Is there a particular reason why I can't broker my own deals? As a Banker this is complicating things when it comes to long range trading as it nullifies the allowed access my Lords have provided.
If you have the ability to create a buy/sell offer, then you have no need to broker. You can just buy and sell directly.
Also, perhaps a silly question, can I just go to one city that is very far away and simply buy some food, or do I need to work out a trading network to get me some sweet sweet food?
Your ability to trade is based on the distance between your physical location, and the warehouse with which you will trade.
Accepting a Sell offer:
* You are the lord of Madina city.
* Someone in Springdale wants to sell you some food.
* You spend three weeks traveling from Madina to Springdale.
* When you get to Springdale, the lord of Springdale posts a Sell offer for 500 bushels of food.
* Since you are physically located in Springdale, the Sell offer is 0 miles away from you, so you can accept it and buy the food. *poof* The food is magically in Madina immediately.
Posting a Buy offer:
* While in Springdale, you decide to leave an open Buy offer, in case the lord of Springdale finds more food to sell. You post an offer to Buy 500 more bushels of food.
* A bit later, the lord of Springdale goes to fill the order, but, lo and behold, he can't see it! wtf?
The reason for this is that when you post an offer to buy or sell, the offer is posted
in your region, not your physical location. So when the lord of Madina is in Springdale, and posts a Buy offer, the offer is posted in Madina, and
not in Springdale. When the lord of Springdale goes to fill the offer, he's 4,000+ miles away from it.
So, in short:
*When an offer is posted, it appears in the poster's home region. This applies to both Buy and Sell offers.
* When you go to accept an offer, your ability to see and accept the offer is based on the offer's distance from your physical location.
This often bites banker's in the butt. They can control warehouses across their entire realm, regardless of the range. But when they go to accept an offer, their ability to see that offer *is* limited by range. Just because you can post a Sell offer for a region 800 miles away doesn't mean you can then accept it. You may need to go the other way around. Post the Buy offer, then control the warehouse where the food is and accept it.
Edit: Minor clarifications and a typo or two.