Hello everyone! We're very happy to inform that a new update for Winds Of Trade has been released. Version 1.5.2 brings several performance improvements (see frame rate comparison below) and some bug fixes that caused UI elements to be displayed incorrectly on some systems. These bugs mainly affected the "competitors" and the "auto trade route" windows, causing some labels to be in the wrong place and the charts in the competitors window to have no background grid.
Here is a quick comparison showing how your frame rate might increase after updating the game:

Hello everyone! We're very happy to inform that a new update for Winds Of Trade has been released. Version 1.5.2 brings several performance improvements and some bug fixes that caused UI elements to be displayed incorrectly on some systems. These bugs mainly affected the "competitors" and the "auto trade route" windows.
Here is a quick comparison showing how your frame rate might increase after updating the game:

We have just released a new update for Winds Of Trade, version 1.5.1. This one includes:

• Brand new Italian translation!
• New buttons to have finer control over the amount of goods you sell or buy.
• Fixed bug that sometimes caused world generation to get stuck forever.
• Fixed bug that caused battle screen to display incorrectly in ultra wide screen resolutions.
• Minor performance improvements in order to decrease RAM usage.

We have just released a new update for Winds Of Trade, version 1.5.1. This one includes:

• Brand new Italian translation!
• New buttons to have finer control over the amount of goods you sell or buy.
• Fixed bug that sometimes caused world generation to get stuck forever.
• Fixed bug that caused battle screen to display incorrectly in ultra wide screen resolutions.
• Minor performance improvements in order to decrease RAM usage.

The Italian translation is coming very soon! The next update will also include some performance improvements and bug fixes. Stay tuned for more info!

The Italian translation is coming very soon! The next update will also include some performance improvements and bug fixes. Stay tuned for more info!

Hello there, everyone! We are thrilled to announce that version 1.5 has been released. This update brings several improvements to the game, such as:

• A new algorithm to calculate goods sale prices in order to make the economic simulation more realistic.
• Several performance improvements that allow the game to run faster, more stable and using less memory.
• Players now can manually specify a world seed for the procedural generation of the world.
• Fixed bug that caused country relationship tooltips to display incorrectly if they had too many items inside.
• Fixed bug that caused rival AI companies to steal your captains occassionally.
• Fixed bug that caused fullscreen mode to have some input issues on Linux.
• Decreased the volume of ambient sounds a bit so they are not too invasive.

Hello there, everyone! We are thrilled to announce that version 1.5 has been released. This update brings several improvements to the game, such as:

• A new algorithm to calculate goods sale prices in order to make the economic simulation more realistic.
• Several performance improvements that allow the game to run faster, more stable and using less memory.
• Players now can manually specify a world seed for the procedural generation of the world.
• Fixed bug that caused country relationship tooltips to display incorrectly if they had too many items inside.
• Fixed bug that caused rival AI companies to steal your captains occassionally.
• Fixed bug that caused fullscreen mode to have some input issues on Linux.
• Decreased the volume of ambient sounds a bit so they are not too invasive.

Hello everyone! Just wanted to let you all know that we've uploaded a new version of the game to the beta branch. The differences between the main branch and the beta branch now are as follows:

• A new algorithm to calculate goods sale prices in order to make the economic simulation more realistic.
• A fix for a bug in automatic trading routes that rendered the 'minimum sale price' feature incompatible with the change mentioned above.
• Players now can manually specify a world seed for the procedural generation of the world.
• Fixed bug that caused country relationship tooltips to display incorrectly if they had too many items inside.
• Fixed bug that caused rival AI companies to steal your captains occassionally.
• Decreased the volume of ambient sounds a bit so they are not too invasive.

Hello everyone! Just wanted to let you all know that we've uploaded a new version of the game to the beta branch. The differences between the main branch and the beta branch now are as follows:

• A new algorithm to calculate goods sale prices in order to make the economic simulation more realistic.
• A fix for a bug in automatic trading routes that rendered the 'minimum sale price' feature incompatible with the change mentioned above.
• Players now can manually specify a world seed for the procedural generation of the world.
• Fixed bug that caused country relationship tooltips to display incorrectly if they had too many items inside.
• Fixed bug that caused rival AI companies to steal your captains occassionally.
• Decreased the volume of ambient sounds a bit so they are not too invasive.

