Die Hanse:

The cities that comprised the hanseatic league changed over time as
new cities were added and other cities left or were expelled.  There
were on the order of 200 cities and towns to choose from in making
this scenario, but obviously they could not all be used, both because
it would over crowd the map (40ish cities makes for a balanced map in
this game) and because there wasn't economic information available for
all 200 of them.  In the end, only a small sampling of each of the
major circles is included.  Also included are cities that were not
directly in the league but were none the less very important as trade
fairs, especially the French cities (e.g. Lyons, Chambery).  The
Italian cities are provided because they were also vitally important
trading centers during this time period (though with different markets
than the league).


Commodities:

The commodities here do not exactly match the commodities of the basic
game.  Especially important in this region was mining, requiring new
metals to be added - copper, tin and lead; as well as fishing, with
cod and herring being the major fare of the day, cod from the Atlantic
(especially around Iceland) and adjacent seas (e.g. off of Norway and
Ireland) as well as herring from the Baltic.  Timber was also very
important, the woods of Sweden and the Baltic being especially
valuable for ship building.


General Notes:

Many of the cities in Germany are fairly close together, so it should
be possible to run many quick routes for low profits - set these up
right away so you can finance the real money makers, which come from
crossing the Alps to trade the northern european goods into the
Italian markets where such commodities are much more scarce.  Trade
from Russia (especially furs) into France or Britain will also be
extremely valuable, though that is obviously a very long haul.
