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[blazer-glory]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(ShadowBlade @ Jul 17 2006, 03:54 PM) [snapback]243631[/snapback]</div>

Ah, that's it. That means I'll have to wait 4 or 5 months (investing every month) for gold to appear in Madeira...
[/b]

Im a bit confused about what you lot are talking about here(?) Are you saying that you set up a market for something that isn't already available?

[Shrek]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(ShadowBlade @ Jul 17 2006, 03:54 PM) [snapback]243631[/snapback]</div>

Ah, that's it. That means I'll have to wait 4 or 5 months (investing every month) for gold to appear in Madeira...
[/b]

Hum, I don't think you'll find gold in Madeira, even if you invest a large amount of money there....and even if you do, it won't be cheap... I suggest you to go and buy it at the eastern African coast, take 2 or 3 lager ships (xebecs or carracks) fill them with gold and bring them to northern Europe... you'll be millionaire in 2 or 3 trips like that (I remember once the bank refused to accept any more of my money so I had to carry over 100 gold ingots with me - and I attracted all the pirates who crossed in my way....)

[ShadowBlade]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Shrek @ Jul 17 2006, 04:36 PM) [snapback]243649[/snapback]</div>

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(ShadowBlade @ Jul 17 2006, 03:54 PM) [snapback]243631[/snapback]

Ah, that's it. That means I'll have to wait 4 or 5 months (investing every month) for gold to appear in Madeira...
[/b]

Hum, I don't think you'll find gold in Madeira, even if you invest a large amount of money there....and even if you do, it won't be cheap... I suggest you to go and buy it at the eastern African coast, take 2 or 3 lager ships (xebecs or carracks) fill them with gold and bring them to northern Europe... you'll be millionaire in 2 or 3 trips like that (I remember once the bank refused to accept any more of my money so I had to carry over 100 gold ingots with me - and I attracted all the pirates who crossed in my way....)
[/b][/quote]
Gold appeared on my second investment. It costs 420 (which I can haggle down to 399) at its cheapest, and I can sell it back at Genoa for 1500 a piece. I currently have two Venetian Galeasses, modded to get 830 cargo space (120 bunks, 0 guns), so I can ferry 1460 lots of Gold (730 per ship, 100 lots reserved for 50 food and 50 water) and get about 2 million (200 ingots) per trip (which takes about 12 days from departure to return to Genoa). This route has proven extremely profitable: I've over 9 million pieces of gold right now.

just browsed by and saw the topic.

well, as far as i remember, you can get Gold to be available in Madeira's market. In fact it's one of the closest port to Europe that sells Gold. But as Shrek has pointed out, it's not cheap. If you wanted to trade gold to Europe, you'd better make a trans-atlantic route to Rio de Janeiro. They're one of the cheapest gold-selling port, and it's quite easy to fix the market there. As for the gold-buying port, i'd suggest Copenhagen since they sell silver to use in the precious metal's market fixing. Needs careful market fixing to get the maximum profit though. I raised around two thousand ingots in my Joao playthrough trading gold between Rio-Copenhagen several times with a fleet of 10 tekkousens. The downside to this route is that the trip would be rather slow since you'll be running against wind in one of the trip, depending on the season.

another tip on storms, always bring balms with you, especially if you're sailing on high seas or coastal lines around Japan and India. I guess you'd know that using balms in the middle of a storm would calm it. If you want to cut down on the balm usage, have maximum luck via church donations and bring the goddess figurehead on your ship(s). On my Ernst playthrough i finished the map using a la reale with goddess figurehead and met with only a single storm and totally zero sea monsters.

As for waeapons.. as far as i remember, the msot expensive sword is the Muramasa which you can buy in Japan. Any * grade blade would do though. Even a claymore or flamberge (A grade) would usually be enough if you have a * grade armor (errol or crusader). as far as i know, there are two * grade armors, both can be bought in europe, and five * grade swords, none of them are in europe. One in africa, one in india, two in the far east, and one in south america.

btw, is there anyone here that have managed to recruit Pilly Reis? if so, please inform me of the nav or combat level of your char when you got him. I've gotten all the major pirates, but i've yet to have the legendary sailor Reis.

[ShadowBlade]

Genoa does sell silver, it's its specialty, and I use it to manipulate both Genoa's and Madeira's market to 150% and 50%, respectively. Madeira-Genoa is still more profitable than any other route, mainly because it's way shorter and therefore quicker to complete than the rest. I can make two million pieces of gold per trip with just two Venetian Galeasses, so technically I could make 10 million with 10 of those ships.

[laiocfar]

Well, it looks like a really good route.
Anyway the best route is the "money machine" but it requires many supplies, a big fleet and a half year with best captains.

ah, i remembered now why i didn't took the gold to genoa. It's becuase I'm at -100 with all countries besides portugal at that time, and since Genoa is Italy's capital port I can't buy them off ^^;

all in all, gold trading to europe seems the most profitable for short periods, but requires quite some capital in starting the trade because of the market manipulating and starting investment, since whether it's north african or south american, most ports don't sell gold right off the bat. For starter routes, i'd suggest the ever-popular athens-istanbul arts-carpet run, mainly because it's the safest route around for an extremely short distance. If you're trading while exploring at the same time... running nutmegs or silk to europe from asia does have some profit, but you'll need a huge fleet and good captains to make decent profit from it.

Can someone explain what the 'investing in markets' does and how it works?

[ShadowBlade]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Guest @ Jul 18 2006, 11:50 AM) [snapback]243749[/snapback]</div>

Can someone explain what the 'investing in markets' does and how it works?
[/b]

You can invest in the town's market (to get new goods to show up) and shipyard (to get better ships, guns and/or figures) once a month. When you enter the corresponding building, use the Invest option to give up to 50,000 gold pieces (5 ingots). You can do that once a month, and the port will also ally itself with your country and (I think) give you discounts when you buy stuff there.

[blazer-glory]

Thats seems alot of money for not much in return