Caravan tips

WarFlow Caravan Tips by koisumaz2000
This is a mini-guide for new players. 
Post house (PH) is unlocked when TC reaches lvl 41. It enables players to trade with other players. Trading is limited to players of the same nation only. You can trade in any areas where there are players lvl 41 or higher. PH enables two operations: sending trade caravans (vans) and receiving trade caravans. Both give players silver. If the other player has auto approve on, it’s finished immediately. There is no CD on sending and receiving vans (sigh), so you can reach the daily limit very fast. 
Tips:
1. Don't rush upgrading your PH. With each upgrade, the numbers of the vans you can send are reset. Be sure to upgrade it when there are no more vans to be sent and to use all the vans immediately after the upgrade. 
2. At lvl 45 Native bank is unlocked. It increases the profit of each caravan, so it's better to upgrade it to maximum level, before starting upgrading the PH past level 5. 
3. Vans can be sent only onceto each player, so be sure that there are any players online /auto approved ticked that can receive them. 
4. It's best time to send vans when there are a lot of players online. You can see who is online from in the chat. If you plan to upgrade the PH one or more times that day, better do it in several time windows, so that there will be different players online. 
(This was before the improvement of auto approve... these days it is not nessessary to have anyone online except yourself)5. It's better to send vans to higher-level players. Usually when a player accepts vans and hasn't used all his vans, he will ask for trade in return. Higher level players send more vans, so you will reach the daily limit with fewer operations. 
6. Don't keep trade requests pending - accept or reject them as soon as you can. Or better yet turn on auto approve. Keeping somebody waiting will slow him and there is a possibility that he won't find anybody to send his vans if all have already finished trading. Remember: as a part of a nation, the prosperity of each player helps all the others. 
7. If your trade request is pending for too long, use the private chat to ask the player if he can accept or not. If nobody answers, try another one. 
8. Be sure to check all the zones of the city for players online. New zones appear when new players move in. 
9. Use the area chat or the others if you can (legion and nation chats can be used only by top 100 RP players in the legion/nation respectfully) to announce that you can send or receive vans. Announce using the apply for trade link in posthouse for faster trades.10. Vans can be a powerful tool for making tons of silver. It will be wise to start upgrading the PH and power-trading when there is an GET RICH event. It will secure you one of the first ranks and you will get more silver as a reward. 
11. It is possible to plan the number of the vans you receive in order to use all the spaces available. There are usually several spaces remaining which cannot be utilized. I haven’t tried to do it yet, because there won’t be much difference in the silver I get ( I am still low level). However, in the high levels it can be used to get several thousand silver more. 
12. Think strategically. The PH upgrades are limited, so use them in the right moment to get fast silver when you need it the most.
thanks to blackrabbit2999 who origianally posted this link.
find this and more here http://blackrabbit2999.blogspot.com/2011/05/facebook-warflow-caravan-tips.html
OK, let me continue the guide with some ajustments for the new versions of Warflow.
The new versions of Warflow give us more ways to get silver that make the silver we get in trading caravan is so small. And one thing that will make you regret upgrading Post House is when you have Textile Mill.
Here I will explain about caravans and textile:
- After you have textile mill and upgrade it to lvl 82, you can use it to create textile 10 times per day to sell for silver. Textile is the main way you get silver in high lvl.
- You have 12 different merchants in textile mill that give you huge bonus when producing textiles such as increase sell value, chance to double sell value ... etc
- Evey winter you lose all your merchants you have and get 1 random merchant. The only way to get merchants is sending caravans to the players that have textile mill at least lvl 82 or recive caravans from them. You get 1 merchant for each time sending or reciving caravans.
- No matter how high your Post House lvl is you can only send 4 times per day and recieve 8 times per day. That means when the winter come you'll have to look carefuly when sending or reciving caravan to get all 12 merchants
I must say that getting all 12 merchants with only 4 times sending and 8 times reciving sometimes can be very frustrating. You'll see the scene when some people, who have the merchants you need, can only recive but you already sent all your caravans and your Post House lvl is maxed.
When you get good textile to sell, like lvl 21, 22 or 30 textiles, you'll realize that the silver you get when sending and reciving caravans is very small compare to that. Upgrading Post House and sending caravans from lvl 1 to lvl 100 continuosly can give you 4 - 5 mil silver(with Native Bank already maxed). That profit can be earned in 3 days with textiles producing and levy from players lvl 120 or above. See the problem here, you wasted time upgrading Post House, wasted chances to get full merchants every winter. The bonus silver from producing textile with full merchants surpasses anything you get from sending caravans.