My question is related to trade, I have watched a few guides online but when sending my trade ships, am I best to just send them to the place where I get the most profit according to the tool tip or should I send somewhere else?
The trade steering tooltip is utterly worthless - don't rely on it at all. The pirate one is ok-ish if memory serves.
Note that trade ships have a minuscule contribution to trade in the early game: a 20 development coastal (+25%) center of trade (+10) province with a market place (+50%), burghers (+50%), and the trade edict (+50%) will produce (20 * .2 + 10) + 175% = 38.5 trade power, or more if you factor in mercantilism. Point being, you need to send at least 20 barques to a node to get the same amount of trade power of
one key province. It's barely worth it, especially considering how they'll quickly get destroyed the moment you declare war.
As early game France you're usually better off disbanding the trade ships (in port, to recover the manpower) and build enough heavies to defeat England's fleet, plus transports to land your troops.
FWIW I seldom find it worth sending trade ships to steer unless t
he node is:
- African West Coast (if you're able to collect downstream)
- Caribbean and American East Coast (if you're able to collect downstream)
- Aden (if you don't control each of Alexandria, Oman, and Zanzibar)
- Malacca (if you don't control both Bengal and Zanzibar)
- Lübeck (if you control English Channel but not Lübeck)
- Alexandria (if you control Venice and/or Genoa but not Constantinople)
- Ragusa when it's rich (if you control Venice and/or Genoa but not Austria)
What they have in common is powerful trade nodes downstream, lots of ducats potentially going through them, and those ducats probably going to your rivals if you're not steering. With that being said you're always better off controlling the land.
Even the three end nodes are not worth sending trade ships to. If you're not sharing the node you don't need the ships, and if you're sharing the node it only makes temporary sense until you destroy who you're sharing it with - because whoever you're sharing it with will eventually catch you off guard and steer with tons of frigates.
Outside
of these nodes you're basically wasting 20 ducats (plus maintenance) on trade ships that will earn you a mere fraction of a ducat per month, and will need to be upgraded or rebuilt (after they die to an enemy galley or heavy) for more than they've ever earned you. And even in those nodes... frankly, just conquer the relevant land and call it a day. Just mind the aggressive expansion as you do.
Also as an aside, I am playing as France and have taken Brittany and annexed and took the opportunity of the war of the Roses in England to declare war on England to get them off of mainland Europe. I have taken all their provinces as well as the Portuguese who were allied yet I don't have enough warscore to annex all the provinces. My warscore is ticking up, so do I just wait?
You can just wait until you get the 25 ticking war score related to your war goal and make peace. Don't make a separate peace with Portugal - your war score will take a hit if you do. You'll need to leave England a province. Prefer to leave a fort, else you'll get the wretched -1000 for demanding X without controlling a fort in the area during your next war and end up needing to disembark troops in England.
