This article serves a brief convoy guide for Victoria 3 players who need to take their game further. As I will come across more details about convoys and find more relevant information in the future, the article will be updated.
Where do I find out how many convoys I have?
To find out how many convoys are in your inventory, just look under Market > Trade routes. There you will see how many convoys you have and how many you need.
Where are convoys used?
Convoys are primarily used for trading routes, i.e. for transporting goods between countries. In case you have a colony somewhere overseas, convoys are also used to connect ports and maintain market access at 100%. Last but not least, they move and supply your army.
If you have available less convoys than you actually need, your “supply network” shrinks and you deliver less goods. The convoys themselves move around the map on the “supply network”. In the picture presented bellow, you can see yellow points. These present supplying resources.
In case you’re fighting a war against a country that has a strong navy, there is a possibility that the country will attack your points and start sinking your convoys. This is what you want to avoid by guarding your own key points. On the other hand, if you have a stronger navy, you should use your advantage and attack their points.
Why do you want to have free convoys?
You want to have more free convoys to develop your trade routes. Each trade route has a maximum level and the rule is that the higher the level is, the more resources you can trade.
Below you can see that my path between USA >> France in the meat trade can have a maximum level of 1. If you look at the detail of why I can’t upgrade this path, you will see that the problem is my lack of convoys…
…simply put, for this route to develop, I’d need 5515 convoys instead of the current 5470. So in the long run, it pays to have a stock of available convoys so your routes can grow and make you more money.
On the other hand, you do not have to worry about evolving pathways that do not work for you. Below you can see that even if I have more convoys, just as in the case of the British Market >> American Market, the clothes path will not increase itself because it would be so profitable the game would not allow it.
How can I get more convoys?
If you look at the detail of available convoys, you can see that the biggest gain is in the ports. It means that if you don’t have enough convoys, you simply need to build a port. A good solution can also be the creation of custom unions where you get 50% of the ships available to a given country.
By building more ports, you also increase your infrastructure. In case you are going to build more ports at the same time, choose port provinces where you don’t have a high level of infrastructure. You will solve two problems at once. However, you need to be careful with ports, as we indicate in the article on infrastructure – you don’t want to build just ports.
At the same time, be careful when developing ports, because to build them you will need⛵ Clippers. Because of that, I recommend building Shipyards to keep the price of ⛵ Clippers from moving significantly higher after building.
How to build more convoys? (actionable)
- Build more ports or change production method of your ports
- Increase production of Clippers in Shipyard or import Clippers into your country
What if I can’t build another port?
If you can’t build another port and you need more convoys, check if you can at least change the “production method”. There is often a way to increase the number of convoys without building additional ports.
Below you can see how many convoys you get per level in case you change the production method to a higher level. If my math is correct, you can have a maximum of 910 convoys from one port.
- Anchorage = +10 convoys per level
- Cargo Port = +200 convoys per level
- Industrial Port = +350 convoys per level
- Modern Port = +350 convoys per level
In case you can no longer change the production method, but still need more convoys, you must expand territorially to get more of them. This could be a good way to get more convoys for for example Belgium.
