Trading    In    New    Horizons

 

 

TRADE…  

…the glue of the game.

 

       “Let it not be said that he was a cheese merchant.”  --Commodore Ruthless

Trade and the world trades with you.   Money is the key to anything you want to do in the world of the 1520s.  All scenarios must start the game trading, forsaking the blast of War and the glory of Discovery.  In fact, Trade is what makes possible the other two joys of Uncharted Waters: New Horizons, kicking butt and exploring the dark waters.  These are the calling of the true Commodore. 

 

But every character from pirate to cartographer must make some cash to get going, and must make that cash fast.  I have some good early-game trade routes for each of the scenarios, but the rest of this section is geared towards the theory behind the trade routes listed here.  Early in the game, you might start out with Wool and Raisins before you can finance a decent trip to the Bosporus.  Later, you learn that Art and Carpet are the foundation upon which you make the transition from a “starter kit” fleet of sloops and cogs to a more mature fleet of Naos, Galleons and La Reales. 

 

Trade strategy changes throughout the game, and so this page is divided into a few parts, each devoted to a different phase of the game.  First, though, here is the nugget you most likely came here for, the 6-Month Money Machine:

 

This is the best trade route in the advanced stages of a game (when you are
able to do it with large, fast ships like Frigates or Tekkhousens, and you
are an Earl or higher social rank, and when you can afford
a tax permit from your King):

 

MY PATENTED SIX MONTH MONEY MACHINE:

 

 

 

You should earn about 60 million gp per circuit using this trading route, with a large enough fleet.  I definitely recommend getting ten well-made Tekkhousens as soon as possible.  They are as fast as Frigates, and larger.  With 10 Teks, you can carry 9500 lots of cargo easily.  Another important reason to seek out the Tekkhousen is that with five of them, with 100 guns on each, you can beat any fleet on the sea.  I once used 3 Teks to beat a fleet of 8 Flemish Galleons.  I sunk them all, because I’m like that.  Who needs to confiscate cargo when you know the secret of the Six-Month Money Machine? 

If you use ten Tekkhousens, the finest boats from Japan, you can reliably do the route twice a year, with time to take care of some business in Europe and the Mediterranean.  If you want the highest profits possible, you need a tax-free permit and you need all the cities on your route to be solidly invested-in.  For hyper-profits, I usually leave Europe in early April or early October and go straight to East Africa, making a few stops along the way for food and to sell the Glass Beads for a profit in West Africa.  Selling Silver for a loss, or only a small profit, is the key to the whole enchilada.  When you depress the prices of Gold by selling enough Silver, you can make over 1500 gp profit on every lot.  Wow. 

A tax permit bought in Europe on April 1st will expire on October 1st.  To
maximize a six-month trade route, go Europe-East Africa-Nagasaki-East
Africa-Nagasaki-East Africa-Europe, selling Glass Beads and Silver for Gold in Africa, selling Gold for Silver in Nagasaki (using Silver purchases to make them buy Gold at 1350 gp), then back to Africa to sell the Silver for more Gold.  Selling the Japanese silver in Africa will only net you about 50 gp or less per lot, but the profits when you bring the gold back to Nagasaki are about 1200 per lot, a damn good trade-off.  Each leg of this itinerary should take you about 1 month, if you have Teks or La Reales or well-captained Frigates. 

 

Unfortunately, Full-Rigged Ships are just a little too slow… it takes them about 7 months to do the cycle, which throws everything off track because you either have to leave Europe with a Tax Permit that won’t last you the whole trip, or you have to visit Nagasaki only once per cycle, and have a month of wasted time every half-year hanging around in Europe waiting for a fresh Tax Permit.  This lost time makes the Full-Rigged less profitable, despite its huge holds and despite the fact that it’s a kick-ass boat.  I gotta admit that I always keep a fleet of Full-Riggeds as my War Fleet, docked half in Lisbon and half in Seville.  With maximum Carronades and Goddess figureheads, they rule the waves. 

 

Speaking of moored ships, as soon as I’m at the point where I can afford it, I customarily build the following fleets as an insurance policy against whatever the game may throw at me:

 

 

If you leave Europe on April 1st and time it right and don't dawdle, you can
do the route from Africa to Nagasaki twice before your tax permit expires.  You can then return to Europe to renew your permit, but now with a load of gold worth 15 million at Lubeck (with 10 Tekkhousens full of gold), and be ready to buy a new permit on October 1st. 


