Trading with natives

[JoeBlade]

I've seen others praise this feature but it seems a bit borked to me. The things that bother me most:
- I didn't find any means of checking goods on sale and their prices without popping over to the village with a carriage or ship. I'm not talking about the 'wanted' goods, merely any goods they may want to purchase or sell.
- Those 'wanted' goods appear very random. Sometimes I receive about the same price I paid for the goods, sometimes half of it, sometimes nearly triple. And yes, the villages had plenty of money left in all cases.
Sure, it's all good when producing those goods myself (all money made is profit then) but a lot more work than selling back in the old continent.
- Ditto with Trade Goods. The natives sometimes offer a fair price with some profit margin, sometimes I make a loss. There appears to be no logic to it and, again, no means of verifying before accosting a village.
- There doesn't appear to be any means of automating trade with natives.

All in all it seems a lot of micromanagement hassle without any guarantees of profit.
So enlighten me, what is so great about trading with the natives? Did I miss something there?

[Ginger_Ale]

I find that trading with the natives is only consistently profitable when selling guns or horses. Occasionally other items that are in demand will yield a profit, but as you say, it's not too predictable. On the other hand, horses, which you can usually buy for 3 gold often sell for much, much more than that. Guns too can bring a lot of money, though they require more to purchase in the first place.

What is so great about trading with the natives? Well, there is no tax rate -- thus, you get 100% of the profit, whereas in Europe your goods would be taxed. Similarly, this doesn't cause the King to raise taxes. If you trade in Europe, for every certain amount you sell (I'm not sure if there's a hard number or not), the King will demand a raise in taxes. Trading with the natives, however, has no impact on that threshold and thus will not affect your tax rate in Europe.

Like you said, though, there is no automation as far as I can tell. There also is no way of selling only a limited amount of goods or checking to see what goods they have for sale. Therefore, trading with the natives is more risky and unpredictable. Perhaps the best part, though, is trading guns and horses to the natives so that they can arm themselves and fight other European colonies. Sending a few shiploads of arms to natives who are close to European rivals is a good way of starting a proxy war.

[Freddy K]

Natives will buy all processed goods they also usually change their desire if you sell them something they don't want. They want tools, you sell them horses, they change desire to rum. They rarely want trade goods on higher difficulties, which is a blessing.

Donations offer a way to improve relations with the natives, once they get cranky.

The rival nations AI uses natives to retaliate against your attacks, by bribing a neighbouring tribe, or to pit tribes against each other. You will be asked for military help at higher difficulties. Redskins are a constant source of concern.

[JoeBlade]

Originally Posted by Freddy K

Natives will buy all processed goods they also usually change their desire if you sell them something they don't want. They want tools, you sell them horses, they change desire to rum. They rarely want trade goods on higher difficulties, which is a blessing.

Actually, I've never ever seen a native village ask for anything other than rum, tools, horses or guns in any of my games. And I'm still playing on the lowest difficulty settings.
Since I rarely produce tools, horses and guns myself, and as sugar tends to be the most difficult resource to acquire I can usually but purchase those items in Europe to meet their demands. Which is rather pointless if it doesn't make me solid profit, which, as stated before, only happens occasionally.

All in all getting the neighbouring villages of rival nations to a point where they can be bribed into war - as Ginger suggested - seems to be the only good reason for trading with natives.

[Codeboy]

In my current game on Conquistador level, I have quite a few tribes asking for Cigars and Cloth, as well as the standard Horses and Guns. I'm not sure if that is tied to the difficulty level or not.

In my experience, trading with the natives, especially in the early stages is very profitable. After dropping my first colonists off, I usually sail into a native village and buy whatever furs they have for 100 something gold and return to the new world to sell it for 3 times that amount. Trading with them in the early game seems to be very profitable until your colonies get their full production online. And like it was mentioned earlier, no tax when trading with the natives!