October 20, 2000
So you've completely wasted that 2 million that you got at level 10 and now need more of the gold stuff to keep yourself supplied? Welcome to the wide world of Medievia, where the gold ain't free. The most common way for the rest of us to earn our keep is via 'trade runs'.
A trade run consists of buying a cargo from one trade post, taking it to another, and selling it. A 'trade post,' appearing as a $ on the map, is where you buy and sell your cargo. 'Cargo,' also known as 'freight' is everything that you haul from one trade post to another. When inside a trade post, you can see the available cargo and cargo-holders via the 'list' command and you can purchase them via the 'buy {thing}' and 'buy {amount} {thing}' commands. (Note: buying a good will automaticially put it into your good-holder.)
Briefly on each freight:
Covered wagons are the largest and most common type of good-holder. Their cost of 100,000 gold coins used to be an issue for the newbie, but you now get gold at level 10 and should still probably have enough to afford one of these puppies. Covered wagons may only travel on roads, so you will probably not be able to take the most direct path to your destination. Be careful to use 'buy covered' when buying one of these: 'buy wagon' will buy an open wagon.
Open wagons are, as far as everyone is concerned, useless. They hold less than covered wagons and are limited to the same roads as the covered wagons, so there is no speed advantage to using a covered wagon. The only advantage of an open wagon is the buying price of only 80,000 coins. However, the cost of the freight and cargo are almost always irrelevant (freight always sells back at cost, and cargo always sells for a profit, just not necessarily a big one.)
Mules are much smaller than wagons, but they can go off-road. Going off-road allows for much faster trade runs both because you can go directly from source to destination (save for the occasional river and through NPK wilderness) and because you will not have to deal with mob factions. However, normal mobs will be as strong as they usually are on on-road trade runs. 'Mule runs,' as they are called, are nearly always much shorter than the counterpart 'wagon runs.' However, with this speed comes a drawback: mule runs are much less profitable than the counterpart wagon run due to the vastly decreased cargo space in the mule.
Pack horses are largely a special-purpose freight carrier. They hold even less than mules, but they are the only way to get to the Ur-Ville Feeding Hall (a trade post off in the middle of nowhere. Details on how to do Ur-Ville runs are beyond the scope of this article) because mules cannot go through the swamp. They are not useful for the common runs; if you want to go off-road, use a mule.
Not all trade runs give the same amount of profit. Randomly picking two posts/freight is probably NOT going to garner anything worth the time. There are several valuing scripts available for both MudMaster and ZMud, and there's at least one web-based trade calculator for those of you who insist on doing it the hard way. Basically, valuing consists of going to your destination, buying a pack horse and typing 'value [nameofgood],' and multiplying that by the amount that will fit in a covered wagon, to find out how much you'll make per wagon. Many webpages have tables of how much of what freight from what post will fit in a covered wagon: I like the Clan Gersidi webpage (www.clangersidi.com), but you can find others through clan webpages or the Medievia help webpages ('Help & Hints', then 'Clan and Player Help Pages' from the main Medievia website).
The 'area maps,' and more specifically the 'Map of Medievia with clan towns and zones,' are invaluable resources when trying to find where you are and where you are going. Finding your location on the map may be a little difficult, but if you pay careful attention to the curves of the road and your direction it is not too hard. If you're still lost, most road intersections have 'navigators.' These guys respond to 'ask where {destination}' or 'say where {destination},' where {destination} is the name of the zone where you are going.
Trade posts (especially for runs with profits above a million gold coins) tend to be fairly far apart. Even if you have no aversion to using your own two legs, you simply will not be able to cover the distance in a reasonable amount of time without a mount. Mounts drastically reduce the time that you need to get from point A to point B, they get 30 miles to the gallon (.078L/km), and don't need a tune-up for 100,000 miles (160,000 km). All in all, horses are a great thing to have on a trade run. (Also note, the 'horse and covered wagon' and 'mule' and 'pack horse' are NOT mountable. They have a hard enough time pulling all the stuff you're loading them with.)
Warhorses are the most common pick for trade runs, primarily due to their availability. From recall in med city, just go 3 north, west, and 'pull' to get one that you can 'mount'. Since you can't fly dragonback while on a mount (besides the dragon), you will have to portal to the clantown nearest your source and walk from there. In most cases, the clantown isn't too far away, but be sure to check the 'area maps' on the main Medievia website.
