Gold decline

[sgtoxman]

I don't know what I am doing wrong, but no matter what I try, I'm always in the negative in gold. What is the key to keeping gold generation? I've increased population, people are happy, I have multiple trade routes going...I noticed building costs is what is killing me, but to grow, I have to make more buildings etc. Any suggestions?

[AbuRetan]

I guess you over produce what you need, it's a simple problem just use the supplies calculater:
http://www.anno1404-rechner.de/?lang=en

And take your time when you are building, don't place 10 buildings at the same time or you'll lose control in no time.

[AbuRetan]

Peasant

Fish/30 houses(P25,C33,P36,N31) (Peasant, Citizen, Patrician, Noblemen)
Cider/29 houses(P42.5,C22.5,P26,N28.5)
-------------------------
Citizen

Linen/35 houses(C31.5,P42,N62.5)
Spices/33 houses(C33,P36,N31)
-------------------------
Patrician

Bread/25 houses(P29,N25.5)
Bear/26 houses(P25,N26.5)
Jerkins/60 houses(P57,N62.5)
Books/75 houses(P75,N83.5)
Candle/85 houses(P100,N83.5)
-------------------------
Noblemen

Meat/28 houses
Fur Coats/39 houses
Wine/25 houses
Glasses/42 houses
Candle/85 houses
Brocade/52.5 houses
-------------------------

Those numbers are 98% accurate so you need to keep an eye on your warehouse, and use the warehouse to sell the extra goods.

[AbuRetan]

You need 1 Fishman's hut for every 30 houses and so on. Make sure that your production is on 100% efficiency if you want a stable economy.
Patricians need Candles after you reach 3000 Noblemen.

[sgtoxman]

Well I did over produce so I can run trade routes...but didn't know it cost me money for overstocking.

[AbuRetan]

http://anno1404.wikia.com/wiki/Trade

It's better to use passive trading, it gives you 2.5 times the money when you use routes to sell.

[Romeo Deluxe]

Passive trading is the key. Playing a hard scenario and the stat shows I'm at negative 2400 gold but my treasury is growing. However, I've eliminated all my enemys and no more fricken arsons, rebellions and plagues until I finish the other objectives. Here is why that stat tracker is misleading....

The stat tracker checks balance betweent your costs and the tax income on a continuous bases. It does not take into account trade history, whether active or passive. Thus the numbers will always be off.

Make sure you understand how the wherehouse sliders work. Read the wiki.

If you get into such large negative terrirtory like I did on that particular scenario, keep a small trade cog at your main port. When it starts to look bad and your trade partner NPC's are taking their sweet time, emergency sell some high value items. Negative 10k and you lose the game.

Learn which items bring in good value and overproduce them to sell passively. Periodically update your sell orders as your storage space grows and your population grows. It's the end product that sells best of course.

If production is backed up and maxed on your mainland and you run out of sell slots, sell from one of your production islands. Items are sure to be backed up there.

Early in the game it will be tools, cloths and rope that saves your bacon. In this crazy scenario I took a small coffee producing island and all I did was sell passively from there. Didn't export it to my oriental city. It let me concentrate on the 3 wars.

[Romeo Deluxe]

Oh yes, and the attainments. I didn't understand them for awhile but the ones that say "increases venetian trade fleet" means that trade partner has more ships to visit your islands. Thus you will need to do that emergency run I mentioned above less often or not at all.

[sweetbabyra]

Simple answer: keep building houses until you have the population to support your production. I don't know the exact ratios, but by the time I get 1000 nobles I usually have about 5000-6500 people total, depending on the map.