Whats a good traderoute?

[Paramnesia]

Anybody can share?

[stvlepore]

I simply look for short runs between towns. High turnover.

[jonnin]

this depends on your country, map settings, and game settings, and more.
I mean right off you can grab tobacco/cotton/cocoa/coffee and haul it back to the viceroy for fame and good prices. After you get that going you can branch out... look at what towns need and have and set up a supply -- eg a rum factory with no sugar next to a sugar town... profit!

[Jx]

I copy the trade routes I see on youtube !

[skyrim2012]

Do not focus to much one trading for income. Focus on trading to feed your people demands. So towns will grow and so will your income .
Focus on cash flow. Use only single ship on short routes but with some towns in a raw. Your ship will only buy what is on production some where . so 5 towns have more goods then 2 towns . At least on automatic default,
But I tell you the best is to trade manualy. Buy what in offer end sell to the next town.

[Wat]

I try to design trade routes which cover as many neighbor towns from a single nation as I can.

About 14 towns per trade route. Double visit each town, sell all goods on the first visit, buy all goods on the second visit.

Avoid storms (red areas). Reorder the towns so the total travel time is minimized.

All trade routes intersect at a hub distribution town, usually my home town. Use this town to exchange goods between trade routes.

With about 7 trade routes you can cover the whole Caribbean.

Activate the "avoid enemy towns" checkbox. If that nation goes to war, all ships from that trade route will wait in your hub town until the war is over.

[skyrim2012]

In campaigns I do not even set this checkbox. If you wiped out the warfleets than you are fine with trading in hostile towns as a trader.
But be attented to reinforcement

[Dray Prescot]

Even if you do not choose an option at the game start setup that changes or randomizes them, only the resources will be the same for each of the towns for new game after new game, after new game..., Resources are farmed goods and extracted goods including ham, metal, coal, wood, brick, grain, fruit, vegetables, sugar, hemp, and the 4 colonial commodities: cotton, tobacco, coffee, and cacao. Most towns will have the same set of starting resources that they can produce, although not all of them may have businesses producing them at the start of the game. In addition, most towns will have several handicraft businesses. I have seen any where from 3 to 6 businesses at start in each of the various towns.

All of the handicraft goods are those that use something from the Resources and Extracted goods to make something else, like Beer, Rum, Rope, etc. Every time you start a new game the distribution of them will be different for each of the towns. Some of them will use locally produced resources and extracted goods, but not always.

This makes copying an exact trade route from one game to the next game useless in terms of the goods they are buying and selling.

Instead you will have routes that follow geographic patterns. But even those can be changed by which Nation you are playing and how many and which towns they start with.

Also a lot depends on how many Trading Licenses you have and how many of the 60 towns you know the location of at the start of the game. You can not have a Trade Route to Towns where you can not trade. The Merchant character can trade everywhere without a Trading Licenses. Every one else can only trade with towns belonging to their Nation, until they acquire additional Trading Licenses at towns of other Nations.

The Campaign Games are a lot more similar from one game to the next game of the same Campaign, i.e. the Home Town, Viceroy Seat, and the number and locations of the towns will be the same, but even they vary the handicraft industries located at towns from game to game.

The Free Mode Games can be changed a lot more than a Campaign Game, plus there are options that change the starting distribution of resources of the towns. If you start off with a small Nation of about 6 Towns with random resources or regional resource settings, you may be not have one or several of the resources in your starting set of towns for your Nation.

[wino345]

For the Spanish campaign, do one from Seville to Sisal to Cartagena to Valparaiso (you'll need Valparaiso's bricks to build in Seville). Then a second one to Encantas and Havana to sell some cotton. A third one south to Valladolid then Belize City, then Puerta Cabezas and Bluefields to get the pastries and beer your main town (Seville) wants and to start getting cacao and coffee once these businesses get started. After cotton gets going and tobacco gets going start a separate trade route for each that goes to Maracaibo from Seville (going through southern towns and coming back directly because of the wind direction). Eventually add a route from Bluefields to Maracaibo for coffee or cacao. Don't forget to transport a few sailors from Maracaibo to Seville to help your town grow. Also eventually, you'll need one convoy of at least 3 galleons to beat the one British pirate (Hawkins) that will show up twice to raid your successful towns. Be aware that even after you setup your trade routes they need to be modified after new businesses are started in your town. For example if you sell cotton in Seville, then eventually add a business for cloth, you have to go back and change your trade route so that Seville will now sell cloth.

[69Inanna69]

A good traderoute is to have several shipyards pumping out trade ships, 10 at a time, never ending 24/7........... Then have 1000's of tradeships, on 100's of traderoutes.

IE, best imo to treat the game as "on bulk" rather than "which one is better"