TRADING:
I have listed my conclusions and recommendations first so that you can refer back to them at a later date for a quick summary. Information supporting these conclusions is found in the main body of the text.
CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS:
1. Never build more than two trading ships for EACH ally or opponent you trade with. If possible, trade with more than one ally or opponent using two additional trading ships.
2) Never upgrade the trading ships to merchant ships, unless you are traveling a great distance.
3) If possible, always trade food first, wood if you must, and never trade stone for gold.
4) Build your dock as FAR AWAY as you 'safely' can from the dock you expect to trade with.
5) VERY IMPORTANT: Make sure you and your trading partner DO NOT have additional docks closer to each other (in between your trading docks) or you will only get gold credit based on the distance between these closer (non-trading) docks.
6) Try to trade in a straight a line as is possible (avoid going 'around curvatures in the land'). Bottle necks (created by land or too many boats/ships in a tight space) will cause your traders to stop and sit idle in the water.
7) Make sure you have no 'idle' trading ships waiting at his dock. If you do, you are either too close to each other, you have built too many trading boats, or you have run out of food/wood to trade with. An idle trading boat has a built in penalty as described later.
8) Begin trading as early in the game as possible. In ROR, that means early tool, given the amount of food you can also obtain from fish. Not finding that first gold pile becomes less crucial. Understand that trading creates NEW gold. It does not 'steal' gold from you, your ally, or your opponent.
SUPPORTING INFORMATION:
WHAT IS THE 'GOLD TICKER'?:
The minute the game begins, any dock (yours for trading with others and others for trading with you) begins with a gold 'ticker' starting at zero. If you click on any dock, you can observe the gold ticker as it accumulates this gold. Every second which passes adds one unit of gold to the gold ticker up to a Maximum of 100 units of gold. The ticker stops at 100. If you trade for gold, the ticker is reduced by the number of gold units you 'load' onto your trading ship. This gold ticker is then replenished (one unit per second) until it once again reaches 100 units of gold. This represents how many gold units are available for trading for that entire particular ALLY OR OPPONENT RACE.
HOW MUCH FOOD/WOOD/STONE CAN A TRADING BOAT CARRY TO A DOCK AND HOW MUCH GOLD CAN A TRADING BOAT CARRY BACK TO YOUR DOCK?
Your trading boat can carry up to 20 units of a commodity (food/wood/stone) in its cargo hold. When you port at the ally/opponents dock, you will receive up to 20 units of gold, IF the units of gold are available (to be explained further).
WHAT IS A UNIT OF GOLD THAT i PICK UP AND STORE IN MY CARGO HOLD, AND HOW MUCH IS IT REALLY WORTH?
Remember that 20 units of gold you loaded into your cargo hold? This is NOT how much gold you eventually receive credit for and can actually use in the game. These 20 units of gold increase or lose value depending on how far you travel to get it. Think of it this way. At your dock, you have loaded 20 units of food onto a boat. Let's call them 20 'crates' of food. You then trade them for 20 crates (units) of gold. Each crate has a dollar value which changes based upon distance. For example: A crate of gold has a certain value in the United States. Transport that gold crate to Europe, and it now has a new value. Travel another distance to Russia and your well traveled crate of gold takes on still a new value.
In AOE/ROR, the further you travel, the more valuable your gold crates in your cargo hold become. Ultimately, you will receive 'true' gold value of anywhere between 7 and 75 gold for each round trip your trading ship makes depending upon the distances between YOUR dock which is closest to HIS closest dock. The amount received is based on the number of tiles away, etc. But let's just say, if you put your dock right beside his, you will receive just 7 spendable gold pieces and you have wasted your time. Try longer distances and you will see how it works. The simple rule of thumb is, place your dock as far away as you 'safely' can. I say safely as the trade route must be protected from enemy attack.
Here's a cruel twist: Let's say you are trading a long distance from dock 'a' to dock 'b'. Without thinking, you build a second (or third, etc.) dock much closer to the ally/opponent you are trading with (or he builds a new dock closer to you). You will now receive 'true' gold value based on the distance between YOUR CLOSEST dock and HIS CLOSEST dock, even though you are using 'other' docks to trade with which are further apart.
Here's another twist: The amount of gold credit you actually receive and can use in game play is determined by distance based upon the 'shortest distance between two points' and not by how far you really traveled. For example: If you are at 12 (Continental map) and you go 'around the cape' at 3 and trade with someone at 5, you have traveled a very long distance. But the gold calculation is based on the direct line from dock 'a' and dock 'b'. In this case, the direct line is across the land, not around the land.
WHY DO MY BOATS STAND IDLE IN THE WATER, OR STAND IDLE AT HIS DOCK?
Idle in the water: If you are on inland or narrows, your boats can clog up in tight spaces (hitting each other or other ships) and they will then sit there until you see them and get them moving again. Therefore, try to trade on straight stretches of open water.
Idle in the water: Your trading boat carries 20 units of a commodity if it is available. For example, if you are trading food, and you run out of food (lazy peons didn't build new farms), then your trading boat will stop trading and will sit there, dead in the water until you get him going again.
