Narrowing down a million questions.

[Acetoolguy]

Hi all, this is my first Anno game, I've been addicted to the Civ series and it may have given me some bad habits as it relates to this game.
So....
When is a good time to start a 2nd colony, or should the other islands just supply your main one with goods.
What tells you that you may have a tradable surplus of a commodity.
And lastly.....for now i think.......what tells you that a NPC may have an intrest in your surplus.

I have a whole hour into playing the game, not counting the tutorial's.
I got my first settlement up an running just fine with a few glitches.....the two most common are full warehouses stopping production and trading with NPC's...as in I cant seem to figure out the details.

I would be grateful for any thoughts or suggestions....

Oh.....where do cannons come from?

Oh....ahhh, never mind for now, i'll save it.

Thanks in advance.....

[Dobber]

Welcome to the forum, Acetoolguy! :halloha:

I am going to answer the cannon question first. You must research cannons in the school, there is a prerequisite to research though, I believe it is a CGarrison II you need to be built in order to research any weapons and their upgrades. After cannon research is complete, you can then build a cannon foundry. Sometimes cannons will also be rewarded on completion of a trader assignment.

Whether you start an additional settlement is entirely upon your preference, I usually never start another settlement, so as to not run into the logistics of supplying two separate populations. I have at one time or another built a settler level settlement that can be maintained without need of off island goods and taken it up to a point that it will return a profit for me with no additional worry.
You will notice in your warehouse on the goods windows that some goods have a green arrow, some have a red arrow and some no arrow at all. The ones with a green arrow are ones that you are running a surplus of, the red ones that you are in decline on, and the ones with no arrow are the ones you are at an even balance on.
If you have a trade agreement with an AI player, you can click on their coastal warehouse to see what the are in need of or have to offer in trade!