How do you all manage trade between your islands?

[beefy]

New player loving the game, I think it looks fantastic and runs very smooth on my computer, there is one thing that just drives me baty... trade routes

I have found myself trying to keep goods flowing between multiple islands and had the hours just slip away having gotten nothing accomplished. I find the schooner to be the most reliable trade ship, and goods are best moved as a mono resource and forget cascading resource dropping in fact it is better to have goods flow one way and nothing on the return trip, why because the ship logic is terrible.

Moving coal to an island and sending iron bars back the other way no problem just make sure the storage you are sending coal to doesn't fill up or the iron will never get picked up, carefully time it so multiple islands are transporting coal to the island well you can forget that because an npc blocked the dock and now your trade ships are no longer on schedule and something is about to run out or overfill shutting down production.

It just seem like an endless cycle fixing the log jam on a problem that grows with every second it isn't being monitored like a toddler near a hot stove. I am willing to concede this is newbie skill level problems but am I the only one that finds the trade route system borked? How do you manage your trade routes?

[way2co0l_2003]

Trade took me a little bit to figure out too. Here are some tips.

You can indeed ship stuff 2 ways, but I'd encourage you not to use the same spaces for different goods. As long as each space is used for 1 good every leg of the journey, the cargo will never spill over into other slots. So with the coal and iron trade you mentioned, if you're using a schooner, then the first slot could carry coal, and the second could carry the iron back. If you try to have both slots pick up coal on the first leg and then iron on the second, it'll work for a little while but sooner or later it will clog up your routes. Always split 1 good per slot and never mix.

I like to use regional hubs. I have a route that uses cargo ships for example that transports wood, brick, steel, windows, concrete, and aluminum between my old world capital, crown falls, and manola. I have it set to pick up goods only from the islands that actually produce it, so if crown falls doesn't produce any steel, I have it drop off only and not pick up from there. (If I have a direct feeder route setup, such as from another island in the cape that produces steel and ships it directly to crown falls, I count that as producing it) So I always pick up aluminum from Manola, but never steel as it can't get produced there. It only drops steel off, and aluminum only gets dropped off at the other 2 hubs.

From those hubs, I set up local routes. Again using construction goods, I have ships pick them up from those local hubs and transfer them in a cycle from one island to the next in that region. For these routes, I have them setup as balancer routes. Meaning I set a minimum required amount for each of the goods handled for these routes, then I have them drop off and then pick up from each of these islands. So they pick up from the hub and then basically start to distribute them to every other island which ensures that whenever I want to build something that requires steel, I don't have to find a ship to do it and then wait for it to arrive. I know steel has already been delivered, or another batch will be delivered again soon. If the island already has enough, it just picks it back up and moves on to the next island that might need it.

This system I use depends heavily on feeder routes. Basically what you described with 1 resource, 1 way routes that move the resources from the island that produces it to the hub for that region so that I can ship it to another hub which will disseminate it along to the other islands there.

For goods that aren't required in large numbers, I'll have it shipped by a schooner or clipper where I give it 1 or 2 slots and other goods occupying the others. If the demand for the good becomes too much for just a single slot or 2, I'll create a dedicated route for it and add more and more ships to it until it can maintain constant supply. Of course you need to make sure that the harbors at both ends are upgraded before just adding more and more ships to it as I've found that to be the bigger limiter for me more often than not. Fewer ships can often handle the task, as long as they're able to grab a full load every time they visit which means you need local storage to be high enough for that to be the case. If you only have 150 max storage on your island, with 4 clippers on a route moving goods from there, and yet failing to transfer enough goods to where they're supposed to be, adding another clipper will be a very poor option cost efficiency wise. Upgrading the harbor will go a much bigger way to addressing the issue.

Edit: In reference to your logjam. More piers is the simplest solution. There are items that help a great deal as well. If you have the docklands DLC then the loading module will help significantly. But another thing to remember is that loading time is based on total number of goods loaded/unloaded. If your ship is only dropping off a few goods, it'll be finished quicker than a cargo ship dropping off a full load. But be careful with those balancer routes I mentioned earlier. You're essentially dropping off the full list of goods, and then picking up all of those goods that are over the minimum required by the harbor settings at whatever you set them for, so if the island is already topped up then essentially it's offloading and then reloading everything which leads to a significant increase in time spent occupying the slot.

[narf03]

1) Have more piers, dont put them all together, spread them surrounding your island, ships will try to use the 1 nearest to them.

2) Dont produce everything from other islands, allocate small area for local production even the main island, as long as they dont generate negative effect. Like wood / timber / work clothe.

3) Setup passive trade with third party trader, you dont need to produce everything by yourself, as long as you are generating good income, buy instead of produce yourself, setup trade with your trading posts. You have to know even you dont buy/sell, those traders will still come and use your harbour.

4) Use items that give + loading speed in ship / harbour
ie https://i.postimg.cc/P5B0Yryz/anno1800-01.png
this item is in grand gallery, defeat scenario with achievement get you scores, then purchase them, and finally use the button in trading post to bring them into your game

5) use shift, hidden feature to limit not to ship everything, normally when you setup trade, you click an island, will tell the ship to take 50 unit, but if you use shift, it become take as long as the island still have 50 unit.

6) use 1 bigger ship to replace multiple smaller ships. good items are rare, you cant equip every schooner with epic/legendary items, if you have lesser but bigger ships, its easier to make the decision which 1 will get the bonus.

7) use Ctrl-Q, to know your supply/demand per minute, ie in your main island, CTRL-Q, you need 15 unit of certain goods, then goto your production island, Ctrl-Q again, you need to produce at least 15, maybe over produce to up to 20, not 100.

