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delra

Master of Orion
34 Badges
Jan 27, 2008
26.138
543
  • Europa Universalis IV
  • Victoria 2
Your strategy? (updated!)

Here's how I roll:

(rewritten for 1.06)

1. Start a Grand Campaign as Denmark. Hard/Simulation. Denmark because being far from India it's easier to time convoys to arrive at their destination when there's 1800t merchandise ready there.
2. Build a Schooner, load your Cutter with best export goods you can and send it to India. Where in India? Check the ledger prices for your export goods and see where they will sell best. Send Cutter there. When Schooner builds start another fleet, load with exports and send to India. You should do everything to get a Salesman captain.
3. When Cutter reaches India you will get 50 000 credits for that. Load it with import goods and send back home. Time its arrival in Europe with your Schooner's arrival in India. Try to trade Tea or Silk this few first runs and always send to a port your exports sell best.
4. Cutter should never go to India again, it should stay in Europe hoping to get a mission or two to finish or make a Ivory/Gold/Diamonds run once in a while if prices are high and you have some cash to invest in such a trip. Later you can add another Cutter to this fleet and go hunting AI ships if you're good on tactical level. Becoming a pirate company pays well (stolen goods from ships coming back from India as well as ships themselves if you can board them or make them surrender) but is also risky so if you go for it, try to not fight more than one AI faction at once.
5. Keep adding Schooners until you have a fleet of 5x Schooners bringing each Tea, Spices and Silk to Europe. Also try to gather 400-500t Iron Wares in home Warehouse for later. If you get a mission to conquer an Indian port, ignore it completely. It's 15 years too early to start conquering and if it's on Hard, you can't afford paying upkeep for a port anyway.
6. Stay out of diplomacy for now. If you propose a deal, AI won't like it. If AI proposes a deal, they will try to bribe you into accepting it right away. You can earn many thousands by waiting for AI to approach you.
7. When your Schooner fleets are ready, you should start looking into building a war fleet of 5x Galleons. Start around 1615-1617. When they are ready first send your captain to hunt pirates until he learns skills Conqueror and Organizer. This will allow to load more marines on ships and also use them better.
8. Use that war fleet to conquer 3 ports in India and use tools you gathered in Europe to upgrade Trade Posts in them to level 4 immediately. If they have any other buildings, demolish them. You want ports with level 4 Trade Post, level 1 Warehouse, no Shipyard, Fort level 1 and Garrison level 2 (level 4 after 1630).
9. If you are short on cash for upgrades, conquer a bunch of ports in Africa and sell them to AI companies for around a million pounds each. You are very poor at this moment if it's Hard difficulty but you should start booming economically very soon with cheap goods and cash influx from selling ports to AI. Don't keep any ports in Africa for yourself unless you're playing on Easy or Medium and on Hard only if you are very lucky or exploit price changes.
10. When you have ports and they are upgraded it's time to start moving to some heavier convoys, Pirates must have started attacking your Schooners already. Go for fleets of 1x Galleon and 4x Flutes per each port you own with Silk, Spices and Tea and a fleet of Brigs and left-over Schooners to haul Coffee and Porcelain. Also keep a fleet of 1x Brig and 2x Xebecs for errands and piracy (if you do that).
11. Around 1630 you should consider adding Frigates to your main India convoys to escort your pretty weak Flutes. In 1650 you should switch Flutes for much bigger and stronger East Indiamen. In 1670 switch Frigates leading your convoys to SOL46s. 1x SOL46 + 4x East Indiamen is a perfectly balanced trading convoy and will serve you well for the rest of your game.
12. All your convoy captains should be at least Salesmen and Hagglers. Hire them at young age and send them to hunt Pirates with your "errand" fleet giving them those crucials skills before you give them convoys to run. It will multiply your incomes many times.
13. If you don't want a major offensive from AI companies, don't monopolize any good or region. By 1650 I usually own 2x Tea ports, 2x Spices, 2x Silk and 1x Porcelain. Later I add a Coffee port to that (moderate profit on medium, low but steady profit on hard) and also Mozambique (best location to hunt pirates from). Fleets that serve ports in Africa I set to "cautious" mode (blue face icon) so they travel extremely slow and give prices time to recover. India convoys I count on quantity and salesmen captains, it's enough even on hard.
14. The above setup of ports with Flutes hauling goods and your fleets killing pirates and pirating AI companies should be more than enough to finish requirements of the grand campaign way before their time runs out. Just make sure you don't upgrade port defenses too much and don't run your main convoys on cautious mode since both things can quickly bankrupt you. Also avoid owning too many ports in Africa. Paying for Pacts with AI companies to secure all the "hops" to your home port is way cheaper than running those ports on your own
15. If AI owns many Gold and Diamonds provinces, you can park a pirating fleet next to them and get tons of that stuff for free. ARRRR.