This six-month cycle can net you over 60 million gold pieces each time, with
good luck and the right crew on the right boats.  That's a billion gold pieces every eight years, which is more money than you could ever hope to spend, even if you had every barmaid in the world begging for trinkets. 

 

OK, with that out of the way, let’s look at the trading system in Uncharted Waters: New Horizons in a bit more depth, and learn how you can squeeze it for cash.  You start with some cash, but not even close to enough to make Idin Leis interested in you.  You have to get more, and you can’t do it by piracy right out of the gate, unless you have a suicide wish.  Make sure to visit every building in your home capital multiple times until no one offers you any more money, except if you are Ali, in which case you don’t want to take cash from the innkeeper, so you’ll get a cat instead.  Try to buy another boat as soon as you can.  If you came here for a quick fix to get your young commodore financially fluid, here are the best Early Game trade routes for each character: 

 

EARLY GAME TRADE ROUTES:

 

Pietro:

 

Ragusa – Buy Dye

            Venice – Sell Dye, Buy Glassware

            Ragusa – Sell Glassware, Buy Dye

 

Ali:

            Istanbul – Buy Carpet

            Marseilles – Sell Carpet, Buy Perfume

            Athens – Sell Perfume, Buy Art

            Istanbul – Sell Art, Buy Carpet

            Marseilles – Sell Carpet, Buy Perfume

 

Joao and Catalina:

 

            Lisbon – Buy Salt

            Bordeaux – Sell Salt, Buy Raisins

            London – Sell Raisins, Buy Wool

            Amsterdam – Sell Wool, Buy ½ Iron, Buy ½ Glass Beads

            Lisbon – Sell Iron, Buy Salt

            Madeira – Sell Glass Beads, Buy Sugar

            Lisbon – Sell Sugar, Buy Salt

 

Ernst and Otto:

 

Same as for Joao and Catalina, but you should start the cycle by buying Wool in London.

 

These routes should allow you to break out of the Caravela Latina you’ve been dragging around in, and at least get you up to a few Naos or Carracks with a decent figurehead. 


The best trade route depends on how far along you are in the game.  Athens-Istanbul is a great way to make early-to-midgame cash.  Sugar-Perfume-Wool is a good trade route for stability and long-term profits, even if the margins are lower per lot.  Gold is the ultimate commodity and the trade in it must be joined as soon as you can.  The thing you need to understand is how and why a trading route becomes unbalanced, and the best ways to keep a trade route healthy. 

As a general rule, making as many stops as possible is better for profits, until you are trading in goods which are valuable enough that express trips between ports yields bigger profits. 

 

Buy as much as you can of the initial commodity for your character as listed above.  The basic idea is to enter into a trade route that will be profitable enough for you to build a crew and fleet strong enough to carry you into the midgame phase of your scenario.  If you start the game with the Eastern Routes (Athens-Istanbul-Marseilles and Venice-Ragusa), then by the time you exhaust these routes you should be able to move to the Western Route with 3 to 5 boats.  By the same token, if you start out riding the Western Route (Lisbon-London-Amsterdam-Etc.), then when this route gets unprofitable, you should be able to score big on the Eastern Routes with 3 to 5 boats.  If you’re Ali, then you will find that the Art/Carpet racket gets out of hand quickly.  Prices get whacked and you are no longer able to make a profit.  Take a break for a few months and work Pietro’s route, to let Athens and Istanbul calm down.  The same in reverse holds true for Pietro’s scenario.  The idea is to mix it up for maximum profits over the long haul. 

 

If you are working the Western Route out of the gate, then you are advised to start the cycle in either Lisbon or London, and outfit your ships to be able to sail for ten days.  Starting the route in Amsterdam (by loading up with ½ Iron and ½ Glass Beads) tends to throw the route out of kilter faster than a start in London or Lisbon.  You will need 10 days of sailing range to reach Madeira, which is straight southwest from a point on Iberia just North of Lisbon. 

