You won’t get far in Anno 117 without trade routes. This is how you establish profitable merchant routes

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Trade routes are a key feature in Anno 117, becoming essential when you expand to multiple islands. They let you automatically move goods between your cities. This guide will explain how they work.

How do trade routes work?

Trade routes are managed in a dedicated tab on the left side of the screen. Think of them as automated delivery systems: you select a ship and the islands it will travel between, and it will continuously transport the resources you specify. Ships with more cargo space can carry more goods. Trade routes are especially useful for balancing production – if one island is missing a resource, you can simply import it from another island that has it. For instance, if an island lacks metal, you can have it delivered from an island with metal deposits.

Once you’ve assigned a ship to a trade route, you can customize its journey by choosing which islands it visits and the order in which it stops. You also specify what goods the ship will collect or deliver at each island. At each port, you can set extra options, like having the ship wait for enough goods to be produced, wait for warehouse space to become available, or even discard goods if there’s nowhere to unload them. Once the ship completes the route, it automatically returns to where it started and begins the route again.

You can trade goods freely between the islands you control. You can also trade with friendly or neutral islands, but first you’ll need to establish a trade agreement through the diplomacy menu. These islands sell specific goods that you’ll need to buy, but you’ll earn money by selling them your own goods. Each island also has specific items they need, and they’ll pay a bonus if you can supply them.

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2025-11-17 12:32