Building confusion

[firemagerps]

I've played Port Royale 2 before, and I thought I'd give the sequel a try. I'm on the part in the trading campaign where you have to build 2 cotton farms and houses, and I think I'm missing something. When I go to build something, it shows the cost for the construction and the cost for the raw materials. However, I have more than enough wood and brick loaded into my warehouse to cover it.

Also, the steward I hired to buy goods for my warehouse doesn't seem to be doing anything. I set him to buy goods at 100% and sell at 120%, checked the boxes beside them, and left for a week. When I came back, there were no goods besides the ones I had loaded in myself, and there was around 10,000 gold in trading expenses for purchased goods. Am I setting things up wrong?

[Albertafox]

This is the first Port Royale game I've played, so I am not exactly sure how it all works. But from what I've experienced...

The resources to consturct buildings are taken from the market, not your own private stock. At least this is how I've seen it work. Not sure if there is a setting to change it?

The Steward thing I have not figured out that well. The only way Ive got him to produce profits was to sell what was made by my buildings.
This part of the game is confusing. It seems they are supposed to be used in many different ways, but not in many ways at once maybe?

[Bobby Digital™]

as long as you have the cash to build and the small amount of bricks/wood, you are golden.

for the steward, try setting purchase goods at 105% and sell at 115%.

this game is wickedly complex, thankfully, and there is a fairly steep learning curve.

at first, you need to sail to ports buying and selling, then at a certaing point, you need to set up trade routes for sustainable income. and later on you have to have businesses and trade routes, and it just keeps geting more complex.

when you check your warehouse in the "balance" section, early on you won't see a profit. just keep 3 or 4 trading routes going to keep generating income and once you have more money, start adding more farms/distilleries etc. farms are easier at first because they require no other resources to run.

for trade routes, i found the best strategy is to set up a few, 1 ship each like a fluyt (cheap and good space), don't fill it with guns and powder kegs because if they get in a fight while they are doing their own thing, they won't win anyways...not till later in the game that is. divide the traderoutes into sections. for example, i have a "carribean route", a "south america route", a "mexican route", bahamas, cuban/west carriben and gulf coast routes.

obviously set all those to "profit", then later on when you need to start selling stuff from your warehouses, have some of the trade convoys to utilize whats in your warehouses.

[firemagerps]

I checked it out, and I think prices don't normally rise above 120%. I still can't find anything about using materials in your warehouse for construction, so I guess you could just sell bricks and wood to the town until the price drops, and then construction will be cheaper . . .

[Albertafox]

Firemagerps - For materials I just stock them in the warehouse then sell them to the market after placing a building. This way the selling price jumps up to to 64-65g(purchase for 39-44g).


spoiler
You end up building some industries that use wood(campaign). So your going to have to stock some anyways. Kill 2 birds with one stone....

Thanks for the tips Bobby Digital.
I noticed he has more options now on how to conduct trades. Seems certain buildings or maybe campaign progression unlocks these new commands.
So it seems maybe a person has not really progressed far enough to realize the way the Steward is to be used effectively.

[Bobby Digital™]

yes, progression unlocks new missions and town/nation popularity unlocks more types of businesses/buildings. main thing to focus on until you get a handle on things is to keep a few profitable trading routes, and when they ask you to build businesses don't go overboard and build a lot. build what they tell you. it will take like a month or so before they turn a profit.

[Bobby Digital™]

Originally posted by firemagerps:

I checked it out, and I think prices don't normally rise above 120%. I still can't find anything about using materials in your warehouse for construction, so I guess you could just sell bricks and wood to the town until the price drops, and then construction will be cheaper . . .

just keep selling bricks and wood to the town you are building in when construction is "halted".
you can also stock some in your warehouse and release them to the town when necessary.

[StateOfRageNGrace]

Quick tips re warehouses and trade routes;

I always set the steward to buy at 120% and sell at 140% - e.g. base production price for cotton is about 52, but the cheapest the market sells at is 60; so if you set buy price at anything less than 117% your steward will never buy anything. Generally speaking whether it is you or the steward trading, 20% or more is a good profit margin.

I always set my trade routes to "sell and supply" as it is the only one that will think about more than one warehouse on your trade route - and the trickiest bit of this game is keeping your manufacturing businesses supplied with raw materials. Generally speaking you "win" this game by becoming the single massive producer and selling to everyone, everywhere.

If you need some successful trade routes, i can dump out some screenshots. A good starter runs in a rough circle going from Turk Islands to Port Royale and back again via everywhere inbetween.

Edit to add: The above is based on free play but should mostly apply to the campaigns as well - i haven't played those in a long time...