• Nanban Trade Merchant
  
  
• Trading skills that are at least level 8
  
  
• EA port permits
  
• A little understanding with graphs

Bribing city officials is essential to trading in EA. It unlocks the openning cities for you to trade with so you can start trading with that country and start unlocking the rest of their cities as well as their more profittable trade goods. These are the openning cities:

• Japan = Nagasaki
  
• Korea = Pohang
  
• China = Macau
  
• Taiwan = Tamsui

To open trading with the starting cities, bribing officials is necessary. Everytime you trade, you will acquire culture contribution points. These points will unlock more towns to trade in as well as more valuable trade goods. But for now, you need 1000 points to open trading. These are the suggested goods to bribe officials with.

UPDATE: The most straightforward way I found was using around 1000 Whiskey to unlock all opening ports in all countries in EA.

†Japan

• Less than 200 Whiskey, apple vinegar, bay leaf, bergamot, marble statue
  
• Less than 250 Glasswork, marble, Netherlands calico, dried apples, prunes, dried figs, saffron, fruit brandy, gin, akvavit narcissus, flannel, Turkish rugs Gobelin tapestry, safflower, Damascus Sword, flax, parchment
  
• Less than 300 Velvet, Sherry, muskets, feathers
  
• Less than 500 Amber
  
• Less than 750 Tequila, alpaca hair, platinum, Mayan Blue, cacao, pineapple
  
• Less than 1000 Banana, pepper, nuoc cham, , nutmeg, tortoise shell, turquoise, black tea, taro
  
• 1000 or more Copper ore, paper, palm wine, fine furniture, wax, Tyrrhenian purple, pearl, saltpeter

† Taiwan

• Less than 200 Parchment, gin, flax, fruit brandy, marble, Dutchcalico, flannel
  
• Less than 250 Glasswork, amber, Akvavit, saffron, Dutch calico, dried apple, Damascus Sword
  
• Less than 300 Velvet, feathers, sherry, cider vinegar, whiskey
  
• Less than 500 Musket
  
• Less than 750 Rubber, tobacco, red pepper, green pepper
  
• Less than 1000 Taro, sandalwood, frankincense
  
• 1000 or more Saltpeter, gold, bananas, rum, coffee, potatoes

† Korea

• Less than 250 Marble, apple vinegar, saffron, glasswork, Dutch calico, amber, fruit brandy, gin, parchment
  
• Less than 300 Velvet, sherry, dried apple, feather, flax, whiskey, akvuavit
  
• Less than 500 Musket
  
• Less than 750 Cacao, pepper, green pepper, cochineal
  
• Less than 1000 Kangaroo meat, sandalwood, taro, pepper
  
• 1000 or more Banana, potatoes, mercury

† South China

• Less than 250 Glasswork, lily of the valley, velvet, apple cider, dried apple, amber,Gin saffron, fruit brandy, marble, parchment, whiskey, akvavit
  
• Less than 300 Sherry, feathers, flax, Damascus Sword, Dutchcalico
  
• Less than 500 Musket
  
• Less than 750 Pepper, red pepper, sisal hemp, cochineal, tequila
  
• Less than 1000 Taro, sandalwood, bananas, frankincense
  
• 1000 or more Musk, potatoes, mercury

Source: http://gvo.gamedb.info/wiki/?NanbanTrade#nbfd7bec

All of these are suggested items and amounts. It is advisable to take extra amounts with you in case of natural disasters from getting there and town statuses. I personally brought around 1500 whiskey with me and had enough left overs.

Now that you've opened trading, you can start earning some money. There are a few things you have to consider when you are nanban trading:

• City status
  
• City trading rates
  
• Your own trading skills level

What you trade in East Asia depends highly on what you can make with your craft skills or what you can buy yourself. Also your own trading skill rank can affect how much EA trade can be traded with you. The higher trading skill you have, the better trade rate you will have when you exchange that type of trade good in Nanban trading. Example: If you have higher Alcohol trading rank than Crafts trading rank, you'll have a better trading rate when you trade Alcohols than Crafts. In the ivyro page, every trade goods are categorized for your convinience. Every country in EA has different trade goods that they prefer to trade with. To find out what you can trade with a specific city, go to the ivyro page: http://uwodbmirror.ivyro.net/eg/main.php?id=85000040

This is how to use this page:

• Scrolling down, it will take you here:
  
  
  
• Choose a country and a trade type. For this demonstration, let's pick China and Crafts trade good, which is the pink dish at the very left. It will take you to this page.
  
  
  
• Now, what we're looking here is the types of Craft trade goods best to trade with China. To determine which is better, we look at the values of each trade good.
  
• Here's the rule of thumb: Every trade good above 2000 value points is good enough to trade. Anything lower than that and you'll be losing money most of the time. So in this example, every trade good on this page is good to trade in China except Goldwork.
  