Hello everyone! We need beta testers to see if our proposed patch to fix some of the economic simulation algorithms is working properly or not. Is anyone willing to help? You can find more information about the public beta here: http://steamcommunity.com/games/576260/announcements/detail/1453960814667962767 Thanks in advance!

Hello everyone! We need beta testers to see if our proposed patch to fix some of the economic simulation algorithms is working properly or not. Is anyone willing to help? You can find more information about the public beta here: http://steamcommunity.com/games/576260/announcements/detail/1453960814667962767 Thanks in advance!

Hello everyone! Just wanted to announce a public beta version has been uploaded. It includes a few changes to the way goods sale prices are calculated. You can find all the details about how to participate by going here: http://steamcommunity.com/app/576260/discussions/0/1480982338950689405/ All feedback is welcome. Thank you so much for your support!

Hello everyone! Just wanted to announce a public beta version has been uploaded. It includes a few changes to the way goods sale prices are calculated. You can find all the details about how to participate by going here: http://steamcommunity.com/app/576260/discussions/0/1480982338950689405/ All feedback is welcome. Thank you so much for your support!

Hello everyone! We've updated Winds Of Trade to version 1.4.1 today. It's a minor update, with the following changes:

• New screenshot mode that hides UI, city names and country borders. You can toggle it using the F11 key.
• You can now see the lifetime profit/loss stats for your ships in the Ships Window.
• The game can now run in background, so you can do something else while a new world is being generated or while your automatic trading routes are running!

Hello everyone! We've updated Winds Of Trade to version 1.4.1 today. It's a minor update, with the following changes:

• New screenshot mode that hides UI, city names and country borders. You can toggle it using the F11 key.
• You can now see the lifetime profit/loss stats for your ships in the Ships Window.
• The game can now run in background, so you can do something else while a new world is being generated or while your automatic trading routes are running!

Hello everyone! Just wanted to let you know the Demo Version of Winds Of Trade has received all the updates and is now in the 1.4 version, same as the full game.

Hello everyone! Just wanted to let you know the Demo Version of Winds Of Trade has received all the updates and is now in the 1.4 version, same as the full game.

Hello everyone! Version 1.4 is finally here, and this update is an exciting one. Take a look at the changes:

• Major graphics overhaul that makes the world feel more authentic and detailed than ever before.
• You can now take over competitors' companies to get all of their assets and take them out of business.
• Smugglers will now find more creative ways to get back at you if you fail their contracts, including assassinating your captains or burning down your warehouses.
• Camera zoom speed is now customizable.

Hello everyone! Version 1.4 is finally here, and this update is an exciting one. Take a look at the changes:

• Major graphics overhaul that makes the world feel more authentic and detailed than ever before.
• You can now take over competitors' companies to get all of their assets and take them out of business.
• Smugglers will now find more creative ways to get back at you if you fail their contracts, including assassinating your captains or burning down your warehouses.
• Camera zoom speed is now customizable.

Hello! Just wanted to share a few screenshots of the upcoming 1.4 update. It should be available on Steam in just a few days if all goes according to plan. Enjoy!

Hello everyone! Just wanted to let you all know that the next update will include, besides a couple of new features, a graphics overhaul, making the game more aesthetically pleasing. Here's a quick preview:

Hello everyone! Today we are putting the game on sale with a 40% discount, and we are also updating it to version 1.3.3! This update includes two new features that lots of you requested: 1) A new Prices Map you can use to effortlessly find the best places to buy or sell your goods. It makes finding new deals easier and quicker than ever before! 2) A new dropdown to quickly switch cities without having to leave the City Window. We feel these two changes make the game more usable and more enjoyable to play. We're already working on the next update, which will include a new feature to take over competitors and a few other improvements... Stay tuned!

