Anno Fans - Anno 1701: Trading

TRADING

Sooner or later the inhabitants in your settlement will require goods that you cannot produce yourself, perhaps because the raw materials which you would need to produce the goods are not available on your home island. Or you have too much of a certain good and want to sell your surplus at a profit if possible. You have to take action and trade in both cases.

Discovering trade partners

In order to trade actively in ANNO 1701 you must first track down your future trade partner. Once you have discovered a new civilisation, the name of the respective player will be displayed in the diplomacy menu and his settlements become visible on the minimap. Now you can offer the player a trade agreement. Alternatively you can wait until other players discover your settlement and offer you a trade agreement. The free trader is the first and most reliable trading partner in ANNO 1701. You have a trade agreement with him as soon as the game has started. He visits all warehouses regularly with his ships, supplies required goods or buys goods he is offered. Other trade partners can include foreign tribes, computer players or human players. You must first draw up a trade agreement in order to enter into trading relations with them.
Note: Foreign tribes do not leave their island and therefore are reliant on trading partners coming to their warehouse. The more business deals of this type they conduct, the more their playing reputation improves and various advantages beckon.

Passive trading

The first and easiest possibility for trading is passive trading. You can thus easily conduct all your business from you own warehouse. Players with whom a trading agreement exists can see the goods which are sought after or are on offer and can pay a visit to trade. The goods and their quantities can be set in the warehouse menu. In order to do this click on the tab with the trading symbol in the menu of your warehouse. A list of goods that you can purchase is displayed with a left-click on the green arrow on one of the goods fields. You can find raw materials and intermediate products if you click on the arrows to the left and right in the goods overview. The number underneath the goods field indicates the target for stored goods in tons and the number above the goods field shows the price per ton. Select a good and determine the quantity which you would like to have in your storage via the sliding bar.

The same process is also valid for selling: After a left-click on the red arrow you select one of your goods for selling from a list of your goods and determine the desired quantity of the storedgoods with the sliding bar. The amount of goods that can be simultaneously offered for sale and purchasing depends on the respective enhancement level of the warehouse.
Tip: A right-click on one of the selected goods removes it again from the trading window.

Active trading

Active trading describes the possibility of selling and buying at foreign warehouses. Active trading is only possible with a ship and an existing trade agreement. Active trading has the advantage that you can determine the timing of the exchangeof goods yourself and are not dependent on a visit by trading partners. If your ship is located near the warehouse of a trading partner, select the Goods transfer tab in the ship’s menu, via which the sale or purchase of goods takes place. Only goods which are stored on board ship and which have been tendered by the other player for purchasing can be sold. You can recognise a demand by the green colour of the goods field in the warehouse of your trading partner. In the same way goods can only be purchased that the other players offer for sale; they are marked in red. The ship must have sufficient free cargo hold capacity for this.
Tip: You can see which goods a trading partner offers for sale or purchasing by a click on his warehouse.Thus you can load your ship accordingly before you leave. This also works on the strategic map.

Trading routes

Goods transfer and trading can be automated using trading routes. They are advantageous if the production of certain goods is moved to neighbouring islands but can also be used for regular trading with trading partners. Trading routes are not bound to ships and can be assigned to several ships. Thus you can use your ships flexibly on various trading routes. You can only set up trading routes between the warehouses of your own settlements and the settlements of foreign tribes and other players with whom you have a trading agreement. In order to create a trading route, open the strategic map and click on the ship’s wheel at the left underneath the map.
Alternatively you can also open the menu for trading routes from the ship’s menu. A warehouse window opens in which you can select the first stop of your trading route from a list. Alternatively you can also click on a warehouse in the strategic map. Now select the goods which you want to load or unload at the first stop. In order to do this, click on the red or green arrow in order to open the goods overview. You can determine the desired level of stored goods on the ship using the sliding bar – for example if you want to sell the entire quantity of a good on board, set the bar to zero. At the same time a second warehouse windows opens in which you can specify the final destination of the trading route from the list above. You once again have the alternative of selecting the destination directly on the strategic map.

The menu automatically offers to load or unload the selected goods in the first warehouse; you can however also choose another good in the second goods storage location. In order to do this,click once again on the red or green arrow. If you also decided in favour of a good in the second warehouse window, the ship’s list opens automatically. Here you can choose the ship which should travel along this trading route. The current goods loaded on the selected ship are displayed in the field underneath the ship selection list. Confirm your selection with a click on the green arrow underneath the ship’s name and your ship will set sail. The finished route appears with your number at the left edgeof the strategic map and the route is shown in colour on the map at the same time. If your ship has been assigned to a route, the route is noted in its ship’s menu. You can now change the route by clicking directly in the ship’s menu on the ship’s wheel symbol. In addition to this, you can command the ship to take a break and assign it other tasks in the meantime and to continue with the route afterwards.

Tip: You can give the trading route an individual name by clicking on the previous name in the strategic map menu with the left mouse key and giving the trading route a new name.

The free trader

The free trader travels the entire island world and is always game for a good deal. He is an independent businessman who has trade relations with all inhabitants of the New World. As soon as a settlement is founded, he will turn up in order to include it in his trading route. He then drops by at regular intervals to see which goods are required and which ones are for sale. The free trader also always has a large amount of goods in storage. But be careful: the free trader is well-known for his acquisitiveness and sells goods at very high prices but seldom pays these good prices when he is purchasing. Furthermore he offers a special service: he sells maps with which certain parts of the island world can be revealed.
Tip: Anyone wanting to help the free trader can accept one of the assignments which he announces from time to time. A generous reward beckons in case of speedy conclusion. This option can be switched on or off in the game world settings.

Trading with pirates

Are you prepared to take risks? Then you can dare to trade with the pirates and their captain Ramirez. His reactions are unpredictable but his range of goods is enormous. If it doesn’t bother you that everything that he trades with is either stolen or robbed, then risk a try. The pirate warehouse can be viewed at any time as soon as you have discovered the pirate island and the transferral of goods is carried out in the sameway as for trading with other computer players.

You must however first impress Ramirez. You must destroy foreign cultures and be just as sneaky and cunning as he is himself so that your esteem rises in Ramirez’s eyes. If you succeed in winning him over, he will enter into an alliance with you. You can immediately buy all colonial goods from him. But watch out: an alliance with Ramirez drastically reduces your prestige with all other players.

The courier ship

The courier ship enables the express collection of goods that have been selected via passive trade for purchasing. You must research into the courier ship in school before you can use this possibility for immediate delivery. You can subsequently order it with a mouse click via passive trade in the warehouse. It then travels independently to the free trader and back but can only ever deliver one good at a time.
Tip: Remember that whilst delivering goods with courier ship is very quick, it is also very expensive!Furthermore the courier ship can also be attacked by enemies and may even be sunk.

Balance

The balance is the difference between the income and expenditure and is specified in gold coins. The info bar at the top left of the screen shows your total balance directly under the wealth as soon as you click on the symbol. This sums up the income and expenditure of all islands. The balance value is displayed in green aslong as more money is earned than was spent. If the expenses are however higher, it will be coloured in red. The current income and expenditure of an individual island can be checked specifically in the respective warehouse or market building. A left-click on the display opens a detailed view in which the income and expenditure items are specified split up according to categories.

The individual balances are:
You can view the Town Balance ina warehouse or market building. It includes income and expenditure fromgoods sales and purchases and the goods yields, operating costs and themilitary costs in your town.
Your Trading Balance is calculated from the income from goods sales minus the expenses for goodspurchasing.
It does not however get included in the town or total balance.