If a warhorse just isn't fast enough for you, you can get the fastest horses at Inns. The most accessible one is just north-east of Medievia City, along the road. There (and at all other inns), you can buy 'Appaloosas' and 'Morgan Horses.' Both of these are faster than warhorses and both have more movement points, but neither is free. Appaloosas cost 10,000 coins and Morgans 5,000. The stables are on the wall opposite the entrance, and you can sometimes get one free of either type in the 'Grazing Field(s).' Of the two available, I prefer Morgan Horses because they do not 'wander' when left unmounted. If you have the misfortune to get killed while on the trade run, a Morgan Horse will still stay where you left it, whereas an Appaloosa may wander off into the wilderness, never to be found again.
If your source is too far from the nearest clantown to make a warhorse foray impractical, you may want to try the local stables. Many of the areas near trade posts have their own stables (that, not surprisingly, come with their own horses.) These (usually) four-legged beasts vary in quality compared to warhorses, but Mares, available in Riverton, are actually superior to Warhorses in quality. This comes with one caveat, though: If you don't know where the stables are in a zone, it is not worth spending half an hour searching for it - you could ride a horse from the nearest clantown in only a fraction of the time.
Wild Horses are the last source of a mount for the stranded trader, and they are not a reliable source at that. Wild Horses are wilderness mobs that you can mount; you find them just like you find banelars. As you get farther from Medievia city, you run into them less frequently; wild horses probably will not help you if you are stranded near Gdangus, for example. These horses, in my opinion, should be used only as a last resort: they are worse than warhorses and they wander when not tethered/mounted.
No matter what valiant steed you sally forth upon, he will run out of movement points eventually. When this happens, your only options are to wait or to use the mage/cleric spells of refresh/mass refresh. If at all possible, take the latter option; mana regenerates fairly quickly, and a spellcaster or two can keep the trade formation (if you're in one) going nonstop. If refresh is not an option, you'll be forced to wait to regenerate movement points. Horses regenerate movement the fastest when they're 'tethered', but you'll have to be careful if you're in a form: only one mount can be tethered in a room, so your form will have to split up.
On top of all that, Pandora opened the box and you have wilderness mobs and Mob Factions (called MF's usually) to deal with. If you're trying to do solo trades, both of these are going to be a big hassle. If you're in a form, your leader should know what to do with both of them. If you are not in a form or are just an inquisitive sort of individual, wilderness mobs and the basics of mob factions are covered a few paragraphs below.
Before you go on a trade run, you should always, always, always, ALWAYS deposit (into the bank) all extra money on you. 200,000 coins are plenty for any trade run: the wagon costs 100,000, the freight costs no more than 30,000, and you will have enough for about two dragons if you hit any trouble.
If you didn't read the previous paragraph and left on the trade run with your character's life savings on him, do not be surprised when evil dragons (read 'help dragon' for more info) land and try to kill you and your form. If you are unprepared to flee, the dragon will kill you and possibly your form. And forms don't like sitting around for 10 minutes while you wait to revive.
Also while you're on the trade run, you will be deluged with movement spam: for each square you move, you'll see everyone leave and arrive, the map, everyone's covered wagons, etc. Thankfully, Medievia has built in many spam- filters to reduce the spam to a trickle: brief, autoexit, and 'brief move'. The first turns off the map (Note, only do this if you're not leading the trade run), the second turns off the exit display, and the third turns off the 'Foo has arrived'-style messages along with the display of everyone's covered wagons. The only thing that med won't do for you is gag the panting warhorses, which you can probably do yourself in your client (/gag for MudMaster, #gag for ZMud).
If you are in a trading form and aren't leading it, you have no need to see the map, etc.; showing them will be a waste of bandwidth and time on your part (because you'll have to stop and scroll back if anyone says something.) If you really want to know where you are, use the mage spell 'wizard eye' or the command 'look around'.
The single most useful way to trade is inside of a formation. Formations give you all the comforts of having someone else for the mobs to beat upon with few drawbacks. If you are in a clan, you can often find clannies willing to do, if not lead, a trade run with you; if at all possible go with them first not only because it's the nice and proper thing to do but also your clan will get trade points ('help clanrating' and 'showclan' for more info) for each one of you that completes a trade run.