Take a look at the upcoming Prices Map feature that will be added in the next update of the game! If everything goes according to plan, it should be available on Steam tomorrow!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSdnvOPlF-Q

Hello everyone. Today we are releasing a small patch containing a few new features and also a couple of bug fixes. Here are the details:

• New peaceful mode, to play with no pirate or war ships attacks.
• New feature to repay loans before they are due.
• Tweaked the maximum zoom out the camera can do before switching to the strategic view mode in Jumbo Size Maps.
• Fixed bug that caused the auto trade window to stop working properly after renaming a colony.
• Fixed bug that caused contract delivery markers to be missing after saving the game and loading it again.

Hello everyone! We're happy to announce the new 1.3 update is now live! This update includes the following new features and fixes:

• New Jumbo Size Maps: This is one of the features our players requested the most. And we are always listening! You will be able to continue playing in the 'normal' size maps, but you also will be able to start new games in the new 'jumbo' size maps, that have 125% more surface area than the 'normal' ones. Also, more countries and more cities provide experienced players with a more challenging and vastly improved experience.
• Autosave: This was another feature that lots of people asked for, and it's finally here! If you go to the options menu and enable the "autosave" checkbox the game will be automatically saved every three months of game play. Neat, eh?
• Performance Improvements: We've also been working hard in some performance improvements to the supply/demand and prices simulation. Now it runs three times faster than it used to! This was crucial in order to keep the simulation running at a decent speed in the new jumbo maps, as they have many more countries and cities that need to be simulated.
• User Interface Improvements: The Cities Window now lists all warehouses you own and their current contents. You can also filter cities to only see those that produce a specific resource.
• The minimap in the lower left corner is now automatically hidden when you go to the strategic view mode. I mean, why would you want to have two identical maps in sight at the same time? :)
• Some other minor UI improvements: Now when you return from battle the camera will automatically focus on your surviving ships (if any!) so you can take appropriate action, like taking your ships to the nearest shipyard to repair them. Also, now when you change the value of an input field in the automatic trading route window, the corresponding checkbox will automatically be checked.
• Minor improvements to the AI algorithms so opponents take smarter decisions about contracts and buying / selling goods.
• Fixed broken texts when one of your opponents is bankrupt and you go to the strategic view mode.
• Fixed bug that caused lightning sound effects to ignore the sound effects volume slider.

Hello everyone! Just wanted to let you know that the next release of Winds Of Trade is going to include a new "Jumbo" map size. Many of you have been asking for bigger maps, with more cities, more countries and more business possibilities... So we're going to deliver just that! It's still being tested and not ready to be released yet, but we're confident we can fix the remaining issues (mainly performance ones) and ship this exciting feature in the next update! To know more about the features that will be added to the game soon, please visit our Dev Blog here: http://devblog.windsoftrade.net/2017/05/exciting-news-about-map-sizes.html

Hello everyone! We're happy to announce that the new 1.2 update has been released! Here are the changes this update brings:

• New advanced tutorial that gives you an overview on buying ships, smuggling, accepting contracts and more.
• Four new resources to trade: Gold Ore, Gold, Ivory and Jewelry.
• Captains now acquire experience when sailing and when attacking enemy ships, so their skills will increase as time passes, but their salary remains the same! :)
• Captains now have a small chance of dying in battle.
• New design for the loading screen.
• Clicking on the active contracts tooltip now opens the contracts window.
• Fixed bug that sometimes caused the city details tooltip to be in the wrong position.
• Small improvements to some texts to make them easier to understand.

Hello everyone! We've launched a new update today! Not a lot of new stuff on this one, just some very necessary bug fixes and improvements:

• New Colonies List window
• New Captains List window (no more forgotten captains in random ports all over the world!)
• Improved and more intuitive drag and drop in automatic trading route window actions list.
• Fixed bug that caused accept contract dialog to appear underneath contracts window after resizing it.

It's finally here! The new version of WoT is now available and brings a ton of exciting new features!

Main Features

• Attack competitors' ships: Now you can attack your competitors to damage their net worth and steal their goods, and you can even give your ships orders to blockade a port. But be careful, doing so will severely damage your company's reputation!
  
