How is yield from trade missions calculated?

[Pengu]

I have just never exactly figured out what amount of gold I will recieve from trade missions. I have played many games and know you will get more by sending it to another continent. But there it stops...
I have heard about the ToA but I dunno...
I have got between 1300 gold and 1900 gold depending on the game and I just can't to get the exact connection...

 

[Fippy]

Trade route income i think, so AI city size and harbors and / or custom house besides the mentioned TOA. Distance too and you already wrote other continent

 

[krikav]

It's shrouded abit in mystery for me too, but I think I have started to figure out it...
This is what I believe now...
The yield of the trade mission is based on the theoretical value of a traderoute between your capital and the city you run the mission in.
So if you build ToAR, you want it in your capital.
You want your capital to be very high in population, and you want harbour and customs house there.
You also want to go for perhaps the ToAr city, or or you want to go for a large city overseas that has harbour and customs house.

I got a yield of 3300 in a game recently.
Merchants are very powerful if you can boost the value of trade missions!

 

[coanda]

500 gold, +200 gold for each point of commerce (rounded down) that the target city would receive from a trade route to your capital.

So if your capital has Temple of Artemis, it doesn't boost your mission yield. But if the target city has Temple of Artemis, it will boost mission yield from your Great Merchant going there.

There's a few articles floating around with an exact list of all the potential trade route modifiers in the formula if you want to go digging for exact details on what cities will maximize it - just remember, you're looking for another player's city that would do well trading with your capital, not one where your capital would do well trading with the other city.

Once you have a Great Merchant, you can also shift-queue "move and mission" to mouse over the mission option at a given city and see how much it would earn if the Great Merchant were there this turn.

 

[krikav]

Just checked with worldbuilder and yepp, ToAR in capital (or harbour, or customs house) doesn't matter.
The only thing you can affect on your side is the size of your capital.
And that seems like it plays a rather large role... I think you get +200gold per 2 population you can grow your capital.

 

[krikav]

Hmmm... sustained peace does give the AI a bonus though, thats +150%.
So if you wage war against the AI with ToAr, you might be better off just going for another AI you have been at peace with the entire game?

 

[Pengu]

500 gold, +200 gold for each point of commerce (rounded down) that the target city would receive from a trade route to your capital.

So if your capital has Temple of Artemis, it doesn't boost your mission yield. But if the target city has Temple of Artemis, it will boost mission yield from your Great Merchant going there.

There's a few articles floating around with an exact list of all the potential trade route modifiers in the formula if you want to go digging for exact details on what cities will maximize it - just remember, you're looking for another player's city that would do well trading with your capital, not one where your capital would do well trading with the other city.

Once you have a Great Merchant, you can also shift-queue "move and mission" to mouse over the mission option at a given city and see how much it would earn if the Great Merchant were there this turn.

Sorry, how do you shift+queue with the merchant?

 

[Qactus]

Sorry, how do you shift+queue with the merchant?

Your GM must be standing in a (any) city for this to work.
1) Press and hold shift
2) Right click on the target city (this queues up the movement)
3) Hover over the trade mission button and read the value
4) Click the "Cancel last action" button to cancel the movement. The dotted path disappears.
5) Only now release the shift key

 

[Gumbolt]

From my testing.
If AI city is size 12 or over it adds 200. I tried size 20 had no impact.
Harbour adds 200
TOA adds 200.
If our capital is
11 -1500
12/13 1700
14/15 1900
16/17 2100
18/19 2300
20/21 2500
22/23 2700

Overall target the biggest cities with the most buildings. Custom house may add 200. Not tested.

 

[soundjata]

I think holy city (or is it shrine?) gives a good bonus too.

In Loulou game, I benefited a lot from doing the mission on an island with the Islamic holy city.

 

[NothingBesideRemains]

It is calculated based in YOUR capital's size(Flat until each even population number above 10), multiplied by the multipliers used by THAT city's calculation of trade route with your Capital. So, that city being bigger, having TOA / Harbour/ Custom House, being intercontinental, and having sustained peace, all work in your favour.