Regions and Colonial Trade Goods

This article is accurate for the latest versions of EU3, Napoleon’s Ambition, In Nomine, Heir to the Throne and Divine Wind.

Colonial Trade Goods are the goods that are produced and traded in provinces colonized during the game. In Nomine completely overhauled the system.

Europa Universalis 3 and Napoleon's Ambition

In EU3 and Napoleon's Ambition, the trade goods of a potential colony are always fixed and known to the player upon discovery of the province. When colonizing, priority should be given to provinces producing high value goods (sugar, tobacco, cotton, coffee, chinaware, spices, tea, fur, gold), while the low value trade goods should be avoided initially (wool, grain, naval supplies) unless these provinces are of strategic value or have a high base tax value.

In Nomine, Heir to the Throne & Divine Wind

With the complete overhaul of the colonization system with the In Nomine expansion, colonial trade goods aren't fixed anymore and were 'discovered' randomly sometime after the colonization of a province started. The province good is selected randomly from a group of goods that the province's region is able to produce.

This means that the strategy of avoiding low value provinces is no longer valid from In Nomine onwards. You can no longer for certain avoid low value trade good provinces, but there are still some regions who will almost certainly yield high value goods (the Caribbean, Brazil, Indonesia). Since the trade good is selected random, resigning and reloading is a possibility, just as only stealing the rich colonies of your enemies.

How the system works

The potential trade good for a province isn't totally random. It has several modifiers that will heavily influence the outcome and some knowledge about how the system works can certainly help deciding whether to colonize a province or not.

Basically, the region a province belongs to allows for several scripted trade goods. You can check these regions in-game with the map layout called 'regions' (introduced in In Nomine). The regions and their potential trade goods are:

Atlantic

• the Greenland Region: fish, fur, naval supplies.
• the Atlantic Ocean Islands: fish, naval supplies, sugar (only in The Canaries and Madeira).

North America & Mexico

• Northern America: fish (only in ports), fur, naval supplies.
• Eastern America: grain, fish (only in ports), naval supplies (only in ports), cotton, tobacco.
• Central America: wool, salt, coffee, sugar (only in some provinces), gold (only in some provinces).
• Western America: grain, wool, gold.
• Northwest America: fish (only in ports), fur, naval supplies, gold.
• the Great Plains: grain, fur.

South America & the Caribbean

• the Caribbean: coffee, cotton, sugar, tobacco.
• the La Plata Region: grain, fish (only in ports), wine, coffee, tobacco.
• the Amazonas (Brazil): fish, Naval supplies (only in ports), gold, coffee, sugar, tobacco.
• the Andes: grain, fish (only in ports), naval supplies (only in ports), copper, gold, coffee.
• the Spanish Main: wool, fur, coffee.

Africa

• North Africa: grain, slaves.
• Central Africa: grain, slaves, ivory.
• South Africa: grain, gold, slaves, ivory.

Future Russia

• the Scandinavian Region: fur, iron.
• Western Siberia: fur, copper, gold, iron.
• Eastern Siberia: fish (only in ports), fur, naval supplies, copper, gold, iron.

Far East & Oceania

• the Australian Coast: grain, fish (only in ports), wool, naval supplies (only in ports), gold.
• the Indian Ocean Islands: fish, spices.
• the Indonesian Region: fish (only in ports), cloth, naval supplies (only in ports), tea, chinaware, spices, coffee.
• the Mascarene Islands: fish, sugar.
• the New Zealand Region: fish (only in ports), wool, naval supplies.
• the Pacific Ocean Islands: fish, naval supplies, spices (only in Tahiti), sugar (only in Hawaii).
• Taiwan: cloth, tea, chinaware.

The moment your colony hits 300 colonist, one of the goods in the above list will be 'discovered' (an event) by your settlers and the colony will start to produce the good. Note that this event also gives you a free magistrate (), so be sure you have room for him. This somewhat lightens the need for magistrates needed for buildings in your empire. Once the trade good is known, it cannot be changed. The only exception is slaves being changed in another trade good after the controlling nation passes the Abolish slavery act.

Not every trade good is as likely to appear in a colony. The events have some hefty modifiers. These can be looked up in the list beneath. Some general considerations:

• the game tries to limit the number of provinces producing the same good in your country, penalizing trade goods your empire already has an ample supply of.
• Gold is severely penalized, especially if your country already has 2 or more provinces producing it.