• Fleets: Now you can assemble fleets with several ships and then assign orders to all of them and once, even automatic trading routes.
  
• Upgradeable trade offices: Now you can upgrade your trade offices in order to obtain more accurate prices information.
• Warehouses: Now you can purchase warehouses in cities in order to accumulate goods, and even assign them automatic orders to purchase resources.
  
• Bribes: Now you can send expensive and luxurious gifts to rulers in order to improve the relationship with them.
  
• Random weather changes with five different sky conditions: clear, partly cloudy, mostly cloudy, overcast and rainy.
  
• New ship types to purchase: Fluyt, Corvette and Heavy Frigate!
  
• New resources to trade: Beer and Tea!
• New "Pacifist" and "Pirate" Steam Achievements.
• Winds now affect movement in battle.
• Added indicator for active contracts in the right part of the screen.

Improvements

• Added gameplay tips to the loading screen.
• Added antialiasing when using "normal", "high" or "ultra" quality settings.
• Camera movement keys are now customizable.
• Made positive country relationship modifiers last longer.
• Added notification when the relationship status with a country changes.
• Added setting to display newspapers as notifications instead of appearing in the middle of the screen.
• Made "Automatic Trading Route" and "Contracts" windows resizable.
• Minor improvements to Artificial Intelligence.
• Made colony building positions easier to spot.
• Increased maximum number of contracts that can be accepted at once from 4 to 6.
• Stocks in the stock market can now be purchased in amounts of 50 instead of 100. This is particularly useful when a company's total shares count is 250.
• Better cloud rendering (only for the Windows version for the time being).
• Added missing thousand separator in buy/sell stock confirmation message window.
• Added a "Cancel" button to the "assign captain" and "copy auto trade route" windows.
• Added text labels to HP and cargo bars in the Ships Window.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed bug that sometimes caused "36 Pound Guns" and "Bronze Cannons" upgrades to have zero effect in battle.
• Fixed bug that sometimes caused landlocked cities to be generated in the map.
• Fixed bug that sometimes caused ships to appear over an obstacle in battle.
• Fixed bug that caused the colony window not to display odd and even rows in different colors.
• Available contracts are now persisted in the saved game, so you no longer can save and load the game in order to obtain fresh ones.
• Available war contracts are now removed if the war that triggered them ended.

Hello everyone! In 10 days the next major update for Winds Of Trade will be released. Here you have a few screenshots showing the main features that will be added. Enjoy!

Hello everyone! Just wanted to share a short video that shows how the new Warehouses feature will work in the next update. Remember, it will be launched on April 10th! Take a look at the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeFGARFdk9c

Hello everyone! Just wanted to say we have a release date for the next big update to Winds Of Trade. This new version will include tons of very exciting features, including the ability to attack your competitors, buy warehouses, assemble fleets, upgrade trade offices, bribe governors and much more! Check out all the details here: http://www.indiedb.com/games/winds-of-trade/news/whats-coming-in-the-next-update-of-winds-of-trade

Hello everyone! Just wanted to give you all a preview of the three new ship types that will be added to the game in the next update. You can find all the information here: http://www.indiedb.com/news/new-ships-coming-to-winds-of-trade

Hello everyone. Just wanted to announce we have posted a detailed preview of some of the most relevant features and improvements that will be included in the next update. We'll have a release date soon! Check out all the details here: http://www.indiedb.com/news/whats-coming-in-the-next-update-of-winds-of-trade

Hello everyone! A new update is here, yay! Some of the fixes and improvements included in this patch are the following:

• A new "Battle Tutorial" that will teach you all you need to know about how the battle system works.
• The "Prices Window" now does not show buy prices for cities that don't have the resource or sell prices for cities that don't want to purchase the resource.
• The currently active ship and the cannons range are now clearly indicated in the battle screen.
• The strategic view now shows which goods are illegal in each country.
• You can now scroll through your ships when more than 4 are selected at the same time.
• Important performance improvements for the "Auto Trade Route" window.
• Minor overall FPS improvement by optimizing some function calls and data structures.
• Reduced probability of "Gather Resources" contracts requesting very hard to get resources.
• Better and more pleasing sky rendering.
• Increased volume for "Ship Repaired" sound which was way too subtle.
• More variety in country names!
• Fixed bug that sometimes caused "City Window" scrollbars to end up in an invalid position when using the "Show All Resources" checkbox.
• Fixed bug that could sometimes cause the battle music to skip.
• Fixed several German texts in the "Basic Tutorial".