Idle at his dock: How long your trading boat has to wait at his dock depends on how many units HE has available to trade (0 to 100 on his gold ticker). Example: If he has 60 gold units available and your boat arrives, your boat will immediately trade 20 commodity for 20 gold units and depart immediately. But if HIS dock only has 8 units of gold to trade, you will wait 12 seconds at his dock until his ticker gets up to 20 units at the rate of 1 unit per second. You remember that gold ticker (in the dock) that ticks up to 100 units (one per second) and represents how much gold a given race can trade? If that ticker depletes down below 20 gold units (too many trading ships arriving too quickly), then your trading boats will sit and wait at his dock until new gold units are created (one per second) in a sufficient amount to load the cargo hold of your boat with 20 units of gold.
WHY DO SOME OF MY TRADE BOATS NEVER LEAVE HIS DOCK WHILE BOATS ARRIVING LATER CONTINUE TO DEPART?
The trading boat that you BUILT LAST is always FILLED FIRST at his dock. For example, let's assume that you are trading with just two ships and one of your ships is at his dock. Now, let's assume this was the VERY FIRST trading ship you built earlier in the game. This ship currently has 15 units (of 20) of gold loaded into his cargo hold. Your second trading ship (built later) arrives at his dock. Surprisingly, the Second ship (built later) now takes priority and begins to load gold into its cargo hold while the first ship (with 15 units of gold) just sits and waits until the second ship is fully loaded and departs. Quite a pecking order. Now, compound this if you have built three or more ships (a big mistake) to trade with just one ally/opponent!!! You will always have ships waiting at his dock, some will be half full, AND some will NEVER leave his dock due to the continuously arriving (younger) ships.
WHY ONLY TWO TRADING SHIPS PER ALLY/OPPONENT?
You want to create a situation where you have just enough ships whereby one is always arriving and the other is departing without having your ships wait at his port. If you want to get into the math, that's fine. But simply put, two is almost always the right number of trading boats to use per each race you trade with. Any more is not only a waste, but will decrease efficiency and productivity.
Think of it this way. If it takes you 40 seconds (quite a distance) to make a round trip from your dock to his dock and you are using three ships, then in 40 seconds you can take 60 gold units (20 gold units x 3 ships) from dock to dock. Remember his gold ticker counts up to 100 and replenishes his gold at 1 gold unit per second. His intial 100 units minus the 60 you took now leaves him with 40 units of gold available for trading. Your next wave of 3 ships will return in 40 seconds which allows his dock to increase to just 80 units of gold available (20 less than before) when you make the next trade. After this trade, he now has 20 units of gold (80 minus 60) and will replenish to a total of 60 units of gold when you arrive the third time. This third trade wipes out his total gold supply (60 minus 60 = 0) and from here on out you will have one trade boat waiting at his dock for the rest of the game.
A better example would be: If it takes you 40 seconds (still quite a distance) to make a round trip from your dock to his dock and you are using TWO ships, then in 40 seconds, you take 40 gold units (20 gold units x 2) from dock to dock. His initial 100 units minus 40 units (first trip) now leaves him with 60 units of gold available for trading. Your next wave of two ships will return in 40 seconds which allows his dock to fully replenish his gold units up to a maximum of 100 units. This means you are trading in an equal amount to the amount being replenished to his dock/race and your boats will never wait at his dock. Don't let the fact that his dock once again has 100 gold units mislead you. If he can't replenish up to 100 units before your return, then eventually you will have a trade boat waiting at his dock. REALISTICALLY, EVEN WITH TWO TRADING BOATS, ONE WILL BE WAITING AT HIS DOCK AS MOST OF THE TIME THE ROUND TRIP TRAVEL TIME WILL BE LESS THAN 40 SECONDS FROM DOCK TO DOCK.
IF I SHOULD BUILD JUST TWO TRADE BOATS, THEN WHY EVEN TRADE?
Well, so you can win the long iron game! You can generate a ton of gold if you do it right. Think about it. You start trading early, over a great distance. Assuming the 40 second round trip scenario, you would probably get the full amount of 75 'usable' gold times two ships or 150 gold every 40 seconds. Assuming you have been trading for just 30 minutes with only one ally/opponent, YOU WILL GENERATE 6,750 IN 'USABLE' GOLD (30 minutes equals 1,800 seconds divided by 40 seconds per trip equals 45 full trips times 150 gold WHY SHOULDN'T I UPGRADE TO MERCHANT SHIPS UNLESS I TRAVEL A GREAT DISTANCE? Trade boats travel at the rate of 2 squares per second. Upgraded Merchant Ships travel at the rate of 2.5 tiles per second (per the manual). Who cares if they are faster but arrive too quickly and have to wait? The upgrade is not worth the cost, unless the trading docks are very far away. WHY TRADE FOOD FIRST, WOOD SECOND AND NEVER STONE? Food: When farming, 75 units of wood converts into anywhere from 250 food to 475 food (depending on how many farm upgrades you have). You can buy a lot of gold with 250-475 food as compared to wasting your wood. Wood: It's a non-renewable resource which can be converted cheaper to food or used in your war efforts. Trade with wood only if you are very short on food and have a ton of wood collected. Use discretion. Stone: Once stone is depleted from the land, it is gone for good. Use the stone for walls, towers, etc. It's not really as hard as it sounds. Just follow the conclusions listed at the top of this analysis and you will find an unexpected gold bounty when you need it the most.
SUMMARY: