Overview
In this guide you will find how to do every single part of the game from start to finish. If you are having problems with a single task the entire guide has been broken off into task specific elements with appropriate video assistance.
Introduction
This guide will give you a step by step walkthrough of how to beat the Port Royale 3 Trades Walkthrough.
The game starts off with the story of a man who is swept into the sea and lands in Port Royale. He is given command of a ship and asked to trade for the Spanish.
The campaign is organized in terms of completing tasks.
Task #1: Selling goods
In this first task you are asked to sell goods.
First right click on Port au Prince which is to the east of Port Royale. This will bring your ship to the local port.
Good are sold by pulling up the merchant menu. When you hover over a town two buttons will appear, the harbor on the left and the market on the right. Open up the market symbol on the right.
The slider bars when moved to the right will purchase a good.
When moved to the left they will sell a good.
The more items you sell the lower the price of the item gets. And in turn the more you purchase the more expensive the item will get.
A good medium is to purchase until you have one green bar left from producers and sell until you get to one green bar, this will always keep you in the profit margins. Producers are indicated in a cog by the good’s icon.
Once you sell off your 20 casks of rum you will complete this task.
Task #2: Sell 300 Sugar to Port Royale
Port Royale produces rum. This means the port will always have a high demand for wood and sugar (needed in making rum).
The two nearest places to purchase sugar as Port au Prince and Tortuga. It just so happens that by making two trips you will gain enough sugar to complete this task.
Go to each port’s market menu and scroll the purchase menu to the right until you are just barely depleting their resource and sell it to Port Royale.
Task #3: Increase Your Rank
Rank is necessary for game progression. The higher your rank the more abilities and features of the game you will unlock.
The teachers leaves you on your own. He will return once you have hit two ranks.
There are many ways to increase rank.
The first is to increase prosperity in a town. You do this by providing goods they need (complete red bar in trading menu).
A second way is to make profit. The more profit you make the more your rank will increase.
A third way is to discover towns.
A fourth way is to defeat pirates and enemies of the crown. Enemies of Spain are indicated on the top of the screen and any enemy of Spain has a sword between their flags, peace is indicated by an olive branch.
You will use methods 1-3 to get your rank up. Merely go from town to town heading either north or south buying and selling goods in terms of what they need and purchasing only what they produce.
Remember production is indicated by a cog wheel.
Task #4: Add a Ship to Your Convoy
Convoys are larges collections of ships. Convoys gain an advantage in that they will be able to hold more crew and hold more cargo. As well they can choose a warship (up to 3) to protect the convoy.
The ship is located in Port Royale, so head to Port Royale.
Click on the Harbor Master. It is located at the bottom right of the town. Each town has a different location for all of the buildings.
Simply left click on the ship on the left to add it to the convoy on the right.
I you have multiple convoys in town you will have to select the convoy name.
Task #5: Escort Elena to New Orleans
Elena is the daughter of the Viceroy. She is also the main love interest of this campaign. She has been added to your ship.
Your job is simply to head to New Orleans. Don’t forget to load full of goods!
New Orleans is located North of Port Royale and on the western side of the large jagging peninsula and is deep into the harbor.
Upon landing in New Orleans it will start a video in which the trader campaign officially begins.
Task #6: Sell 200,000 Gold in Goods and Have 400 Cargo Space
It’s important to note that you only have to sell 200,000 gold worth of goods. You do not have to have 200,000 gold.
Because of this it simply requires you to move from port to port buying goods that town produces and selling them in towns where they need them.
With the convoy in place you should have 400 cargo space in your ships.
Remember to buy until you are just at one green bar and always sell only when all bars are red.
Task #7: Bring 300 Food to Cayman
Cayman Island is starving! Famine has hit Cayman and Elena hopes to fix it. She needs your help!
You will need to bring 300 food to Cayman. Food includes bread, meat, corn, and bananas. All of these will be highly profitable at Catman even if they produce one of these.
The towns to the west of Cayman are all food producers. All of the towns on the northern tip of Cuba (that large island just north of Cayman) are also all food producers.
The task will be complete once you are able to supply all 300 units of food to Cayman.
Task #8: Build Two Residences and Two Cotton Farms
The challenge of this one might be locating the architect.
The architect is a round building. It is located in a different place in every single town. In Port Royale it is near the middle.
Once you have successfully located the architect plop down two residences and two cotton farms. Each cotton farm takes up two spaces and then can be extended another two for maximum efficiency. This means you will need to take up 12 spaces to have two very efficient cotton farms.
Once they are down you will need building materials to speed up their production.
Building materials include Tools, Bricks, and Wood. Tools can be found at Cayman. Bricks can be found at Port au Prince. Wood can be found just north of Port Royale.
Large stocks of bricks and wood exist in the southern harbor area and on the most northeastern towns of the map.
Selling these will also net larger profits
Task #9: Bring 300 Settlers to Port Royale
Now that you have businesses and homes you will need workers!
Your job here will be to bring 300 settlers to Port Royale.
To do this go to another town and open up the trade menu. Once again this can be found by hovering over a town in which there is a convoy and select the button that appears on the right hand side.
In this menu click on Equip tab. Now you have access to the people, simply slide them from the Town side to the Ship side.
Go to Port Royale with these people and slide them over to Port Royale. All people who are unemployed in a particular town will appear in this menu.
This will take some time as most towns do not have access to a lot of spare settlers.
Task #10: Build Two Refineries and Fully Staff Them
Another build mission!
In this one you must build two refineries. To do this once again look for the circle shaped building in Port Royale and click on it.