• Items with yellow stars below their values indicate that they have that value when the current status of that city favors the trade good.

Trading rates are important to know when nanban trading. Bringing goods that are in high demand can yield great profit as opposed to bringing goods that are in low demand would leave you empty handed. To check on rates, find the nearest Nanban Trade Merchant.
As said before, he can be found in cities with Company Administrators and would be in that office's vicinity.
When you click on him, he will show you the statuses and rates of every East Asian city you've unlocked. For this demonstration, we'll stick on China and have a look at Quanzhou

Quanzhou at the moment has the plague. If we look at the City statuses and boosts, Plagues favor eligible Foodstuffs, Livestock and Luxury goods.


EA towns go through many different Town Statuses in a day. Most offer bonuses to certain trade goods except a Recession which will penalise all trade goods you might want to trade, it's best to avoid trading in a town currently in a recession. The UWODB nanban section displays all the town status and what their effects are such for Plague (bonus to Alcohol / Foodstuffs / Luxury Good).

We read graphs in a way that if the trend is going high or is high, it would indicate that that would be a bad trade. And if the trend is going down or is down, then it would be a good trade. If we look at these pictures side by side:


The lower the trend of the line goes, the better trade rate it is for you. So at this instance, Artwork trade goods would not make a good trade at the moment compared to Foodstuffs that has a low trend and are also favored by the boosts.

Having rank 8 trading skills or higher does help with the trade rate as well. At that point the small spikes in the market rate won't affect you as much as it would when you have lower ranked skills.

Opening other cities to trade would not require you to bribe any city official anymore but the Cultural Area Contribution points that you acquire. You get these points by trading with Nanban cities in that country you already have opened. These points do not decrease if you ever decide to stop nanban trading for a while. Here are the needed Cultural Area Contribution points for every city in every country:

• Macau : 0
  
• Quanzhou : 10,000
  
• Hangzhou : 20,000
  
• Yuntaishan : 30,000
  
• Chongqing : 40,000

• Tamsui : 0
  
• Anping : 20,000

• Pohang : 0
  
• Hanyang : 5,000
  
• Busan : 40,000

• Nagasaki : 0
  
• Sakai : 5,000
  
• Edo : 40,000

This information is also displayed here:
http://uwodbmirror.ivyro.net/eg/main.php?id=85000040

To find out how much Cultural Area Contribution Points you currently have, visit the Nanban Trade Merchant and click on any city of a country you wish to inquire. The current points will appear at the top right as well as that city's current status.

What to take depends on where you want to sell. Usually, we would always want to sell in the territories and allied towns of our own country. To find out which goods sell best in your country or whatever area you want to sell, we go back to this page:

http://uwodbmirror.ivyro.net/eg/main.php?id=85000040

Click on "Market Rates" on the section of the country you are trading with. Let's stick to China.

Boxed in red here are individual areas in Europe. Every trade good's optimal selling prices are categorized by area.

Pick the trade good they are giving you the most that has the best selling price in the area you want to sell in. If you are not sure which areas are which, you can hover on the pictures and the name of the area will be in the detail.

Scroll down further, you can see that the site has outside European areas categorized as well. You can explore where else to sell.

The prices are a bit outdated since the Nanban trade prices have been nerfed in a previous patch. Despite this, it is not uncommon to get these prices still with enough Accounts skill.

• If you can, buy some Nanban Purveyor Certificate. Nanban Trading rate is defaulted at the moment to 3 trade goods for 1 Nanban Trade good or 3:1. Nanban Purveyor Certificate allows you to trade 1:1 and would yield you more profit.
  
• For players who has money to spend, try to get a ship that has Nanban Trade Preference skill or get it fused to your semi permanent trading boat. It gives you 20% increase in the number of exchangeable goods. However, this skill should be on the boat you are currently using as this will not activate when your aide sails the said ship. You also need rank 10 on Management skill for this to be active.
  
• Just like real life markets, having a lot of supply and no demand will yield lesser rewards. As well as having a lot of demand and little supply would do otherwise. So it's best if you scrutinize every trade good and see which ones people trade less with the cities.
  
• Again, your own trading skill rank can affect how much EA trade can be traded with you. Example: If you have Rank 8 Alcohol trading rank and Rank 5 Crafts trading rank, you'll have a better trading rate when you trade Alcohol goods than Crafts good.

This guide was made with the help of the following references. It is also advised to go to their website and read a bit more for more information missed here.
http://uwomarcos.blogspot.ca/2013/09/nanban-trading-backstocks-and-town.html
http://uwomarcos.blogspot.ca/2013/09/nanban-trading-basics.html
http://uwodbmirror.ivyro.net/eg/main.php?id=85000040
http://gvo.gamedb.info/wiki/?NanbanTrade