 

When I say “throw a route out of kilter” or when I talk about “exhausting” a route, I am expressing the essence of trading in Uncharted Waters: New Horizons.  When you sell a commodity in a city, their buying and selling prices go down.  When you buy a commodity in a city, their buying and selling prices for every commodity go up.  This effect applies double to other commodities in the same category as the one you are selling or buying.  Thus, if you sell 50 lots of Glass Beads in Madeira, the price they charge for Sugar goes down a bit, but if you sell 50 lots of Rock Salt there, then the price for Sugar goes down much more. 

 

Of the commodities that can be sold or bought in the world, only a few are available in each city.  The more you invest in the economy of a city, the higher the Economy level will go, and thus they will sell more commodities.  As a port’s Economy level goes up, its economy will recover faster from the effects of buying and selling.  By this I mean that all accounts are settled at the end of each month.  It is at this time that the effects of your investments will be applied to the city’s Industry and Economy.  At certain thresholds, more commodities will be offered and better ships and figureheads and guns will be available.  Also at this time, the prices for every commodity will readjust back towards the “normal” level of 100%.  Depending on how much trading has gone on in the port in the past month, this process of readjustment may take only one month, or several months.  This is the basic drawback of the Athens – Istanbul route.  The two cities are so close to each other that you can make the trip many times per month, and the route as a whole cannot possibly readjust faster than you can pump money out of it. 

 

In a way, this facet of the game is one of the subtle things that make UW:NH highly replayable.  If you sell lots of Art in Istanbul, then the buying price for Art will go down.  Simple enough.  If everyone in Istanbul is selling Art nowadays (Art which they bought from you), then the price of everything else in Istanbul will go down, including Cotton and Dye.  But the price for Carpet will be affected more.  Unfortunately, there is simply not enough demand for Art in Istanbul itself to absorb the huge shipments you can run over from nearby Athens.  This means that the Turkish merchants must work their own internal trade routes to get rid of the Art you bring, perhaps by dispersing it out to the Balkans or Syria (places that you can’t go), and this process takes time.  When you sell 1000 lots of Art to the merchants in Istanbul, a month later they may still have 600 lots in stock, waiting for buyers in the Caucasus to show up.  Of course, they will be less interested in another 1000 lots of Art.  If the city is left alone for several months, then the price index will creep back to normal, but you don’t have several months, do you?  Since Istanbul is a capital, you cannot invest in it to help the economy repair itself.  You can only pump their buying price for Art up again by purchasing other commodities.  Fortunately, Carpet is in the same category as Art, and happens to be Istanbul’s specialty. 

 

Finding a pair of cities whose specialties are in the same category opens the door for market manipulation on a grand scale.  The price you pay for a commodity depends on your social status, the price index of the city, the skill of your bookkeeper, whether you have a tax permit and your luck, but by buying and selling other commodities you can more directly manipulate the prices at a marketplace.  If you buy 1000 lots of Art in one transaction at Athens, the price for Art will jump, and their buying price for Carpet will jump accordingly.  A purchase or sale of as little as 50 lots, though smaller, will affect the prices of commodities almost as much as a whopping 1000-lot transaction.  With 4 or 5 50-lot purchases of Silver in Lubeck, for example, you can drive the price that they will pay for Gold through the roof – to 1650 gp per lot!  Thus, it is easy to see that by a series of small Carpet sales in Athens, you can drive the price you’ll pay for Art way down.  Sometimes it is to your advantage to take a loss on 200 lots of Carpet to reap huge profits on 2000 lots of Art.  The trick is to find the balance point that will keep a trade route healthy. 

 

In the case of Lubeck, you do not care about the economic health of the city.  You are not interested in buying Silver cheaply; you just want them to pay through the nose for Gold.  Most of the time, however, you have to take into account the stability of the markets in the cities on your route.  Say you have a cargo capacity of 100 lots.  If you go to Athens and load up on Art at 360 gp per lot, you are pumping 36,000 gp into the local economy.  When you trade it at Istanbul for Carpet at 254 gp per lot, you are only putting 25,400 gp back into the local market.  Obviously, filling your fleet to the brim at each port puts the Athenian economy out of whack faster than Istanbul’s.  To make matters worse, the Port Economy of Athens starts out at only 640, which means it will take longer for the city to absorb the shipments of Carpet you sell there.  Both of these factors (price of Art vs. Carpet and the differing Economy levels) make the trade route very unstable. 

