User Guide

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item in trade. As more are built, the price will
continue to rise and the country that owns a
province that produces that resource will gen-
erate even more trade revenue from it.
There are also a number of resources clas-
sified as “New World” goods that result in a
demand for another resource: slaves. While we
in no way condone the slave trade and horrors
imposed upon those peoples who were forced
to work in the New World plantations, this was
too important a “resource” to ignore in a game
that is set in this era. While the initial value of
slaves will be very low, the demand and price
for slaves will increase as the New World is
colonised and provinces begin to produce the
“new world” resources.
Gold is a special resource that is never trad-
ed. It is sent directly to the country that owns
the province and is added to the country’s
monthly income. This also results in a small
amount of inflation that depends on what per-
centage of a country’s total revenue is derived
from the gold.
Centers of Trade
There are a number of special “centers of trade”
scattered across the globe. Each acts as a col-
lection and distribution point for the primary
resources of nearby provinces and generates
extra trade revenue that is distributed amongst
the merchants who are active in that center. A
province that contains a center of trade will
have a sig-
nificantly in-
creased month-
ly income and
is also a loca-
tion where
countries may
send their own
merchants to
attempt to es-
tablish them-
selves and cap-
ture a share of
the market. A
successful merchant will then send a month-
ly trade profit back to his sponsoring country.
This is shown as the trade revenue in the budg-
et summary in the Domestic Economic screen,
and may be a sizable portion of some countries’
income.
The easiest way to locate a center of trade
is to switch to the “trade map mode” by click-
ing the trade button in the special menus tool-
bar at the bottom right of the main interface.
Each province will then be given a colour ac-
cording to the trade center that is distributing
its goods. A tool tip will identify the province
that contains the center of trade, the total value
of the trade passing through that center, and
the value of trade that any of your merchants
are contributing to your coffers. If you already
have at least one merchant in a center of trade,
you can also use the outliner to jump directly
to that location. A third method is to click on
any province to display the standard province
information summary. The name of the local
center of trade will be shown as a button that
is part of the trade summary for that province.
You can click on that button to display the
Merchant Interface.
Merchant Interface
The Merchant interface shows the total value of
monthly trade currently passing through this
center of trade, as well the share of that trade
that is being conducted by your merchants.
The value of
the trade will
grow as prov-
inces produce
more resources,
and each mer-
chant will re-
ceive a share of
that trade based
on the total
number of mer-
chants active
in the center of
trade.