Need Trading Tips

[✿⊱oLadyGamer⊰✿]

I am doing the Trader campaign. My next task is to make $200k have 400 cargo and reach "Mariner" status. Since there is no pc on board which to compare prices( lol), how would I know if I am selling or buying at a good price? Will I learn as I go along? Any tips would be appreciated.

[Sirius]

A few basic hints I figured out long ago:

First, only buy items that have that cogwheel icon attached to them. This means the item is produced in that town.
Next, note the Red/Green bar ratio, representing the amount of available cargo.
Red is bad, it means there's not enough to go around, as a result, the price is not good, either. Plus, if you buy too much of a cargo that is in short supply, you can loose relationship to that town (I believe - some things may have stuck to me rom PR2)
Generally, as long as the bars are half green, you can buy that cargo - but only take as much as the price does not change, for starters. Because then you get A. the best general price and B. won't tick off the townsfolk buy buying out their needed items.

For sale, it's the reverse - Never sell items in a town when those items have the cogwheel. It's pruduced there, so you won't get good - or any - profit from selling it. Rather, try to sell only when:
- No cogwheel
- Bars are mostly red

Try not to sell too much, same as above - Sell as much as the price is stable, or to be more simple, don't fill the green bars above half.

A simple example:

Buy wheat from several colonies producing it, taking care not to buy so much at each town that the price rises. General rule: Half green/red bars.
Now look on the map for the wheat icon - those towns are seriously low and desperately need it - so you get the best price. That icon changes frequently, however, so even when it shows, say, corn, they can still desperately need wheat.

In any case, go to these towns and look at the wheat stock.
When it's mostly red, you should sell them a few tons until the red/green ratio is balanced.

This is the basic way I suggest you look into getting to grips with.

After a while, you know the prices by heart, so you can then even ignore those red/green bars and look at the value itself.

For the wheat example, it is mostly sold for 39 gold per ton, as long as the stock is there.
Stop buying (or raising the buy slider) when you see that price change to 40+.
Adjust a bit back so it says 39 again, and buy.

For selling, it's again the reverse.
Staying with my wheat example, very desperate towns offer up to 59+ gold per ton.
So you can well sell them as much as the price drops to your preferred value.
Don't drop it down to the ususal 39 gold, but stop at maybe 45.

Rinse and repeat.

The same goes for all values, so it's just a matter of getting to know the actual, regular prices.

And finally, especially in the beginning, auto-trade routes can greatly help. Just point them in a "circle", from your start town to your start town, select "Prosperity" or "Profut", and activate the rout. You convoy wil automaticaly decide what to buy where and wehre to sell it along that route. Captains with higher "Trade" skill trade better, of course, but ven without that skil, they are fairly successful, especially early on.

Hope that helped!

[Sirius]

A bit more "advanced" trading tip:

Use the "Magnifying Glass" icon next to towns you currently have no ship in.
This shows you what the town produces, among other things.

Now, learn what product needs which raw materials.

Let's try the wheat thing again.
Let's add sugar.

If you see a town that produces bread, you have good chances they are in need of sugar and wheat (Sugar+Wheat=Bread).

So those towns give you the opportunity to maybe sell them lots of those two items.

All items are consumned by the townsfolk, to a greater or lesser degree.
So, they take/buy sugar as well as wheat from the warehouses.

Now, when the town produces bread on top of that, the consumtion of sugar and wheat is of course higher.

Result: Usually good prices for those two items plus they need more regularily.

Same applies to all other products, except pure raw materials. (Which are still consumed, but their production does not consume extra resources)

Some products only need one resourse, others need two.

Another "advanced" tip:
Building materials and "plain" food.

These are neded almost everywhere (except where they are produced, ofc), so it's a good way to start trading these besides what you do anyway. It's a good thing to always grab a few tons of wood and bricks and fruit and wheat whenever you see good prices for them in towns that produce these.

Not a giant income, but it does help more than you'd think.
So, fill your cargo holds with these "essentials" whenever you feel you have too much space to spare.

Lastly, bigger towns obviously need more materials / essentials than small settlements.

[Sirius]

Haha, crossed our plans here ;)
No matter, you added helpful stuff, too.

Gives OP quite something to read, lol.

[Sirius]

Ugh, I could made have this way easier on me...
Look what I just found ;)

http://portroyale3-fansite.de/en/economy/trade/25-einkaufsverkaufspreis.html

It shows the "good" values of buying and selling each cargo at what price.
So, very simply put:
Buy items in a town if they have 1. A cogwheel icon and 2. are at the prices listed in the link.
Sell where there is 1. No cogwheel and 2. the lowest price listed - because sale prices drop fast when you approach the wanted/needed amount, wheras products usually have surplus so you can buy a bit more without the listed price changing at all.

So, in that list, the buy price is what you absolutely want, not more
The sale price is the minimum you should sell it to. Mostly those prices wil be higher, so stop seling when it hits that list price.

Also, apologies for those typos I just realized in my text-walls. Keyboard giving out, sigh.

The green/red bar thing and what I said about advanced products still applies, though.

[✿⊱oLadyGamer⊰✿]

Thanks much for the great tips guys. I'm going to keep referring back to your posts while I play.

[Sirius]

You are very welcome.

I also remembered another feature I have failed to mention:

You can actually see the price you paid for your wares in the trade windows.
This makes it much easier to decide on-the-fly what to sell and how much.

It's the rightmost value, directly next to your amount of wares.

Even when you aquired these wares from your warehouses (in effect, produced them yourself), it will represent the out-of-the-facility value you "paid" for worker loans, upkeep costs and such.

[✿⊱oLadyGamer⊰✿]

You know what frustrates me a little is that they could be short on wheat and then I look and it's corn or something else.

[kevinshow]

As the others said, focus your buying on the towns that make a certain product. That will, in general, be the lowest prices (as long as they are in good supply).

Other than that, you don't really have to remember what prices you bought it for. There is a number on the right-hand side of the goods list which shows your average price. As long as you are selling above that, you should be making a profit. I usually do about 50g or more above but there are times that, if I had a lot in my warehouses or cargo space, I may go as low as 10g above my buying price (or manufacturing price).

Once you understand that number and how/where to buy, you shouldn't need to write stuff down or depend on looking at some list for the good prices. Also, as you trade more and more, you'll get an idea of a few towns where certain items will be in high demand. You can make your route include that town.

But to really make more money quickly, you will need to get a few automatic trade routes. The captains can make decisions on trading much faster than you can, so your money will rise faster.

When that starts happening, you can then focus on some pirates or fighting with the nations, and increase your money gains even more (but you'll have to remember to build up around the towns also for rank increases).

An intermediate or advanced technique would be to use your warehouse steward to buy items as soon as they are manufactured (generally the lowest prices). Other ships can then pick those items up from the warehouse to sell in other towns. At the same time, you can dump some items to the warehouse, and tell the steward to sell when the items at a certain price. In this way, the steward will do additional min/maxing for you to get the best prices that you wanted.

There is a trade route option where the ships can distribute goods along to your other warehouses, too. This would also be a good way to sell your goods in those other towns, using the stewards.

[traykey]

Nice posts here, well done guys.

[Thaifoon]

Added to all the above, remember that larger towns (especially the viceroy towns) will produce and consume more goods. If you open up the chronicle (the hour glass in the top left) you can find some interesting statistics, such as town populations and information on goods produced. So, if you know a certain town is short of, say sugar, you can find which town produces most sugar. As the game and towns develop, products get out of sync so prices change a little and in the chronicle you'll also find graphs of current prices so you can find out the ones in short supply.