Advce on trade as Bharat?

[AegonTheUnready]

I'm playing Bharat and have complete control of the Ceylon node, and parts of the Goa, Bengal, Malacca, Molucca and Phillipines nodes.

My merchants are arranged lke thus: Phillipines-->Molucca-->Malacca-->Bengal, transfering trade to Ceylon where I collect with my capital. I have one extra merchant in Goa collecting there.
My trade fleets are: Phillipines-5, Molucca-10, Malacca-15, Bengal-20 light ships. A couple other small fleets privateering in Zanzibar, Hormuz and Siam. A few carracks hunting pirates in Ceylon.

My question is: have I arranged my merchants the most efficient way? I keep thinking that I'm screwing something up. PS I'm making about 45 ducats monthly from trade.

 

[Martynios]

The best approach to finding out the best merchant arrangement is trial-and-error.

 

[Bibor]

Yes, until you conquered "one node ahead", this is the most profitable set-up.

For even more profits, I suggest conquering and trade-company-ing Cape and Zanizbar nodes and putting your trade captial into Zanzibar.
This way you can also steer Gulf of Aden trade income that got siphoned off Northwestern India.

Or even better, move your capital to Africa and trade-company non-essential states in India proper.

Considering the size of India and how rich Zanzibar node is, you can do it either way and rule global trade.

 

[Bouchart]

Zanzibar node is your best bet. Conquer east Africa and try to get that center of trade in Cape. There's gold mines in the Mutapa area too.

If you can move your capital to Europe you can make trade company land in Asia and Africa. The Caucasus and Anatolia count as Europe so take whatever is most convenient.

 

[SantoshKashyap]

If you have the most trade power in Malacca > Bengal > Ceylon & Doab including Goa, your monthly trade income alone should at least be between 100 to 300 depending on manufactories and development.

When you have entire India always collect at Goa as your main trading node.

Don't make Indus as main trading port, it had too many leaks unless you get most of Samarkand.

So the set-up will look like:

Lasha > Kashmir > Doab > Goa
&
Canton > Philippines & Australia > Moluca > Malacca > Bengal > Ceylon > Goa

And upstream:
Indus > Aden > Zanzibar > Cape of Good Hope

So collect only at Goa & Cape of Good Hope for maximum ducats.