Sid Meier's Pirates: Direction/route of the Spanish Treasure Fleet?

Does anyone know what DIRECTION the Spanish Treasure fleet travels? The route it takes? As in: If it's in a central place like Rio D, should we expect it to ALWAYS travel West towards Vera Cruz, or does it sometimes move east from there towards Trinidad? I wonder if there's a standard "loop" it makes, or if the game just tells you where you can find it...and it appears there, and then disappears if you aren't in the area? One thing I love about this game is the continuity...when it happens. As in: You can track a ship moving from one spot to another...if you sail away from it and loop back, it's still there, doing its thing. So, that tells me the game might have the intell to make the Treasure Fleet route the same each time, so you can project where it will be if you don't get to Rio D in time.

Solution 1:

Isn't HardCoded, it can change since you could invade and change the afilliation of any town back to other European power. Usually asking the barman or the lady in the bar would give you a hint, keeping a base near the biggest spanish port would help you spot it more frecuently.

Solution 2:

There's a route, it involves the "florida channel" which is actually near Gran Granada in the code (just functions so that the fleet will go the westward way around Cuba, eventually going through the Florida Channel on its way to Havana and Europe). Check out hookedonpirates, lots of good work in the code there