When inside a trading formation, the leader does all of the grunt work (ie, he is the one that moves. You're just along for the ride.) In most cases, he is the one that values and starts the trade run, so he knows what goods will be profitable at the destination. When he names a good for you to take, take it. When more than one person with a good sells at a trade post, there is a chance that the price will 'devalue' (ie. go down), and if that happens everyone else selling that good will make less. Therefore, most trading forms try to divide up the cargo so that each person takes a different good.
To be a good follower, first and foremost do whatever the leader says. He is the one (usually) with the experience, and in many cases he can't waste the time to explain his reasoning. If he doesn't give you a task to do, followers should periodically check the 'weather' and 'forecast' and warn the leader if anything dangerous is approaching. Also, spellcasters should always use 'mass refresh' to keep the horses' movement points high. In general, be sure to use good form etiquette, and be sure to keep the chatter to a minimum. The leader is doing his best to move quickly, and anything you say will make him stop and read it, hence slowing you all down.
Lastly, if you ever see any mob faction warning signs (see below, on Mob Factions), be sure to warn the leader unless he has already told the form about it. Running into an ambush could delay you by 5-10 mins, or kill your entire form and result in the destruction (and loss) of all of your freights. Be sure that your leader knows about any ambush ahead.
Sadly, you aren't rich and famous yet (but you're hopefully working on the rich part now), so the wilderness mobs will not be trembling in fear at your mere presence. Being invisible (via either the spell or wands/potions) will save you from many of the little (and big) buggers, but many of the tough ones see invisible people. These mobs (which tend to be far away from Medievia City proper, but can wander 'inwards') stand a good chance of killing everything below level 25 that gives it a long fight, so the best offense is a good set of running legs: flee. And flee again, because most of them track you. The good news is that even if you do die, your freight will remain safe because the wilderness mobs are idiots. The better news is that a moderate-sized form can deal with these mobs
Mob Factions are bad. Unlike wilderness mobs, they WILL steal your freight. But like wilderness mobs, they are also idiots. How to deal with all the MF's is dealt with in numerous articles on Medievia clan/help webpages (browse the main Medievia website). Mob Factions load pretty much randomly on TR's. However, one often loads right as you are approaching a trade post. I've been killed by a demon lord (a type of mob faction) and had my freight eaten (That's a bad thing. When your freight and cargo are in the belly of a monster, you can't sell it.) within sight of New Genesia (the location of one trade post) before. It is always horrible to not only lose the freight but also lose the time (TR's can take from 1/2 an hour to 2 hours, depending on luck and weather) that you put into the nearly complete run. On the plus side (however small that is), most mob factions do not strike without warning: either the leader of the run or someone within the form will often receive a warning before hitting the mob faction. (Many web sites list the mob faction warnings, and the MudSlinger article 'An Overview of Trading by Gandore' [avail. through the mudslinger tab on the left of the Medievia website] is a good intermediate article that covers mob factions in much more detail than I will.)
The most important thing to remember with mob factions is that they will not steal your freight if you are an undead corpse. This even holds true if they already have your freight but have not yet disappeared with it. (You will know when they disappear with it: you will receive a message along the lines of 'You hear horses galloping off into the distance, and know in the pit of your stomach that your freight is no more.') Self-preservation, however good it may be for propagating the species, has no place on a trade run, especially a solo one (where the mob faction is likely stronger than you and trying to defeat it may give it the chance to steal your freight.)
Occasionally, if you have the good fortune to defeat a mob faction, a 'well worn map' will be on one of the corpses. This map is a 'dragonlair map', which heroes use to find and fight dragons that live in lairs. (Help dragonlair for more info. In short dragons in lairs are responsible for the 'Zeksagmak is attacking the Paladins of Destiny clan town' type messages.) In my experience, many newbies, upon finding out that the map is for a dragon lair, seem to be under the strange impression that trying to take on a dragon would be a good idea.
It is not.
Dragons in lairs are taken out by one to two full (9 member) forms of mostly heroes, who have one hundred and twenty-four total levels. By comparison, you probably have between 15 and 50 total levels. Do you still think you can take on that dragon?
Even though the dragon is out of your league, the map is not worthless: dragon maps can fetch 100,000 coins or more on auction.