[beefy]

Originally posted by narf03:

1) Have more piers, dont put them all together, spread them surrounding your island, ships will try to use the 1 nearest to them.



5) use shift, hidden feature to limit not to ship everything, normally when you setup trade, you click an island, will tell the ship to take 50 unit, but if you use shift, it become take as long as the island still have 50 unit.

1) I have been using Piers my main 2 islands have the dock and 4-5 piers and docklands with their numerous piers as well though I could stand to do some remodeling to take better advantage of the dockland piers I hadn't considered moving piers to other beaches but it makes sense.

5) Hidden feature Shift+(click?) as in skip if storage doesn't have 50? Or does this simply grab what is there without waiting?

[beefy]

Originally posted by way2co0l_2003:

Trade took me a little bit to figure out too. Here are some tips.

You can indeed ship stuff 2 ways, but I'd encourage you not to use the same spaces for different goods. As long as each space is used for 1 good every leg of the journey, the cargo will never spill over into other slots. So with the coal and iron trade you mentioned, if you're using a schooner, then the first slot could carry coal, and the second could carry the iron back. If you try to have both slots pick up coal on the first leg and then iron on the second, it'll work for a little while but sooner or later it will clog up your routes. Always split 1 good per slot and never mix.

I like to use regional hubs. I have a route that uses cargo ships for example that transports wood, brick, steel, windows, concrete, and aluminum between my old world capital, crown falls, and manola. I have it set to pick up goods only from the islands that actually produce it, so if crown falls doesn't produce any steel, I have it drop off only and not pick up from there. (If I have a direct feeder route setup, such as from another island in the cape that produces steel and ships it directly to crown falls, I count that as producing it) So I always pick up aluminum from Manola, but never steel as it can't get produced there. It only drops steel off, and aluminum only gets dropped off at the other 2 hubs.

From those hubs, I set up local routes. Again using construction goods, I have ships pick them up from those local hubs and transfer them in a cycle from one island to the next in that region. For these routes, I have them setup as balancer routes. Meaning I set a minimum required amount for each of the goods handled for these routes, then I have them drop off and then pick up from each of these islands. So they pick up from the hub and then basically start to distribute them to every other island which ensures that whenever I want to build something that requires steel, I don't have to find a ship to do it and then wait for it to arrive. I know steel has already been delivered, or another batch will be delivered again soon. If the island already has enough, it just picks it back up and moves on to the next island that might need it.

This system I use depends heavily on feeder routes. Basically what you described with 1 resource, 1 way routes that move the resources from the island that produces it to the hub for that region so that I can ship it to another hub which will disseminate it along to the other islands there.

For goods that aren't required in large numbers, I'll have it shipped by a schooner or clipper where I give it 1 or 2 slots and other goods occupying the others. If the demand for the good becomes too much for just a single slot or 2, I'll create a dedicated route for it and add more and more ships to it until it can maintain constant supply. Of course you need to make sure that the harbors at both ends are upgraded before just adding more and more ships to it as I've found that to be the bigger limiter for me more often than not. Fewer ships can often handle the task, as long as they're able to grab a full load every time they visit which means you need local storage to be high enough for that to be the case. If you only have 150 max storage on your island, with 4 clippers on a route moving goods from there, and yet failing to transfer enough goods to where they're supposed to be, adding another clipper will be a very poor option cost efficiency wise. Upgrading the harbor will go a much bigger way to addressing the issue.

Edit: In reference to your logjam. More piers is the simplest solution. There are items that help a great deal as well. If you have the docklands DLC then the loading module will help significantly. But another thing to remember is that loading time is based on total number of goods loaded/unloaded. If your ship is only dropping off a few goods, it'll be finished quicker than a cargo ship dropping off a full load. But be careful with those balancer routes I mentioned earlier. You're essentially dropping off the full list of goods, and then picking up all of those goods that are over the minimum required by the harbor settings at whatever you set them for, so if the island is already topped up then essentially it's offloading and then reloading everything which leads to a significant increase in time spent occupying the slot.

Some good tips here, I like the daisy chain idea, combined with the poster below you mentioning the auto skip if below 50 feature. I do use piers and docklands but I am not using the docklands as efficiently as I could. It is likely time for a shoreline clean up and remodel.

I also likely need to re-balance my trade routes especially taking both of you guys suggestions on efficiency upgrades.

As for your suggestion about local needs production I also started making better use of the commuter pier and air station If I have no local population I dont have to think about making sure they have all the vodka and sausage they can eat/drink. So far I have only setup this up on one island in the new world but a few cargo ships of raw goods feeding intense industry and sending finished products back to a hub has been a great streamline to my process, and you can exploit the crap out of the working condition when an island has no population, also works very well using the trade union to bring an industry to needing zero workers on larger islands once the population affected reaches at or near zero jacking production up an extra 50% is basically a free action.

I have found over producing the steam carriages means money isn't really a thing to monitor.

[Badger]

I use single shooner per island to bring goods to my main island, then a larger distribution ship (like a clipper) that loads 50 of each good and sails in a circle dropping ~5-20 off per island. if someone needs a specific good in larger amounts it gets a schooner

I have a mod for way extra influence though therefore i dont need to use charters

[Zannah]

following to come back later

[BLÀde]

lots of air ships with 8 cargo slots

[Primigenia]

I just create tons of ships with tons of trade routes, never used the charter option. I build the biggest possible ships and usually move 1 good per ship from the other maps and 2 goods per ship in the same archipelago. for a decent sized main city (10k+ investors) you're going to need at least 400 coffee and 400 rum alone, that's basically 2 full 4 slot ships with just rum and coffee to travel

[BLÀde]

i don't know why that charter route is even there if an island has run out of goods or materials ill load them onto a ship and send it there and unload it manually. that's how I've always done it in every anno game.