 

We now see that even though Art and Carpet are in the same commodity category, and even though they are the specialties of their respective ports, this route is still not a one-to-one trade.  Add to this the fact that your profit margin is high on this route, which means that you can increase your cargo capacity very quickly, and you are on the road to disaster.  Athens will often run out of Art to sell to you, until you have invested the Port Economy up quite a bit.  You will have to take a loss on more and more lots just to keep your profits at an acceptable level.  In short, you see rapidly diminishing returns as you increase your carrying capacity.  This is what I mean when I call a trade route “out of whack”. 

 

An example of a one-to-one trade route would be buying Cotton in Amsterdam at 54 gp per lot, selling it in London, then loading up on Wool in London (in the same category as Cotton) at 54 gp per lot, then selling the Wool for a profit back in Amsterdam, then rinse, repeat.  Since Amsterdam pays 60 gp per lot for Wool, this would seem to make a tidy profit for the beginning trader.  The cities are very close to each other, the prices are low enough for a poor character with only a small boat to break into, and the profits are steady.  Amsterdam and London are also equals in Port Economy (700 and 720), so this is the perfect early game trade route, right?  Unfortunately, no.  The catch is that London also sells Cotton, for 54 gp per lot, and thus pays very little (20 gp) for imported Cotton.  Even if you buy many small lots of English Wool to drive up their demand for your Dutch Cotton to the point where you make a profit on it, the premium you pay for Wool at the now-expensive Thames docks wipes out your earnings.  If London did not sell Cotton, then this would indeed be an ideal and nearly inexhaustible trade route.  Oh well, back to the drawing board. 

 

There are over two dozen economically perfect one-to-one trade routes in the game, but none are good for the early game because:

 

 

In fact, they aren’t so good for the middle or late game either, because you have better things to do than chasing down exotic routes that deep into the game. 

 

The best early game trading strategy is to run either the Western European or Eastern Mediterranean route, depending on your character, building to about 3 – 5 ships with 500 to 1000 lots of cargo capacity, then switching to the other route, which so far is untapped.  This should earn you enough cash to upgrade your fleet considerably. 

 

Each of the two beginning routes (excluding Pietro for the moment) has unique advantages and drawbacks.  The Western Route involves much more sailing, which lets you and your crew rise in Navigation level and other Abilities, and the time you spend shuttling between ports lets the ports on your trip recover their economic health naturally month by month.  The profits per month are lower than the Eastern Route, but it keeps you near Antwerp and Bordeaux, which are cities that you will want to have invested up to 1000 in Economy and Industry by the time you reach the midgame.  Other drawbacks are that you need to keep more space available for food, and you visit 3 capitals, so you need to be nice to at least 2 rival empires.  When Otto, Catalina, Joao or Ernst get to 500 – 800 in cargo space, they should go plunder the Eastern Route. 

 

The Eastern Route yields greater profits per month, but as we learned above, it is very unstable.  It can be done with used boats that are cheap, fat and slow, but doesn’t give much experience to you or your mates.  If you need to let Athens and Istanbul cool off for a while, you have many options, like involving Marseilles or Beirut in the circuit, or doing the Venice – Ragusa run for a while.  Pietro should do this right away, then join the Art for Carpet trade when he gets up over 100 in cargo space.  When either Ali or Pietro gets up to 800 to 1000 in cargo capacity, they should go do the Western Route and should be in a position to pour some cash into Antwerp and Bordeaux to prepare for the midgame. 

 

 

INVESTING:

 

Investing your hard-earned cash in a port sometimes seems like a waste of money.  Actually, it is one of the most important things you can do in the game for long-term success.  Investing in a port’s Industry has the following benefits:

 

 

Investing in a city’s Economy has most of the benefits above, as well as:

 

 

 

MIDDLEGAME TRADING:

 

To know when you are ready to graduate into the midgame, you should have a set of goals.  No matter where you begin your scenario, this is a good set of goals to have in mind for moving from the early game to the midgame:

 

 

The midgame is when you decide whether you will concentrate on piracy, trade or adventure.  The wise commodore combines some of all three while concentrating on one talent.  You must also now decide whether you want to romp through your scenario to complete the game as soon as possible, or if you want to try to play the game as if you were trying to take over the world.  If you are trying to complete the game as intended, then there are many walk-throughs available on the web that are very helpful for any scenario, so I will not attempt to reproduce them here.  If you have achieved the goals above, you will have the means to get as much cash as you need for any task, whenever you want, by using the Gold trading techniques of the Money Machine. 

