In this phase you have to the opportunity to buy and sell grain and land. If you wish to buy grain, enter the number of steres you wish to purchase and press the 'BUY' button. If you wish to sell grain, enter the number of steres you wish to sell and press the 'SELL' button. If you wish to buy land, enter the number of hectares you wish to purchase and press the 'BUY' button. If you wish to sell land, enter the number of hectares you wish to sell and press the 'SELL' button. You may buy or sell as many times as you wish. When you have finished buying and selling grain and land, press 'NEXT=>' to advance to the 'GRANARY' phase.

A hectare will produce from one half to four and one half steres of grain depending on the weather. One serf is required to put 5 hectares into production. Remember -- any serfs working in your woolen mills are NOT available for farming.

Before advancing to the next stage, be sure to check the grain demand. you may not have enough grain to meet demand. If you do not, a larger portion of your serfs will die of starvation. You may wish to buy more grain to release an excess amount of grain to produce more serfs. Releasing excess grain may also stimulate immigration -- not only of serfs, but nobles, clergy, & merchants. Before doing so, check the amount of land in cultivation. If your land is fully cultivated, you may not produce enough grain to feed them next year. Remember the weather is fickle and affects your grain production. If your land is fully cultivated, consider buying more land. Don't forget you will need grain to plant your fields next year. If you don't have enough for seed, consider buying more.

If you have more grain than you need (i.e. enough to meet demand and enough for seed), you may want to sell some grain. It is a good way to make some extra money.

Weather is the major factor that affects the price of grain. When the weather is good grain is plentiful. When the weather is bad, grain is scarce. When grain is plentiful, the demand for grain is low and the price of grain is low. When grain is scarce, the demand for grain is high, and the price of grain is high. The price of land is based on the ratio of your grain harvest to your grain demand. Overpopulation can raise the price of land. Land prices are high when crops are good, but also when grain is scarce.

You may want to speculate in grain. That is, buy grain when it is cheap, hold it until the price is high, and then sell it. Speculating in grain is very risky because rats eat a percentage of your grain every year.

It is easier to speculate in land. If you have extra gold florins, you may consider buying land when it is cheap, hold it until the price is high, and then sell it.

The more serfs, nobles, clergy, and land you pocess, the better chance you have of being promoted. If you want to grow your holding into a large estate worthy of a King, you must acquire land and the serfs to fully cultivate it.

Designers Notes:
In the original game, the prompt to buy and sell grain or land was scrolled on the screen as Text. No statistics were printed. This was repeated until player was finshed transacting. There was no phase titled 'Grain & Land Transactions' in the original version. The title of 'Grain & Land Transactions' was given buy this author. this dialogue was created by this author. Additional statistics were included in the dialogue to make player decisions easier.