Building Ships???

[Irish_Brigade]

Ok. I am working on my first game in PoN. I went through Loki's AAR for Italy so I decided to try Italy first off. I want to build some merchant ships. But I can not figure out how to build them? Do I have to wait to a certain time before the option becomes available?

[Kensai]

Strange. Have you looked in the entire building options and no merchant ships can be built? This shouldn't be the case, even in 1850.

[Irish_Brigade]

Honestly I don't even know what they should be under. Are they under the Millitary Tab, or under the building options? I looked through the manual but found no reference to constructing ships

[loki100]

Honestly I don't even know what they should be under. Are they under the Millitary Tab, or under the building options? I looked through the manual but found no reference to constructing ships

select the screen that shows your military units and then click on the little wheel symbol to the left, that will show all you have available to build. Then select the wee anchor symbol next to all the units and that will show you the naval vessels you can build. Hover over one and the map will go green if you can build it in a particular province (Genoa should be ok) but double check you have all the materials you need.

Overall investment in merchant ships is an excellent early choice. They radically expand your trade network (both to buy and sell), if you stack them up in a particular sea area they increase your chance of winning hard to gain goods and the resulting maritime taxes are a nice source of income (and if you keep these low, more nations will opt to use your ships).

[Irish_Brigade]

Thanks Loki. I have developed a good knack for the trading part of the game. You AAR helped out a lot in understanding the economical dynamics of the game. I had tried to start a few games this week but my country could not get off the ground. But now I have a steady flow of trade and capital. So Kudos to you good sir.

[loki100]

you're more than welcome.

I found I was trying to get used to the game taking complex nations like Russia or the Ottomans and just getting lost. Equally trying to do too much too soon - so used to the normal AGEOD game where you need to make good moves at the start and forgetting that over the length of a PoN game it scarcely matters.

S-P was good as you can see pretty much everything at a glance and slowly get used to the cause-effect and feedback loops of the game.

[Irish_Brigade]

Yea. Only other ageod game I have played was the civil war one and I went into this one with that kind of gamer mind set. Long story short, I was ill prepared.

[Sir Garnet]

France is a good starter country. Less sweeping than Britain but large and wealthy enough to have a solid economy and the ability to pursue world trade from the start. The French are more easily dissatisfied, but wealth helps deal with that and police and troops can do the rest.

[Irish_Brigade]

Wondering if someone can help me. Trying to figure out an easy way to make some money in the game? I screwed up and didn't pay attention that I spent 200 on an upgrade when I only had 83...

[Irish_Brigade]

Never mind. Next turn one of my railroads was built and my money had a nice bounce back