 

If you are trying to rebuild the world as to shape the approaching Renaissance in your own image, then see my World Domination section.  Either way, when you have graduated to the midgame, then you are primarily interested in advancing your scenario, which means three things: fetching things, fighting people and building your empire.  There is no better way to gain the attention of your king than winning cities to his control.  This gets you social ranking, which propels you along your scenario.  You need a fleet ready for anything, and the La Reale is the best boat there is for the tasks in the midgame.  End of Argument. 

 

Not only is the La Reale the second-fastest boat on the planet, but also with a cargo hold that can be over 400 lots, she can take you where you want to go and pay for herself along the way.  The only drawback to the La Reale (the ONLY ONE) is that she can hold only 40 guns, if you’re thinking of making trouble.  Actually, 40 guns ain’t bad, since the La Reale can always just run away if you get into a tight spot in combat.  Available in Nantes, Bordeaux, Scandinavia and most Baltic Sea ports, the La Reale is quick, maneuverable, and low-maintenance.  The low minimum crew makes it ideal for long voyages, making exploration a snap.  The fact that she sports both sails and oars doesn’t leave you at the mercy of the currents or winds, which is helpful for digging into coastal nooks and river systems.  The cargo space speaks for itself, and the speed also makes up for captains who are, shall we say, not so sharp a tack, making the La Reale perfect for training mates. 

 

Midgame trading is largely dictated by your king, as you try to make money while finishing the tasks, which drive your scenario.  If you are sent to pick something up in SouthEast Asia, fill up on Cinnamon in Malacca, which can fetch 130 gp per lot profit in Europe.  Coral from Amboa or Nutmeg from Banda can bring good money.  If you are sent to the New World, bring back Vanilla from Caracas or Havana, or Gold from Rio de Janeiro or Veracruz.  When you have enough money to keep 1,000,000 gp in the bank, you can support a fleet of 10 ships with a crew of 500 indefinitely as long as you can visit a bank once a month to collect interest.  But while you can reach a food/crew equilibrium at 1 million gp, you will still need cash from trading to upgrade your fleet. 

 

I suggest that you trade during the midgame to get enough money to build and outfit a fleet of Frigates from Antwerp.  Set them up with maximum guns, and go raise some hell.  When your Fame in Piracy is as high as you need, moor the Frigates and take the La Reales out for some speedy adventuring.  When you need to trade, it should depend on your scenario’s demands.  If you need raw cash, work the Money Machine while working on a fleet of Tekkhousens.  If you want ultimate Piracy Fame, trade just enough Gold to get the best fleet and armaments, then let the profits of privateering sustain your expenses.  When out adventuring, head back to Europe every six or eight months to cash in your discoveries and the goods you have found around the world.  Here are some things that are worth bringing back to Europe:

 

 

The midgame is for taking time to hire mates wisely, gathering various serious “power boats” into formidable fleets, putting money away into untouchable resources, advancing to high rank in the Court and getting your credentials as an adventurer and warrior together.  You should be building a base of experience among your crew by rotating them into and out of various commands, so that when you finally get up to ten Tekkhousens, you have at least nine mates with enough experience to handle them.  Trading works into this overall strategy by making you money while you are doing tasks, and making you more money when you are waiting for your king or your scenario to contact you. 

 

In sum, worldwide trade involves the cities mentioned above for the best profits.  You can achieve more in the midgame by running a fleet of La Reales, and storing a fleet of 5 boats (large used and cheap) in Istanbul for whenever you need a quick cash infusion in the European Theater.  When you are in War mode, and are planning on spending some quality time whacking every fleet you see, you should be hanging around Europe most of the time anyway, so plan on spending one month out of every year spent at War doing the Athens-Istanbul route.  This keeps your fortune increasing for the day when you will be shopping for Tekkhousens. 

