Question about international trade

[RakeinWaiting]

Hey all,

So, im going strong as the Marathas, keeping a fine navy together to keep the English at bay.

Ive expanded my trade into Madagascar, and have my dhows sitting there making my some dough. I was wondering; Does the amount of cash you get increase with the number of ships on the trade ports? I see the AI sitting on one with like 5 indiaman ships. Ive currently just got one on each. Should I be doing the same?

Also, what does the big 1 mean on the banner? 1000 gold per turn? 1 trade ship?

Thanks,

Rake

[Harvester of Sorrow]

Yeah the more ships you have on a trade port the more money you get.

[RakeinWaiting]

Ah, thank you kindly

[Jacobim Mugatu]

The more ships you have the more money you make yes.
But don't have an excessive amount of ships gathering one commodity as prices fluctuate. As the Marathas I sent 40 or so dhows to the east indies, flooded the market with spices and drove the price down from about 36 to 12 or so. So actually I could've been making more money with only 25 ships for example.

[Aymer de Valence]

Madagascar huh? Have you got some heavier ships sitting neaby protecting your dhows? That trade theatre is a pirate hotbed

[SturmChurro]

You can go in your trade tab and it will show you trade for each theater. You can check how much of something you are actually able to trade and you can check how much, what and who you are trading with.

[eschelar]

Another thing to remember is that there are decreasing levels of efficacy as you add more ships. So 4 ships isn't twice as much money as 2 ships.

I usually use 3-4 ships per node. Sometimes 5.

Remember that when you go to war, you can fight them and take their trade nodes. If you wait until they are destroyed, someone else might jump in before you do - or like me, you might forget. So always check periodically to see who has what nodes and when you get ready to go to war, include a bit of prep for the naval battle.

Oh and remember, there's a known bug with trade ships and trade nodes. Never move ships onto a trade node that is already active with ships. There's a chance that it will bug the whole stack and then you can only scupper the whole thing to regain the node. Always move the ships next to the node, move the ships on the node to the new ships, then move them all back into the node. No problems.

[eXistenZ]

prices will drop inevatible, because the farms and plantations are upgraded.

[RakeinWaiting]

Wow, this is all new news to me! thanks all!

Jacobim, you mentioned the east indies specialised in spice, what do the other theatres specialize in?

[eXistenZ]

its been a while since i played it, but brazil is coffee, ivory coast is ivory

[Sir Furlong]

I thought Brazil was Sugar?

[=Prince Nuada=]

I'm pretty sure its Coffee.

[Sir Furlong]

Would DMUC change that? I thought it was sugar in my latest campaign. Then again, I could be wrong, it wouldn't be the first time

[Aymer de Valence]

Yeah I thought it was sugar too. I thought the only way to harvest coffee was through a Caribbean plantation?

[Buffalo_Ninja]

Brazil is definitely sugar in Vanilla ETW. it's actually always more profitable to have as many trade ships working as possible each trade ship is ~50 ducats in upkeep and they always bring >50 in profits back to you, even though prices drop it only helps you because you continue to increase your supply, other factions who are not increasing their exports are losing money as you drop the price so it's a bit of economic sabotage to anyone else if you flood the market with your own cheap product and short-sell them. if you want to bring prices back up just take all but one ship out of the trade node for a turn and the price should increase substantially is you have any degree of monopoly on the product.

[CptAustus]

I dont think trade ships pay upkeep if they're on a trade node.

[daniu]

I think they do pay upkeep, but since it's only 50 gold a ship, it's neglgible anyway.

And more ships on a node do give you more goods, but not as much as putting them on a new node. I think each ship gets 75% the goods of the previous one.

[DeValiere]

And watch out if you're using Fluyts or Galleons on trade nodes (from memory as haven't played as Spain or UP in quite a while) as they're upkeep costs are considerably more than a regular trade ship. Keeping the numbers low per node does indeed help the whole supply and demand equation, but of course one raided trade lane or blockaded trade port can seriously put a halt to your efforts. I think ivory is the best resource to go for also as long as there's no glut in the marketplace. Best advice on here was to check the trade window to see what your bringing in and what goods are selling for. Also shows any trade routes that are being blocked or raided (in red). And a full stack on a single trade node isn't advisable - returns decrease as you add ships and you are having to pay upkeep on all those ships, no matter that it might not be a lot per ship.

[eschelar]

Diminished returns is a two-edged sword.

True, it decreases your effectiveness in the late game. But in the late game, you have the resources to be pumping larger numbers of ships and are more likely to be able to use military means to take more trade nodes. It is very rare to be able to capture every single node across every theater and not even very common to get a single node in every single theater. Many nations have a tough time making it there on time and making enough ships to go every different direction faster than the many AI nations. I thought I did pretty well this time round with capturing all but 5 in the first few turns with the UP and arguably, they are the best suited towards doing this very thing.

But at the same time, using as many ships as you can - while it does cause decreasing values later on - gives you more money earlier on. And this is when the money is more important for gaining momentum.

IMHO, having massive trade is only really important in the early to mid game. It will make less and less money in the later game. But that's OK, because you probably will be more at risk from blockading and war in the later game and should have less reliance on trade income anyhow. By the time you start seeing seriously deflated values on any commodity, your economy should be strong enough that it is not a major problem.

And the solution is to spend a few turns and pump out some indiamen to go a-sailing the seven seas.

[apefar]

I read somewhere that you could tax trade theatres, but i don't see how.