Select refineries from the menu and drop them down.
If you lack workers for your buildings build some residences and they will fill with people that can work in your refineries.
The above video will also explain how to setup a profitable cotton trade route (and trade routes in general).
Task #11: Create a Trade Route to Supply Port Royale
In this task you will have to setup a trade route between Port Royale, Cayman, Nombre de Dios, Havana, and Gibara.
In order to do this you need to select on a convoy. If you don’ have a free one you’ll need to buy a new ship from the harbor.
With your convoy selected click on the Bag icon.
Hit New Trade Route.
Hit Plan Route. This will allow you to click on the stops. Select the five stops (don’t add any other ones).
Once they are picked change to “My Strategy.” This will allow you to customize your stops. Alternatively you can choose Profit or Prosperity. With profit they will only buy when it is cheap and sell when it’s valuable. With prosperity they always buy and only sell when it’s needed.
With my strategy you can pick specifically how they react. With this you will want to setup a trade route to support your Rum Distillery.
Once in the customization screen you need to familiarize yourself with controls.
At the top right corner is a tab with a picture of a building with a palm tree, an arrow in a direction and the ship. You can move this to a third icon, a building.
Building = Trade House
Building with palm tree = Town
Ship = Your convoy
The arrow indicates where the goods go.
You will want to purchase wood and sugar from any place that can make them and drop them at your storehouse in Port Royale. As well you will want to drop off the rum and all of the ports in the trade route.
Task is complete once you Activate this trade route. This is done by hitting a box that reads “Activate Trade Route.”
Task #12: Build a Warehouse and Two Residences in Cayman
This build mission starts off with having to get your reputation in Cayman up.
To do this you will have to supply what they are missing. Cayman builds tools so they will always require Metals.
As well an icon will appear on Cayman indicating what they have a high demand for. By supplying this you will gain a massive reputation increase.
A final method is to setup trade routes around Cayman and other islands in which you select the “Prosperity” option. You will need to select some very far away from each other ports so that you don’t get too many of the same type.
This will take some time.
Once you get the prosperity you will need to pay the Architect for a license to build residences and warehouses in Cayman (which is the task).
Once you get the license build the warehouse and two residences, you can build some extra residences if you have the cash as you will need them later anyway.
During this time it is also wise to build more production facilities in Port Royale. The extra money will be very helpful and slow down the total time it takes to finish this campaign.
Task #13: Build Two Businesses of Each Line and Supply Them with Workers
Yay… yet another building mission. This one is far more brutal than the rest.
This one requires you to build two businesses of each type in Cayman. This means two metal working places, two fruit farms, two sugar farms, two hemp farms and two cigar farms.
To help you along you will often receive missions from the Magistrate of Cayman to build some businesses. Take him up on any mission that he offers you in this regard.
You can also take him up on any mission in which you have to supply wood and bricks.
Doing these missions will grant you large sums of money for completion. With this extra money you can get through this task far faster.
This is a task that is all about money. Make sure you’re always trading bricks and wood to Cayman as much as humanly possible. You’re creating a demand for the goods you need.
You will also have to build a few residences until the “Not enough workers” symbol is removed from your warehouse (which is in Cayman). You may also be required to Equip workers from Port Royale and move them to Cayman.
During this phase of the game you should be using any spare monies to purchase any War Galleons or Galleons that become available. They will become very helpful for an upcoming task.
Task #14: Increase Workers in Cayman to 500
If you’re here you’re doing good. At this point you will build businesses and residences. I would stay away from tool making businesses if possible because you will have to supply those raw materials very frequently and currently there is not enough metal on the map to support mass tool creation.
Much like in the previous mission you should be picking up any galleons and war galleons you can get. There are a large number of capitals indicated by a ring near their name. These places will all sell ships, visit them frequently for supplies.
At this point all trades should be going to Cayman. Supplying with bricks and wood is a solid profit scheme however supplying with other trade items you may pick up is worthwhile as well.
Task #15: Takeover Cayman
This is bang on the hardest task in the campaign to accomplish, luckily it is also the final one so it is very warranted.
To takeover Cayman successfully you have to have a 95% reputation with Spain, a 75% reputation with Cayman, Cayman must be rated prosperous and you must have at least 75% of the workers in Cayman.
So let’s knock out every single one of those requirements individually.
In order to get your reputation to 95% with Spain you will be doing some pirating… or more appropriately pirate murdering. This is why you were to acquire wargalleons earlier. Pirating takes no time at all and fills up reputation very quickly.
Get 3 wargalleons or galleons. Equip them with sailors, guns, swords, and various types of cannonballs. Note every gun and sword you have is a gun and sword your units will use. If a sailor does not have a gun or a sword he will act as fodder.
Attack pirate camps which you have no doubt uncovered many. If you feel like you can take on the main camp, go for it. If you cannot just attack the ships docking at the pirate camps.
Pirate camps for those who are unaware are marked on the map with a skull and yes, they are attackable.
Next on the list is reputation with Cayman to 75%. This can be done simply by fulfilling their needs, IE trading them what they need.
To get prosperity up have a few random trade routes (long ones) with random towns selected in which Cayman is one of those towns. You can have single ships sailing around raising the prosperity of Cayman this way.
If you want to get the majority of the workers simply make a bunch of businesses and match them with residences.
Once you have all of these accomplished go to the Viceroy’s office in Port Royale (it’s the large building on the mid right). Click Takeover and select Takeover Cayman.
If this option is not available it simply means that you are required to fulfill more of the objectives. Hover over Cayman and click on the magnifying glass icon. This will show you which objective you are missing for the takeover.