The regions and their potential trade goods

The list of goods and the regions that can trigger them is in this file:

\Europa Universalis III\events\tradegoods.txt

A user friendly list of goods/regions follows, notice that some regions have a bonus/penalty on the event's Mean time to happen (MTTH), this means those particular regions have a higher/lower chance of getting that trade good (But you can always reload your game if you want a different good ;) )

• Trade Good: is the name of the trade good that can be triggered in a colonial province
• Region: is the name of the region in which the trade good can be triggered, if not noted otherwise it means every single province that is part of the region
• Province: the id and name of the specific province in which the trade good can be triggered, or a general rule for the type of provinces in the region that are eligible, i.e. "Port Provinces" means that only the Port provinces in the specified region can get the good, the other provinces can't<
• MTH: The mean time to happen for an event, it can be lowered or increased by modifiers, if a modifier says for example "+20%" it means that to whatever the MTTH is, you have to add 20%, if it's "-30%" you have to take 30% off the MTH
• Region / Province Modifier: means that it ONLY applies for this particular Region / Province
• Neighbor Modifier: if the province where the event is triggered has ANY neighbor province with the same trade good, this modifier is applied
• Owned Provinces: is the number of provinces you already own with the same trade good
• Owned Modifier: if you own the number in "Owned Provinces" this modifier is applied, e.g. if "Owned Provinces" says "10" and "Owned Modifier" says "+30%", it means that if you already have 10 provinces with the trade good "Fish", the MTH for getting "Fish" in another colony is 30% higher, making it less likely to happen, specially if the province can have another trade good with a lower MTH
• Slider Modifier: if you have the Domestic Slider settings specified here, this modifier is applied
• Country Flag Modifier: if you have the Country Flag specified here, this modifier is applied

