Didz's Dumb Question Thread

[Didz]

The manual is on Steam. It would have answered quite a few of your questions (about trade ships, for one).

Nah! thats just the little pamphlet that comes with the box, I have that already. I was looking for a proper manual that explains how to play the game

You do have LOS along all your trade routes; can't be that much trouble to look.

Don't think so...not unless there is a bug thats reporting my trade route to Sweden as blockaded when it isn't. But I'll double check.
[Having double checked]
Hmm! ok I think your right though it needs a bit of detective work to sort out exactly whats going on, and even so there is a bug with the maginifying glass in that it never pointed me at any of the causes I think I've worked out.

This is what I think is happening.

Trade Route with:
Barbary States (worth 69 per turn) - It looks like their trading port at Surt has been captured by The Knights of St.John, and as thats their only trading port it has severed my trade route.

Savoy (worth 78 per turn) - Nice their trading port is being blockaded by The Barbary States, annoying as the Barabary States are my allies, and their fleet would be better employed dealing with the Morrocan's but <shrug>.

Denmark (Worth 107 per turn) - It looks like their trading port Aarhus has been captured by the Swedes, they have another port but it has no trade route to it so I assume its not a trading port. I know for a fact that when I clicked on the 'show me' button for this report it showed me the straits of gibraltar and there is no reason there for Denmark to be blockaded.

Sweden (worth 260 per turn) - Rostock is being blockaded by the Danish Fleet which explains that, but again I wasn't shown that when I clicked on the show me button. I was actually shown the Morrocan fleet in the Straits of Gibralter.

[AH! hang on sussed it] The reason I was shown the Morrocan fleet in the Straits of Gibraltar was that I was at war with them, and so they were blockading all my trade through the straits. The problem is that defeating the Morrocan fleet and opening the Straits of Gibralter to my trade has merely uncovered secondary reasons why that trade is still blocked which weren't reported to me by the 'show me' button because they were not the main reason at the time.

So, whats actually missing is a 'show me' button on the trade screen that says this is why your trade route is blocked now. Rather than just the one on the report which only shows you the cause that turn.

There is no list of foreign schools, but surely it can't be that much trouble to look for them.

Not if you don't mind pawing over the map of the world screen by screen and hovering over every settlement until the mouse over text tells you whats there. I mean I found a couple that way but it takes ages and I assumed the game would provide a simpler method as its a key aspect of gameplay.

The other issue of course is that even having found a school, you then have to find out if they have any knowledge worth stealing, which at the minute I can only do by calling up the diplomacy screen and asking to trade technologies with that country.

I was just expecting there to be some simple report somewhere that listed all the schools and what technologies were available for stealing from each. It seemed like a sort of obvious feature given the role of scholars.