Voila. Comments most welcome.
 
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i hope the price levels are more or less the same here.

1) First of all: use the starting 50000 to build one Schooner. Use the cutter in the 4 months ( i guess everyone do so )

2) After Schooner is done and cutter back, sail for india! Same as above.

3) I wouldnt build a galleon first. Since it is too expensive for me. Consider:
150000 unlock + 75000 for a ship. Since a ship has 100 capacity, to fill it up it takes around 1200 * 100 = 120,000
Therefore for one ship to function fully it takes 150000+75000+120000=345000 initial capital
for two ships it takes 345000+75000+120000=540000 for 200 goods.

For a schooner, it takes 25000. 40*1200 = 24000 to fill up a shup.
A fleet of five = 5* ( 25000+24000 ) = 245000 for 200 goods.

One arguement to use galleon is that it has a bigger capacity. Ok lets not look into tehe unlock money now, but the ability to make money:
For a fleet of 5 Schooner: Speed 12, Capacity 200,, Cost for ships: 125000
A fleet of 2 Galleon: Speed 8, Capacity 200, Cost of Ships: 150000
Profit of Schooner: 3 roundtrips*200P = 600P
Profit of galleon: 2roundtrips*200P = 400P

it is a difference of 50% profit...there is no way Galleon makes more money for indian trading. so you know the choice!

No need for futher calculation you know which one is worthy~~xddd Thus I unlock galleon for war. Schooners are for trading.



I expand my fleet of schooner a lot and a lot and a lot...all for spice trading until you see spice profit falls to hell. Then you switch for tea, after occupying one tea port. In india, I have only one port with high grade shipyards - thats enough. Thats for Schooner basically.

Now, trade, when you have money to fill up all the cargo space, then you us e the left money to build schooners fleet....booom! Until you reach around 10+ fleets. You will soon have a lot of money.

I only occupy one port at start since upkeeping for a port is quite expensive.
 
1. Main idea behind Galleon was safety but now I played over 40 years and haven't noticed a fleet of 5x Schooner being attacked by Pirates or other factions ever. 3x Schooner I was attacked by a single Galleon and 4x Schooner I got attacked by 4x enemy Cutters (Germans!). So I think you're right, Schooners all the way, just send full fleets of them so they remain safe.

2. Another good idea is to go for Porcelain or Silk first before going for Spices. Spice and Tea give more buck per ton but many runs you do with empty load cause you can't afford full load of it.

3. 5x Galleon can conquer any port with one or two stars on the map. Indian ones included.

4. Look at replacement captains on regular basis. I got one that allowed me to pack 20% more goods on ALL ships in my whole fleet. Another guy was sailing 20% faster than others shortening the trip to India by 1/5!

5. Buy Iron Wares and store them in your home Warehouse, you will need tons and tons of them later on and there will never be enough. So prepare 600-800 for the moment you will want to upgrade your Trade Posts fast.

6. AI aren't malicious. If they have a colony you want to have, conquer some other port in the area and exchange cities with AI to get theirs. Add 50-60k to sweeten the deal and make them happier. Don't quit because they snatched a city you wanted!

