So, using my first ever captain for auto-trading between Oslo and Lubeck (ref images)

I'm just experimenting since I've never used auto-trading before, so it's probably not amazing, but regardless.... running it for a bit, I'm getting numerous runs pulling in a loss.... not by a small amount either, sometimes several thousand thaler.

I don't understand how that's happening, since for both towns, the max buy price I'm setting is lower than the minimum sell price I've set.

Halp plox?

any luck on the steam forums?!

Old question, I know, but for the next person wondering:

The summary letter is extremely misleading because it doesn't consider any goods at all, only cash. The worst runs in the OP probably came home with a ship full of valuable furs that sell for twice as much elsewhere, while those that "made a profit" found nothing to buy. Ignore the letter, it is useless.

Patrician 2:
Captain counts crew's & his own expensive wage in the bill (no crew=no loss). Therefore you should make each trip filled to the brim with goods with skeleton crew of snaikka (pronounced "Shneck"). Bigger ships worth only if almost full and they are slower by 20-40%, always pirated... Not worth it seems. Most likely your ships aren't loaded due to the non fitting price brackets. But to see what's wrong you need to understand how does auto-trade works. Auto-trade takes quarter of the day to fullfill (for example selling any amount of goods takes 6 hours, then transfering takes 6 hours) [note: in P2 it takes 12 hours per action]. When your captain is trading he is using price set per each item as if you bought 1, then another, et cetera with bonuses for commerce skill he have (5 skill=10% bonus: if set to buy IG for 322, he actually stops at market price of 355 but still pays 322). Most players buy&sell in bulk and accustomed to much lower average prices. If you set to buy iron goods for 400-450 per single item, your average price would be ~340-370, which is pretty good. You probably never find an iron goods on hard difficulty for 330. I haven't yet bought a wool consistently cheaper than 1150, skins 860, pig iron could be 1350 (only to owned manufactures).

Advanced tactic: 1st captain for buying in several cities, delivering it to storehouse (he will always report loss) and 2nd captain for selling sitting in the city (set to transfer to ship, sell, transfer back leftovers), 3rd captain to deliver from single city to many, because markets tend to saturate. But which price to set for selling? You need to click grey 2-story building with red roof to calculate weekly consumption minus local production. There are 3 steps for prices: Below 1 week of consumption (deficit, prices climb, citizens unhappy, but your reputation rises as supplier of scarce goods), from 1 to 2 weeks (moderate prices, satisfied citizens, small reputation bonus), non less than 2 weeks of consumption (prices are good only for mass production, but citizen happy and no reputation). Player should balance reputation, mood of citizens and profit. Usually player's reputation is much higher than money needed for advancing so I would recommend to sell exactly at "1 week of consumption" price. You either need to find price table for your game version & difficulty or sell that commodity until you saturate market with 1 week level of goods and write down the resulting price with +-5% error margin. That price will be used for every city unless demand is higher throught Hanse (like pig iron in early years, wool).

Captain is selling exactly the same: 1 by 1 with set price for last item without added bonus for commerce. Amusingly if your cities are large and not saturated you can set the same prices to sell and buy and make a profit. At some point you might even sell at loss to keep poors from emigrating to buy your other goods. With manufactories you need workers and should care for your cities. Never rely on AI traders for Big Four (fish, beer, grain and timber).

Now demand and consumption and happiness are different things. Nobody ever needs iron tools for happiness but many consume it.

Another strategy is awaiting the prices. If you bought good amount for good price you don't need to sell immideately. Set your city-seller to sell more expensive than "1 week prices". If other players/convoys/local merchants visit rarely you can stretch profit for months. That's how it's done with grain speculating in winter months. IIRC prices gets higher mid winter in February or so due to lower production. If you have big leftovers you need to slightly lower buying prices to buy less, try to never lower the selling price, today's abundance is tomorrow's deficit.

If you have too much to sell, never lower selling price. Lower *buying* price to get less items for cheaper price. Eastern cities often stocked with hundreds of furs, Western with wine& species, you can sell it for years because demands depends on rich strata and they are very fickle, leaving immideately in case of problems.

It's better to have 1 convoy in a single city set to 8 times buy a certain good & at 1 take from and 10 deliver to the home city (max 10 travel-points in P2). Less time wasted travelling around, roughly 4 days guaranteered trading. The same with selling, it's more profitable (faster turnaround, faster satisfaction, faster pop rising) to sitting-sell in a town, not travelling-sell.
Cities visited rarely (like river: Novgorod, Thorun, Cologne) have misleading inflated prices. If you start to trade consistently market will quickly saturate. Good for manual trading at the start though.
Seems like prices in mine grossbook are a bit off, when 3000-5000 population hits I notice disrepancy. Hard to calculate formula, because of so different goods and profit margin. For example, beer at 1-week prices 52 buy, 48 sell, that's about +-3.5% from middle (50). But iron goods are ~430-450 buy, 378 sell, percent is different there. Sell price drops by small amount, while buy prices drops fast. The only price set in stone we have is exactly at 1-week consumption, but it's fluctuates: in 2000+ pop cities, events (confirmed for food, +20% minimum for 1-week price at times of siege).

By the way Market Hall is misleading: City production listed daily instead of weekly, competitors production listed is weekly while consumption is weekly as reported.

EDIT: found another hard price: the maximum non-event selling price, aka "0 deficit". Beer price on hard is 62. Henceforth -22% is the 1-week price (for all items except iron goods, wood, spices, timber, pig iron (iron ore), wool). -33% is the cost of production of 1 manufacture without bonuses and at the same time roughly 2-week supply price.
Speaking of beer: deficit = 62, -10% (sell) = 56, -22% (1week) = 48, -33% (produce, 2week) = 41.
In my book I used -30% as buying prices for every thing and was able to buy a lot of items below the production cost. Sold everything at -10% for 3-days supply for greater margin. Rich was dissatisfied and stayed at the same popsize several years, well-to-do satisfied and enlarged and poors happy. It seems like -10% from "0 deficit" price is very good, except you need to supply wine, spice, skins, meat, honey, cloth, pottery cheaper, at -20% or cheaper.