Purpose of trade goods?

[Chingis]

i have only been playing civ col for a little bit but WHAT DO TRADE GOODS DO?!?!!? i have seen in the europe screen, but never bought them. do you get them from destroying naitive villages or something, i just don't understand them...


please help.

 

[dalgo]

Europe is the only place where you can get trade goods. You can buy them there and sell them to the natives. They are a low cost/low return item and generally not worth the trouble.

 

[Chingis]

well, thanks for the help...



but now the question is, why did they put them in the game?
hmm...

 

[avdpos]

well, thanks for the help...



but now the question is, why did they put them in the game?
hmm...

symbolise all the kitch that settlers sold to indians, glasspearls and other stuff. lot´s of stuff that didn´t have much value for the europeans but some value for the indians

 

[Brennus.Quigley]

symbolise all the kitch that settlers sold to indians, glasspearls and other stuff. lot´s of stuff that didn´t have much value for the europeans but some value for the indians

I am very familiar with the 1994 version. I assume the answer might be the same for this version (someone can correct me if not). Yes, the point of trade goods is to sell them to the Native Americans. On their own they are not great profit makers. But effective trading with a Native city/village/capital means that you need to alternate between goods that you are selling them, so a steady supply of Trade Goods is important if it means you get to keep selling them cheap tools or tobacco as well. They will also only sell you the same amount that you sold them. If you have landed in the Aztec or Inca region, selling them 100 tons of whatever they want is important early on so that you can keep buying 100 tons of cheap silver off of them. When the effectiveness of the trade goods wears out, keep at least one ton in a port city so that you can throw a "trade goods party" rather than accept a tax hike.

They are not important in all games. But in some games where the early revenue strategy is to sell and buy from the Natives, they can be important and I therefore might go through several hundred tons of them.

 

[dalgo]

All that is true for the original game but it is not as effective in this version. In particular it is no longer possible to evade tax in the same way, unfortunately.

 

[Tigranes]

Trade goods can be very profitable in early game! You can invest 200 and make 500-600 on default difficulty. It is the cheapest thing you can buy to make some money with Indians, and in early game when you are very short on cash trading trade goods is essential.

In real life Manhattan was purchased with $70 worth of trade goods!

 

[Dave Daverson]

Damn, does anyone still play CIV4COL multiplayer? I was an avid player a couple years ago, finally got back into it and no one even plays multiplayer anymore. I go on everyday and no one is playing. Anyone know where I can find other players who play multiplayer?

 

[Tigranes]

We were trying to start PBEM game in PBEM section with new mode Religion and Revolution. You can post there if you are interested...

 

[ShuShu62]

i... WHAT DO TRADE GOODS DO?!?!!?....

Why... they are good for trading of course.

And trading is good for gold...
And trading is even better for keeping natives happy...
And trading is even betterer for getting trade founding fathers


As Tigranes said, they are something cheap to trade early. A galleon of 50% markup is nothing to be sneezed at. Once the sale price rises to 3 in Europe, they cease to be part of the game.


TL;DR... Trade Goods = Trade, Good.