Guild Trading

Guild Trading, Cultural Economic Zones, and a comprehensive Baseline Price List for all Goods at every Port

Overview

With the release of Sailing Era 1.2.4, and continuing into 1.3.0, the Trade Fleet function of the Guilds has seen an overhaul. Now, you can arrange a regular trade route from a city in which you have established a Guild with one or more Trade Routes to any city connected to it by a nautical route, with some restrictions.

These trades can run several times, or indefinitely. And the goods can be sold immediately or kept in storage at the Dock to be handled at your discretion.

But how do you set up routes you know will be profitable? For that, we’ll have to get into the nature of the markets in Sailing Era.

Price of Goods

The selling price of a Good at a particular Port is determined by three factors:

• The Baseline Price of the Good for that Culture
• The Price Index for that Good at that Port that Month
• Whether that Good is for sale at that Port

The Baseline Price for non-specialty goods is the same at every Port. You can tell these goods at a glance from their perfectly square borders (like any of the Food items). Silver, for example, has a baseline price of 2000 everywhere in the world.

Specialty items may have a different Baseline Price at different Ports, depending on the Culture. You can tell specialty items from their stylized borders (like all the Hobby Goods). Tobacco has a Baseline Price of 1400 in the Caribbean, but that jumps to 5600 in Iberia or Italy.

Price Index can be viewed via Market Survey at the Store for the Port where you are docked, or from the Map you can view the Market Survey for any Port in which you have a Guild (this is one major advantage of having a Guild).

Finally, a Good being available for sale at a Port will result in a 10% lower price than it would normally have for that Cultural zone (anywhere Silver is sold, it sells for 1800 at Price Index 100%)*.
Please keep in mind, there is an additional 80% penalty to the sale price if you ever try to sell a Good to a Port it can normally be bought at. There is almost never a good reason to do this.

A current spreadsheet of the baseline prices by Cultural Economic Zone can be found at:
Sailing Era Baseline Price[docs.google.com]


*Reykjavik is an exception to this. All goods are at full price for Northern Europe, except for Quartz, Fluorite, and Lava Beads (Agate) which are priced at Ocean Trade value

Cultural Economic Zones

As of Sailing Era 1.3.0 there are 24 Cultural Economic Zones:

Britain		Iberia		Central South Peninsula		Caribbean
- London		- Porto		- Bago		- San Juan
- Plymouth		- Malaga		- Lopburi		- Santo Domingo
- Edinburgh		- Valencia		- Gia Dinh		- San Diego
- Dublin		- Palma				- Nassau
- Bristol		- Seville		Southeast Asia		- Veracruz
		- Barcelona		- Aceh		- Mérida
Netherlands		- Las Palmas		- Jambi		- Trujillo
- Amsterdam		- Lisbon		- Palembang		- Portobello
- Groningen		- Madeira		- Malacca		- Grand Cayman
- Antwerp		- Azores		- Pattani		- Willemstad
				- Kuching		- Caracas
Northern Europe		France		- Brunei		- Cayenne
- Stockholm		- Calais		- Banjarmasin		- Maracaibo
- Oslo		- Nantes		- Makassar		- Jamaica
- Bergen		- Bordeaux		- Ambon		- Havana
- Lubeck		- Marseilles		- Dili
- Copenhagen				- Ternate		South America West Coast
- Visby		Italy		- Davao		- Lima
- Danzig		- Genoa		- Samarai		- Lambayeque
- Riga		- Cagliari		- Manila		- Tumbes
- Reykjavik		- Pisa		- Surabaya		- Panama
		- Naples		- Jakarta		- Guatemala
Germany		- Venice				- Acapulco
- Hamburg		- Ragusa		Persia
- Bremen		- Trieste		- Muscat		Central and South America
		- Syracuse		- Hormuz		- Pernambuco
West Africa		- Sicily		- Basrah		- Bahia
- Cape Verde						- Buenos Aires
- Sierra Leone		Balkan		Arab		- San Antonio
- Arguin		- Athens		- Aden		- Valparaiso
- St. George		- Thessalonica		- Socotra		- Copiapó
- Abidjan		- Famagusta		- Jeddah
- São Tomé		- Crete		- Suez		Ming Empire
- Benin				- Massawa		- Haizhou
- Luanda		North Africa				- Hangzhou
- Benguela		- Casablanca		India		- Macao
- Cape Town		- Algiers		- Diu		- Tamsui
		- Tunisia		- Goa		- Anping
East Africa		- Tripoli		- Calicut		- Zhangzhou
- Sofala Province		- Ceuta		- Kochi
- Natal		- Alexandria		- Ceylon		Japan
- Mozambique		- Cairo		- Puducherry		- Sakai
- Toamasina		- Benghazi		- Madras		- Nagasaki
- Kilwa				- Machilipatnam		- Edo
- Zanzibar		Turkey		- Kolkata
- Mogadishu		- Istanbul				Korean
- Mombasa		- Beirut		East Asia		- Busan
		- Jaffa		- Naha		- Hanyang
		- Sevastopol				- Pohang

*Marseilles is in the French Cultural zone but prices Soap, Chamomile, Brandy, and Velvet as if it were in Italy (Linen is a non-specialty item).
**Reykjavik must be unlocked as a port with the Edge of the World DLC

Trading Distance

The time it takes for a Trade Fleet to complete is determined by which zone it is travelling from and to:


Prior to developing the Charting Office, you will only be able to open a Trade Route to a port 1 Month away.

Strategy

Buy low, sell high. Ideal strategy is to find a Port in a nearby Cultural zone that has a significantly higher Baseline price for an item sold at the Port in which your Trade Route begins.

