milk said:
Trade embargo from Portugal alone shouldn't hurt too much as they only hold the one COT in Europe and maybe a few more in their colonies. You should, after trade tech level 3 or 4, have either 5 merchants or monopolies in every COT in Europe & Asia and monopolies in every obscure COT that you can see in the Americas and Africa. There is a lot of money in trade.
Each embargo and each trade agreement you have with another nation reduces your trade efficiency a bit but each Refinery raises your efficiency and each monopoly raises efficiency as well. Assuming you get your trade efficiency much higher than your opponents, you shouldn't have much of a problem keeping your merchants in place anywhere, which can be extremely profitable.
Trading where an empty slot exists doesn't tend to bring embargoes against you the same as competing out other nation's traders. The Ledger (page 14) is good for finding empty slots. (Add your percentage to the percentage next to it and send merchants to the COTs where the two numbers together add up to less than 100%). Unless you pause before opening the ledger, time will still move forward on you when you are looking.
Sending merchants on the second day of the month or later seems to be optimal, as the computer tends to send merchants on the first of the month when it gets cash. They will frequently compete each other to a stalemate on the first day of the following month (or even open up some empty slots for you), and you can usually jump in after the dust settles.
Your high relation neighbors (your "friends") tend to lift embargoes quicker than your enemies.
The FAQs give more detail than this as I am new to the trading game myself. I was focused on the production income until recently and now realize that there are three regular income streams to work on with a bunch of other ways to pick up one time cash like looting for example (especially early, when it can make a difference).