Also, new priorities:

- Get four fleets of 5x Schooner to bring every single Indian good out there fast and safely and in huge quantities (price changes don't hit you as much!)
- Unlock Galleon around 1615
- Get 5x Galleon and conquer those four Indian ports you're sailing to and build Trade Posts there max level (20% discount while buying!).
 
Been playing as Portugal, as I haven't noticed a disadvantage for playing as the nation with the closest port to foreign lands (or an advantage to playing as the ones further away).

1. Build Schooner, use Cutter to build up capital by trading back and forth with the nearest African port. Takes literally 2 seconds per trip.

2. Get Schooner and start using it to make actual trips to various locations, mostly for Ivory, Exotic Furs and Coffee, while using the Cutter to make quick trips to buy and store Gold or Diamonds, storing them up in the Warehouse instead of selling them. Basic idea is to keep the Schooner full, or hold back enough cash to keep it full while spending excess money on the gold or diamonds.

3. Build up to a fleet of 5 Schooners, at this point i've still avoided buying Silk and Tea. I get enough money built up to buy several trips worth of one of the above before having to sell it, storing the items at the home warehouse. At this point I have 600 or so Silk, and around 1000 kilo's of diamonds or gold stored up, it's also around 1615 or there abouts, which seems a little late for only having a fleet of schooners and one cutter, but then it gets interesting. I sell all of the above for max profit and jump up to around 7 million or so.

4. I then build a fleet of Flutes while selling the Cutter. I then start tag teaming MTI's, by buying large amounts and storing it in the warehouse, capping the warehouse with the item and having both fleets in port with as much of that MTI as possible before selling.

5. 1630 arrives, I then unlock the Frigate and start going after India ports, generally speaking I go after Goa and Cochin first, being right next to each other and two different MTI's makes them a prime choice for defending and building them up for trade.

6. Whom ever is then making waves in India, I target with my frigates packed full of marines and wreck them til they quit.





The reason I store things in my warehouse and bulk sell is to keep demand for those items high and get max profit out of them. Giving around 5 years or so time between selling large amounts of the same MTI to allow for the demand to build back up for those items. I keep my number of fleets low also to maximize profit, to not over sell/buy (over buying MTI's becomes a problem very quick for any port that isn't owned by you). Also, to be honest, with the better Captains retiring so often it becomes a pain trying to keep up with a lot of fleets based off of a portrait of the captain when their faces change a hell of a lot.
 
It's 1630 and automatic trading so far earned me:

- 5x Galleons full of soldiers to capture buildings
- Four fleets of 5x Schooner trading with India buying and selling all wares
- Four Fleets of 5x Schooner trading with Africa and Arabia, I only don't do diamonds yet out of all trade goods
- Ports with Spices, Tea, Silk and Porcelain conquered in India and secured with fort level 2 and garrison level 3
- Now securing my way to India by taking Mozambique, Cape Town and Tabou
- Unlocking Frig

- Leading in ships, not leading in cash anymore due to huge investment into India infrastructure (will pay in long-term!).

Where are you in your game 1630? Are you farther than me?
 
I think the trading in the game needs a bit of a tweak. I've used the trick of storing up goods to sell in bulk myself, but never to that degree. The way the game works for trade good prices is a mite static, since prices don't change as you offload a good but only at year's end I believe.

I think it would make managing trades more interesting if goods had a price, but also a falloff point. Say you sell 200 tonnes of spices, no biggie you're still getting the same price. However saturate it with 1k tonnes and the market is saturated, and your price drops exponentially. This could be modelled in a reasonably simple manner by listing prices and quantity for that price. Say 1k of an MTI for 1.5k£, then 500 at 1.2k£ and onwards down to a level where it no longer pays to sell the good at the port when factoring in the shipping time and infrastructure in India. Could need a slight change to the UI for this too, for example have an "offload all goods" which sticks it in your warehouse, and then an interface there which shows you the contracts you can fulfill.