Hello everyone! We're thrilled to announce a new update for Winds Of Trade. As we've said before, we are 100% commited to continue improving the game in order to make it easier and more fun to play. Your feedback, ideas and bug reports have been incredibly useful. Thank you so much! This version has the following improvements and bug fixes:

• New notification sounds for "Contract Failed", "Contract Completed", "Colony Position Discovered", "Ship Repaired" and "Ship Ready" events. Now they no longer play the bell sound, each one of those has a distinctive sound to make it easier to understand what's going on.
• Mini "Ship" windows in the bottom part of the screen when multiple ships are selected.
• Add price information in the "Auto Trade Route" screen.
• Larger font size and better key words highlighting in "Contracts" screen.
• Add legend box to "Countries" and "Cities" screens.
• Fixed bug that could sometimes cause a saboteur to retry his malicious actions after failing.
• Fixed bug that could sometimes cause the "Industries" tab of the "City" screen to have its scrollbar in an invalid position.
• Fixed bug that could rarely cause already delivered ships to be displayed in the "Shipyard" tab as being built.

Hello everyone! We're really excited to announce Winds Of Trade has received a new update. This includes numerous improvements and bug fixes, and it's also the very first version that is publicly available for SteamOS and Linux systems. Here's a list of the changes:

• New feature to copy automatic trading routes from one ship to another.
• New button to delete old saved games in the main menu.
• New "camera speed" setting so the player can customize how fast the camera moves.
• The game now automatically is put in pause when an important notification (such as a threat from a smuggler or a recently unlocked feature) is shown.
• Added domestic consumption data in the industries window.
• Added a tooltip to see the price at which a resource was purchased in the ship's window cargo hold (the one shown in the bottom of the screen when you have a ship selected).
• Ships being built are now shown in the Shipyard window.
• Ships being repaired now show how many days they have left until the repairs are finished in the Shipyard tab. Before you had to click the "repair" button in order to see that information.
• Added new rule to make sure a ship doesn't get two or more "courage" modifiers in a row in battle.
• Tweaked pathfinding algorithms so ships do not sail too close to the shore.
• Tweaked opium production and consumption rates to make it a bit less profitable.
• Some small tweaks to the main menu music and the sound played when one of your ships is sabotaged.
• Fixed bug that sometimes caused a Stock Split not to give new shares to the shareholders (e.g. your company owned 400 shares of another company and after the split it would still own 400 instead of 800)
• Fixed bug in automatic trading routes that would sometimes cause a Sell Action to sell more than specified if combined with a Buy Action in the same city.
• Fixed bug that caused one city name to be missing from the Countries window when a country had 10 or more cities.
• Fixed bug that made the scroll bars in the Save Game and Load Game windows not to respond to the mouse scroll wheel.
• Fixed bug in automatic trading routes that could sometimes cause a ship to stop executing a route if one of the steps was deleted.
• Fixed bug that could cause some long company names to get separated in two lines in the top bar (I'm looking at you, Broken Biscuit Trading Co!)
• Fixed bug that caused the UI to be displayed in a very large size if, after playing the game once in a high resolution setting, it's started in a lower resolution.
• Fixed exploit in automatic trading routes that allowed you to sell illegal goods in a port.

