couple of questions regarding arbitrage and bribery

  • 1) bribery - when do i have to bribe people in the bath house to get myself aquitted of the piracy indictments? i've managed to bribe two judges between getting the indictment letter and the verdict (both with 'this is an enticing sum, you have my loyalty' or whatever the actual words are), and it was STILL guilty, what am i doing wrong? do i need to bribe them before i even get the indictment letter? do i need to find and bribe more judges?


    2)arbitage - can someone explain this system for me step by step? from what i've managed to get by using google translate on the german forums (hard to understand still as google translate isn't that good, hence why i'm asking here), and the few things i got from searches of what hasn't been deleted yet, this is what i've managed to understand so far:
    i wasn't sure if you were meant to do it in a town that produces the arbitage good or not, so i tried it in both one that does and one that doesn't.
    get a ship with a captain who has level 5 in trading and put him in a town. (using iron goods in stockholm/ rostock as an example, these are what i tried) pick a good and set auto trade to:
    a)sell max iron goods upto a value of 400 gold
    b)buy max iron goods upto a value of 220 gold


    in both stockholm and rostock where i tried this (i sold ~100 IG in rostock from my warehouse first so there were goods here to start it off) i managed to get around 1000 gold profit per iteration (so around 2000-4000 a day, not sure if my captain does this twice or 4 times a day). am i missing something here?
    is it just that the volume of goods is too small? is there another step that i need to do? people are talking about getting hundreds of thousands of gold a day from this method. thanks to anyone who helps. (also wasn't sure if this second one should go in this sub-forum or the tips and tricks one)

  • Hello rash92 and welcome on board! :)


    I've some ideas concerning 1):

    • As far as I know you have to bribe people in that town, which sent the indictment letter. (sorry, I've to link german forum sources :( : Bestechung)
    • If you create a savegame after bribery and you decide to quit the game, it is possible that your bribery won't be saved. Almost certainly after loading your savegame you will see that you lost the loyalty of your "fine friends"
      (forum source: Bestechung).
    • Please see bribery as a joker card: The game will use this joker automatically for the next possible event. This doesn't only include indictments but also elections. Maybe there was a mayoral election in town after you received the indictment letter.


    EDIT: You don't need to bribe them before you get the indictment letter. And you don't need to find and bribe more than two judges.

  • thank you!


    i think the problem was not bribing in the right town, or the loading problem, but it's hard to find people to bribe at the right time in the right town >.>
    do you know when the game generates people in the bathhouse? if i save before a new day starts and repeatedly load and wait til the new day will there be a chance for there to be someone to bribe there? or will it be the same result each time? and if i find someone and want to see if my bribes work, can i bribe them, save and fast forward and load and try again? or if i save before i bribe them will they still be there after i load?


    i kind of wish i knew german right now as this forum seems like it would be very useful if i could inderstand what is said (also the tip collection seems like it would be very useful but it's only in german u.u)

  • You can do like "scotty" and beam the people into your bathhouse.


    1. Save if you want to bribe.
    2. Play into the future until a person is in your "right" bathhouse. Use "Schnellvorlauf" (fast forward)!
    3. Load your save (load it directly, do not quit before)
    4. The person is now at that time in the bathhouse, when you need it


    May be there is a moderator, that transform my words into a better english.

  • Ah, yes, x9jaan described the best way to get people for bribery - and it shows the principle:
    if you have bathhouse people in the game's memory they will still be there after loading your savegame.


    Concerning arbitrage unfortunately I can't help very much except in one point.
    The principle here is:
    You have to set a sell max price which is lower than your buy max price!
    You gain money only by your captains trading talent. Believe me, it works.
    The idea behind this principle is to earn money day by day without sea trade.
    And the amount of money can become huge while playing longer and longer.
    Maybe someone else here on board can help with details, I never used the fascinating arbitrage in my games. :)

  • ooh that bath house trick sounds very handy, never would've thought of that. thanks :) and yeah, i think i've understood that much about arbitage, but i think i'm missing something to increase the profit? ~1000 gold a day doesn't seem like much. perhaps someone who has used arbitage successfully can give some tips?

  • I hope this isn't too late for an answer. The amount of the arbitage is the key. You can for example, in an iron goods producing town, set up a convoy. You can sell potentially thousands of the items. It is mostly a spoiler, since unlimited cash can make the trading end of the game valueless. As well, you can manually start and stop the program, to make up to fifty turn around sales per day.