Trade Routes

The orders menu allows you to assign a Trade Route to a ship or wagon train. If you select this order, the trade route dialog, which enables you to select a trade route or create a new trade route, will open. If you have not created a trade route, you must use the edit trade route dialog to do so first.

A trade route consists of two or more stops, which may either be the Home Port, or one of your colonies. Select a destination from the select box and press the add new stop button. If you select the special destination all colonies, then your Home Port and all your colonies will be added to the list of stops.

If you have selected a destination, you can drag and drop goods from the goods panel to the cargo panel. These are the goods your ship or wagon train should have on board when leaving this stop. If the ship or wagon train arrives at the destination with other goods on board, these goods will be unloaded.

Note that the ships and wagon trains will take the capacity and settings of the warehouses in your colonies into account. They will not unload cargo that would be wasted and they will only load goods that should not be kept in reserve. This means that they may wait for a long time until a sufficient number of goods becomes available.

As soon as a ship or wagon train reaches the last destination of the trade route, it will continue at the first destination.