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You want to maximise your profit so never sail with an empty hold. When you enter a foreign port, click on your fleet and select cargo hold. Open the Trading Post tab on the other half of the screen and drag goods across to buy them. You can hold CTRL and left click to grab units of ten tons or kilos at once. It may be slightly awkward but you can also buy maximum by holding CTRL and clicking the left and right mouse buttons together to drag goods across to your hold. Each ship type has a different capacity. Military ships that can hold marines use their cargo capacity to hold them so if you have a full contingent of marines you can’t carry goods.
The prices of each product, whether spices, tea or porcelain, are clearly displayed. The majority give a price per ton but there are exceptions such as diamonds which are measured in carats. You can see the profit per ton you will make by selling the item in your home port. Obviously the higher profit items are the ones you want to go for. When buying goods at your home port for the outbound voyage you’ll need to manually check the prices in foreign ports. Some will offer a great profit on guns or tools while others won’t bring much of a return at all. While it is worth trying to maximise the outbound profit don’t focus on it because the real money is to be made by importing exotic goods.
