Do people think Guild trade fleets worth the cost??

[cleavertrash]

think trade fleets from the guild worth it? to go get goods or no

[ZarethKnyght]

Nope. Not worth it. I haven't bothered to use it other than to stock up on rubies at the place I'll build ships at. And that's because rubies make good supportive addons to the ship I build.

[Dusan al Gaib]

Worth it in the beginning but kind of loses value later on. Make sure to send them to a high value town in a different cultural sphere though - i did trips from Lisbon to Cairo and would triple the investment pretty much every time (focusing on emeralds that sell for 10k+ ea)... Later on though when you get large ships and a good accountant, you can make like 500k profit per trade run so that 20k or 30k from trade fleets isn't something you care to fiddle with. If you're gonna use em, use the arrow keys to queue up 3 months of trade instead of going month-to-month to enhance them gains while you're out and about

[Valkynaz]

Worth it, spending 2.5-5k for potentially 15-25k worth of stuff if you sell to the right port, just make sure you trade between guild ports since the price is lower, considering if you're playing Yoshi, there is a chance of getting 3-5 Katana's trading between Nagasaki and Sakai, and considering that on a boom said Kanata will sell for around 5k? It's literally a form of investment, just have to pick the right targets, and sell the goods at the right time, can also be used to pick up ship enhancing materials without having to go half way around the world to grab them.

[MustBeDone (J.B.)]

i thought it was in the beginning b/c it brings in more value, like spend 10,000 and sell the items for 20,000-30,000... but then over time, you make SO much more over just a single trade from port to port that money didn't matter anymore.

you can use it to bring in items you need to build guild? is the only reason i use it.

[Danjio]

I make close to 2 million (profit that is after subtracting trae fleet cost) per prosperous city cycle with just a single city its just about knowing what makes good money and doesnt cost a lot to ship

[Frutz]

Like most have said it's good for the early game. Couple of things to note, pay attention to the cost per trip. This will change, sometimes they'll be cheaper than other times, sometimes they'll be higher. Like with Lisbon and Seville, I'll alternate between sierra leone and cairo focusing on Diamonds and emeralds respectively. You might bring back 1-3 per trade fleet trip and when selling on a boom that'll get 10k+ per. So I guess think of it as a supplemental income if you're going to be around those ports micromanaging them.

[stretch]

This needed to be automated and run in the background making you some constant cash. Some sort of real reward for pumping millions into guilds. Even if automation unlocked at max guild level where there is currently no rewards it could eventually pay some dividends.

As it stands it's no more than a novelty. Later in the game you can trade for 500k profit in minutes, so if you wanted to weigh the lost profit from doing that for a while against the time it takes you to sail to your guild town and set them going for 3 trips, then eventually coming back and selling the traded items.... Total waste of time.

[Fabulous Nathan]

no dont use it unless i need to get a few goods for shipbuilding and couldnt be bothered sailing there

[Antiga]

I've used it a lot to optimize trading. First of, these items are considered FREE. That means pure profit. That means contribution. To come back to a city and find 30 high value goods in the warehouse is a massive boon when buying out their store and still having 20-50 cargo spaces left, when heading to the prosperous port giving 2x value for it all just 2 days of sailing away.
It definitely loses value overtime due to the added effort and being required to be in each location to set up the routes, but it's essentially still free money.
I tend to get a lot of katanas and silk, depending on monsoon season. Each of these sells for 5k or more, as long as I don't sell it to the first random port I can think of.

Later on you can use this to pickup rare resources from across the world to help you with waitress quests, shipbuilding materials and more. But I do expect eventually to not use trade fleets at all anymore, though I imagine I'll have made many, many millions off of them by then.

[Midas]

Its worth it if you pick two cities in differen culture spehres, which both own a guild of yours, so you import high valuable goods,, get bonus on them, and much money.

I trade Zhangdong - Nagasaki, pay 2500 per trip, and get around 20k in return of investment if i sell directly, or i horde the goods and go for a prosperous port
also i send fleets to a gold port in jakkarta and get much money because the gold alone is worth double the ammount of the trade fee

[Fonz]

Originally posted by Antiga:

I've used it a lot to optimize trading. First of, these items are considered FREE. That means pure profit. That means contribution. To come back to a city and find 30 high value goods in the warehouse is a massive boon when buying out their store and still having 20-50 cargo spaces left, when heading to the prosperous port giving 2x value for it all just 2 days of sailing away.
It definitely loses value overtime due to the added effort and being required to be in each location to set up the routes, but it's essentially still free money.
I tend to get a lot of katanas and silk, depending on monsoon season. Each of these sells for 5k or more, as long as I don't sell it to the first random port I can think of.

Later on you can use this to pickup rare resources from across the world to help you with waitress quests, shipbuilding materials and more. But I do expect eventually to not use trade fleets at all anymore, though I imagine I'll have made many, many millions off of them by then.

This works well in Europe too. With bases in Lisbon and Porto, I can send fleets to buy glassware, velvet, oil paintings etc. in Venice without having to waste 2 weeks of sailing to go there. West African ports will pay a lot for these goods, and since I need to go down there anyway to haul firearms/gold, I can fill any extra space on the ships with artwork instead of cheese.

[Zak]

I started as the Japanese character and its pretty much been useful from when I figured it out. Now that I have more guilds down its became almost more profitable than my ship I think.

Theirs a arrow to queue up to 3 trips to the same place. Meaning 1 trade fleet can bring 15 goods in 3 months. Theirs also monsoons making it half price to go places. I sometimes make use of this to go even further than normal.

I don't use it to get goods to put onto my ship but to just cash out on the port itself. This can be hundreds of effective cargo hold onto my fleet when making my rounds.

For china/japan the guild trade price skyrockets once you leave the immediate area. But you can just cheaply import Nagasaki goods. And Nagasaki can import Hangzhou's goods. Those are all pretty valuable in their ports. Not the real cash cow though.

My real cash cow is Sofala province. Only produces rhino horn, gold, and emeralds. These are very valuable. All my guilds in India and east indies go their. Even for 20000 per trip I still often make thousands back.

For Africa Ceylon is a big money maker for me. The worse good is black pepper which is still pretty valuable outside of India.

Now that I levelled it up to premium goods its worth it to import all the way to Europe from sofala province.

[Valkynaz]

Sofala province is the ♥♥♥♥, it's insane

[Antiga]

While "hoarding" goods in china/japan, at some point a Japan or Ming culture prominence will show up close by. That's millions per month as long as it's up, a lot from semi-free trade fleet goods. Having trade fleets pickup premium goods is especially nice.

[Antiga]

https://imgur.com/a/hnJLLJn