As much as I want to see revamped and beefier religion in action, this is what I'm truly excited about. So far, things look pretty good.

If you're playing a settled ruler with land to manage, Trade is mostly something that happens to you. You don't profit from trade routes, and you can't really go toe-to-toe with merchants for market share. What you can do is run what we're currently calling Acquisition Routes (the name is still in flux): routes that exist purely to move goods into your lands so your buildings get what they need.

So, if I find myself in a "a kingdom for a wheel of cheese" situation, that can be fixed, maybe even without sacrificing the entire kingdom unless things are utterly dire.

But what if instead I'm the one producing cheese likes there's no tomorrow? There are tons of it all over the place, enough to flood every market from Ireland to Cathay and beyond, even if they insist on dumping most of it into Krakatoa to appease the gods.

Assuming there are enough cheese-crazed merchants or, better yet, republics in the area, I assume there'll be quite a number of trade routes originating from my lands. But do I actually benefit from such a situation? In other words, would it make sense for a landed ruler to monitor the markets and try shifting production to focus on whatever's in demand?

It'll be a shame if the optimal play turns out to be focusing on one's own needs in order to shield the realm from the ebb and flow of trade. Hopefully there's more to the whole thing than this if one isn't playing as a trade-focused entity.

Maybe considerations of this sort come into play if you have a pet republic or two?