User manual

Ships

Automatic merchant ships in oBot for Ikariam: bought at the port up to the chosen number, without touching the reserve gold.

Last update: November 2, 2026

What it does

Merchant ships are needed for transports, colonies and raids and are bought at the port with gold. oBot buys them by itself, one at a time, up to the number you choose.

Premium feature

Without premium the settings are saved anyway: the bot starts as soon as premium is active.

Options

Automatic ships
On: the bot buys one ship at a time up to the chosen number. Off: it buys nothing.
Ships to have
The bot stops when you have this many (default 2). With Let the bot decide how many ships on (off by default) the number becomes a minimum: if barbarian raiding is on, the bot buys the ships needed to bring back all the loot, up to 6.
Gold reserve
Gold that must be left after each purchase (default 0). Set it to 9,000 if you are saving for a colony.
Let the bot decide how many ships
The numbers above become a minimum. With barbarian pillage on, the bot buys the ships needed to bring the whole loot back (500 goods per ship, at most 6); with the New colony goal in automatic development it keeps the colony gold (what the game asks for) as reserve, so ships never eat it, and at least the ships needed to carry the colony wood (3 for the 1,250 of the first one). Spends gold: off by default. The log says when it raises the number or the reserve.

What the bot does

  • Every 30 minutes it goes to the port of the first town that has one and buys one ship, if you have fewer than the chosen number.
  • Each ship costs more than the previous one (480 gold the first, 897 the second): the bot buys only if the reserve gold is left after the purchase, otherwise it waits and tells you.
  • If no town has a port it tells you: build one (automatic development does it by itself once it is unlocked).

Resources between your towns

With two or more towns and the option Resources between your towns for buildings and wine on (premium, off by default, switched on by the Expansion, Economy and Raiding profiles) the bot ships resources in two cases only: a queued building is blocked by a resource the town does not produce by itself within three quarters of an hour, or the tavern uses more wine than the town produces and less than 12 hours are left (wine for 36 hours is sent).

  • It sends only what that building lacks, plus a 5-10% margin, from the town that has it beyond its own needs, with the free merchant ships.
  • The town of origin always keeps the cost of its own waiting job, the wood reserve of army and colony, 12 hours of wine and at least 100 of each resource.
  • One shipment per building: while the load is travelling nothing else leaves for the same need. There are no regular rounds.

Trading Post market (premium)

Resources that none of your towns produces (for example marble, if all your towns are on crystal islands) come neither from production nor from transports. With Trading Post market on (off by default) and a Trading Post in one of your towns, once an hour:

  • if a building waits, or was skipped, for a resource you do not produce, the bot places a buy offer for what is missing plus 10%, at the price halfway between the game limits, within the Trading Post capacity and spending at most half of the gold above the reserves (colony gold, ship reserve);
  • if the offer finds no sellers the price goes up, never above the game maximum: by 3 every 6 hours when the resource stops a building and none of your towns produces it, by 2 every 24 hours otherwise; it starts again when someone sells part of it; the market status says which resources none of your towns produces and come only from there or from a colony on an island producing them;
  • the bot also buys from the sell offers of other players within the Trading Post range, for what the building stopped in the Trading Post town lacks (for example the marble none of your towns produces), starting with what the Palace of the colony goal needs. It picks the cheapest offers, at a price of at most twice the median of the offers read, never more than the warehouse takes and the free ships and the gold above the reserves allow; one try per resource every 45 minutes, and the log says what it read, what it bought and why it did not;
  • when the resource is no longer needed it removes the offer;
  • the luxury good you produce above 80% of the warehouse goes on sale until it is back at 60%;
  • offers you place by hand in the Trading Post are never touched. Other players fill the offers: the goods arrive when someone sells.

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