Olympia: The Age of Gods PBEM (Oct 4 2000)
Usage: USE 1805 <good> Time to learn: 14 days. Time to use: 7 days.
By use of this skill, a merchant can decrease the supply of a trade good in a market. By encouraging artisans to produce other goods, by closing down supplies of the good, and similar means, the merchant will decrease the number available for trade by 15-33% of the normal monthly supply.
Note that the monthly supply of a good is likely to be a small number. If you see 80 rare books for sale in a market, that's probably an entire year's production. That means that only 10 books are produced monthly (the Olympian year has 8 months), so this skill will decrease the number for sale by only 1-3, not 12-24 as you might expect.
Also note that this skill does not change the monthly supply of a good, only the amount currently available in the market.
This skill must be used in the market where <good> is being traded.
This skill can only be used on items sold or bought by the market itself, i.e., it cannot be used on nobles, and it only works if the good is currently being traded. For example, consider this interaction:
8: > use 1805 94 8: That good is not traded here.
[94] is the identifier for woven baskets. Why did this skill use fail? Although a city may be buying baskets on Day 1, by Day 8 someone may have sold the city all the baskets it requires. Consequently, the attempt to influence the market for baskets fails, because no baskets are being traded. (The city typically adds a new demand after the turn is over.)