Can't seem to get into the game...

[Snog]

It was fun at first; getting used to setting up colonies everywhere, but now I seem to be in a rut where most of the game is just sitting, doing nothing, waiting for money to come in.. Wars are too expensive and I don't seem to gain much from them when I win. I guess the game is just too slow paced for me.. maybe i should go back to age of empires .

--Snog

[Kyle]

Well, I guess that would explain it.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Turn up the speed, 1 minute = 2 years is the fastest and things just SAIL by. Or you could build up your infrastructure, diplomacy, trade, etc, etc.

[Victor Galis]

Try trade. It is quite a nice source of money.

[Par4]

Yeah once you get used to the economics, having merchant fights can be intense

I have a monopoly in flanders and paris(I don't know how ot spell the ill de le france or whatever)

[Ramo]

BTW, DO NOT LET THE AI HANDLE TRADE!

It is completely incompetent, particularly if you control a powerful nation.

"Trade Wars" can be fun, if futile at times. Trying to maintain 9 monopolies simultaneously ain't easy.

[Kyle]

Well, I have to disagree. The AI seems to be doing quite well for me. In my first game as Spain, I ended with over 100,000 ducats, the next games, tens of thousands, and my current I'm keeping over 1000 ducats regularly.


Though I may start doing it manually to add another dimension to the game.

[Par4]

I as france(hard) have paris and flandres from CoT, and Flandres nearly brought me down in the form of a coalition between england, spain, portugual, helvetinia(sp), narvarra, that little place up north by the netherlands, but I succeeded, barely. Well with AI on I have a monopoly in both of those CoT, but but I was able to gain monopoly in london and move up get around 400 ducats from merchants in other CoT, the AI wastes merchants in teh same CoT a lot.

[johnmcd]

I don't understand how you can have a trade war. Is it not just a case of sending them over and then someone sending one over and knocking yours out. How do you keep yours there in preference to another nation's?

I am a super newbie to the game though...

[Snog]

Yeah, I was wondering about trade wars, too. I mean I always get monopolies in the CoT's I own, but I always just assumed that if a another country has a monopoly in a CoT I don't own that it's pretty useless to send merchants there.. they just get traded out and I don't make a net profit.

Also, I thought about turning up the game speed when there's nothing to do.. who does this that can tell me if it makes the game better.

--Snog

[johnmcd]

Its all very well sending over a merchant, but does it not just boil down to who generates the most merchants? Is there any way to ensure it is not your merchants that get traded out? The trade aspect seems very simple compared to the rest of it so I'm sure I'm missing something and not the game.

[Steve Clark]

I think merchants are another example (along with combat) of the lack of feedback and not knowing cause and effect. For example, there are prices for each CoT and for each commodity listed for that province. Do they mean anything? Seems like all we can do is send merchants here and there and hopefully watch our trade income rise. Alot of information presented but very little of it useful to us.

[Par4]

Your trade level, smaller nations develope technologies a lot faster than bigger countries. So if a small country like say the netherlands(if they rebel) gets only 5 merchants a year but it's trade level is say 3 above france who gets 9 a year they'll beat out french merchants.

Also building refineries can up your trade level really fast, it just costs a lot, but I've found that a monopoly + lots of goods manufactories= lots of money + some refineries = high trade level

[Imran Siddiqui]

If you are successful in sending a merchant over, you make money because of the trader in that CoT. As well as you can steal away the monopolizing nations' merchant and start a climb up of your own.

And I play at 1 min = 1 year... I pause the game when I want to do things .

[Kautilya]

Hmm trade is something I haven't spent a lot of time on. So what's the best strategy?

Do you just allocate all your merchants to the best COT's? Or go for the smaller ones with less competition? Or do you look at each COT check out the trade level of the competition and proceed accordingly?