Hello everyone. We have been receiving tons and tons of very useful feedback and taking note of every item in our cargo hold. We should definitely consider getting the "Cargo Hold Optimization" upgrade! Here's the roadmap for future updates: First we are going to focus on delivering two more patches that will include several bug fixes, user experience and gameplay improvements. These two will probably be delivered next week. Also, we are going to release the game for SteamOS/Linux very soon. After we get all of those done the road for the next major version of the game begins. We plan to work hard on some very exciting features for the next release, which will take a few weeks to reach Steam. Some of the main features in the next major update will be:

• New "Trade Office" tab in the city window, where you can upgrade your trade office for more accurate prices and product quantities reporting. You will also be able to purchase or rent warehouses in cities.
• You will be able to attack competitors' ships, which really comes in handy in the Conquest game mode.
• You will be able to create 'fleets' and assign them automatic trading routes, so the ships in them execute your orders as one unit, always sticking together in order to be safe from pirates and other threats.
• Several new resources to trade, such as spices, tea and beer.

As we said before, at Hermes Interactive we are absolutely commited to improving the game with the suggestions we get from all of you. This new update includes:

• Automatic Trading Routes now keep track of profit and losses since you started them.
• Tweaked the placement of production buildings in the world so it's more unlikely that a city will produce the same goods it needs (for example, having both an arsenal and barracks in the same city).
• New legend box in the city window that explains the meaning of the different colors of prices.
• Price tooltips in the city window now appear much faster than before.
• When trying to buy or sell goods in a city with no trade office after you open one it will automatically resume whatever action you were going to do.
• More accurate data in the competitors window charts, particularly in the 1, 3 and 5 years zoom levels.
• Several improvements to the soundtrack of the game, made by our wonderful composer!
• Cities where you own a trade office are now marked with an asterisk in the Automatic Trading Route window.
• Fixed an exploit that allowed the player to improve the relationship with a country by buying and selling the same goods many times.
• Fixed a bug that caused the UI to lag severely when creating an Automatic Trading Route with over 15 steps.
• Fixed a bug that caused the AI players to glitch if you sabotaged one of their ships.

Hello everyone! At Hermes Interactive we are commited to hearing all of your valuable feedback, so we are releasing a new patch today including some of the improvements you asked for.

• Tutorial: The game now features a brief tutorial that explains the basics. A new tutorial explaining the battle system will be added in a future update.
• New prices information tooltip in the city window.
• You can now get rid of the goods nobody wants in a city (at a really really low price, though).
• Fixed bug that caused the camera to move, rotate or zoom while a full-screen window was open.
• Dynamic volume sliders. Now you can preview the music or sound effects volume without having to apply the settings.
• Tweaked edge pan sensitivity, as some users were having issues with it being too sensitive.
• Tweaked AI to make the 'easy' game mode a bit easier.

When we first developed Winds Of Trade we didn't think about adding a Tutorial as most other games do. We thought experimentation and discovery of how everything works would be part of the fun for most players. But we were wrong. The result was a frustrating experience for some of the new players. So, we have decided to make things right and add a Basic Tutorial to the game. The update including this and a few other improvements should hit Steam in just a couple of days. So, stay tuned! And once again, thank you everyone for your feedback!

Hello everyone. We're thrilled to announce the very first update for the game. We've been taking a close look at all of your useful feedback and decided to make a few fixes to make the game more enjoyable. Here are the details for this first update:

• You can now sort the info in the prices window however you want (by city name, by price, by quantity, by how old the last update is...)
• Cities with shipyards are now clearly marked in the strategic view (the one you get with the M key or by zooming out a lot)
• Saved games now indicate the date and time when they were last saved.
• You can now move around the map by dragging the pointer to the edge of the screen instead of with the W-A-S-D keys only.
• Smuggling has been made a bit easier in the 'easy' and 'normal' game modes.
• The probability of a bribe failing has been increased, especially in the 'hard' and 'impossible' game modes.
• The frequency and strength of pirate attacks has been reduced, especially in the 'easy' game mode.

Hello everyone! The game has been live for six hours now and we are listening to all of your valuable feedback. In the next few days a patch will be released that addresses some of your concerns. Keep the great ideas and suggestions coming, and thank you for being so participative! Some of the things to expect for the first update to the game (should be out before this week ends): - Indicators to know which cities have a shipyard. - Add a legend box to the strategic map. - Show creation date and time in saved games. - Allow players to sort goods by their price in both the city and the prices window. - A master volume slider in the settings window. After that we'll start working on adding a basic tutorial so the learning curve becomes a bit shallower.