According to Alpaca at TWcenter the first ship gives you 20 units and each extra ship adds 13 units of trade goods. Link: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=262209 see posts 4 and 10.
Re: Trade Ship ?'s
According to Alpaca at TWcenter the first ship gives you 20 units and each extra ship adds 13 units of trade goods. Link: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=262209 see posts 4 and 10.
Tosa Inu
Re: Trade Ship ?'s
I definitely have seen +15 unit increments post the first ship in Madagascar straights.Originally Posted by Monsieur Alphonse
Re: Trade Ship ?'s
I've also seen the first ship only grant 17 units, as GB on Hard campaign setting. My hunch is that 20 for the 1st ship and 15 for all others is the baseline, which is then modified by other factors (campaign difficulty level, perhaps some techs, perhaps trade port levels, who knows).
As said above, the diminishing return is not caused by a decrease in the number of units produced by each additional ship, but rather by the decrease to the market value of the good as more become available for export. I have also found that prices usually rebound after a few turns. This may be by design or simply as a function between number of units available and the population of your trade partners. If their population increases at a faster rate than your trade good exports, the price should go up.
Fac et Spera
Re: Trade Ship ?'s
Alpaca stated at the end in that 10th post:
"I play with a house rule to not allow me more than 2 spots per trade theatre so I'll always build as many Indiamen as I can. Don't use Fluyts or Galleons by the way, they're far less cost-effective than Indiamen."
I been putting 3-4 (usually 4) India Men per trade node in as many trade nodes per theatre as I can. All of the nodes in fact as I take out other nations. This is based on early game theories that more than 5 ships per node is not cost effective. I'll admit I've never ran the numbers to see what the cost value is overall, just going by what others have discovered and suggested, but after seeing that last line in Alpaca's post I'm wondering if his method would be better? Anyone else try his method and determine if its better or not?
Re: Trade Ship ?'s
It's not better "per se". Alpaca is just trying to 'help the AI factions out' by allowing them to trade as well to make his game more interesting. That's what the house rule is for.
Trade prices rebound (as long as supply stays the same) with general (AI + the player) town wealth increases and town development. Someone did an experiment destroying all town developments in his own empire: as a result, commodity prices collapsed right away.
Last edited by Slaists; 05-19-2009 at 19:27.
Re: Trade Ship ?'s
Thats an interesting idea. I must admit that once I realised the importance of the Trade Ports for future in-game revenue generation I've been racing to secure (if not monopolise them) becuase once a Trade Port is grabbed by a faction it seems to remain with that faction for the rest of the game.
So, the early part of my games now is usually a trade race to grab as many Trade Ports as possible. I stick anything that floats on them, (quite a good use for all those sloops and brigs) just to deny them to the opposition until I can build a trade ship to get to them.
Likewise the only thing being churned out from my shipyards in the early game are trade ships.
The net result is usually that I end up holding most of the Trade Ports in the game, and ships on them are immune to enemy attack, so even though they might block the trade route they can't destroy your trade fleets. The only way I've seen an Trade Port freed up during the game is when the faction operating it is elminated and there are usually several factions with trade ships hovering in the theatre like vultures waiting to grab it, so you need to be quick to get there first.
Deliberately, not grabbing Trade Ports (or limiting those you do grab) is a bit counter-intuitive but presumalby means that the other factions have more reasons to fight over trade routes. So, presumably you get more naval actions as a result.
Didz
Fortis balore et armis
Re: Trade Ship ?'s
It is interesting that some of you report 17 and 15 per ship.
Every time I have checked I am still getting 20 and 13.
It may be a very specific thing down to a single trade spot in a particular theater or it may be faction specific.
Perhaps it is the minor factions, which are usually AI controlled, that I have not yet played.
I guess we just need more examples.
Education: that which reveals to the wise,
and conceals from the stupid,
the vast limits of their knowledge.
Mark Twain
Re: Trade Ship ?'s
Has anybody checked whether the number of current trade partners matters?
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