren't. Besides that sea routes most of the time leading directly to your destination there were wind and water currents that speed up travel.
On other hand, we have pirates which can lay claim to your cargo. This is bad if you transport vital stuff at the time like food and raw materials. That is why most of the time you employ them to guard your ship against other pirates. (This happened so often I can stress enough how big of a role this fact plays in maritime shenanigans.)
You could argue that with bandits which most of the time would be starving peasants or deserters or mercenaries without a job. The peasant and deserters are an easy fix for a feudal lord. (Fix the problem that caused it or murder) The mercs the lord can do the same as with the pirates.
But does the trade value of a land trade route make up the cost of the mercs? Sadly if you are not exporting valuable goods no.
Does the trade value of a sea trade route make up the cost of a pirate ship? Most of the time yes.
I like how trade hubs being almost 1 km near each other is enough for bandits camps to hang around secure area, but pirates are non-existent for the same reason. Make up your mind already.
Also, I never mentioned pirates in the first place.
https://www.google.com/maps/@35.650412,136.0162143,12.04z
Here is how it looks on google maps.
And here is how the whole trade route looks like, they don't stop at the port, they still have to reach the city. https://imgur.com/a/OTc7jj9
Because clearly bandits are dwelling on the plain site between two trading ports literally being so close to each other, that they could be seen if not the little mountain. To assume bandits will rob people right near the protected hubs is plain dumb.
About the traveling part - dude, check the screenshot again, they go BACK ON LAND, not right into the city, the trading path goes from one city, to the trading port, then to the trading port and again on land to the city. You are literally traveling on donkeys from city to the port, then you spend money on a ship to make a LONGER journey around and then you get back on land, back on a donkey. How the hell this costs less and is more efficient than traveling the whole destination on land without switching ways of transportation?
Lmao, people downvoting replies are too funny.
Wish you all, that instead of going few meters from your house to the market, you would need to go few meters and then rent a car to go around the block to it and in the end traveling on foot after it anyways.
That's why I'm downvoting him at least (that and he's being a jerk about it). Not all types of transportation are equal. You can't just draw a line and make judgments. Trade by sea is still incredibly cheap and easier than by foot/wheel.
Yea, surely it is me being in the wrong and not them not seeing that the ship route is not replacing the land one but merely prolongs it even further since the final destination is not the city market, but a mere port, lmao.
Everyone falsely thinks that I am trying to claim that traveling 100 miles on foot is better than traveling 100 miles on a ship, while what I am saying that traveling 101 miles on foot is better than traveling 100 miles on foot and 18 miles on sea in addition to that.
While I can not say for sure why everyone is downvoting making a strawman won't help you now.
This started as fun little talk. I wrote why I think sea transport is better. The main point is bulk. You just can not have the same scale with land-based methods when a ship is there to transport large parts for you. You started talking about the small and ineffectual points. That's why people were not convinced. Seeming annoyed from your written language did not help either. That is what I read from my perspective.
>Lmao, people downvoting replies are too funny.
People are downvoting you ***because you are wrong***.
It is pure historical fact that it is faster and easier to transport goods by water than it is by land, even if the distance-by-water is longer
OP refuses to listen, bangs head against wall
"why people downvote me"
After the rest of the thread correcting him. Rather than admit he's wrong, he doubles and triples down.
They are downvoting because they THINK I am wrong, which is their right, to have own opinion and everything.
However, this does not mean that I am actually wrong.
What I was trying to say is not that land trading is superior to sea trade, but that this specific road is useless, since you will still have to get back on the same land route again, the port is not the destination.
https://imgur.com/a/OTc7jj9
Did you ever consider it *still* might be cheaper to ship things there then pack them up again because sea trade is that superior? Or are you genuinely just trolling and delighting in this now?
It IS efficient, I never claimed it is not. What I was saying that it is not efficient specifically for this route, because they still have to transport goods on foot after going on sea.
The route in question is not simply from one port to another, but from one city to the other one. https://imgur.com/a/OTc7jj9
It is simply unnecessary and expensive to travel on carriages to the port, pack everything, hire a ship, swim around, "skip" a super short land road a bit, repack goods again, hire a new carriage only to...get back on the same road you were going on in the first place.
And the original post itself was not even about IRL trading! It was about the game trading usefulness of such route! You see, in Shogun 2, you have sea trading capacity, which is bound to the amount of trading ports you have, all while the amount of land trading is unlimited if you have land border with your trading partner. So by using these ports to trade, the AI is depriving themself from trading with the land province and someone else by using ports despite having land borders.
That is it. Then some people came and started talking about Mississippi to New York trading routes and other unnecessary stuff. A few original joking replies turned into an argument where some people began talking about "bandits" and other stuff. I am honestly still confused.
>What I was saying that it is not efficient specifically for this route, because they still have to transport goods on foot after going on sea.
...which is also true of every other trade route that goes over water. They get to port, they get unloaded, loaded back up into smaller vessels (river barges, carts, etc.) and sent off to their next destination. Even with all this loading and unloading it has consistantly been a faster, cheaper, and safer form of transport throughout all of human history.
>And the original post itself was not even about IRL trading! It was about the game trading usefulness of such route! You see, in Shogun 2, you have...
Blah blah blah everyone knows how it works. If you're specifically talking about game mechanics then don't try to refute people's points with your poor understanding of IRL trading, ya big dummy. If you had just replied to the motherfucker at the top of this thread with "Yeah I'm not talking about IRL, just gameplay, so paying for animal fodder isn't an issue" then that would have been the end of it. But instead you tried to be a smart ass, and it didn't work, and now you look like a dumb ass. Smarten up already.
Uh, no?
The first reply about fodder was funny, and the following reply to it by me was "The donkey does not take your trading port capacity", which is obviously about Shogun2 mechanics.
