Trading faction

[hundurinn]

What factions have the best trade income?

[Naagi]

Byzantine, Italians, and Egyptians come to mind. Though i've only played the Byzantines myself. Own half the map, fighting France, England, and Spain and still having 14k profit a year.

Naagi http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif

[Vlad The Impaler]

Italy i think is the best followed by byzantines; is good to have those mediterannean islands;
al;so danes are a nice commercial faction to play with

[rpasell]

I've made the most profit as the Danes

[Katasaki Hirojima]

I'v played as all three nations, the Byzantines are the best followed closely by the Egyptians. Why? Egypt and Byzantine have closer and easier access to conqueror the rich middle eastern trade provinces like lebanon. Each of those provinces produces between 800-2000 Florins with a good general. However, I put the advantage on the BYzantines side because they get good Generals, start with THE strongest tradeing province and have a very potent army.

Italians are decent traders, but they just don't have that access to rich lands that the Byzantines do, though their land is ok kinda wealthy. The Danes are the same as Italians. Spanish come after those two. Their provinces are more about farming then trade, but they've got good ocean access and do have a good bit to trade.

[Ckrisz]

Egyptians ---> Egypt, Antioch, Tripoli. Major money producers.

Byzantines ---> Close to the above, while they have Constantinople and are also very close to Kiev and Khazar, both of which can get 1500+ in trade income.

Danes --- Close to Sweden and Livonia.

Why the English? Close to both Sweden and Flanders, probably the two best Western European trading provinces (possibly excluding Venice ... maybe Sicily).

[Lehesu]

IMHO, the Italians are the best traders.

[Brother Derfel]

Quote[/b] (Lehesu @ Dec. 11 2002,18:10)]IMHO, the Italians are the best traders.
agreed.

My Italians are currently in 1225, and already have ships in every sea province and the only province that i have captured ther than my starting ones in the crimea. I have an income of about 7000 a turn, impressive for so early in the game. thankfully I am not at war with anyone (yet)....

[LadyAnn]

The Papacy
Just joking. Italian starts with Doge Vitale the Second as "Good Trader" V&V. Venice crank ships since start and even Genoa starts building shipwright/shipdock and crank out ships as well.

Just be careful when neutral ships (Byz and Sicilian) are around, you will have to have more ships then them in a given area to avoid impromptu declaration of war the Pearl Habor type.

Annie

[MonkeyMan]

These answers rely on starting and local rebel provinces only. To be honest every faction is capable of superb trade, just have to buy enough ships and trading posts. The key really is to capture the best trading provinces and only these provinces, to reduce the support on your ships (with med islands) and get the best income from the maximum of friendly ports. My english trade income is coming up to 1,500,000 florins, the only danger is damaging trade by doing too well.

[Furtrapper]

I like to play trading factions. My two best have been the Italians and the Danes. In my current game (Danes on Hard), I had Sweden up to 5,500 income on its own at one point, total profit of over 15,000 florins a turn on an income of 24,000+.

However, I did find that as my coffers reached 400,000, virtually everyone attacked me at once. Luckily, I had invested hugely in my provinces and armies (although had not fought much, so didn't have many high valour troops, which was a mistake) so could defend, but quickly went from a massive profit to a bitter loss each turn.

Oddly, this didn't happen when I played the Italians. There, I was able to conquer the Med, keeping Almohads, Egyptians and Byzantines sweet, and link up my empire with Sweden. At one point, I was also up to 13,000 profit per turn and with the HRE as allies, it was all looking a bit too easy.

I agree with a previous post that any faction can be a great trading power, played carefully. However I think that one needs to be careful to build up decent armies for defence and to try them out from time to time to build valour.

[fenir]

Best trade nation is the Roman/Byzantine Empire.

Second is Egypt, then Italy.


1194AD, I am Byzantine, These are what the best provinces are producing at present.
PS: this is un-modded game by the way. (eg: Standard apart from units).
Constantinopole 11,294 Florins
Antioch 7,167 Florins
Tripoli 4,013 Florins
Greece 4,853 Florins
Khazar 4,726 Florins
Kiev 1,752 Florins
Crimea 1,439 Florins
Bulgaria 2,250 Florins

Total Income is 45,766 Florins per Year/Turn
Total Expenses 9,876 Florins per year.
Current tresaury is about 786,000 Florins.

PS: The highest I have EVER had Constaninople is about 12,746 Florins
And after 1350 I think, tripoli becomes the best trade province with 4 trade goods. Due to Marco Polo's travels.

And yes, I always play only expert....hmmm never played anything else.

fenir http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smokin.gif