Tips for starting out

Trade

(collected by Charlie, Andre, Uwe, Orodruin)

Trading with the computer opponent

Trade agreements with your opponents help cement diplomatic ties. Your relationship (relations = thumb) with the computer prospers in direct relationship to the volume and equality of trade between you. Inasmuch as there's a difference between the buying and selling prices it's usually more profitable transporting the goods yourself. This work can be made easier by using automatic trade routes to your opponents' cities. The amount of each individual product to be traded can be set using the automatic trade route menu. Be careful that you don't sell your own supply short, by accident, in times of shortage. (If necessary, set low trading volumes.)

Comprehensive trade with the computer opponent allows him to further develop his cities, resulting in population growth, which in turn creates a greater need for trade goods.

During the developmental phase of the game the computer will be looking primarily for building materials (wood, bricks, and tools). If you're short on cash you can make a bundle (and a friend out of the computer) by selling these. Keep in mind, however, that this allows the computer to spread out faster and to turn a profit (taxes) much more quickly. If you neglect the development of your own settlement for too long, you'll soon find that your tax income isn't sufficient to pay the upkeep on your buildings.

From the settler stage onwards the computer opponent usually has large amounts of food and cloth on offer. If you're short on space you can stop producing these for awhile, and get them solely from the computer. In case of war, however, it's a good idea to have a well-filled warehouse and an alternative strategy on hand. This also applies if the computer should gain a monopoly with a high rate of production on alcohol, tobacco products, spices, or cocoa. Personal experience has shown that the computer opponent only offers gold and jewellery for sale in the scenarios.

The sale of ships, weapons, iron, ore, or tools to the computer is undertaken at your own risk!

It can sometimes be profitable to buy your competitors' surplus and offer it for sale over your own trading fleet.

The free traders

The free traders also deliver many goods at prices lower than the current market value. (Example: it's possible to buy tools from 80$ on up.) It usually takes a little while until an inquiry gets around, so plan your buying strategies well in advance.

At the start of the game you generally have a ship with 50 tons of tools on board. These should do for the first buildings and until the first 20 or so pioneers make the transition to settlers. In order to avoid, or at least weaken, the looming tool shortage you should start buying as many tools as you can as soon as you can (finances permitting, of course). From this point on up to the time when you can build your own mine, smelter, and tool smithy you will need approximately another 100 tons of tools.

As long as there is already an iron mine in operation on one of the islands you can buy your iron ore (from approx. 40$ on up) directly from the free traders. This saves you the expense of building and maintaining those expensive iron mines yourself.

Clothing, gold, and jewellery fetch the highest prices and offer an attractive source of income during the middle phase of the game.

As long as you're the first, or only, one to produce a particular ware you will have a monopoly in the island chain. The market for these goods is usually large, and the free trader's warehouses empty inasmuch as these products have never been offered here before. This means the free traders are going to be very interested in these products and they will be willing to pay higher prices for them (at least in the beginning). Clothing, for example: you can build a tailor's shop as soon as you have 200 citizens. An immediate expansion of the clothing production promises to be very profitable, inasmuch as your own merchants will be demanding clothing.

When selling your surplus production it's almost always a wise idea to keep a reserve, at least as far as consumer goods are concerned, to avoid shortages.

In case of an approaching shortage (during a population explosion, for example), try and see if you can't buy the necessary products from the free traders in advance. This way you have a little breathing room while you arrange to produce the goods on your own.

The sale price of a product should always lie higher than the production costs to avoid taking a loss on the sale of that product. Changing the selling price can let you find the maximum selling price of a product, which is often higher than the standard price. If one of your opponents requests a particular product you can offer it at slightly less than market value in your own warehouse and leave the transport to them, or to the free traders, without giving up much of your profit. You can also try to get the goods delivered to your warehouse for "selling price + 1$". (E.g. wood can be sold through your warehouse for 20$ at the start of the game.) This tactic is only useful when your ships are already busy elsewhere.