Weather can be nearly as bad as the wilderness mobs. In a properly run trade run, you or your form should be going at least as fast as the storms. This can be good if you need to outrun something, but it's horrible if you have to overtake it. On each bit of weather:
Firestorms are bad in nearly every case. If you're a mage or cleric (or your form has a mage or cleric), this basically cripples you. You/your form can't cast mass refresh, so you stall in the middle of nowhere, sanctuary/heal, so everything beats up on you, and invis/mass invis, so everything ELSE (that doesn't see invis) beats up on you. The one 'bright side', if you could call it that, is that sanctuary orbs/confetti, green potions, oak staves (room harm spell, avail. at Riverton and Genesia), and other magical items of the same ilk are not effected by the storm, so you can get through a limited amount of firestorm without too much of a problem. If you are a non-spellcaster not in a formation, firestorms may actually be good because wilderness mobs cannot cast spells (on you) in firestorms. You can go to medlink to wait out firestorms.
Rain/Lightning storms are barely worthy of notice by the form, and in most cases can be ignored without a problem. The only real consideration to make in these storms is that the lightning spell works better (and call lightning works) and are thus more effective than most other spells. Fireball is also weakened in rain storms, but you should be using lightning anyway in rain. The mobs know this too, so clerics, watch out for your tanks taking a lot more damage than usual. There is also a small chance that you or a form member can get struck by lightning (in a lightning storm, of course), which takes you down to single-digit HP. You can go to medlink in these storms, but why would you want to?
Wasp storms are bad. Every few seconds, everyone in your form will get 'stung by wasps' for a goodly amount of damage. This is not a good storm to stay in for any longer than absolutely necessary, and even then have the clerics in the form keep everyone at or near top hp. You can, however, go to medlink from wasp storms, so you can wait it out if you need to.
Hurricanes, like wasp storms, are bad. Every few seconds, the hurricane will damage you much like wasp storms. On top of that, your vision is reduced to about two squares in each direction, so you won't be moving quickly out of the storm, either. On top of that, you can't even go to medlink from within the storm to wait it out. The only saving grace is that the mage spell 'shield room' will make the hurricane do only half damage.
Mana storms are good. In them, spells cost 1/2 normal mana and mana regenerates faster. This is a storm to stick with.
Tornadoes, for all the fear that they inspire, are not normally something to worry about on trade runs. Although a tornado will kill you if you are inside it, tornadoes are minuscule in size compared to other storms. If a tornado is behind you/your form and it is approaching you, you will outrun it if you have enough trade run experience to move quickly. (If not, see below about going to medlink.) If a tornado is going to intersect your path ahead of you, slow down or speed up to avoid it. If a tornado is ahead of you and approaching (or there is no other way to avoid it), go to medlink for the 5 minutes it will take for the tornado to pass. Don't worry about 'delinking' into the middle of the tornado, the link command won't let you. Sadly, mobs are not effected by tornadoes, so you can possibly run into a situation where you are 'sandwiched' between a tornado and mob faction, unable to link because the faction will steal your freight. If that happens, you and your form should 'camp' and 'quit' for about 15 minutes, which should be enough time for both the tornado to pass and the mob faction to disappear. You cannot go to medlink from within a tornado because you will be dead.
Okay, if you've been reading the above, you have a technical grasp of trade runs. You should know what to do and how to handle some of the curve balls that Murphy will throw you. What you don't know, however, is how all of it congeals into something that will actually make hard cash. Let us consider the story of our young Choja who, as a young newbie of level 17 decided to become the best trade-runner ever to walk the face of Medievia.
'A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step,' and it likewise holds for trade runs: you cannot do the most profitable and complicated routes if you cannot run the simple ones in your sleep. Knowing this, our brave little mage decided to start with a nice, short, and hopefully simple trade run from Ranger's Cabin to Medievia City. Although this wasn't the most glamorous or profitable of runs, Choja thought it would be valuable experience for future runs.
Since Ranger's Cabin is only a little ways southeast of the City of Medievia, near Crystal Lake, Choja knew before even starting that this run would not bring a large windfall; it would be foolish to burn a large percentage of his profits on an Inn's horse, so Choja decided to take a warhorse from the City of Medievia for the run.
Even though Choja knew where he was going and what he would be riding, he did not yet know what specific good to take from Ranger's Cabin to maximize profits; Choja needed to value the run. He walked to the trade post of Medievia City, which is south and west of the Eastern Gate, bought a packhorse, and typed in 'value timber', 'value ivory', 'value rations', 'value sap', and 'value furs', getting prices for each of these goods. Since a covered wagon can hold 1 timber, 37 ivory, 11 sap, 68 furs, and 34 rations, Choja found that the most profitable run at the time was Ivory at 1,100 each, or 41,000 per wagon.
