Once you start building you need all the building material you can get your greedy paws on.
Keep in mind that you need twice the amount of bricks than the amount of lumber.






You need lumber and bricks as much as possible. Maybe you can make more coin out of other ressources but you will never have problems selling bricks and lumber, especially if you intend expanding and use up the ressources yourself. Again you should keep in mind that you need 2 adobe huts for each sawmill if you just aim for building material.






You need three ships with the same cargo capacity. Relase one ship from the convoy, fill the other two with bricks, get the ship back from the habour and fill the rest of the convoy with lumber and immediately have 1:2 division for your next building project elsewhere. Obviously you can do that with 6, 9 or 12 ships as well.






The European treasure fleet drops new settlers in each Governor's City and Viceroy's Capital. For each colonial good (like Tobacco) a new settler stays at the city. You can hire them with your convoy and drop them (resettle or fire them) where you are planning to expand your manufactorial empire.
If you want to take over the treasure fleet, it might be best to wait until the treasure fleet is back on its way to Europe, as all the Settlers are gone and the ships are loaded with goods and gold.






Curaçao has both bricks and lumber. Additionally the self-sustaining meat production to counter starvation (as corn can be planted there as well) is a great addition.
It has some close neighbours who offer addtional bricks and it's close to cocoa and coffee which can be bought and sold to Govenor's cities to get a healthy suppy of fresh European workes.






Evangelista has fruit and hemp with synergize well with the corn and meat from Curaçao . Again the self-sustaining rope is a nice addition too.
It has some close neighbours who offer cotton for the textile industry and lies next to the central Port Royale making goods exchange rather easy.






Once Evangelista produces fruit, hemp and ropes, Roatán provides wheat, sugar, and pastries. Apart from some exotic wares I normally get from flotsam, or pirate them from some smelly French's barge I have all important goods to make my colonies thrive until an economic takeover is no longer a problem.






Just hire a captain for each ship and pick the most qualified one for the convoy. Fire the other captains and redistribute the vessels to your liking.






If your crew boards a vessel with very few to no surviving opponents you don't lose many men either way.






With each new each rank and increased wealth the mission costs and rewards increase dramatically. This might be nice for missions but trainers tend to be far too expensive to be useful in the late stages. Buildings and goods aren't affected though, so you might want to plan ahead.





Combat styles may vary but some expert captains are very fond of the military corvette. You can find it at the French shipyards. Try it out and see yourself, tell me if it works for you.





You can find it in British Shipyards, it might be slow to turn and it may run abeach in shallow waters but on the open seas it can outrun every other ship. Just be careful that sailing against the wind slows it down much more than any other ship. Other than that its 50 cannons, the massive hull and amply rigging are rather convincing arguments in your future naval disputes.





It's not mentioned in the manual and it responds rather slowly but it should allow you an easier boarding of enemy vessels. Keep in mind that relasing the button brings you back to full speed after a while. It doesn't keep your speed reduced.






Go sink or plunder some ships just before you reach the trading agreement with the +5% National-Reputation bonus. Try capturing treasure fleets leaving for Europe for maximum profit.





It's a free market and the goods you sell are stored in the public marketplace, so if you need them elsewhere simply buy them back. If it feels like cheating to you, wait some days and buy it back with another convoy, your automated trading convoy wouldn't mind anyway.





Finding floatsam is like christmas for some... The one thing that makes the wife (or husband) very useful besides them keeping your bed-chamber warm and please you after a long and exhausting voyage on a war galleon during summer storms. You probably knew that they provide hints where floatsam can be located.
But did you know that floatsam is generated randomly before you pick it up, so if you don't like it you might want to reload your savegame.






You probably knew this already, but it took me over 90 hours of gameplay to figure that out.