A Twilight of Empires

How to Initiate Trade

Simply put, to initiate trade between your nation and another nation each player needs to include an indication of this in the orders of both positions.

Why not let just one of the two players initiate trade? There are several good reasons. My primary reason is to induce players to negotiate their trade relations. This was historically very important, with bribes, threats, and kick-backs common - many people see such mechanisms still in place throughout the modern world. Without a high-level treaty merchants were at the mercy of local officials, pirates, and other dangers.

Each player using trade by water will need to determine which port to use for such shipping. Ports have limited capacity, and some players will want to determine how these are used despite automatic msp allocation (see Hands-Free Trade for more).

And finally there may be some nations with which one does not wish to trade.