AoE2 DB

Trade Cart Gold Calculator

Set up a trade route between two Markets and see exactly what it earns: the gold a single Trade Cart banks per round trip, how long that trip takes, and the gold per second it works out to. Then size a fleet — how many carts you need for a target income, or how much the carts you already have bring in. Already know the gold a cart dropped off in-game? Flip to I know the gold and we'll work the distance backwards.

The same route pays less on a bigger map — gold scales with distance relative to the map's size.

tiles apart
Gold per trip
7.6
banked each round trip
Round-trip time
1m 04s
out & back at 1.25 tiles/s
Gold / second
0.12
per single cart

How much does a fleet make?

Every cart on the same route earns the same — so income scales straight with the count.

trade carts
1.2
gold / second · 72 gold/min

How many trade carts for a target income?

The fleet size that hits your gold-per-second goal on this route.

gold/s
= 300 gold/min
42
trade carts needed · 5.0 gold/s actual

Gold per trip uses the game's trade formula — 0.46 · d · (d / map + 0.3), where d is the distance between Markets less their footprints — so it grows almost with the square of the distance and shrinks as the map gets bigger. Times assume a straight, unobstructed run at the unit's exact move speed and a cart that never waits at a Market; real routes wind around terrain, so treat the throughput as an idealised ceiling. Trade gold doesn't depend on speed, so Caravan changes the timing, not the payout.