 

As with the early game, the midgame must be spent laying the foundation for later stages.  The rewards of the late game are great, but so are the costs.  You should be starting to get some key cities throughout Asia and Africa invested up towards 1000/1000.  You should be taking great care to preserve your luck by saving the game frequently and upgrading every boat to the Goddess figureheads.  Speaking of Luck and the Goddess, there is a way to see your luck by visiting a fortuneteller, but she can only narrow it down to the nearest 25%.  A more accurate way to judge your luck is to invest in Antwerp up to 1000/1000, and then try to buy figureheads at the shipyard there.  Try it 1000 times.  Add up the number of times that you are offered the Goddess figurehead.  That is your Luck rating, on average.  In theory, you can get a more accurate reading of your Luck by doing it 10,000 times and dividing the result by 10, but I have not done this. 

 

Just as there are signposts to tell you when you are entering the midgame and must adjust your strategy, there are guidelines for when you are graduating into the late game.  You should have achieved the following things:

 

 

 

LATE GAME TRADING:

 

The late game affords two choices:  you can quickly complete your scenario, or you can investigate everything the world of Uncharted Waters: New Horizons has to offer.  If you choose to defeat the game quickly, you should not have a need to trade.  Your midgame should provide enough cash for you to end the game whenever you like.  If you choose to extend the game, however, you may find some interesting trade techniques that you can employ.  Because the late game is either very short or very long, I’ll concentrate on the long version to expose some of the deeper concepts about the trade system in UW:NH. 

 

If the game were strictly historically accurate, slaves would be a commodity available in West and East Africa.  Thank goodness the programmers did not include such a commodity!  But, the fact is that a lot of wealth was made on exports from Africa in the 1500’s, so to model that part of the global economy, the game’s designers substituted Gold.  

 

Diamonds may be a girl’s best friend, but a Trader’s best friend is Gold.  The huge costs that you incur throughout the game to upgrade your fleet to La Reales then Galleons, then to Frigates then Tekkhousens, not to mention the financial black hole of investing in Africa, Asia and the Americas are costs that can only be met by trading in Gold and Silver.  Some West African and South American ports will sell Gold when coaxed, but the most reliable source is East Africa.  In the Advanced Game, when you have decided to play the world instead of just playing a scenario, East Africa is the most important place in the world.  All six cities of East Africa will sell Gold, once they get up to about 400 or so in Port Economy level.  I haven’t nailed down the exact Economy level yet, because I usually just want Gold, Now.  While on investing trips before anyone’ll sell you Gold, don’t be afraid to pick up Ivory and Coral in East Africa, both of which will turn a tidy profit in Europe. 

 

Concentrate your investments on Mombasa and Mozambique, because they have banks, then in Quelamine and Sofala because they are closest to Europe.  For a guaranteed invitation to the palace for a social rank advancement, invest a region (Middle East, SE Asia, India, Far East) into allegiance to your empire.  Become a Duke as soon as possible.  Finish out your fame in Piracy to 50,000 by smacking the big pirates around.  The capturing of cities by investment is an ongoing process that consumes simply enormous amounts of gp, and can only be financed through trade, not piracy.  You need the power of Gold, and you need to leverage that power to make you rich. 

 

Do not underestimate the power of Tax Permits and social rank in trading.  A Duke with a good bookkeeper and a Permit is going to get the lowest possible price, period.  When trading in Gold, you need every advantage you can gain. 

 

You will want to run 10 Tekkhousens ideally, and have one boat set up with no guns and the bare minimum crew, to maximize the cargo hold.  It may be useful to store a Barge in Amsterdam and pick it up on the way to Lubeck when selling Gold in Europe.  You want to use small purchases or sales to drive prices as far as they can go in your favor, and then use your biggest ship to make a huge transaction.  For instance, a fully laden fleet of 5 Frigates can use a Full-Rigged Ship to sell their cargo of Gold in only four transactions, limiting the number of lots of Silver, which you have to take a loss on. 

 

To make the Six Month Money Machine work right requires some tight sailing.  You must know just where to turn South West from Iberia to hit Madeira, know just how far East of San Jorge you must go before turning due South East to hit Luanda, and how far North of Madagascar you sail before you turn North East so you’ll hit India before you run out of food.  Once you’ve got it down, though, you’ll have enough cash to do anything.  If you choose to delay the end of your scenario for whatever purpose, you enter the Advanced Game.

 

 

ADVANCED GAME TRADING:

 

A common objective of the advanced game is to invest in as many cities as you can, to ally them with your king and increase their power to 1000/1000.  I’ve shown you how to squeeze the Gold trade for huge cash, but if you want to go off investing for a few years, then I’d recommend that you pick up your fleet of La Reales.  They are fast enough that you can run through hundreds of millions of gp (100,000 per city per month!) in a few years.  Inevitably, you’ll have to go back and hunt for Gold. 