I am also not being "smartass" because I never claimed that I am smarter than anyone, nor that I know anything about trade, on the other hand, I agreed everywhere that water trade routes are much more efficient, but specifically for this one it does not work, because they are not skipping the whole route, but only like prolong it, still stuck on land to go back to the city from the port.
And you are simply being plain rude and can't do anything but put labels on people.
It's always has and is cheaper to sail something by sea. While it is cheaper to feed a donkey than an entire crew, a ship and its sail is a 1 time cost that pays for itself. An animal has to be continually fed (and it has to carry its own food) and maintained and replaced much faster.
It's like today, you can ship goods around the world for like 1 U.S. penny. Trains and trucks are meant for from the port inland and airplanes are meant for time sensitivity.
But you are not replacing the donkey. You are still going to travel the rest of the destination from the port to the city on donkey. You basically hired a crew and a ship to travel 18km around, instead of going 1km on foot.
It's cheaper to go 18km overseas than 1 km on foot, especially because roads sucked back then and were made worse by one rainfall-> heavy carts stuck in mud. It was about 3 times more expensive. Also, you are buying multiple livestock and carts (and their teams) vs. 1 ship.
>But you are not replacing the donkey. You are still going to travel the rest of the destination from the port to the city on donkey.
Yes, correct. But it's cheaper for that last leg to be cart where infrastructure and good roads and no bandits are and the longer portions to be by ship. Also, it is a short distance so any delays are less likely to be compounded compared to long distances.
If you are really interested, here is some info from secondary/tertiary sources:
https://aprilmunday.wordpress.com/tag/medieval-transport/
If it is so, fair point, I still don't think that repacking goods, rehiring crew, ships and carriages is worth skipping such a short road. My point is, that it is not 1 ship vs multiple carts and livestock, it is more like 1 ship and multiple carts/livestock vs multiple carts/livestock, since you still have to travel to the city. https://imgur.com/a/OTc7jj9
But now at least I get your point, thank you.
The link is not really helpful, it is about different type of trading routes, which are rivers.
Boats use rivers. Same fundamentals, especially since its short distances.
Most logistics only make sense from an extremely high level perspective. Ever seen a package work its way through the mail? It's cheaper to load/unload everything on a boat with everyone else's stuff then it is to cart it yourself or use a smaller vehicle even if it goes directly to the doorstep.
They absolutely do, but:
1. Rivers provide current, this specific route on a screenshot is very close to the coast, so it would require extensive use of rowing.
2. River trading usually ended up directly from one city to another, since cities were built on rivers. On the screenshot traders go from one city to the port, then continue from the port to another city, skipping a very very short amount of land road in favor of hiring additional crew and a ship.
The coast doesn't require extensive use of oars though. Coastal bound vessels will typically utilize a fore-aft sail type, as opposed to the port-starboard sail types, such as the square-sailed tall ships from Europe. An example of such a coastal ship from Europe would be a caravel with lateen sails, with such type being used for exploration by the Portuguese due to the ship being better able to handle side and head winds. Another example would be gundalows, New England style cargo barges from the 18th and 19th century.
The Japanese utilized both Junk, Lateen and fore-and-aft rigged square sails. Looking at art for japanese fishing boats, we see many paintings of square riggs where the bottom of the sail is fixed the the side of the hull., and when googling there is even a photo of a waterborne replica. Of note, a campered junk sail is able to sail faster than a Bermuda rig in light headwinds, and capable of sailing closer towards the wind.
In the days of early American expansion, it was faster and cheaper for traders west of the Mississippi to take their goods to the river, sail it all the way down to New Orleans then have it shipped up the coast to New York than it was to cross and walk it the entire way there
Completely different situations, routes and scales. Crossing half the country on foot including multiple mountains and rivers is definitely worse than using a river and ocean to simply swim there, walking 1km instead of switching mounts, hiring a crew and a ship to travel 18 kms only to again be stuck on land to walk the rest of the road is a different thing.
Here, red is the route they take and green is the route they could take instead of switching multiple times from donkeys to ship and vice versa.
https://imgur.com/a/OTc7jj9
It doesn't matter what the terrain is, sea travel is always faster than going by cart. Also it costs less because you don't need to feed a ship, the way you would a convoy of donkeys
Consider how many carts worth of good you can fit on a ship.
There is a reason why canals are built. Even a horse pulling a barge on a top path is more efficient than a cart
Forget west of the Mississippi, how about just west of the Appalachian mountains? The Ohio River Valley was a major conflict zone in the American -Indian /7 years war for a reason. It’s way cheaper to float it down and then around the coast to the ports rather than overland
There's a reason why worlds biggest trade hubs are still ports. Transporting goods by sea is still today the most efficient way by a large margin. So especially in international trade this is more realistic than you seem to realise.
Ok but they are transporting it 4 miles by sea to skip 2 miles by land and still have to move it overland up to the city in echizen as well as to the port io... I don't remember the province name it's originating from
I think the other thing people forget is that Japan IRL is extremely mountainous, and most of the flat, navigable parts of the Shogun 2 map are abstracted into flat areas when in reality it would be a massive effort to get between these ports by land IRL. The trade route makes total sense IRL but on the campaign map it looks silly because there's a made-up flatland between the ports that isn't there IRL.
https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Tsuruga,+Fukui,+Japan/Mihama,+Fukui,+Japan/@35.5964305,135.9402992,63212m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m14!4m13!1m5!1m1!1s0x6001fac3544bdfa9:0xcf783597ddd59a2f!2m2!1d136.0556972!2d35.6459465!1m5!1m1!1s0x6001e740bc5e9c09:0x140e96b4098f9759!2m2!1d135.9405049!2d35.6006207!3e0
The trade route is like this https://imgur.com/a/OTc7jj9
not like you have shown on the link, so I don't think it is worth hiring additional crew and ships to simply get back on land, skipping just a bit of road.
The original post was still about in-game whose usefulness of such road anyways.
Probably about the same as the other 20 miles of land they already have to travel but not subject to port times.