Trade Good	Region	Province	MTTH	Region / Province Modifier	Neighbor Modifier	Owned Provinces	Owned Modifier	Slider Modifier	Country Flag Modifier
Grain	La Plata Region		8 months	-50%
Grain	Great Plains		8 months
Grain	Eastern America		8 months
Grain	The Andes		8 months
Grain	South Africa		8 months
Grain	Central Africa		8 months
Grain	North Africa		8 months
Grain	Australian Coast		8 months
Grain	Indonesian Region		8 months	+20%
Grain	Western Siberia		8 months
Grain	Eastern Siberia		8 months	+30%
Grain	Western America			+30%
Fish	Eastern Siberia	Ports Only!	6 months		+20%
Fish	Northern America	Ports Only!	6 months		+20%
Fish	Northwest America	Ports Only!	6 months		+20%
Fish	Eastern America	Ports Only!	6 months		+20%
Fish	The Andes	Ports Only!	6 months		+20%
Fish	Amazonas	Ports Only!	6 months		+20%
Fish	La Plata Region	Ports Only!	6 months		+20%
Fish	Australian Coast	Ports Only!	6 months		+20%
Fish	Greenland Region	Ports Only!	6 months		+20%
Fish	New Zealand Region	Ports Only!	6 months		+20%
Fish	Indonesian Region	Ports Only!	6 months		+20%
Fish	Western Siberia	Ports Only!	6 months		+20%
Fish	Eastern Siberia	Ports Only!	6 months		+20%
Fish	Atlantic Ocean Islands	Ports Only!	6 months		+20%
Fish	Mascarene Islands	Ports Only!	6 months	+20%	+20%
Fish	Indian Ocean Islands	Ports Only!	6 months		+20%
Fish	Pacific Ocean Islands	Ports Only!	6 months		+20%
Wine	La Plata Region		8 months
Wool	Central America		8 months
Wool	Western America		8 months
Wool	Australian Coast		8 months
Wool	New Zealand Region		8 months	-30%
Wool	The Spanish Main		8 months
Cloth	Indonesian Region		8 months
Cloth		738 - Taiwan	8 months
Fur	Great Plains		6 months			10	+50%
Fur	Northern America		6 months	-30%		10	+50%
Fur	Northwest America		6 months			10	+50%
Fur	Greenland Region		6 months			10	+50%
Fur	Western Siberia		6 months			10	+50%
Fur	Eastern Siberia		6 months			10	+50%
Fur	The Spanish Main		6 months			10	+50%
Fur	Scandinavian Region	18 - Lappland	6 months			10	+50%
Salt	Central America		8 months
Naval Supplies	Northern America	Ports Only!	8 months		+50%	10	+50%
Naval Supplies	Northwest America	Ports Only!	8 months		+50%	10	+50%
Naval Supplies	Eastern America	Ports Only!	8 months		+50%	10	+50%
Naval Supplies	The Andes	Ports Only!	8 months		+50%	10	+50%
Naval Supplies	Amazonas	Ports Only!	8 months		+50%	10	+50%
Naval Supplies	Australian Coast	Ports Only!	8 months		+50%	10	+50%
Naval Supplies	Greenland Region	Ports Only!	8 months		+50%	10	+50%
Naval Supplies	New Zealand Region	Ports Only!	8 months		+50%	10	+50%
Naval Supplies	Indonesian Region	Ports Only!	8 months		+50%	10	+50%
Naval Supplies	Western Siberia	Ports Only!	8 months		+50%	10	+50%
Naval Supplies	Eastern Siberia	Ports Only!	8 months		+50%	10	+50%
Naval Supplies	Atlantic Ocean Islands	Ports Only!	8 months	+20%	+50%	10	+50%
Naval Supplies	Pacific Ocean Islands	Ports Only!	8 months		+50%	10	+50%
Copper	The Andes		8 months		+50%	10	+50%
Copper	Western Siberia		8 months		+50%	10	+50%
Copper	Eastern Siberia		8 months		+50%	10	+50%
Gold	Amazonas		12 months		+300%	2 3	+200% +300%
Gold	The Andes		12 months	-30%	+300%	2 3	+200% +300%
Gold	South Africa		12 months		+300%	2 3	+200% +300%
Gold	Western Siberia		12 months		+300%	2 3	+200% +300%
Gold	Eastern Siberia		12 months		+300%	2 3	+200% +300%
Gold	Western America		12 months		+300%	2 3	+200% +300%
Gold	Australian Coast		12 months		+300%	2 3	+200% +300%
Gold	Northwest America		12 months		+300%	2 3	+200% +300%
Gold	Central America	852 - Mexico	12 months	-40%	+300%	2 3	+200% +300%
Gold	Central America	853 - Huastec	12 months	-40%	+300%	2 3	+200% +300%
Gold	Central America	854 - Sayultecas	12 months	-40%	+300%	2 3	+200% +300%
Gold	Central America	855 - Huichol	12 months	-40%	+300%	2 3	+200% +300%
Gold	Central America	856 - Zacatecas	12 months	-40%	+300%	2 3	+200% +300%
Gold	Central America	857 - Guichichil	12 months	-40%	+300%	2 3	+200% +300%
Gold	Central America	858 - Tamaulipas	12 months	-40%	+300%	2 3	+200% +300%
Iron	Scandinavian Region	18 - Lappland	6 months		+50%
Iron	Western Siberia		6 months		+50%
Iron	Eastern Siberia		6 months		+50%
Slaves	Central Africa		6 months			5	+50%	+30% serfdom freesubjects = 1	Must NOT have the abolish slavery act
Slaves	South Africa		6 months			5	+50%	+30% serfdom freesubjects = 1	Must NOT have the abolish slavery act
Slaves	North Africa		6 months			5	+50%	+30% serfdom freesubjects = 1	Must NOT have the abolish slavery act
Ivory	Central Africa		8 months			3	+50%
Ivory	South Africa		8 months			3	+50%
Tea	Indonesian Region		6 months		+50%
Tea		738 - Taiwan	6 months		+50%
Chinaware	Indonesian Region		6 months		+50%
Chinaware		738 - Taiwan	6 months		+50%
Spices	Indonesian Region		6 months		+50%
Spices	Indian Ocean Islands		6 months	+20%	+50%
Spices	Pacific Ocean Islands	1244 - Tahiti	6 months		+50%
Coffee	La Plata Region		8 months		+50%
Coffee	The Andes		8 months		+50%
Coffee	Amazonas		8 months		+50%
Coffee	The Caribbean		8 months		+50%
Coffee	Indonesian Region		8 months		+50%
Coffee	Central America		8 months		+50%
Coffee	The Spanish Main		8 months	-20%	+50%
Cotton	Eastern America		6 months		+50%
Cotton	The Caribbean		6 months		+50%
Sugar	The Caribbean		5 months	-30%		5 10	+20% +50%
Sugar	Amazonas		5 months	-30%		5 10	+20% +50%
Sugar	Mascarene Islands		5 months			5 10	+20% +50%
Sugar	Atlantic Ocean Islands	366 - The Canarias	5 months			5 10	+20% +50%
Sugar	Atlantic Ocean Islands	368 - Madeira	5 months			5 10	+20% +50%
Sugar	Central America	852 - Mexico	5 months			5 10	+20% +50%
Sugar	Central America	853 - Huastec	5 months			5 10	+20% +50%
Sugar	Central America	854 - Sayultecas	5 months			5 10	+20% +50%
Sugar	Central America	855 - Huichol	5 months			5 10	+20% +50%
Sugar	Central America	856 - Zacatecas	5 months			5 10	+20% +50%
Sugar	Central America	857 - Guichichil	5 months			5 10	+20% +50%
Sugar	Central America	858 - Tamaulipas	5 months			5 10	+20% +50%
Sugar	Pacific Ocean Islands	1240 - Hawaii	5 months			5 10	+20% +50%
Tobacco	La Plata Region		8 months		+50%
Tobacco	Eastern America		8 months		+50%
Tobacco	Amazonas		8 months		+50%
Tobacco	The Caribbean		8 months		+50%
Unknown (Slaves No More!)		Must be Slaves province!	1 months						Must have the abolish slavery act