Trader tutorial

[Despiser]

I have a sizeable settlement with one open trade route to a prison that seems to have coal and iron. After fiddling around with every possible way I can imagine to establish a trade route, all I have managed to do was throw things overboard. If I buy coal from them I can only sell it back to them. If I try to put other goods I have produced I am greeted with something like commodity cannot be unloaded. Is there a reasonably simple tutorial to explain the basics? I can usually figure these things out by playing around but am totally lost here.

[Berlin]

I was confused as all hell when I started too. I hope this helps:

https://anno1800.fandom.com/wiki/Trade

[Despiser]

Originally posted by Berlin:

I was confused as all hell when I started too. I hope this helps:

https://anno1800.fandom.com/wiki/Trade

I did, but may have missed something. Thanks, I’ll check it out

[Arlen Tektolnes]

If I understand correctly trade routes are more for ferrying things between your own islands whereas trades with NPCs are more of a one off?

[kmmacman]

Actually you can set up auto trade routes to NPC's like selling soap to the prison or beer to pirates. One route I set up with the prison early on is 7 tons of Soap for 50 tons of Iron Ore and still and income profit of $1,388 coins. Once you make a trade deal with the Pirates you can trade them Beer for Gold. You can trade 27 tons of Beer for 10 tons of Gold and still make a profit of $380. You can set auto trade routes for other AI's but they don't always have the items in stock since other AI's also may be trading for it.
Trade for Income or trade for Goods just make sure it's to your advantage.
PS: Selling a boat load of Beer, 300 or 400 tons, to a pirate can really boost your rating with them.

[Despiser]

Originally posted by kmmacman:

Actually you can set up auto trade routes to NPC's like selling soap to the prison or beer to pirates. One route I set up with the prison early on is 7 tons of Soap for 50 tons of Iron Ore and still and income profit of $1,388 coins. Once you make a trade deal with the Pirates you can trade them Beer for Gold. You can trade 27 tons of Beer for 10 tons of Gold and still make a profit of $380. You can set auto trade routes for other AI's but they don't always have the items in stock since other AI's also may be trading for it.
Trade for Income or trade for Goods just make sure it's to your advantage.
PS: Selling a boat load of Beer, 300 or 400 tons, to a pirate can really boost your rating with them.

I read that active trading can boost influence considerably. I did manage to buy some coal from a prison but any attempts at establishing a trade route led to a plethora of warnings I didn't understand. After googling I see that many don't bother with trade routes at all as AI players will take care of it if you have goods in your port they desire.

[kmmacman]

I don't know about boosting influence and personally do not play with any other AI's in the game just found them to be more annoying then helpful. I also don't understand why setting up a trade route with the prison would cause any warnings unless your trying to load or trade for more items then you have item slots on your ship. Make sure your load and unload set up is correct and you don't have it reverses. Like trying to load soap at the prison instead of unloading it.
AI's will buy items you set to sell on your island and will sell you items you have set to buy. NPC players can only sell you items that are visible in their warehouse but will also buy anything your selling.
My experience has been that as the game progresses you become less dependent on trading then in the beginning. When I used to play with AI characters it was easier to just send a ship to their island and hope they have what I want. Most times another AI would beat me to it.
There's some good vids on You Tube about trading you may want to check out.