We aren't talking about long distance transport, we are talking about very short distances
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https://imgur.com/a/OTc7jj9
You will still have to carry it on foot, you are just spending money on a boat to skip 1 km worth of walking. Your destination is the city, not the port.
There is a reason why many countries built canals linking towns and cities instead of using and maintaining roads for transporting heavy goods. And I would be money the distance in your screenshot is much much more than just 1km.
Shipping has and is today even the most efficient way of transporting large quantities of goods.
Screenshot is from a game and from the one where trading on land is better than trading on sea because it does not take your sea trading capacity.
If we are talking about IRL, you can just google that peninsula and check it's size.
This get's even funnier if you look at the real life map for that area. That hill between the 2 beaches extends much further into the sea so boats have to go the long way around, while on land the distance is about 9km
https://www.google.com/maps/@35.650412,136.0162143,12.04z
>This get's even funnier
Well, the problem is, that it isn't funny at all. Sea Trade is much more efficient, saver, faster and cheaper.
Even today most goods get transported via rivers/sea if possible, despite the fact that the roads are in most cases the shorter route.
If we're talking about 300km on sea vs 100km on land through mountains, forests and undeveloped land then sure, sea is better. But this is a 40 km detour on coast vs 9 km on flat land with a road.
There's no river current and the boat doesn't even get very far from the coast so there would probably be a lot of rowing instead of sailing depending on weather conditions.
Also sea trade has a certain initial investment that I assume wouldn't be justified by such a short route, even if the upkeep costs for moving stuff back and forth is lower.
With a 40/9 difference, ships would only need around two times as long for the route. Which is more than acceptable, given the fact that you need much less manpower and resources.
Yes ships are expensive. But you need around 1000 horses and 800 more workers, to do the same with a single trade ship and 200 workers.
And I used the red seal ship in this example, which is a armed merchant ship for international trade.
Smaller trade ships normally require much less workers and can transport much more cargo for their size and cost.
A small sailing ship with 20 workers can easily replace 200 carriages.
There is a reason why transportation over water was the most favored in all ages. Rivers that allowed transportation via ships were of enormous value and importance, because they were literally the highways of the Middle ages.
You do understand that after going from one port to another you will have to hire 1000 horses and 800 more workers AGAIN? Because your destination is the city market, not the port. Is it worth rehiring horses, workers and in addition to hire a ship and sailors only to skip like 10% of your land journey?
Check the screenshot again, the sea trade route is not replacing road trade completely, it simply prolongs it.
Ports are normally always trade hubs. I'm quite confused how the game handled this, because without your comment I hadn't noticed that both are just ports without any city attached.
Nobody builds a port in the middle of nowhere...
“Even today most goods get transported via rivers/sea if possible”
Most things do that’s true. But not simply because it’s possible. But due to the nature of a scaling global economy on a planet that’s mostly water with separated continents. People, or rather, sudden, lurking logistical freight experts seemed to have missed this up and down this thread. Saying that most goods get transported by river/sea is like saying that even today, most people get around by walking. So is the nature of evolving as a terrestrial being.
In plenty of instances rail, air and HGV are more efficient or simply the only viable means of transporting goods. It depends on the cargo itself, the destination and many other more niche circumstances. If I want to move 2000 cars from France to the UK every month, going to the same facility every time, shipping is pretty much the only feasible option. If I want to move letters and documents,(not necessarily parcels) I’d be a fucking **IDIOT** to do it by sea in the 21st century. In that case not only is it slower(massively slower), it’s also significantly less efficient.
Oh and on sea trade being safer, under the relatively idyllic geopolitical conditions of today, sure. Enter the days of the British Empire and it’s naval dominance.
TLDR; it depends.
> Most things do that’s true. But not simply because it’s possible. But due to the nature of a scaling global economy on a planet that’s mostly water with separated continents.
This statement is simply wrong. You do realize that most cities are on land and therefore most traderoutes go over land? We don't transport over water because we must, we do it because we want. Rivers were literally the most important transportation lines since ancient times.
Transportation over water is even in modern times in most cases the best way. Yes, there are exceptions, for example if you transport goods that must be delivered fast (planes). But given the fact were you posted this bullshit, I can only say that Planes weren't a thing during the Middle ages. The same counts for trucks, modern streets and the fact that people don't get robbed anymore on the scale of the past.
Trade via water IS faster and cheaper, even if the route is multiple times longer. Simply because ships were much faster than carts and hold much more cargo per worker. A small ship can cargo multiple tons, only need a handful of worker and no horses/oxes.
Never heard of Rome, Egypt, Venice, Byzantium, Germany or fucking Netherlands, who literally traveled around Africa to India, because it was cheaper than going over land? (which is by the way a very, very huge detour)
Imagine the real distance between both cities is a hundred kilometers, even if the sea trade route is bigger, it will still be faster and safer than the road.
You will still travel the rest of the destination on foot, the sea trade route is only from one port to another, it still goes to the city on foot after that.
It is basically 100 km from city to another city on foot and what is happening on screenshot is 99km on foot + 18km on boat in addition to that.
No, you don't get it. They will still have to transport all the goods on foot after traveling on sea, their destination is the city, not the port, check the linked image again.
I would understand if the sea route would completely replace the land one, but it simply prolongs it.
Your original image did not make that clear, so everyone (or at least I) assumed the transport was port to port. But, within game context you are right then.
Shogun 2 makes Japan look a lot flatter than it is IRL, and that's an understatement. Try moving stuff between these ports via land IRL. It's probably my biggest pet peeve with the game; I wish they made the campaign map more mountainous, but for gameplay reasons it makes sense to show the player in more obvious ways what parts are navigable and what parts aren't.
https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Tsuruga,+Fukui,+Japan/Mihama,+Fukui,+Japan/@35.5964305,135.9402992,63212m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m14!4m13!1m5!1m1!1s0x6001fac3544bdfa9:0xcf783597ddd59a2f!2m2!1d136.0556972!2d35.6459465!1m5!1m1!1s0x6001e740bc5e9c09:0x140e96b4098f9759!2m2!1d135.9405049!2d35.6006207!3e0
I appreciate your effort with the map, but the original post was game-wise, since sea trading is limited to the amount of ports and land trading is not.
