Revision as of 14:09, 17 November 2025

The Trade Ship is a type of boat that automatically spawns from Ports. When a Trade Ship spawns, it will travel to another Nation's Port.

In terms of appearance, they have a bright outline with a dark center.

Trade Ship Spawning

Ports check every 10 ticks if they should spawn a trade ship, until the cap of 150 is reached^[1].

Spawn chance is calculated based on total number of ports in the game:

tradeShipSpawnRate(numberOfPorts) = {round(10 * Math.pow(numberOfPorts, 0.6))}

More ports = higher spawn rate, but with diminishing returns due to the 0.6 power

Trade Route Selection

Ports will only trade with other players (not their own ports). Trade partners are prioritized in this order:

Closer ports get double chance of being selected (proximity bonus)
Allied ports get double chance of being selected

Trade ships are free to build and don't count against unit limits.

Gold Generation

Gold earned is based on Manhattan distance (which means the sum of the absolute differences in x and y coordinates) between ports:

Gold earned = {10000 + 150 * Math.pow(dist, 1.1)}

Both the source and destination port owners receive the full amount.

Longer trade routes are more profitable (superlinear scaling with distance)

Example 1 - Close Trade:

Let's say two ports are 20 tiles apart:

Base gold: 10,000
Distance bonus: 150 * (20^1.1) = 150 * 24.53 = 3,680
Total gold earned: 13,680

Both ports receive 13,680 gold each when the trade completes

Example 2 - Long Distance Trade:

Let's say the ports are 200 tiles apart:

Base gold: 10,000
Distance bonus: 150 * (200^1.1) = 150 * 316.23 = 47,434
Total gold earned: 57,434

Both ports receive 57,434 gold each when the trade completes

This shows how the superlinear scaling (power of 1.1) makes long-distance trade routes much more profitable:

The far port is 10x further (200 vs 20 tiles)
But it generates about 4.2x more gold (57,434 vs 13,680)
The distance bonus portion is about 13x larger (47,434 vs 3,680)

Each port you own increases the gold per trade, counterbalancing the cap of 150 trade ships.^[2]

Piracy Protection

Trade ships become "safe from pirates" when near shoreline. This is checked every time they move.

Warships cannot capture trade ships that are marked as "safe from pirates".

Trade Ship Behavior

Trade ships automatically path to their destination port. They are deleted if:

Their destination port is captured by the source port owner
Their destination port is destroyed
The trade relationship between source and destination is broken
They can't find a path to their destination

Capture/Destruction Mechanics

File:Trade Ship Capturing.png

A Trade Ship being captured.

If a trade ship is captured:

The capturing player gets all the gold instead of it being split
The ship is redirected to the closest port owned by the capturing player
If the capturing player has no ports, the ship is deleted

For a trade ship to be destroyed:

It falls within the blast radius of an atomic explosion.
It is impacted by a bullet from a warship.

Trade Relationships

Players must be able to trade with each other for trade ships to spawn.

Trade is automatically broken if:

One of the ports is destroyed
Players become enemies
Alliance is broken

Trade Ship: Difference between revisions