A bit off topic, but I think the strategies here illustrate the point quite well.
 
I've been using the same tactics as most here (massive schooner fleets).
The only interesting thing I tried, and it seems to be successful, is to take the first three common ports in Africa. They will never pay for themselves, don't think I've even ever sent a ship to them besides capturing. The advantage though, is that when you declare war on a faction, they can't resupply until the ivory provinces. Makes for great chasing down fast ships, with (normally) much slower warships, and actually catching up.
 
1636 first ambush on a Schooner fleet. A single Pirate frigate attacked and sunk 3 before it was send to the bottom of the sea.

That's when you should start migrating to Galleons, early 1630s.

My Shipyards in Madras and Lisbon are working full-time to replace my Schooners with heavier stuff.
 
I've found getting to many ships just drops the prices down on the MTI's way to quickly, causing you to work less efficiently.



To the poster talking about trading and the price dropping based on how much you sell, I agree with that. Reminds me of how Uncharted Waters 2 did it. I would agree to that change, but also feel that the market needs to recover much quicker than it does now.

Still feel the game needs more MTI's, and more ports in general. I would love to see them open up the America's, but can see where that could take the focus off of India.
 
Have any of you ever played the games called Patrician or Port Royale or their sequels?

Those games were extremely similar in the idea to East India Company, ships, trading and fighting, all this stuff. And in both you were able to unload your cargo to warehouse and then using warehouse scripts sell it once prices were satisfying. It was much more logical than dumping every amount possible at the beach in Portugal knowing your country can consume any amount of goods and always at similar price.

I think the whole idea of "active" Warehouse is something Nitro should seriously think about. :)
 
I've found getting to many ships just drops the prices down on the MTI's way to quickly, causing you to work less efficiently.

I find that it doesn't even matter except for the ports you own yourself. The ai builds tons of ships causing a massacre to your profit, just get ports in each of the valuable MTI regions so the prices there don't escalate while sinking as many enemy ships as possible, preferably on the way back to europe.
 
I find that it doesn't even matter except for the ports you own yourself. The ai builds tons of ships causing a massacre to your profit, just get ports in each of the valuable MTI regions so the prices there don't escalate while sinking as many enemy ships as possible, preferably on the way back to europe.


Keeping the enemy fleets out is only a small part of the battle though. What massacre's your profit with a lot of ships isn't the driving up of goods at their port, it's lowering the demand in your home port to quickly, which then causes your profits to plummet.

It's like this, say you get a load of Silk, you sell it off, and say from that fleet you make 400k profit, then 6 months later, another fleet arrives and sells the same thing, your profit will drop down to like 250-300k, if that, then 6 months later, happens again, your profit drops another 100-150k. You simply aren't giving the market enough time to bounce back, you saturate the market with supply and not nearly enough demand. Sure, you can mix in the lesser MTI's, but they don't recover nearly quickly enough from mass purchasing, and their profits drop WAY quicker than those from India.





Right now i'm doing some moding that should help with some of these problems. I've increased the resupply rate on the TMI's not in India, i've turned Matara (Island port off the coast of India) into another Porcelain port, i've also turned Jadida (nearest/first African port) into a port that will get comparable, but most slightly smaller returns for the MTI's. By doing this to Jadida i've turned it into a hot spot as it's a second port that all of the East India Companies can use to offload their cargo from the East when they've over saturated their home port. Because of this it means they will all fight over that particular port. Next project will be a trickier one, adding more ports and more TMI's.
 
What about faction selection. There's a difference of 3-4 months of sailing from India between Portugal and Sweden. It means that Portuguese ships will reach their port, unload and sail away many months faster but on the other hand Swedish prices will recover more while the fleet is away.

When Swedes reach Gothenburg, my Galleons are already, unloaded, sold, loaded with exports and sailing to India near Ivory Coast.

What do you think is better? Being close to India or far from India? :)
 
I vote closer. You can always change what type of resources you are going to buy to help minimize the affects of saturating your port with certain goods.


