The highest price you ever had for a trade resource

[Irmo]

What is the highest price you have ever seen for a trade resource?

The highest I have seen is ivory at 71 - at turn 199 with Sweden .

[Norpheus]

About 50.

[the_mango55]

45 for spices

[Xstar]

45, ivory.

[Tiberius Tosi]

40 something for spices. Controlled the entire West Indies as United Provinces and so I slowly drove up the price and then flooded the market just for fun. This was within the 1720's so demand was still relatively low.

Wait that brings up a new question, does demand for those resources naturally rise as the game progresses like one would assume it would?

[Xstar]

Wait that brings up a new question, does demand for those resources naturally rise as the game progresses like one would assume it would?

It doesn't really, and prices don't go down either, because the AI is too stupid to fill each trade circle with 10-20 trade ships. The AI thinks that 1-2 trade ships per circle is enough. Yes, the AI is a retarded trader. But it's retarded in every other aspect, so at least it's consistent...

[Mohamed612]

40 something for spices. Controlled the entire West Indies as United Provinces and so I slowly drove up the price and then flooded the market just for fun. This was within the 1720's so demand was still relatively low.

Wait that brings up a new question, does demand for those resources naturally rise as the game progresses like one would assume it would?

Wait wait wait... You can drive up the prices? :S

[Emperor of The Great Unknown]

you can if you control the resoucre enough.

[nimoto]

You can by controlling all the trade nodes for a particular resource and then moving all but 1 trade ship off the node. When supply drops, prices will rise. I'm not sure if this is the most profitable thing to do though.

[Xstar]

You can by controlling all the trade nodes for a particular resource and then moving all but 1 trade ship off the node. When supply drops, prices will rise. I'm not sure if this is the most profitable thing to do though.

No, that is the least profitable thing to do (see above).

[Faris ad Din]

You can by controlling all the trade nodes for a particular resource and then moving all but 1 trade ship off the node. When supply drops, prices will rise. I'm not sure if this is the most profitable thing to do though.

You are right, it is not always the most profitable thing to do. It comes down to some economics principles, but I don't, and you don't, want an economics lecture (I am a former econ major). If you have a monopoly on a trade good, you want to find the best balance of production quantity and price. Income is just quantity x price. Trade ships have very low upkeep so you probably don't have to worry about them. When you don't have a monopoly, you generally want to secure and supply more of the trade good, and compete with the other nations selling the same stuff.

You're in control of the supply. The trick here is the demand - who is buying the stuff, and how much they are willing to pay for each additional unit of "stuff." Here you can't charge different prices for different people, so to get that additional 100th customer to purchase, you have to reduce the price for all the other 99 customers who already decided to buy. In ETW, the game basically forces you to sell everything you produce THAT turn - you can't stockpile in gluts and sell in shortages.

Compared to a long opaque lecture, I'd suggest trial and error. Very easy - check different quantities over different years and see what quantity brings you the most trade income.

Try the following short puzzle for fun. You don't even need scrap paper and pencil (hopefully):

Find the maximum income:
Quantity: 1__2__3__4__5__6__7__8__9__10
___Price:10_9__8__7__6__3__2__1__1__1
Income:

The prices I made up here are just an example. Whatever all the tobacco users in Europe may crave is totally up to the game. I have no proof, but I speculate it may depend on population and wealth (wealth of a town, region wealth - who knows?).

For a graphic demonstration, here's the basic model econ students learn for supply shifts (jargon for more or less "stuff" sold):


Don't worry about this. This may look a little crazy but there's not very much difficult principle behind it.

Article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supply_and_Demand

There seems to be a somewhat linear relationship between commodity price and quantity of commodity supplied.

That's really interesting - a linear relationship should make finding the "sweet spot" much easier. Some econ hands can get together on another trade guide with some game engine formulas and post a full guide with all calculations and recommendations.

[Seamless]

My ivory/spices never seem to break 25. How do I make it go higher? Get control of all of it and then don't trade it to anyone?

[Xstar]

My ivory/spices never seem to break 25. How do I make it go higher? Get control of all of it and then don't trade it to anyone?

There seems to be a somewhat linear relationship between commodity price and quantity of commodity supplied.

[Seamless]

There seems to be a somewhat linear relationship between commodity price and quantity of commodity supplied.

Yeah but I've had control of almost all the trade hubs that produce ivory and it still didn't break 25. I'm probably not sending enough ships to each hub. Usually I end up with 3 or 4 on a few and just a single ship on the rest.

There has to be some way to manipulate the system. Even if it is a rather stiff, scripted one.

[Jianadaren]

Yeah but I've had control of almost all the trade hubs that produce ivory and it still didn't break 25. I'm probably not sending enough ships to each hub. Usually I end up with 3 or 4 on a few and just a single ship on the rest.

There has to be some way to manipulate the system. Even if it is a rather stiff, scripted one.

IT'S A NEGATIVE RELATIONSHIP!

More supply = lower price.

[KingDave]

What is the highest price you have ever seen for a trade resource?

The highest I have seen is ivory at 71 - at turn 199 with Sweden .

WTH? My resources start off costing no more than 20 and just drop as the game goes on. Is this a bug? I thought as trade routs were established by European factions, the cost of resources would go down.

[Ketzerfreund]

It doesn't really, and prices don't go down either, because the AI is too stupid to fill each trade circle with 10-20 trade ships. The AI thinks that 1-2 trade ships per circle is enough. Yes, the AI is a retarded trader. But it's retarded in every other aspect, so at least it's consistent...

For one: Why should you want to push the prices down? And also, each additional ship that you put on a trade circle produces less income, so there's no point in flooding them with ships. At one point the income a ship produces won't even cover the upkeep cost.

[Xstar]

For one: Why should you want to push the prices down? And also, each additional ship that you put on a trade circle produces less income, so there's no point in flooding them with ships. At one point the income a ship produces won't even cover the upkeep cost.

I beg to disagree. During my experimentation, I have found that even the last trade ship out of 20 in a trade circle will generate an income far great than the upkeep of the ship. The first ships you place in a trade circle provides ca 30 units, but the last one still produces something like 15-20 units.

[Emperor of The Great Unknown]

i think resources have always been to low in TW games.

[Deathofjams]

I beg to disagree. During my experimentation, I have found that even the last trade ship out of 20 in a trade circle will generate an income far great than the upkeep of the ship. The first ships you place in a trade circle provides ca 30 units, but the last one still produces something like 15-20 units.

Really? I find that by the third or fourth ship it just stops being worth it. Although you seem to be judging it by units of produce produced- mouse over the line to get the actual gross income from the trade point. It drops dramatically as you put more ships on. In fact, it goes down even if you put ships on a different trade node (but not by as much- it's always more profitable to put two ships on two nodes than two on one). This, presumably, is the effect of supply and demand. I'll go check now.