If it comes to donations, the game will ignore anything on your bank account: when asked how much you want to donate, the maximum you can give is your cash on hand (= ingots + gold pieces). I once found a site where someone had actually figured out the whole donation calculation. I only remember his conclusion, thatg giving just over 50% of your cash on hand, has the greatest effect on your luck.
Example: you've got a bank account of 60000, and 2 million gold in ingots. What you should do, is put as much money as you can onto your bank account or use it to buy goods. Suppose you've got only 1000 gold left after that.
If you then donate 501 gold, that will have the same effect as when you would have donated 1002000 from your 2 million.
Then, from the remaining 499 gold, donate 250, and so on.
In the end you will have donated a lot of times, but in fact lost only 1000 gold.
That same FAQ also mentioned you should invest 50000 into that city's economy (goods trader) and 50000 into its industry (ship yard) to have a chance of getting carronades, even if their economy and industry is already at 1000.
And then you've still only got a chance of being offered those specialties, it's not guaranteed. But I've used that method often, and after trying a few times it always worked.
__________________
A sickened, sensitive shadow writhing in hands that are not hands, and whirled blindly past ghastly midnights of rotting creation (Nyarlathotep, H.P. Lovecraft)
|