Getting Started Trading
Before you start trading, you need some money to get started (at least 1,000 peningas, preferably more. You can make a lot of money through quests such as 'destroy bandit lair' and 'collect taxes from _____). A ship is very helpful, but you can pay to travel between city ports though this will decrease your profits by at least a thousand if you follow some of the longer trade routes in this guide.
If you play storyline, you get a ship fairly early on. If you play sandbox, the Last Tauthe de Danaan quest that starts at level 8 is a great way to get money to buy a ship.
However, if you play storyline you become an enemy of Friese very quickly. I will cover more on this later.
The Basics Of Trading
The basic goal of trading is to make money, obviously. The most basic form of this is buying cheap trade goods in villages and selling them in towns, however the profits will be insignificant. The most profitable trading is found buying cheap goods in towns and selling them in other towns, preferably one reasonably far away which doesn't produce the good itself.
The only good which I have found not to bring basically any profit is ale. It is produced pretty much everywhere and the differences in price is a dozen peningas at best.
Dorestad
Dorestad is my favourite town in the game by far. It produces several trade goods which can sold for hefty profts - salt, wine and jewellery are the main ones. In addition, you can make thousands upon thousands of peningas buying wool in English villages ( West Seaxe and East Angle are the main areas to look in ) and selling it in Dorestad.
Generally, Dorestad is the richest city alongside Ribe and Eidynburgh and is amazing in the early game to make a bit of money to spend on ships and enterprises.
The only problem with Dorestad is that you become an enemy of Friese if you're playing the storyline. The only way I've found to remedy this is to sneak into the city to buy/sell goods, but if you joined a kingdom as a vassal or mercenary it would set relations with Friese back to 0. I haven't tested this though.
Trade Route 1 - England To Dorestad
The most basic trade route I will cover in this guide, it involves buying wool for 30 - 100 penginas in villages from West Seaxe, East Angle and the south of Mierce and selling it in Dorestad for several thousand peningas overall. It's a fairly famous strategy amongst Viking Conquest players.
If you chose to play storyline, this route may be redundant if you aren't willing to take risks / save scum to sneak into Dorestad.
Trade Route 2 - Dubh Linn To Caer Megguaid
This route is useful if you're playing storyline, otherwise it is fairly useless in sandbox compared to the England -> Dorestad route. It is, however, useful combined in a larger route with other smaller routes.
It involves buying mead in Dubh Linn, sailing to Ynys Mon and buying more mead, before travelling to Caer Megguaid and selling the mead for a modest profit.
Trade Route 3 - Ribe To Dubh Linn
This route involves buying furs in Ribe, sailing to Tunsberg to buy even more furs and also tar, before sailing around Scotland to Dubh Linn to sell all the furs and tar.
Trade Route 4 - England To Eidynburgh
In this route, you will buy wool in English villages, sail to Dorestad to sell the wool and buy wine and salt, sail to Tunsberg to sell the salt and buy tar, before finally sailing to Eidynburgh to sell wine and tar.
This is a very profitable route and one of my favourites. You can think of it as an expansion to route 1.
Enterprises
Enterprises (also known as farmsteads in Viking Conquest) are businesses you can open in towns (but only 1 in each) which give a couple hundred to a thousand peningas a week. Whilst the initial cost may be expensive (up to 17000!), once you have an enterprise in several towns you will really start to notice the extra money when you're getting several thousand peningas a week for doing nothing. And anyway, if you're trading efficiently you will be rolling in cash! I cannot reccomend enough getting an enterprise in every town by the time you become a vassal or mercenary.
To open an enterprise, speak to the mayor / guildmaster of a town and ask to open a farmstead. If you're relations with the town or its lord are negative, you will not be able to open an enterprise in that town until relations improve. There is a two week delay until your enterprise starts making cash, so don't worry if you don't make profits immediately. Also note that enterprises in the towns of enemy kingdoms will not give you any money until peace is declared.
Also note that, unlike the standard weavery & dyeworks that are most profitable in native and many mods, it's best to look at what is most profitable in each unique town when deciding what enterprise to build there.
The most profitable enterprise I have found is a foundry in Cippanham. I'd reccomend it as your first one.
Other Helpful Comments
Lufialunar said:
'Not Bad. I havent played in a long time. So this is a nice refresher on trading for me. Some things I want to add though is I follow a four major hub for my trading. It does require a boat and a decent size crew. About 60~ to survive it.
I start with the Nords and Buy all the TAR/Soapstone/Lumber/wool I can, I also go and buy it from each village since they sell it for about $30. Then I goto Ribe and sell it all with the exception of the wool, since my next trip is to Dorestad to sell wool and buy Wine/Salt. From there I goto to Dunwic and sell my salt maybe jewellery too. Jewellery can sold for 1k at Ribe and Tungston aswell while wine is sold for about 600 at Ribe and 800+ at Tungston Rinse and Repeat :) Doing this whole loop should get you close to one week in game time. This refreshes all the shops.'
2qhurda9 said:
'Trading in VC is a simple matter of buying manufactured goods in cities and trading them for raw materials in villages. You can easily pull in thousands, without needing any specific cities. You do need to keep moving to let the villages reset, but since the system works everywhere. Doesn't matter where you go. Because villages will value manufactured goods at a far higher price then cities, you can pick up some pretty steep discounts. Buying stuff for pennies on the dollar.'
This comment in particular is fairly important, because there has been multiple updates and patches since this guide was written. Therefore this information may be more up to date, though my routes are always garunteed to bring profits with minimum brainpower or hard work. It's worth keeping in mind though if you're looking to experiment a little bit.
Source: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=904292349
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