Merchant Miles

From the Devs

Merchant Miles is a travelling trading game about buying low, selling high, and trying to work out what a town will want before everyone else does.

Each morning, check the market, read the latest news, listen for rumours, review the latest laws and decrees and look over your contracts. You only have so many coins to spend, and your cart can only carry so much, so every purchase matters.

Goods are priced differently in every town. A surplus of apples might make them cheap in one place, while a shortage somewhere else could make them worth a lot more. New laws and decrees can change the market in response to your actions and events elsewhere in the world. The difficult part is working out what that means for your business and getting to the right town with the right goods still in your cart.

When you open your stall, customers come to you. Choose your prices, listen to what they’re looking for and decide whether to accept their offers. You can take a reliable profit, hold out for more or watch the customer walk away.

At the end of the day, check your market report and save useful information in your Notebook. Keep track of prices, rumours, laws and decrees, then choose where to travel next. Follow a rumour, take a contract, chase a shortage or stick with a route you know works.

You’ll have to manage your coins, cargo space, travel costs and reputation as you go. A bad purchase can sit in your cart for days, losing freshness and becoming harder to sell, while a smart one can open up an entirely new route.

There’s no single best way to play. Build a dependable business with familiar goods, or bet everything on one risky deal and hope the next town is desperate for what you’re carrying.

Features

• Trade goods between several towns

• Read newspapers, follow rumours and gather useful information

• React to laws and decrees shaped by your actions and events in the world

• Save important information in your Notebook

• Buy stock with limited coins and cargo space

• Run your own market stall

• Choose prices and negotiate with customers

• Manage the freshness of the goods you carry

• Complete contracts and build your reputation

• Learn how each town’s economy works

• Choose your routes and decide when to stay or move on

• Review each market day and use what you learned to plan the next one