our Trade Advisor is one of your most important aides; he doesn't have a lot to tell you, but he carries out all of your trade orders. Visit him to decide how much, if any, of each commodity in your warehouses to export, whether or not to import goods, and to turn industries on and off.

Click on any commodity listed for more information about your city's activity relating to that good, or to change its trading status.

If you have an open trade route for a particular commodity, you'll see a button marked “Not trading” when you click on the good. Click that button repeatedly to cycle through all possible trading options. Sometimes, you can only export that commodity or import it, depending on your trading routes. Other times, again depending on your trading partners, you can choose to either import or export the commodity. You can never both import and export the same commodity.

If you have a trade route open which is keen to sell you a commodity, clicking on the button will show the word “Importing.”

If you have a trade route open which is willing to buy a commodity from you, you will see a button marked “Export over”, with arrows that let you set a quantity. Leave it at 0 to export your entire inventory of the good, or set an amount to keep in your warehouses, with anything above that then available for export.

Click this button repeatedly to cycle thro u g h all of your trade options for the particular commodity. You have to choose between importing and exporting any given good – you can never do both.

During times of labor shortage, you might want to temporarily shut down industries that have built up surpluses, or that produce items you can do without for a short while. The workers who were employed at the industries you turned off become available for your Labor Advisor to reassign elsewhere. Later, when more workers are available, you can quickly absorb surplus workers by telling your Trade Advisor to turn the idled industries back on.

Click on the button marked “Show Prices” to list how much you receive for each cart load of something that you export, or how much you pay for each cart that you import. Notice that it usually costs you more to import something than you make for exporting it. There is no profit in “playing the market” by importing goods from one province and exporting them to another.

Prices are set by Rome, and influenced partly by supply and demand throughout the Empire. You cannot change prices, although market forces in the rest of the Empire will cause them to vary from time to time. You will be notified of any change via a message.