Ideally, this Port will also sell a Good for a much lower Baseline Price than your Guild Port has. This is not always possible, however.

Take Naha, for example, a location that produces no Specialty Goods. Everything it sells has the same Baseline Price everywhere else, so you are relying only on the 10% discount from Naha and the whim of the Price Index.

However, you can still make your profit on the return trip in this case. Trading with Bago for Jadeite is a near-guaranteed profit (300% value) so if we minimize our loss risk from Naha by trading our cheapest item (Fish Meat) we end up with our most lucrative trade over time.

Close study of the chart will result in a reliable passive income from just a few cities anywhere in the world.

Recommendations

While each port will have its own advantages for trade, and once you acquire a Charting Office the whole world opens up, here are some of the best trades immediately available to a port within one month, by economic zone:

- Ming, East Asia, Korea, & Japan: Jadeite from Bago (CSP)
My own, personal, #1 money-maker. 300% mark-up in Ming and Naha. Only 250% in Japan and Korea, so I often elect to go with Agarwood from SEA instead to take advantage of selling Ginseng & Lacquerware there. Speaking of which...

- Southeast Asia & Central South Peninsula: Lacquerware from Japan
At 200% markup the return and margin beats out Katana and Tea Leaves. 17 ports in this zone with decent margins means six-figure monthly income is just a little re-investment away.

- India: Coffee from East Africa
The Indian Ocean is the second-roughest place to set up trades without a Charting Office. My true recommendation is to stick with high-percentage/low investment spice trades (pepper, cinnamon). However, the 200% markup on East African Coffee is nice and reliable.

- Persia and Arabia: Nutmeg from Southeast Asia
Previous shortsightedness had me focused on West African gold. The huge percentages on Nutmeg make it entirely reliable and the specialties from the area trade well in Southeast Asia.

- East Africa: Nutmeg from Southeast Asia
The margins for Nutmeg with its 300% markup actually beat out Spanish Firearms per shipment, with a much lower investment price. Advantage of doing the research.

- West Africa: Glass Artware from Italy
Glass for Diamonds was my #2 market and my main West Hemisphere cash machine.

- North Africa, Turkey, France, Italy, Balkans: Diamonds from West Africa
Beating out Gold with a 200-250% markup across the Mediterranean. Pay close attention to what you trade in here by the way. Egyptian Emeralds and Venetian Pepper are at maximum markup.

- Iberia: Sapphires from Taomasina (East Africa)
The fact that Spanish trade ships can reach East Africa results in the #3 highest margin available for a 1-month trade due to the 208% markup on Sapphires. Even after getting the Charting Office, it's questionable if the 250% markup on Indian Rubies is worth the potential extra month of travel.

- Britain & Germany: Desert Rose from North Africa
200% markup and decent margins, but disappointing given all the Diamond trading in the Mediterranean. Every ducat counts though.

- Netherlands: Royal Purple from Tunisia (North Africa)
180% markup, but a larger margin than Desert Rose make this a more lucrative option for a little more risk. Wish there was something more attractive to trade for it than Glass Balls...

- Northern Europe: Firearms from Iberia
150% markup and a 1400 baseline margin make this the third-worst trade recommendation, but you're remote so your options are limited. Get that Charting Office and find somewhere to trade that Amber to.

- Carribean: Rhodochrosite from the South American West Coast
The New World is really limited in trade without the Charting Office. Most commodities trade for the same or less across the three zones. Rhodochrosite trades in the Caribbean at 160% though, so that works.

- Central & South America: Diamonds from West Africa
Being the only part of the New World that can trade off-continent without development is a major advantage, especially when you can reach West African Diamonds. 200% markup.

- South American West Coast: Tobacco from the Caribbean
Hands-down the worst recommendation on this list: 150% markup, 700 margin. The only thing worse is every other option you have before you get a Charting Office. Lets you trade that Rhodochrosite though.

Don't feel restricted by these findings, explore your own markets!
Each trade goes two ways.

Afterword

Special thanks to GordianZ, without the Sailing Era Wiki[sailingera.wiki] as a resource identifying the Cultural zones and finding precise Baseline Price values would have been impossible.

[Jathby Dredas]

Absolute Excellence!
And yeah, while I was able to use some spreadsheets to aggregate the data, the end calculations and entry were done manually.

[Grays]

All working!

https://github.com/grays42/se-route-calc

Also I have updated my guild investment calculator to also have Fiona's perk, which I've been meaning to post somewhere but haven't bothered, you can include in your guide if you find it helpful:

https://grays42.github.io/se-guild-calc/

[Grays]

Got it working! I'll clean this up and get it on github. Used it to optimize my dozen guilds and went from ~200k per month to about a million per month. ^^

[Grays]

(I'm working on a python script to take your methodology and data and generate some optimization)

[Grays]

Geez, did you populate the regional item prices by hand?

[ZarethKnyght]

Thanks. Couldn't figure out what it was doing as it looked like I was still buying I checked or had unchecked.

[Jathby Dredas]

It’s to trade it when checked.

[ZarethKnyght]

I'm confused on what the first row of check boxes do when doing the fleet trading. Is that to trade that good or is that to exclude it?

[Jathby Dredas]

Yep. For simplicity's sake, I left out anything without a market.
Which is why Naha is all alone in its area.

[CluelessWonder8]

For what it's worth, there's actually 27 cultural zones in v1.3.0. The remaining 3 are filled only with supply ports, though.

As such, I get pretty annoyed to see a given port is currently paying high prices for Oceania goods (or Eastern North America or Western North America).