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This type of trading only works with your own ships and market wagons, and the procedure is
the same for both. The only difference is that the ship travels overseas, and the market
wagon over land, and then only on the one island. Naturally, you can also use autoroute mode
to transport goods between your own islands. There are 2 different sizes of trading vessels,
with different cargo capacities. Each ship, or market wagon, can have up to 4 stops on their
route. At each of these stops 2 products can be bought or sold. Once the last point on the
trading route has been reached the ship, or market wagon starts again from the beginning.
In order to lay out an autoroute for the first time, go to info mode and click your ship.
Now click the middle icon (autoroute mode) from the ship menu.
Setting the starting point is done by clicking the bar marked "SELECT TARGET". the cursor
now changes to a vertical double arrow. Click on the warehouse of the city which is to be the
starting point of the route. The bar will now show the name of the city, and the cursor
returns to normal. Now choose a product by clicking the first blue square. In foreign cities,
only goods which are currently offered, or needed can be chosen. Once the product has been
chosen, you must decide whether it should be loaded or unloaded. This is done by using the
arrows next to the blue squares. An arrow pointing into the square means load the product,
while an arrow pointing outwards means unload. Click an arrow to change its direction.
The sliders next to the squares allow you to set the amount to be loaded or unloaded.
The stops set up on the route will be reached in the order they are entered. To activate the
route, first click the right mouse button to return to the ship menu.
The icon above and to the right of the autoroute icon (start/stop autoroute) starts and stops
the autoroute. If a particular product is not available, the ship or wagon will continue on
its route. If the desired amount of a particular product is not available, as much of the
product as possible will be loaded.
Example: you want to trade with another city, with whom you have a trade agreement. To check
the supply and demand situation, you click the warehouse in the other city. You see that they
have iron ore to offer, which you need, also that they need wood, which you want to sell.
You want to trade these goods on a regular basis. Go to info mode and click your ship, then
click the autoroute icon, then click the "SELECT TARGET" bar, and click the first stop
on your route, which should be your warehouse.
Now click the first product field (blue square) and find the "wood" symbol. The arrow beside
the wood means that it will be loaded onto your ship. The info bar describes exactly what will
done with a particular product when you move your cursor over it. Now use the slider to set
the amount of wood you want to load onto your ship. Then click the other product field and then
the iron ore. This time the arrow has to point away from the iron ore, so that the ore will be
unloaded here.
To change the direction of the arrow, click it with the left mouse button. Use the slider to
set the desired amount here as well. The first destination, and the actions to be taken there
are now set. Now click the next "SELECT TARGET" bar and click the other warehouse. Use the
same procedure as above, but this time you have to set the arrows so that the wood will be
unloaded and the iron ore loaded. This means that the arrows must point away from the wood and
toward the iron ore. Once again, use the sliders to set the amounts to be loaded and unloaded.
Right click with the mouse to return to the ship menu. Now click the "start/stop autoroute"
icon to send the ship on its way.
The ship will continue to follow this route until you stop it by using the "stop autoroute"
command, or until you set a new route. Click the autoroute icon again in the ship's info menu
to de-activate this function.
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