Anyone have any good tips when it comes to trading? I have not explored that area of the game yet
Sell only at big cities if possible and big castles if on the move with no other options. They pay the most. Well, there may be exceptions due to certain settlement addons paying more for some trade-goods... Supposedly. Haven't seen it happen yet.
Small settlements ask for the least money for trade-goods and also pay the least generally.
Relations with settlement and faction relations matter for this.
At map generation check types of settlements and addons. You may see many coastal settlements have the copper (?) thing, and you have to keep in mind that if a big coastal city has one, you don't want to sell copper there because it has it's own and won't pay you much... You'd be trading at a loss.
It's best if the big cities don't have gem mines and such, so that you can sell those expensive resources there... But sometimes, if you have, say, 2 big cities (esp. of the same faction for easy faction relations bonus) close to each other, you can buy an expensive resource from one (say, dyes), esp. if it has 2 of the same attachment (i.e. 2 dye places = double amount of dyes generated) and sell to the other still for a good profit.
Debuffs on cities matter a lot here though, you may have to do settlement missions (not just faction ones) for the cities routinely if you want to trade well there... Annoying later on if you venture into the wild a lot for uniques and come back to find the cities debuffed to hell.
Trading only makes big money if you get expensive goods or loads of cheaper ones and a good selling spot... With good relations... Otherwise it's mostly so you can make up for your daily upkeep during travels and such.
If you play ironman and you're in a bad spot (injured bros/lots of losses, shit equipment), maybe trading for a while can help if you have a good route. Basically, it doesn't normally raise reknown and you can just run from enemies on the map, so difficulty won't increase while you do it and you won't have to fight.
That being said, if you use up most of your funds to buy tradegoods and then see a nice unique on the way or smth... Well, it'd suck to sell your goods at shit prices just because you need the money now. I'm sure some folks who get a really good map and are knowledgeable on trade could trade from the beginning of the game until they can afford good bros and equipment, but it feels like it'd be a chore.
