Because the new system is not going to be implemented any time soon. Treaties aren't on the near horizons, sorry
In terms of preferential price polices, it works the same as always. You had to know when caravans were going to arrive for the old system to work anyway, there was no magic button. So now you have to set up buy/sell orders when the appropriate part is ready to fill them. Pretty simple really
The way people used the old system for preferential/discriminating price policies was never intended at any rate. It was a artefact of people micromanaging the system. Do you really think the design process went along the line of, oh and some super active or motivated people will be able to organise food sales to occur just as caravans are arriving or a trader is ready to do the trade?
Anyway the Luria's have been having good success with just putting up a buy order when we know the other party is ready to purchase the food, allows us to set the price for each buyer.
Micromanagement? What *you* speak of is micromanagement. I never, ever toyed with my purchase prices according to what caravans where on their way.
Rather, I was simply the one sending all of the caravans all of the time. 95% of caravans that delivered food or gold in Paisly were sent by myself. And there was absolutely nothing complicated about this. Set and forget, once per week or so. I got used to which regions usually have food and good prices, and ended up sending them caravans every week, regardless of whether they were showing as trading or not. It was a routine, and a rather simple one that really didn't take much time or require much thinking to pull off. No need to think of when others produce, or when others are ready to buy, or when stocks are arriving. THAT is micromanagement. I couldn't be arsed with such details. All I needed was to check my send caravans page once per week, for about 4 minutes.
