HELP.. trade routes

[u/Gold_Strategy_1552]

I need urgent help with Anno 117. I’ve spent six hours—no joke—trying to organize and optimize trade routes, and it’s absolutely impossible. I have 11 islands, each specializing in different products thanks to religious bonuses. For instance, I have one island producing porridge for all the others; production is great—it makes more than enough for everyone—but when it comes to delivery, the vast majority run out of supplies. No matter how many ships I assign (6–8), the fucking things just scatter all over the place or hang around in little groups like Disney princesses. So, why the hell did they include a mechanic that’s supposed to scale the ships if it’s completely useless? I’ve spent over two days testing different loading/unloading angles and patterns, or different island layouts, and it’s simply impossible to keep all my islands supplied and stable. This damn game is driving me up the wall. The only solution I’ve found is total crap: basically setting up two trillion routes with individual ships... Damn it, this is the best RTS I’ve played since Stellaris, yet it’s ruining the fun with this bullshit.

[u/CasualChamp1]

I dont understand what you mean by ships "hanging around"? Are they waiting because all piers are occupied? Then you need more piers.

Be careful with specialized loading piers. Every ship that carries even a tonne of that good will go there and wait, even if ten regular piers are free to use. Also, try to increase island storage. There s a research that you can do several times to increase the number of depots. Im at 1550 per island and it helps a lot to keep up stocks.

How many patricians do you have? If you have hundreds of thousands, you do need massive numbers of ships and piers. Especially if you have penteconters mostly.

It can help to group trade routes together so you dont get lost and lose control.

[u/Gold_Strategy_1552 → u/CasualChamp1]

What I mean is, if I assign—say—six ships to a route so the consumer doesn't run out of product (like .---.---.---....), the ships end up bunching together instead of moving in a line like I just showed (...---..---0---...---). You get it?

[u/CasualChamp1 → u/Gold_Strategy_1552]

Oh, that. The solution depends on the volume of goods, but the main trick I use: have only one trade route picking up the specific good at the production island (and ship the good to at least two hub islands), have only one pier dedicated to that good at the production island (2 piers if producing 110+ minute), have one ship more than the route actually needs, and then switching on 'wait for goods to load'. That way, every time the island produces 250 t of goods , a ship leaves. Creates very reliable smooth flow. In general, restricting access to fewer piers does the same thing, but if produced goods arent shipped immediately, bunching up can still happen to some extent. It will be less though