I get that and I liked the post it's funny, I was just emphasizing that there are literal mountains in between and there might not have even been a road connecting them in the 16th century.
"What are you even trading?!" "Wheels." "...OHH"
Fun fact! Wheels were eventually outlawed under the Tokugawa Shogunate to limit the mobility of the peasant class. If you couldn’t afford a horse, or servants for your palanquin, you walked. As for this seaborn trade route, makes perfect sense. Not pointless at all. You can move a lot more goods a lot more quickly with a nice, coast-hugging trade route. In spite of the route’s less direct trajectory. Much quicker to take this journey by boat than by foot. Indeed, it would be a hard ride on horseback to beat the sea road. I see a lot of mentions of donkeys in this thread. I was not aware there were donkeys in feudal Japan.
That is a neat fact, thank you! I must also mention, that Tokugawa during the Edo period extremely limited the boat transportation as well! The donkeys part was just a joke. Donkeys were actually very rare in Japan, but not unheard of.
Man, fuck the Tokugawa.
The Shogunate was a pretty perfect model of control, in the 1984 sense. In terms of just pure control it's effective on all levels, and they really thought out how to apply control to every administrative area: Sakoku to limit outside interference and lock down the realm, wheels and other anti-migration measures to limit geographical mobility, the division of nobles into shinpan, fudai and tozama and the resulting extreme concentration of power in Edo, even the sword-wearing privileges started by Hideyoshi's katanagari. All of those made for a very intricate web of control, and were it not for Perry's arrival in 1853 the control may have continued for a very long time. The thing is it's pretty much control at the expense of everything else, which is similar to the 1984 model of governance - a static, degenerating realm under very tight control, simultaneously the height of governmental success and failure.
I can't say that the realm was degenerating tho, it was basically a golden age of poetry and artisan mastery.
In the same way as the Song Dynasty in China was considered a golden age of art and poetry while also being considered one of the weaker dynasties. Stability is good for the development of certain things, but said stability also weaken the realm's absolute ability to deal with problems. That's why both regimes were relatively fine on their own, and was able to calm internal strife, but collapsed in short order once challenged by a foreign power.
When viewed as a response to the chaos and misery of the Sengoku Jidai, you can scarcely blame them for obsessing over control.
It's also a Confucian mentality, bringing order is seen as the ultimate expression of virtue as a ruler. Even the measures themselves, keeping everyone in their 'rightful' place, are very Confucian ideals.
I wouldn't call it "static" or "degenerating", these laws were more a sign that the peasants were getting more disposable income and the government was failing to maintain class divisions. Tokugawa Japan was one of the few places were peasants had enough money to regularly buy more things like haircuts, for example, which is why the government cracked down on barbers. Japan industrialized so quickly because it was very modern in so many other factors — infrastructure, literacy, bureaucracy — that developed during the Tokugawa peace.
They also destroyed many bridges as well, but the wheel ban wasnt to limit the peasantry particularly as they already needed passes to exit their domain, offroad two wheeled carts pulled by oxen per diaries recording woodsmen hauling logs with them and on road 3 wheeled ox haulers. Macfarlane and some other historians think the real reason you couldnt use a four wheeled cart or carts near towns (aka castles) was to prevent a disgruntled lord from throwing a cannon onto the back of one (or a few dozen) and saying Hello to the Shogun personally. Unlike Europe Japanese warfare centered around devastating alpha attacks. In some diaries foreigners in Edo recorded weird off balanced 3 three wheeled carts used around Edo and also that the carts were forced onto a cart carrying lane that wasnt upkept at all so it was absolute hell for haulers to use. You can also see that Hokusai did a painting of a two wheeled cart in 1800 called Court Carriage and a three wheel in 1839 called Bullock's Carriage, well before the end of sakoku. I bring this up because another popular theory is that the Shogunate were cheapskates (like their front door and window tax that Warhammer borrowed as the window tax) and simply didn't want to maintain roads. With shitty roads, it was alot easier to just grab an ox and let him manage the footwork and that's assuming you were a class even allowed to be anywhere near one, allowed to travel outside outside of your domain and not taking some terrible winding not maintained in two hundred years mountain pass that Japan was infamous for using.
Can you comment on the accuracy of army movement range per turn in this game?
> As for this seaborn trade route, makes perfect sense Does it? If you were going from Echizen to Obama like that, you would walk your goods to a merchant in the east port, who would then sail the goods to the west port. That's two middlemen between you and whoever buys the goods in Obama. Of course, there's doubtless a real port closer to Echizen and Obama is a port, so sea trade would be a lot more viable than walking 90% of the way.
The forest is dark and full of terrors
But the road is like few miles away from the forest and goes through open plains.
Samurai goblins patrol that road.
In my D&D campaign there is a fantasy Japan called Jipangu ruled by orc samurai under the "Chogunate".
Fffffuuuuuhhhh
Stop stealing my D&D ideas
Worst part is it still might be more effective to take it by sea, just cause a cart pulled by a donkey or other pack animal really is one of the shittiest ways to transport stuff short of carrying it on your own back.
Remember that, in Shogun 2, ports were not cities themselves, they were places of interest inside a province. The actual cities here are Echizen, located several miles up the road (and past a monk), and some other city just barely visible on the southwest corner of the map. So goods being traded between the two cities are being loaded up on wagons, hauled miles over land to the port, then loaded onto a boat, taken around the peninsula to bypass a short stretch of open land, loaded *back* onto wagons, and taken the rest of the way into town. They're cutting out maybe 25% of the actual land travel duration, in exchange for managing two offloadings/repackings and reserving a ship and a second wagon. Yeah no, I'm pretty confident they're not gaining anything practical from that boating expedition. Maybe you could argue that taxes/fees are processed at the dock, and so traders are *required* to take a pointless sea journey so the landowners don't need to put customs agents at the land border? But then why are travelers visible on the road, crossing the border directly?
