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Nov 1, 2000
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How does trade work, I am a non german speaking person playing a game in german. Does trade work this way, if not could someone explain how it does

Do you first purchased a trader and thensend them to other provinces. Is there a screen for this like colonists. Also the main screen when a province it's resources is shown with two numbers both in circles one on the left of the resource and one the right of the resource what do those numbers represent.
 
Traders and Merchants (Kaufleute) are different things. The Traders or actually 'Trade Posts' are colonists you send to unclaimed territories. They generate more trade income than colonies initially, but cannot be improved (forts, bailiffs, etc).
Merchants are sent to trading centers by either clicking the 'send merchant' button (don't have the game handy right now, but it's above the minimap) or clicking the tradecenter icon on the large map (the boxes).

The left of the two numbers is the tax income from the province (for ye olde coffers of gold), and the right is the number of ducats generated for trade in the Trade Center, where anyone can collect them aslong as they have the merchants to send there...
 
Each Center of Trade has a value depending of the quantity of goods exchanged in that place.
You can check where goods are going to be exchanged on the details of a province/colony/trade post or by checking colors when you are looking at the 'trade map screen'.

You have a limited number of merchants per year as indicated on the top of your game screen.
Sending merchants to Center of Trade costs you money depending of which Center of Trade you are sending them to.
Globally, far = expensive.

Each merchant present in a Center of Trade gives you an income depending of the overall wealth of the Center.
Each Center of Trade can support 20 merchants.

So, the more merchant, the more your income.

But, also check for other countries merchants. In Centers of Trade where competition is fierce (Genoa, Venice, Flandres typically), even if wealthy, you'll have a lower income because other merchants are also competing.

If you can set a monopoly in a Center of Trade (you need a specific level of trade technology I forgot), things are going better.

Until you can set monopoly, you can only have 5 merchants at best present in each Center of Trade.
So, your income is limited to 5/20th x your trade level x wealth of the CoT at best.

When you can set a monopoly, your income is :
20 - the number of foreign merchants x your trade level x wealth of the CoT

When you can achieve monopolies, you can also send more merchants to wipe foreign merchants from the CoT, so ensuring you a better profit.

Hope that does help.

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Pierre
Retired EU Beta Tester
 
There is a common pool of traders/colonists - it is right at the top of the screen.
Traders are cheap to deploy but produce high trade revenue for certain items (spices, ivory and tobacco are the better ones) and also take ownership of a province.
Establishing trading posts everywhere is a good way to start the game, especially in the key locations. Good naval tech is needed to reach the best locations.
Colonists are much more expensive but produce goods, claim provinces, establish colonies and can defend themselves with investment and be used as a base to attack from e.g. conquer native empires which then become very rich colonies.
Colonies are required to mine gold/silver, build ports etc.
Right clicking on a province allows you to place traders/colonists only in provinces where a port is possible I think and if you have enough cash. There is an important screen which is accessed by the right icon below the little map that helps identify good provinces.
When playing one of the weak nations, the important choice is to work out which provinces are worth the expense of colonising and which ones are good trading posts. An optimum empire has both.
 
Trading posts are a mixed blessing. If you really develop them (maximum level 6) and later decide that a colony is needed in that province, you'll have to start afresh as if you never had any trading post at all in that province.
But Traders are always much cheaper than Colonists, their establishment is more likely to be succesfull and the province becomes part of your realm. It is thus good politics for a fast expansion - on condition you remain on good terms with everybody since your posessions are highly vulnerable.
In the latter part of the game I think one should always strive to establish the more expensive Colonies, but in the early part it is better top send Traders rather than let your quota of Colonists-Traders go to waste because of insufficient funds to found real Colonies.
Never keep more than 4 Colonists-Traders in reserve. You can have no more than 5 in reserve, so every new one after the 5th is simply lost if you don't send them somewhere.
 
Originally posted by Chyron0:
Trading posts are a mixed blessing. If you really develop them (maximum level 6) and later decide that a colony is needed in that province, you'll have to start afresh as if you never had any trading post at all in that province.
But Traders are always much cheaper than Colonists, their establishment is more likely to be succesfull and the province becomes part of your realm. It is thus good politics for a fast expansion - on condition you remain on good terms with everybody since your posessions are highly vulnerable.
In the latter part of the game I think one should always strive to establish the more expensive Colonies, but in the early part it is better top send Traders rather than let your quota of Colonists-Traders go to waste because of insufficient funds to found real Colonies.
Never keep more than 4 Colonists-Traders in reserve. You can have no more than 5 in reserve, so every new one after the 5th is simply lost if you don't send them somewhere.
Click to expand...

Colnists sent as traders have an influence if you later 'upgrade' the area to colony.
Each 'trader' is a 10 men team.
So, a lvl6 trading post represent 60 men.
When you upgrade to a colony, those 60 men are added to the 100 men sent to create the colony.
So, you have a larger base of population, meaning you'll reach the city status faster there.

The max number of colonists you can store is 6, not 5.
I agree that receiving more colonists when you reached your maximum is a waste of colonial ressource.
However it depends of the country. A catholic France should always use them and not wasting some because of a limit of colonist reached, if France can use them (money...).
'Wasting' colonists is less important for Spain for example as you have a good supply during a long part of the game.

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Pierre
Retired EU Beta Tester
 
And I think there is also a higher rate of success if you're sending colonists to a province with an existing trading post.
 
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