An easy bonus to put in for the guys further away is to give them more of the better export items, and giving them slightly better returns for MTI's, such as 1.51 as opposed to the 1.5 return Lisbon gets. Doesn't sound like much, but it's more than it sounds, and it adds up quick.
 
Guys I think you overlooking brigs. They have 80 cargo and 10 speed, also they are beter at battles then schooner and cost 50k which is less then galleon. I usualy use 5 brigs fleet up until I have access to Indiamen. As for starter cutter I usualy put her on a gold or diamond run to afrika, since gold don't require cargo space.

The bigest challeng is not over extend. I Have nice pile of cash in the bank, usualy have around 80% of money needed to buy goods to fill all of my ships. That way my fleets always have money to buy MIT and not sailing empty. So I try to expand only when my money go over 80%.

One last thing warehouse trading is imposible in this game since warehouse have cap of 800. My brig fleet bringing in 480t of MIT each trip and I start using them at around 1610-1612. So warehouse hoarding may be usefull only at the start of the game, but then again it's too much micro management for a little profit.
 
One last thing warehouse trading is imposible in this game since warehouse have cap of 800. My brig fleet bringing in 480t of MIT each trip and I start using them at around 1610-1612. So warehouse hoarding may be usefull only at the start of the game, but then again it's too much micro management for a little profit.

Not if you fill your warehouse with stockpiles of gold or diamonds, then you can effectively fit an infinite amount into it :)
 
Yeah Brigs are 25% faster than Galleons but also they have half of Galleon's hull and can carry 20% less goods. Crew is the same and cannons you have 2 more on Galleon. All in all I think it's better to bring 20% more goods 25% slower but with doubled safety... I guess I belong to Spanish school of thought. :)

That's theory. In actual game, a single Frigate won't hesitate to attack a fleet of 5x Brig and Pirate Frigates start appearing around year 1630. Even if you can beat this Frigate, the battle will take half an hour which is too long for most folks... so I think it's better to pay extra 25k and get a ship that scares Pirates away. Galleons I played till late 1650s and wasn't attacked ever, Pirates sailed away upon seeing my ships!
 
Basing on what I've read on the forum and what I've found out in the game, I updated my original post.
 
Yeah Brigs are 25% faster than Galleons but also they have half of Galleon's hull and can carry 20% less goods. Crew is the same and cannons you have 2 more on Galleon. All in all I think it's better to bring 20% more goods 25% slower but with doubled safety... I guess I belong to Spanish school of thought. :)

That's theory. In actual game, a single Frigate won't hesitate to attack a fleet of 5x Brig and Pirate Frigates start appearing around year 1630. Even if you can beat this Frigate, the battle will take half an hour which is too long for most folks... so I think it's better to pay extra 25k and get a ship that scares Pirates away. Galleons I played till late 1650s and wasn't attacked ever, Pirates sailed away upon seeing my ships!
Well at the beginig every penny counts. And until 1630 no one atacks 5 brig fleet. By 1630 i have 4-5 fleets that 20-25 ships which gives you additional 500k - 650k and that equal to a 5-6 frigates which you can use to clean those pirate away :). And all that with 5% efficiency boost.

I usualy have only 1 galleon fleet just to get those ports at the begining for 4 MIT (tea, silk, spice and porcelain) and some islands on the way so that i always have bases on the way to india (after 1630 i would change them to a 5xfrigates). The only problem with that is to be carefull and not to totaly block it for AI, 'couse I noticed when it have it's lines of trade disrupted, AI tends to declare war, which can totaly disrupt your strategy if you are not prepared.
 
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Ship price is important during Schooner era (till 1630) but later it's a tiny fraction of what your ships are making per trip to India (something like 200-250k per Galleon fleet per each two year trip to India and back). All in all, saving on ships doesn't seem to be a good idea in this game unless you're just starting...

Still I will give your strategy a shot and try to wait with Brigs till East Indiamen show up. See how it works for me. :)