foriegn Trade help please?

[fester]

Ive built a couple of ships and saled them to the foriegn tradeing ports indicated with the grey icons on the map. When I get there the icon turns yellow but I dont see any financial benefit. The only trade displayed on the financial scroll is with other Japanese clans. What am I doing wrong?

[Nelson]

When your ships are on a trade node, a line will appear on the map indicating the trade route itself. If you mouse over it you will see how much you are earning.

[Nowake]

Hey fester

To complete Nelson's answer a bit, the trade displayed in your Trade panel will still be comprised only by the trade you're engaging other clans in, though icons for the goods you're exporting to them should appear beside the trading info for each clan.

However, should I take a guess, if you actually see no immediate financial gain at all, my bet would be the ships with which you occupied the Foreign trading posts are not actually Trade Ships?

[A Nerd]

Any secret to trading with other factions? I mean via the diplomacy screen (hee hee off topic :) )? No one will trade with me. I have one trade partner and no one else will take me up on the offer, even if I offer them money. I don't know what it means to exchange hostages but it scares me to offer up one of my sons. :O Any advice?

[fester]

Thanks for the advice. The boats I used were medium bunes. I would guess that is,nt a true trade ship.

[Nowake]

You're welcome fester.
And yes, only the ships labeled Trade Ships, Wako Trade Ships or Red Seal Ships are able to exploit a Foreign trading post.

JuJuBee, if you actually have access to the diplomatic option of requesting a trade agreement, and they refuse you, the main reason behind it is that the AI will never agree to trade unless your gain from it is comparable to its own. Thus, if, for example, you have occupied Foreign trading posts, the AI will be very hard to struck a deal with unless you pay it a rather obscene sum of money or it absolutely needs the goods in question. Thus, what you will want to do is sail all your trade ships just out of your controlled Trading Posts, conclude the trade agreements and then sail them back in.
There is also the posibility that the AI faction hates your guts, but in 80% of the cases, anything but the most severe diplomatic penalties have no bearing on whether it will accept to trade with you or not, the AI behaves rather callously when it comes to its financial gain.
Exchanging hostages is an avenue which gives your position a lot of weight at the negociating table, but in most cases, you do not want to risk their death for such a minor diplomatic deal as you yourself noted.

[Nelson]

Nanban trade ships work too if you happen to be Christian. They are expensive but provide the ultimate in protection while earning their keep.

[frogbeastegg]

Any secret to trading with other factions? I mean via the diplomacy screen (hee hee off topic :) )? No one will trade with me. I have one trade partner and no one else will take me up on the offer, even if I offer them money. I don't know what it means to exchange hostages but it scares me to offer up one of my sons. :O Any advice?
Supposedly the big patch which arrived at the same time as RotS tweaked diplomacy so that trade deals are a lot easier to secure. The AI doesn't appear to offer trade pacts as often (if at all; I haven't seen a single offer yet) but will now usually agree to a deal provided it feels neutral or friendly towards you. The AI no longer declines deals based on the fact it will allow you to earn too much money, so the old trick of removing ships from trade nodes and then replacing them after the deal is struck should no longer be necessary. Supposedly.

I'm definitely finding it a lot easier to secure deals, but I've spent most of my time in the RotS campaign and so can't say for certain whether this applies to the original campaign as well.

[Nowake]

The AI no longer declines deals based on the fact it will allow you to earn too much money, so the old trick of removing ships from trade nodes and then replacing them after the deal is struck should no longer be necessary. Supposedly.
Supposedly remains key there sadly, because I got a trade agreement request from my Fukuhara Taira clan to a Kyushu-based Hata clan to go from Low to High by sailing my trade ships away from the trading posts just yesterday evening, so we can safely disprove that as having been fixed sigh.

[A Nerd]

I have a few trade nodes as I am playing Shimazu at the moment. I will try moving the ships and attempt to strike up a deal. One funny thing did happen, Mori approached me for a trade deal (they had one province left) if I paid them 250. I had the money in the bank so I did it. Next turn, they were conqured and I lost the deal. I only accepted because no one else thru the campaign would trade with me and it was fun to actually have the AI approach me! The 250 seemed worth the AIs effort. :/

[frogbeastegg]

Supposedly remains key there sadly, because I got a trade agreement request from my Fukuhara Taira clan to a Kyushu-based Hata clan to go from Low to High by sailing my trade ships away from the trading posts just yesterday evening, so we can safely disprove that as having been fixed sigh.
Gah! That's a shame. Most of the player reports I've seen elsewhere were agreeing that this is no longer necessary and I was starting to get my hopes up based on the ease with which I secured trade deals in my RotS games.

As a general rule of thumb, I find my pre-RotS trade difficulties split into three broad categories: too much money gained for the player, diplomatic hate aka realm divide, and being more than ~6 provinces in size due to the many diplomatic and economic factors this size tends to bring about. Securing trade agreements after the initial turns was a right pain, and typically involved offering a one-off payment of up to 5,000 koku. If one out of those three had been relaxed then it might have been enough to shake up the Sengoku campaign's trade arrangements. Well, something has been tweaked so who knows, it still may be enough to shake things up. Fingers crossed.