Having everything set up and 150,000 gold coins with him for the run, Choja set out for Ranger's Cabin. Since the Cabin is a long walk from the city of Medievia, Choja looked at the 'clantown and zones' map in the 'area maps' section of the main Medievia web site, finding that the clantown nearest to Ranger's Cabin is 'Ancient Spirits of Knowledge Clan Town.' Using the 'showtown' command, Choja found that the clantown's number was 70, so he now had enough information to use the portal to get there.
Mounted up, Choja rode south and two west of recall in the City of Medievia to the portal there, and he typed 'enter 70'. He got the message 'as you enter the portal, the world spins madly,' which is not the normal message of 'as you enter the portal, the world slowly fades into mist'. The spinning madly message indicates a misportal, so through no fault of his own Choja portalled to a different clantown than he intended. After exiting the portal and collapsing, Choja remounted his horse and typed in 'enter 70' again, which worked this time. After arriving at the Ancient Spirits of Knowledge Clan Town, he walked a little way south and east to Ranger's Cabin, the '$' on the map.
After arriving at Ranger's Cabin, Choja typed in 'buy covered' and 'buy 37 ivory' to buy his freight and cargo, respectively. Having everything set, Choja left the post, on his way back to Medievia City.
After a little fumbling around with movement, Choja was finally starting to get the hang of moving quickly when his warhorse gave up the ghost and wouldn't budge an inch... it was out of movement points. Seeing this, Choja cast the spell 'refresh' on himself a few times, which rejuvenated the horse. As he continued onward, Choja was happy that he was a spellcaster and could cast refresh (and mass refresh when he was in a formation)... if he was a warrior or thief, he'd have to tether his warhorse for a couple minutes to regenerate movement points.
A little while later, Choja was on his merry way when he got the message 'You see what used to be a human lying along the road. Trolls must have ripped him apart' in red text. Although he wasn't positive, Choja had a hunch that the message wasn't a good sign. This hunch was confirmed a minute later when a Troll Thief entered the room and started to attack Choja. 'Started to attack' is really the best phrasing here, because within two rounds of combat Choja's wimpy kicked in and he left the room. His freight didn't follow him, however, because the Troll Thief was taking his merry time hauling it down the road in the opposite direction.
By using the 'freight' command, Choja saw that his freight was moving, and he was in trouble. Because the trolls could steal his freight if left alone, Choja knew that he would have to risk getting himself killed to save the freight. The freight was still moving, and the Troll didn't seem to give any indication of slowing down.
After preparing himself for combat, Choja moved as quickly as his horse's four little legs would carry him to his (still mobile) freight. After catching sight of the evil Troll that stole the freight, Choja let loose with as much spellbound destructive power as he could. It didn't work. The troll took a mere three rounds of combat to kill Choja, and then it continued on its merry way with Choja's freight.
After about twelve minutes, The Undead Corpse of Choja transformed itself into the living form (of Choja) in a nearby wilderness temple. After some healing, he used the 'freight' command to get a new fix on his freight. After a few minutes of drudging through the wilderness without his horse (which was left at the spot of his death), Choja picked up his freight (and a little later his horse) again and was soon back on his way to Medievia City.
(About 15 minutes later)
At last Choja was just south of Medievia City, having just turned onto the road that goes right by the gates. In a stroke of bad luck, however, 'Your instincts warn you of an ambush ahead' appeared in red text on his screen. Knowing what happened last time something like this occurred, Choja quickly stopped and prepared himself for combat. Since the message warned him of an ambush ahead, Choja 'tether'ed his freight and left it behind to scout ahead. A little farther along the road, Choja found the bandit, or in this case the rogue, which 'wanted to kill [him] and steal [his] goods', which seemed to indicate that he was not there for tea and crumpets. Since the rogue wasn't moving, Choja attacked it and (after running away to heal a few times) defeated the rogue. On top of the pride of defeating his very own mob faction, Choja found a 'well worn map' on the corpse of the rogue which he sold on auction for 100,000 coins.
Choja continued the short way to City of Medievia trading post and then promptly realized that he left his tethered freight behind. He slapped himself on the forehead, ran back to his freight, typed in 'take covered' to untether it, and smelled the roses along the last stretch of road for a second time. When he finally arrived (with his freight), Choja typed in 'sell all', which sold his 37 ivory for 41,000 coins total, and then 'sell covered', which refunded his 100,000 coin investment in his covered wagon.
