any tips for gold?

[Matti]

currently just a fleet of COGS have about 350 cargo, and always trade every item from town to town but money is low, its only good if i listen to gossip from tavernmaster and he tells me which item is worth double where. but cant rely on it since gossip is random.
ships sometimes try to scam me and sell the tradeitems for more, dont know why.
could also invest alot of money into getting more cargo (bigger ships).

but i dont know, how to actually make more money... i never attacked ships btw.

[Highspeedpixels]

Trade low quantity High value trade goods is the best if you are not boarding/sea fighting.
Price is determined by : Distance away from producer. The further away from the source, the bigger the profit you'd get.

For example, you buy something from the middle of the map and sell it at the edge of the map, that's big profit. Assuming the port you see isn't producing the item or there is a town nearby producing the same goods - which makes it worse price wise.

usually you can sell your Goods for 1.5 times - 3 times (mostly 2 - 2.5 though) if they are far from the ports that produce them.

Late game, you want to bring expensive cargo instead of say, grain because you can use faster ship.

Yes, the "wanted" goods and port is randomly picked per month. It's great, but not always.

Ships does not scam you. When you buy them, they said they sell at higher price, yes? Don't buy from ships unless you need that trade good; or food if you ran out mid journey.

Taking ships via boarding is also profitable, but I am not there yet.

[game-zerox]

The value of the traded good will rise the further you go to trade them. Selling gold bullions, for example, to one of the far island of the world will be much more profitable than selling it to the next town. I'd recomment at least skipping two towns before selling. Just remember to keep you food level in check.

Attacking ships is also very profitable as you get ships to sell if you don't destroy them and you get free cargo. That's pure profit if you don't lose any ship in the process.

[Matti]

should i invest into my town/port? in order to get more/higher quality tradegoods? cause im always running out of them.

[Highspeedpixels]

Yeah, it's best to invest on your primary goods. Like gold bullion.

Beware though, it takes a LOT of investment to change that produce/day depending on the goods.

[McFrugal]

I'm not sure if investing is worth the money if you're doing it purely to get more trade goods out of that port. I'd have to do some calculations and get some real numbers for how much it boosts the production/cap.

[Matti]

what about being a pirate tho instead of trading? isnt it more lucrative?

[Nogi Everfree]

If you are looking for an influx of gold, sell your discoveries to a researcher.

As for sustainable income... Trading to and from distant colonies tends to work. Though, without heavy investing, the ports will never keep up production with your large cargo hold.

[McFrugal]

The longer the trips you make, the more time ports have to recover their stocks. If you're going to go all in on trading then you can probably work out some trade routes for when you're not chasing the monthly demand.