Staying solvent, making money

[pemmons1]

Does anyone know of a chart/detailed analysis/discussion on the subject of the optimal products to sell actively?

One of them is soap to Eli Bleakworth, who is always interested in buying it and pays premium prices. I have put quite a few soapmaking facilities on the island nearest his prison and dedicated a ship to selling it to him. A schooner with 100 tons of soap can be unloaded for $38,400. Whatever the newspaper may say about my company heading for bankruptcy, I have no serious financial worries, thanks to that stream of income.

What other ideas do people have for products that make a good return on the investment in raw materials, space, labor, and transport? Thanks to influence bonuses, I now have two hundred each of phantom farmers, workers, artisans, and engineers on every island, as well as a few islands still uninhabited. It's a shame to let them go to waste, but I'm open to suggestions on the best use to make of them.

[Anderson]

For lategame you need look no further than Emperor Kash-money, over in the Land of the Lions. Once the quest is progressed enough, he pays utterly absurd amounts of money for Pocket Watches, Steam Carriages, and Gramophones.

Otherwise, Isabel pays a decent price for Weapons. The Pirates pay 1k a piece for beer.
Old Nate pays over 4k for Gold bars. Madame Kahina pays nearly 1k for Fur Coats, though i'm not sure if it's worth selling those.
Even just making and selling ships (either Gunboats or Ships of the Line) can be profitable.

[Quillithe]

Potatoes are a good easy option that only requires space, you get 24/min per farm gathering them up to sell to Eli.

Soap nets 279 profit/ton taking into account the production line and can be put on every island and uses farmers and workers so it's hard to beat.

Coal is 22/ton but takes a ton of space for charcoal kilns (though this is all without items, if you're getting bonuses it's different)

Fur coats are ~680/ton but take a lot more space and effort than soap (and cotton, normally)

Fried plantains in the new world can get you over 100/ton so they can be an early supplement there.

Gold to old nate can give you over 3000 profit a ton, but is limited. But pirates will sell it if you make them friendly and it's still profitable.

On low income settings selling beer to pirates makes more money than letting your people drink it.

Selling anything to Ketema makes you absurdly rich.

Fun thing I didn't realize until looking at the wiki just now, those late game products like gramophones and steam carriages are actually profitable to run the assembly line just to sell for default prices. It costs 11410/min to make 4 gramaphones/min and you can sell them for 44008 total so you can get ~8k profit from each gramaphone factory you support.

And of course selling them to ketemba means each gramaphone factory is 40k profit which is absurd.

[pemmons1]

Thank you both! Where did you find the cost figures? I was afraid that I'd need to calculate them myself and am not sure I know how to do it correctly.

[Quillithe]

Originally posted by pemmons1:

Thank you both! Where did you find the cost figures? I was afraid that I'd need to calculate them myself and am not sure I know how to do it correctly.

The Anno wiki has the upkeep cost of a chain making 1 ton/minute over in the box on the right. I think they're correct?

So that should give the cost to produce a ton, and you can subtract the sales prices over in that same box.

I was kinda curious myself how profitable this stuff was - I knew selling soap was good money but it's actually more profitable to do that than let workers use it, for example. Especially on higher difficulties since sale prices don't scale like income.

Also kinda funny how good early income potato farms are since you can buy two lumber, make a potato farm, and it pays for itself in 30 seconds when it makes the first potato to sell. Still not really worth it since getting to soap is so fast and profitable, but funny.

[Artillery Horse]

I needed this info you guys rock! Thx.

[Rexton]

sell soap in old world
sell pocket watches in africa buy them for cheap in old world
sell canons in new world u can buy them cheap and sell them too the pirate on that map

if u sett up this 3 trade routes u will never have money issue agian

[Nenne.]

Im selling fur coats to kahina...
Making miljons of that one.

[pemmons1]

Originally posted by Nenne.:

Im selling fur coats to kahina...
Making miljons of that one.

Thanks for that idea. I've found the production of fur coats to be rather difficult to maintain steadily-- probably just my fault. It requires a lot of space for fur trappers, which probably cannot all be located on the same island as the fur traders. It is also easy to underestimate the amount of cotton fabric that must be imported from the New World, and the number of ships doing the transfer, to maintain a reliable flow. But if and when it works, it can be lucrative.

[pemmons1]

As a newbie, I am still learning the importance of staying out of the red according to the "balance" figure at the top of the screen. This figure apparently reflects only income from taxes and tourists, not trading. If there is a chronic deficit, the newspaper will speculate about impending bankruptcy, even if you're rolling in money. We don't need this bad news on top of all the other bad news it publishes.

There is nothing like increasing and upgrading the population, while keeping all their needs fully met, to stanch the red ink. The ideal population is what your production can support rather than what you can find jobs for. Don't worry about unemployment!. Check the statistics on production of consumer goods often to avoid unpleasant surprises about shortages of this or that product. If everything is o.k. there, it is safe to build or upgrade more housing.

Another thing very helpful to this end is public moorings. The maintenance cost is high (although lower on New World than Old World islands), but an island doesn't need to be particularly attractive for the dock to be worthwhile. I have, for instance, a "fair port town" in the old world (attractiveness just 248) whose public mooring is yielding $492 per minute above the maintenance cost. Over time it has provided quite a remarkable number of valuable items as well.

[Nenne.]

Originally posted by pemmons1:

Originally posted by Nenne.:

Im selling fur coats to kahina...
Making miljons of that one.

Thanks for that idea. I've found the production of fur coats to be rather difficult to maintain steadily-- probably just my fault. It requires a lot of space for fur trappers, which probably cannot all be located on the same island as the fur traders. It is also easy to underestimate the amount of cotton fabric that must be imported from the New World, and the number of ships doing the transfer, to maintain a reliable flow. But if and when it works, it can be lucrative.

1 fabric for 2 cotton field have i found out works fine.
I buid as much as i can and just ship it up to old world. make fur coats of it and sell all to kahina.

200k every ship i send. its pure gold making.