Eldurian wrote:So small villages may need to trade with large cities but why would large cities need to trade with small villages? That kind of one sided relationship is a poor basis for a trade system.
Localized resources is a good basis for a trade system. My region has a deficit in gold and a surplus of silk. Your region has a surplus of gold and a deficit of silk. That is the basis of a good trade system because we both have something the other needs.
There is only 1 commodity in LiF - human hours. They are never enough for what you want to achieve. There are also priorities. Yes big claims produce everything and if they try hard enough they might be self sufficient, but because of their high consummation that will be the bare minimum they need anyway. Let's say flux - all guilds produce flux to meet their needs, but it's hard to afford some luxury like vost. steel stuff where 1 ingot is 720 flux on top of the daily need for weapons and armors for example. Flax (or even better processed linen hanks/cloth) can also never be refused. On top of that regional stuff.
Also as said the human hours are always limited. If a large town outsorces part of it's needs to a farming village nearby (some small community) they gain human hours that they can invest on a big terraforming and building project project, on war preparation and stuff like that.
Another thing you are missing is military. Large communities have to field strong military to defend itself against other big communities. This is time and resources consuming and the actual warrior can very rarely be active crafters, it's the PvE players crafting for both them and the warriors. There are no 100% PvE big groups that will survive, so you can't multiply by 10 the crafting potential of 10 players living in a small village focused on crafting and a town of 100 for example.
Also if localized resources are the basic commodity why would a large community trade with a small one instead of just establishing an outpost in the area, sending few miners with escort and mine the gold they need instead of buying it?