Although this is not strictly a newbie item, catastrophe-trading is very different from normal trading, and trying to apply exactly the same set of rules will only result in confusion. On top of that, I have found very few help pages that do a good job of dealing with catastrophes, so a general directive of 'go look at Medievia webpages' will not work. 'Help catastrophe' provides a good overview of what a catastrophe is, but it provides little insight how to go about taking advantage of one.
Catastrophes (aka 'cats', not 'dogs') have a chance of 'loading' (appearing) whenever Medievia restarts. Catastrophes are a GOOD thing: catastrophes reset the (probably horribly low) prices of the trade post where it happens, and the first to sell a given trade good (depending on the post) can get several million. (I once got 5.5 million off of a single covered wagon at a catastrophe, and I have been trading for years and years and years. It does happen.)
Catastrophes come in several types: From easiest to hardest, they are Flood, Fire, Disease, and Meteor Showers. No matter the type, all catastrophes have some things in common: the MudSlinger will always list them, the trading shop will be CLOSED (can't even value) from five to five and a half hours after the catastrophe starts, and if you arrive late you're going to smack into everyone else's mob factions. Many people forget that they do not trade in isolation: other trading groups can and do 'spawn' their own mob factions, and you can (and will) run into them. (This is especially bad when the big hero group that's pacing you spawns trolls. Trolls are a particularly deadly type of mob faction.)
If you intend to 'run' a catastrophe, forget the 'don't take goods from random trade posts' tenet of normal trading. Prices from all distant trade posts tend to be good, and even if they aren't you won't be able to value to check. You should start the trade run around 3 hours after the catastrophe starts. The trade post can open for selling as early as 5 hours after the catastrophe starts, and you will need to budget 2 hours for the run itself, just in case you have more trouble than normal.
Briefly on each type of catastrophe:
Floods are the easiest catastrophe to run. Floods cause the wilderness (and zones) within some random distance of the trade post to fill with water and become 'underwater' rooms. Like the occasional underwater room in a zone, anybody in the room will take damage unless they have the breathe water spell cast on him/her. This may sound bad, but the breathe water spell avoids ALL damage from the catastrophe.
Fires and Plagues, like floods, effect wilderness rooms and zones within a random distance from the trade post. Also like floods, they cause damage to every person within a fired/plagued room. However, unlike floods, there is no way around the damage, so you will have to heal it. On the up side, the damage is not too high, so you will be able to heal it. If healing is scarce (you are not/do not have a cleric and are running low on green potions), you can sit in medlink while you wait for the post to open. (Do remember to delink sometime before 5 hours from the start of the catastrophe, though, because you do not want to miss the post opening.)
Asteroids are bad. Every few seconds, every character within the asteroid region has a chance of getting fatally hit by a meteor. There are no nonfatal hits. There is also no way out of getting hit, aside from sitting in medlink. Due to the danger, do not sit in the trade post waiting for it to open. Sit in medlink and repeatedly 'read catastrophe' (You do have a mudslinger with you, don't you?) and delink to 'sell all' when the mudslinger says the post is open.
Are we there yet?:
When you finally get your freight to the (hopefully still) closed trading post, you will surprised at not being able to sell it. That's because the trading post is closed, and you have not been listening to me say that the trading post will be closed. At some time beginning 5 hours after the catastrophe begins, the trade post will open. Since the trade post crew is full of lazy bums, they will not tell you that it has opened. To get around this, the industrious trader tries to sell his freight over and over and over and over again, until finally the trade post opens and he sells it. However, this strategy precludes the industrious trader from doing anything else. However, do not use a script to spam the sell command. If the gods find out, you WILL get frozen.
Once you finally sell your freight, value the trade post for another run. Although it's not likely that you will find any 5 million runs, many goods will remain above 2 million per covered wagon immediately after it opens. If you can find a good second run to do (and have the time), hurry up and do it. Remember to deposit the profits from the first trade run.
With luck, you're now on your way to your very own source of mud riches (and incidentally completion of the trading MLR, read 'help MLR'). There are many nuances of trading not covered in this article, but in these cases experience is the best teacher: everyone has their own little trading quirks and it wouldn't be fair if I gave you mine.
Special Thanks to the real Choja for insightful comments and allowing me to use his name for the sample trade run.