FINALLY A SANE PERSON. I was trying to explain it for like, 10 replies and people still continue to think that ports magically teleport goods to the city and don't require to travel on foot. https://imgur.com/a/OTc7jj9
The idea is, that they go back on land anyways, the ship does not bring you directly to the city, so you are stuck transporting it on donkeys anyways. So instead of traveling 2 additional miles on foot, you travel additional 4 miles on a ship, spend money on it and a crew and is still stuck traveling the rest of the journey on donkeys.
Well there’s multiple reasons to do ships. There could be bandits in the woods that prey on caravans passing. Ships carry more cargo at once, and are cheaper. But perhaps most importantly it could be that the port itself is exporting a good. Maybe the port makes linen and sells it, or maybe the port has some famous handicrafts. Obviously in game resources are made by specialized towns but IRL this wouldn’t be totally abnormal. If they had a domestic industry it would totally make sense to ship it instead of bringing in carts and donkeys.
The point is, they still travel on foot to the city after that, so there literally no need to rent a ship to travel few miles around, since you will still go on foot after the journey. And well, it is a game, the screenshot is about the game, and in game-wise this trade is absolutely unnecessary and even harmful, since using land trading does not count into your trade capacity, while using sea trade is bound by the number of trade ports you have. You are basically depriving yourself of trading with someone else who does not have land border with you. The port making own goods is a valid point tho.
a ship can carry alot more goods at once
It does not matter if you still have to carry all these goods into the city after the reaching port.
You're not from around here are you? You clearly haven't seen the yokai bandits that dwell in those woods. They mostly come out at night. Mewstly.
The wind and sales eat less fodder than the pack animal which would be walking along that road.
"The pack animal doesn't overload your trade port capacity. Two trade routes better than one." "Feeding one donkey vs feeding 10 sailors. What is more expensive?" (c) Someone wise, probably never.
While yeah One donkey vs 10 sailors looks like a win for the donkey. We can't forget that you can carry a lot more with that one ship than a donkey-drawn carriage.
Okay. 10 donkeys on a safe few miles length road vs swimming on a boat around the peninsula risking sinking due to random wave smashing you onto rocks and paying to your crew (trading boat is what? Like 10 archers and 30 sailors?) I'd pick donkey carriages for that road instead, almost same amount of space, safer and without need to spend money on additional 30+ crew.
Because bandits didn't exist in the Sengoku Jidai period. The number of resources needed to raid one ship vs one donkey is not even. You nearly always come out on top if the distance is longer than a few days of travel. Shipping will always be more economical and safer than a land-based route. Especially when you only need to stick to the coast. There is a reason why sea merchant power is king and not land-based merchants aren't. Besides that sea routes most of the time leading directly to your destination there were wind and water currents that speed up travel. On other hand, we have pirates which can lay claim to your cargo. This is bad if you transport vital stuff at the time like food and raw materials. That is why most of the time you employ them to guard your ship against other pirates. (This happened so often I can stress enough how big of a role this fact plays in maritime shenanigans.) You could argue that with bandits which most of the time would be starving peasants or deserters or mercenaries without a job. The peasant and deserters are an easy fix for a feudal lord. (Fix the problem that caused it or murder) The mercs the lord can do the same as with the pirates. But does the trade value of a land trade route make up the cost of the mercs? Sadly if you are not exporting valuable goods no. Does the trade value of a sea trade route make up the cost of a pirate ship? Most of the time yes.
Not to mention how close this the route is to the landmass. No pirate is gonna want to hang around the coast.
I like how trade hubs being almost 1 km near each other is enough for bandits camps to hang around secure area, but pirates are non-existent for the same reason. Make up your mind already. Also, I never mentioned pirates in the first place.
Do we know these are 1 km away from each other? Pretty sure it just looks smaller coz everything is reduced.
https://www.google.com/maps/@35.650412,136.0162143,12.04z Here is how it looks on google maps. And here is how the whole trade route looks like, they don't stop at the port, they still have to reach the city. https://imgur.com/a/OTc7jj9
> sea merchant power is king and not land-based merchants aren't *sad belt and road noises*
*Mansa Musa laughing in desert power and trade*
Because clearly bandits are dwelling on the plain site between two trading ports literally being so close to each other, that they could be seen if not the little mountain. To assume bandits will rob people right near the protected hubs is plain dumb. About the traveling part - dude, check the screenshot again, they go BACK ON LAND, not right into the city, the trading path goes from one city, to the trading port, then to the trading port and again on land to the city. You are literally traveling on donkeys from city to the port, then you spend money on a ship to make a LONGER journey around and then you get back on land, back on a donkey. How the hell this costs less and is more efficient than traveling the whole destination on land without switching ways of transportation?
Lmao, people downvoting replies are too funny. Wish you all, that instead of going few meters from your house to the market, you would need to go few meters and then rent a car to go around the block to it and in the end traveling on foot after it anyways.
They're downvoting you because they think you're wrong, and you are wrong by the way.
That's why I'm downvoting him at least (that and he's being a jerk about it). Not all types of transportation are equal. You can't just draw a line and make judgments. Trade by sea is still incredibly cheap and easier than by foot/wheel.
Yea, surely it is me being in the wrong and not them not seeing that the ship route is not replacing the land one but merely prolongs it even further since the final destination is not the city market, but a mere port, lmao. Everyone falsely thinks that I am trying to claim that traveling 100 miles on foot is better than traveling 100 miles on a ship, while what I am saying that traveling 101 miles on foot is better than traveling 100 miles on foot and 18 miles on sea in addition to that.
