Hah,
My luck wasn't quite that bad (as in lots of minor incidents), although it did have moments when I got really annoyed with the game. The worse that happened was one of the time I was making a bid for Pope. I had planned this for a few turns. Buying Cardinals when I could, until I had an outright majority. I assinated the pope successfully the the next turn 12, yes 12 Cardinals died of natural causes.
A bit annoying, not only for the lose of the papacy but also all that lovely income.
The only other serious catastrophe I had was more due to human error than anything else. I didn't quite understand how the plague mechanism worked and as a result my whole North sea trade network collapsed.
On Far East trading, basically you need lots of ships, so you need a lot of capital. I haven't quite refined it yet though.
Central Africa trading is a bit easier. (imo anyway.)
I had a huge link from Timbuktu - Katsina - Cairo - Venice - Wherever close when I had surplus (rare admittedly, usually happened after a pirate attack or something).
Basically, Timbuktu produce Gems, Katsina produced Ivory. Gems were transported from Timbuktu to Katina by two galley (one large, one small). From Katsina I had three camels traveling to Cairo to pick up the gems and padding extra space out with Ivory. From Cairo I had two Cogs taking them to Venice. The other way it was Venician Glass and food stuffs, until I realised I could get silver from Buda\Pest.
I found after that it got too complicated. But auto-buying is a beauty. I only figured out how the automated trade routes worked fairly late.
The only things I still I haven't worked out are. How to open markets in cities that are closed. And what the use for mercenaries is.
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