 

During your long absences, rival fleets will have time to woo some of the town councils of your Mediterranean and European cities away.  Politicians just don’t stay bought, I guess.  You need a rhythm to your game, a schedule for maximum effect.  You may find that you can remain “in the field” for longer periods if you adjust your travel strategy.  For instance, the developing world in Asia and South America require huge amounts of gold to lift them to respectability.  You can remain in a position to hit SE Asia every month by splitting the region in half.  Visit the eastern island cities once a month, while running some goods up to the Far East.  Then once the eastern towns are up to snuff, run a route from the western cities of SE Asia and India.  Nutmeg from Amboa or Banda sold in the Far East brings a good profit.  Pepper from any SE Asian port will earn 50 gp per lot in the Far East.  On the return trip, bring Silver from Nagasaki, which will earn 150 gp per lot in SE Asia. 

 

Likewise, the Middle East is an area that requires much investment and lots of sailing to lift up.  The region may be broken in two as well, with the Persian Gulf cities visited once a month, amidst a trade route from East Africa to India.  India will pay well for Gold, just not as much as Europe and Nagasaki.  Then switch to the Red Sea and Arabian Sea cities while maintaining the East Africa-India route.  You’ll get filthy rich, and possession of the Middle East as well. 

 

Of course, you could just gather up a ton of money and set up a route to visit each city in SE Asia or the Middle East once a month, but such a route to cover all the cities in South East Asia is very difficult.  This means that you’ll have to cut a couple of cities out, and spend the same five months getting them invested in.  If you choose to visit a handful of cities, combined in a trade route, for five months, you get money to support the huge sums you have to drop into towns, and your crew gets lots of sailing experience, much more than making a stop every few days. 

 

If you want, you can do this with warships and sink any interlopers.   The rhythm you should be in ought to allow you to grab about ten cities before heading back to tend to European matters.  This allows for about a year between visits to your king.  If you are wise, you’ll time these visits to occur in March or September.  When you have retaken some cities (they always go for Antwerp) and sold a bunch of Gold and you are ready to leave Europe, consider where you’ll be heading.  If you’re going to get some of the Middle East, bring a load of Arms from Lisbon or Seville.  If you’re going towards the Far East, bring lots of Glassware from Copenhagen, which can bring 220 gp per lot in any Far Eastern city. 

 

When you are investing in South or Central America, Sugar bought in Jamaica or Santo Domingo can get you a 70-gp profit in any other American port.  This is very useful, because Veracruz takes a lot of attention before they’ll part with their Gold.  When they do, though, you can easily set up a Gold-Silver trade route with Caracas, Rio de Janeiro, Pernambuco, Maracaibo, Cayenne, Cartagena and Margarita.  Rio can also sell Gold, when their scores are raised up a bit.  The fact that these ports are so widely distributed around the New World naturally lends itself to involving trade in your investing excursions, and you can still bring the customary load of Gold back to Europe when you are ready. 

 

There are so many cool things in the game that are historically accurate, like the effects of weather on sails vs. oars, and how the weather at sea changes in some areas in certain months of the year.  Another one is that the best profits in trading are had by bringing odd things back to Europe and the Mediterranean.  Spices, Pearls, Art, Vanilla, they are all valuable and sexy in Europe, but you really need to be carrying Gold when you return every year or so.  The rhythm that works best for me when I’m trying to subjugate the world is a 12/6 rotation.  Twelve months at sea in a route that gets ten cities, then six months around Europe, reinvesting and kicking butt. 

 

West Africa, well, West Africa doesn’t seem to ever need attention.  Just stop in a different WA town for food every time you round the horn, and dump 100,000 gp into the place.  Eventually, you’ll have them all without trying, except for that damn Timbuktu.  You’ll have to try for that one.  Try to get there at the end of a month, so you can hit them twice in just a few days. 

 

If you are trying to complete the World Map, another common objective of the Advanced Game, don’t bother to trade.  Just get lots of money, and La Reales. 

 

If you want to crush all enemy fleets, then don’t bother to trade either, just sell a captured boat now and then if you need the cash.