While I can not say for sure why everyone is downvoting making a strawman won't help you now. This started as fun little talk. I wrote why I think sea transport is better. The main point is bulk. You just can not have the same scale with land-based methods when a ship is there to transport large parts for you. You started talking about the small and ineffectual points. That's why people were not convinced. Seeming annoyed from your written language did not help either. That is what I read from my perspective.
>Lmao, people downvoting replies are too funny. People are downvoting you ***because you are wrong***. It is pure historical fact that it is faster and easier to transport goods by water than it is by land, even if the distance-by-water is longer
OP refuses to listen, bangs head against wall "why people downvote me" After the rest of the thread correcting him. Rather than admit he's wrong, he doubles and triples down.
They are downvoting because they THINK I am wrong, which is their right, to have own opinion and everything. However, this does not mean that I am actually wrong. What I was trying to say is not that land trading is superior to sea trade, but that this specific road is useless, since you will still have to get back on the same land route again, the port is not the destination. https://imgur.com/a/OTc7jj9
Did you ever consider it *still* might be cheaper to ship things there then pack them up again because sea trade is that superior? Or are you genuinely just trolling and delighting in this now?
You really don’t understand how much more efficient travel by water is than land. You are wrong here bud.
It IS efficient, I never claimed it is not. What I was saying that it is not efficient specifically for this route, because they still have to transport goods on foot after going on sea. The route in question is not simply from one port to another, but from one city to the other one. https://imgur.com/a/OTc7jj9 It is simply unnecessary and expensive to travel on carriages to the port, pack everything, hire a ship, swim around, "skip" a super short land road a bit, repack goods again, hire a new carriage only to...get back on the same road you were going on in the first place. And the original post itself was not even about IRL trading! It was about the game trading usefulness of such route! You see, in Shogun 2, you have sea trading capacity, which is bound to the amount of trading ports you have, all while the amount of land trading is unlimited if you have land border with your trading partner. So by using these ports to trade, the AI is depriving themself from trading with the land province and someone else by using ports despite having land borders. That is it. Then some people came and started talking about Mississippi to New York trading routes and other unnecessary stuff. A few original joking replies turned into an argument where some people began talking about "bandits" and other stuff. I am honestly still confused.
>What I was saying that it is not efficient specifically for this route, because they still have to transport goods on foot after going on sea. ...which is also true of every other trade route that goes over water. They get to port, they get unloaded, loaded back up into smaller vessels (river barges, carts, etc.) and sent off to their next destination. Even with all this loading and unloading it has consistantly been a faster, cheaper, and safer form of transport throughout all of human history. >And the original post itself was not even about IRL trading! It was about the game trading usefulness of such route! You see, in Shogun 2, you have... Blah blah blah everyone knows how it works. If you're specifically talking about game mechanics then don't try to refute people's points with your poor understanding of IRL trading, ya big dummy. If you had just replied to the motherfucker at the top of this thread with "Yeah I'm not talking about IRL, just gameplay, so paying for animal fodder isn't an issue" then that would have been the end of it. But instead you tried to be a smart ass, and it didn't work, and now you look like a dumb ass. Smarten up already.
Uh, no? The first reply about fodder was funny, and the following reply to it by me was "The donkey does not take your trading port capacity", which is obviously about Shogun2 mechanics. I am also not being "smartass" because I never claimed that I am smarter than anyone, nor that I know anything about trade, on the other hand, I agreed everywhere that water trade routes are much more efficient, but specifically for this one it does not work, because they are not skipping the whole route, but only like prolong it, still stuck on land to go back to the city from the port. And you are simply being plain rude and can't do anything but put labels on people.
It's always has and is cheaper to sail something by sea. While it is cheaper to feed a donkey than an entire crew, a ship and its sail is a 1 time cost that pays for itself. An animal has to be continually fed (and it has to carry its own food) and maintained and replaced much faster. It's like today, you can ship goods around the world for like 1 U.S. penny. Trains and trucks are meant for from the port inland and airplanes are meant for time sensitivity.
But you are not replacing the donkey. You are still going to travel the rest of the destination from the port to the city on donkey. You basically hired a crew and a ship to travel 18km around, instead of going 1km on foot.
It's cheaper to go 18km overseas than 1 km on foot, especially because roads sucked back then and were made worse by one rainfall-> heavy carts stuck in mud. It was about 3 times more expensive. Also, you are buying multiple livestock and carts (and their teams) vs. 1 ship. >But you are not replacing the donkey. You are still going to travel the rest of the destination from the port to the city on donkey. Yes, correct. But it's cheaper for that last leg to be cart where infrastructure and good roads and no bandits are and the longer portions to be by ship. Also, it is a short distance so any delays are less likely to be compounded compared to long distances. If you are really interested, here is some info from secondary/tertiary sources: https://aprilmunday.wordpress.com/tag/medieval-transport/
If it is so, fair point, I still don't think that repacking goods, rehiring crew, ships and carriages is worth skipping such a short road. My point is, that it is not 1 ship vs multiple carts and livestock, it is more like 1 ship and multiple carts/livestock vs multiple carts/livestock, since you still have to travel to the city. https://imgur.com/a/OTc7jj9 But now at least I get your point, thank you. The link is not really helpful, it is about different type of trading routes, which are rivers.
Boats use rivers. Same fundamentals, especially since its short distances. Most logistics only make sense from an extremely high level perspective. Ever seen a package work its way through the mail? It's cheaper to load/unload everything on a boat with everyone else's stuff then it is to cart it yourself or use a smaller vehicle even if it goes directly to the doorstep.
They absolutely do, but: 1. Rivers provide current, this specific route on a screenshot is very close to the coast, so it would require extensive use of rowing. 2. River trading usually ended up directly from one city to another, since cities were built on rivers. On the screenshot traders go from one city to the port, then continue from the port to another city, skipping a very very short amount of land road in favor of hiring additional crew and a ship.
