Trade Route Tip: Set Import AND Export

[Oddible]

Here's a tip for stocking the main commodities in the game (Food, Lumber, Tools). Set up a wagon train and turn on Import AND Export for every town that it visits. Set your Export at the Max of the warehouse in the town (100, 200, 300). The wagon will go around and drop off lumber, then pick up all but the amount specified and move on to fill up the rest of your towns.

 

[frosty2k]

I was wondering why my wagon trains were loading up stock from one city, and dumping it in another causing it to overload the warehouse. Silly me for assuming they would stop dumping goods when the warehouse was full.

Thanks for that one. No more randomly dumped tools for me!

 

[stryfe]

Sounds really useful, I was annoyed by the wasted goods too, I'm just a little fuzzy on how it works. Could you explain a little more? I thought the number for export was the amount you wanted to keep in the town? Are you saying it's the maximum amount that can be stored in the town?

 

[1EyedKing]

Does anyone know how to load only a fraction of goods onto a ship at a colony? Holding Shift while dragging the good doesn't do it.

PROTIP: Actually, it does, but you have to hold it down *before* clicking and dragging. Feels weird.

 

[Oddible]

Sounds really useful, I was annoyed by the wasted goods too, I'm just a little fuzzy on how it works. Could you explain a little more? I thought the number for export was the amount you wanted to keep in the town? Are you saying it's the maximum amount that can be stored in the town?

No, you're right, the number for export identifies the amount you want to keep in the town. Scenario:

New Holland: Import Wood () / Export Wood (200)

Wagon with 200 Wood arrives to New Holland.
New Holland already has 125 wood.
Wagon drops off all of its wood because you have Import set.
New Holland has 325 wood (in a 200 warehouse).
Wagon picks up all but 200 wood because you have Export (200) set.
Wagon carries 125 wood to next destination.

That's it, now New Holland has 200 wood and the wagon takes its remaining 125 wood to the new destination.

 

[Gliese 581]

Can you set up the following:

City #1: Export Tobacco by land ->
City #2: Import the Tobacco then Export send it by ship ->
City #3: Import the Tobacco from the ship then Export by land ->
City #4: Cigar manufacture city Imports Tobacco, end destination.

?


Edit:
E ->(L)
IE ->(S)
IE ->(L)
I

 

[OnmyojiOmn]

I think this works for food too. If you have one settlement working as a food pump and another that needs food, you can't just set up a simple import/export route because the transport will take every bit of food it finds. So, set both settlements to both import and export, set the pump to keep a high number and the other settlement to keep a low number. The numbers depends on how much is produced and how much is needed.

 

[pvt chaos]

No, you're right, the number for export identifies the amount you want to keep in the town. Scenario:

New Holland: Import Wood () / Export Wood (200)

Wagon with 200 Wood arrives to New Holland.
New Holland already has 125 wood.
Wagon drops off all of its wood because you have Import set.
New Holland has 325 wood (in a 200 warehouse).
Wagon picks up all but 200 wood because you have Export (200) set.
Wagon carries 125 wood to next destination.

That's it, now New Holland has 200 wood and the wagon takes its remaining 125 wood to the new destination.

I also used this, but later in the game I was wondering why all of my warehouse's stock kept raising. I soon find out that I was overproducing and my wagons transported zip and were constantly full with the same goods. So watch out for that.

 

[ColPaladin]

I set one, or two wagons to take all Silver;Coats;Fabric;Cigars, and Rum from all cities to one port city nearest Europe; set one or two boats to take all those goods from that city to Europe (and NEVER use them for anything else), and your all set. I usually never have to bother with that for most the game after that; only have one other boat that stays at Europe waiting for any colonists/imagrants to take back.

 

[Rexflex]

Thanks for this tip - this makes a lot more sense now, although I still hold my argument that the automatic trade routes aren't intuitive. It seems to me that it could have been set up to shift around the excess by default, unless you told it not to.

 

[offworld]

It's a good trick, however, in the lumber example, if one of the cities on the list both produces and uses lumber, it's a good idea to set the limit at 75% of the max warehouse limit at that city. Ideally, this would not be necessary as you would have one export-only lumberjack city which doesn't use lumber itself, exporting to use-only cities The system works smoother that way.