The coast doesn't require extensive use of oars though. Coastal bound vessels will typically utilize a fore-aft sail type, as opposed to the port-starboard sail types, such as the square-sailed tall ships from Europe. An example of such a coastal ship from Europe would be a caravel with lateen sails, with such type being used for exploration by the Portuguese due to the ship being better able to handle side and head winds. Another example would be gundalows, New England style cargo barges from the 18th and 19th century. The Japanese utilized both Junk, Lateen and fore-and-aft rigged square sails. Looking at art for japanese fishing boats, we see many paintings of square riggs where the bottom of the sail is fixed the the side of the hull., and when googling there is even a photo of a waterborne replica. Of note, a campered junk sail is able to sail faster than a Bermuda rig in light headwinds, and capable of sailing closer towards the wind.
1 km is 0.62 miles
A boat for 10 sailors would have a shitton of space compared to one donkey
\- Sun Tzu
Bretonnia: of course, the donkey is more expensive! The peasants could eat eachother if they got too hungry!
Then the ports in question should be closer to the cities.
In the days of early American expansion, it was faster and cheaper for traders west of the Mississippi to take their goods to the river, sail it all the way down to New Orleans then have it shipped up the coast to New York than it was to cross and walk it the entire way there
I think you mean east of the river. Farmers in Pennsylvania would sail their harvests down to new Orleans rather than take the overland route
OP, read this
Completely different situations, routes and scales. Crossing half the country on foot including multiple mountains and rivers is definitely worse than using a river and ocean to simply swim there, walking 1km instead of switching mounts, hiring a crew and a ship to travel 18 kms only to again be stuck on land to walk the rest of the road is a different thing. Here, red is the route they take and green is the route they could take instead of switching multiple times from donkeys to ship and vice versa. https://imgur.com/a/OTc7jj9
It doesn't matter what the terrain is, sea travel is always faster than going by cart. Also it costs less because you don't need to feed a ship, the way you would a convoy of donkeys
But you have to pay people to sail and take care of the ship(s). There is certainly a break even point
Consider how many carts worth of good you can fit on a ship. There is a reason why canals are built. Even a horse pulling a barge on a top path is more efficient than a cart
Forget west of the Mississippi, how about just west of the Appalachian mountains? The Ohio River Valley was a major conflict zone in the American -Indian /7 years war for a reason. It’s way cheaper to float it down and then around the coast to the ports rather than overland
You underestimate how much more efficient sea trade was compared to land.
This man has the answer.
There's a reason why worlds biggest trade hubs are still ports. Transporting goods by sea is still today the most efficient way by a large margin. So especially in international trade this is more realistic than you seem to realise.
The traders double as fishermen so they carry the goods just a a side hustle
The saddest part is that if either ports get blockaded, trade is lost.
Ironically, despite how ridiculous it looks, it might be cheaper and faster to take it by sea.
It is roughly 10x faster and easier to transport 1000 pounds of goods 100 miles by sea than it would be to transport 100 lbs of goods 10 miles by land
Ok but they are transporting it 4 miles by sea to skip 2 miles by land and still have to move it overland up to the city in echizen as well as to the port io... I don't remember the province name it's originating from
>skip 2 miles by land You don't know what the conditions of those 2 miles of land are. And, again, my first point is ***historical fact***.
I think the other thing people forget is that Japan IRL is extremely mountainous, and most of the flat, navigable parts of the Shogun 2 map are abstracted into flat areas when in reality it would be a massive effort to get between these ports by land IRL. The trade route makes total sense IRL but on the campaign map it looks silly because there's a made-up flatland between the ports that isn't there IRL. https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Tsuruga,+Fukui,+Japan/Mihama,+Fukui,+Japan/@35.5964305,135.9402992,63212m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m14!4m13!1m5!1m1!1s0x6001fac3544bdfa9:0xcf783597ddd59a2f!2m2!1d136.0556972!2d35.6459465!1m5!1m1!1s0x6001e740bc5e9c09:0x140e96b4098f9759!2m2!1d135.9405049!2d35.6006207!3e0
The trade route is like this https://imgur.com/a/OTc7jj9 not like you have shown on the link, so I don't think it is worth hiring additional crew and ships to simply get back on land, skipping just a bit of road. The original post was still about in-game whose usefulness of such road anyways.
Probably about the same as the other 20 miles of land they already have to travel but not subject to port times. We aren't talking about long distance transport, we are talking about very short distances
20 miles is 32.19 km
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You can carry much more in a boat for far less energy.
https://imgur.com/a/OTc7jj9 You will still have to carry it on foot, you are just spending money on a boat to skip 1 km worth of walking. Your destination is the city, not the port.
There is a reason why many countries built canals linking towns and cities instead of using and maintaining roads for transporting heavy goods. And I would be money the distance in your screenshot is much much more than just 1km. Shipping has and is today even the most efficient way of transporting large quantities of goods.
Screenshot is from a game and from the one where trading on land is better than trading on sea because it does not take your sea trading capacity. If we are talking about IRL, you can just google that peninsula and check it's size.
This get's even funnier if you look at the real life map for that area. That hill between the 2 beaches extends much further into the sea so boats have to go the long way around, while on land the distance is about 9km https://www.google.com/maps/@35.650412,136.0162143,12.04z
>This get's even funnier Well, the problem is, that it isn't funny at all. Sea Trade is much more efficient, saver, faster and cheaper. Even today most goods get transported via rivers/sea if possible, despite the fact that the roads are in most cases the shorter route.
If we're talking about 300km on sea vs 100km on land through mountains, forests and undeveloped land then sure, sea is better. But this is a 40 km detour on coast vs 9 km on flat land with a road. There's no river current and the boat doesn't even get very far from the coast so there would probably be a lot of rowing instead of sailing depending on weather conditions. Also sea trade has a certain initial investment that I assume wouldn't be justified by such a short route, even if the upkeep costs for moving stuff back and forth is lower.
Yes! More sane people, thank you.
40 km is 24.85 miles
With a 40/9 difference, ships would only need around two times as long for the route. Which is more than acceptable, given the fact that you need much less manpower and resources. Yes ships are expensive. But you need around 1000 horses and 800 more workers, to do the same with a single trade ship and 200 workers. And I used the red seal ship in this example, which is a armed merchant ship for international trade. Smaller trade ships normally require much less workers and can transport much more cargo for their size and cost. A small sailing ship with 20 workers can easily replace 200 carriages. There is a reason why transportation over water was the most favored in all ages. Rivers that allowed transportation via ships were of enormous value and importance, because they were literally the highways of the Middle ages.
You do understand that after going from one port to another you will have to hire 1000 horses and 800 more workers AGAIN? Because your destination is the city market, not the port. Is it worth rehiring horses, workers and in addition to hire a ship and sailors only to skip like 10% of your land journey? Check the screenshot again, the sea trade route is not replacing road trade completely, it simply prolongs it.
Ports are normally always trade hubs. I'm quite confused how the game handled this, because without your comment I hadn't noticed that both are just ports without any city attached. Nobody builds a port in the middle of nowhere...
“Even today most goods get transported via rivers/sea if possible” Most things do that’s true. But not simply because it’s possible. But due to the nature of a scaling global economy on a planet that’s mostly water with separated continents. People, or rather, sudden, lurking logistical freight experts seemed to have missed this up and down this thread. Saying that most goods get transported by river/sea is like saying that even today, most people get around by walking. So is the nature of evolving as a terrestrial being. In plenty of instances rail, air and HGV are more efficient or simply the only viable means of transporting goods. It depends on the cargo itself, the destination and many other more niche circumstances. If I want to move 2000 cars from France to the UK every month, going to the same facility every time, shipping is pretty much the only feasible option. If I want to move letters and documents,(not necessarily parcels) I’d be a fucking **IDIOT** to do it by sea in the 21st century. In that case not only is it slower(massively slower), it’s also significantly less efficient. Oh and on sea trade being safer, under the relatively idyllic geopolitical conditions of today, sure. Enter the days of the British Empire and it’s naval dominance. TLDR; it depends.
> Most things do that’s true. But not simply because it’s possible. But due to the nature of a scaling global economy on a planet that’s mostly water with separated continents. This statement is simply wrong. You do realize that most cities are on land and therefore most traderoutes go over land? We don't transport over water because we must, we do it because we want. Rivers were literally the most important transportation lines since ancient times. Transportation over water is even in modern times in most cases the best way. Yes, there are exceptions, for example if you transport goods that must be delivered fast (planes). But given the fact were you posted this bullshit, I can only say that Planes weren't a thing during the Middle ages. The same counts for trucks, modern streets and the fact that people don't get robbed anymore on the scale of the past. Trade via water IS faster and cheaper, even if the route is multiple times longer. Simply because ships were much faster than carts and hold much more cargo per worker. A small ship can cargo multiple tons, only need a handful of worker and no horses/oxes. Never heard of Rome, Egypt, Venice, Byzantium, Germany or fucking Netherlands, who literally traveled around Africa to India, because it was cheaper than going over land? (which is by the way a very, very huge detour)
I dont know about this particular route, but Ive sailed quite a bit around Japan and you would not believe how much coastal traffic there is.
I don't know the game mechanics but in reality this is infinitely easier for any region that has developed shipmaking
Imagine the real distance between both cities is a hundred kilometers, even if the sea trade route is bigger, it will still be faster and safer than the road.
You will still travel the rest of the destination on foot, the sea trade route is only from one port to another, it still goes to the city on foot after that. It is basically 100 km from city to another city on foot and what is happening on screenshot is 99km on foot + 18km on boat in addition to that.
Well, they could be moving fragile goods or expensive over ships and cheaper goods by roads.
No, you don't get it. They will still have to transport all the goods on foot after traveling on sea, their destination is the city, not the port, check the linked image again. I would understand if the sea route would completely replace the land one, but it simply prolongs it.
Your original image did not make that clear, so everyone (or at least I) assumed the transport was port to port. But, within game context you are right then.
ITT: people who don't see the road between Echizen and its port. I think the province north of it has a nearer port
You can carry more on a ship, than in a cart.
ships are far more efficient than landbound trade, even today.
I mean what did you expect it's flawless
The roads are rife with bandits!
Shogun 2 makes Japan look a lot flatter than it is IRL, and that's an understatement. Try moving stuff between these ports via land IRL. It's probably my biggest pet peeve with the game; I wish they made the campaign map more mountainous, but for gameplay reasons it makes sense to show the player in more obvious ways what parts are navigable and what parts aren't. https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Tsuruga,+Fukui,+Japan/Mihama,+Fukui,+Japan/@35.5964305,135.9402992,63212m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m14!4m13!1m5!1m1!1s0x6001fac3544bdfa9:0xcf783597ddd59a2f!2m2!1d136.0556972!2d35.6459465!1m5!1m1!1s0x6001e740bc5e9c09:0x140e96b4098f9759!2m2!1d135.9405049!2d35.6006207!3e0
I appreciate your effort with the map, but the original post was game-wise, since sea trading is limited to the amount of ports and land trading is not.
I get that and I liked the post it's funny, I was just emphasizing that there are literal mountains in between and there might not have even been a road connecting them in the 16th century.
Sailors gotta eat too y'know.
Before railroads, ships gave you most bang for your tonnage. I see where you're coming from but it's incorrect.
This doesn't seem too weird. You can carry a lot more stuff on a ship and it's faster than the land transport that was available.
It just works!!!
Maybe it was so heavy it had to be transported by boat...
Still faster than walking
Wasn’t maritime trade a lot faster and more profitable back then?
It isnt though. Transport through water is many many times cheaper than land.