Hey everyone.
Would anyone be able to give me tips on how to build a Merchant Republic as a dominant economic power, while staying Mercantile. Ideally Hansa or Venice.
Hey everyone.
Would anyone be able to give me tips on how to build a Merchant Republic as a dominant economic power, while staying Mercantile. Ideally Hansa or Venice.
Skype: two_lights
By destroying other leagues and other COTs.
If majority of trade (majority of important countries are in your league) goes through your cot, you'll always rake huge taxes.
With high mercantile you are always able to keep 5 merchants (6 later) there - more owned provinces means more compete chance.
Under no circumstance should you take a non-core COT.
Basically it's annex cot province, click destroy cot, release/sell asap. But new cots will always appear when current goes near 2000.
Otherwise they cost 500 and have to be connected into 1000+ value cot.
Cots that are surrounded by your league can be left alone. In this case only some of the direct neighbor provinces are forced to trade there.
But that won't be enough for it to survive.
You can force countries into your league, but it does not pay off if they are left with negative relations or especially if they own a cot themselves. In this case they will leave as soon as possible.
Later on you might want to colonize and prevent others doing so.
Hopefully someone with full playthroughs as a merchant republic will chime in.
Last edited by magitsu; 05-03-2013 at 01:12.
Oh great!! Thanks!Originally Posted by Icendoan
I was actually looking for this post before I asked my question
Skype: two_lights
Enjoy playing what I find to be the most interesting government in EU3. I'm a little sad to see that trade leagues are being removed from EU4 but hopefuly they will be substituted by something even better.
If you're talking about single player, you should always move free trade as its far superior to merc in sp. If you 'feel' like playing a merc nation you should play as hansa and head to americas and colonise all the rich parts of the new world while dominating your center of trades.
You should always stay mercantile as a Merchant Republic, I think, as you get the mercantile trade chance bonus for all provinces in your league. Unless your league is smaller than the provinces trading through it, it should give you huge bonuses (and loads of spies).
Or say England, France, Spain, OE, Mamluks, Burgundy, Austria, Blohemia, Poland or pretty much anyone except HRE minor... I find it disgusting when people ask advice on trade matters there is always someone rumbling about how free trade is always superior to merc. For example if you're going for WC merc is better in 5.1 and by FAR superior in 5.2b. Even if you're not going for WC but for example want to "just rule" the mediterranian and colonize I would say merc beats FT. If however you're never going to see a COT under your rule ( or just 1-3 ) yes FT beats merc hands down, but does this sound to you like FT is ALWAYS far superior?
in the vast, vast majority of cases free trade is better. if you are in a position to do a wc then chance are money wont be an issue anyway. Pretty much unless you are going to have high infamy then free trade is better. So no ft isnt always superior, but it is 90% off the time.
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My point exactly, yes in general FT is superior but there is still situations where merc is better. My objection is to the word "always".
This topic is specifically about being a successful Merchant Republic. a Merchant Republic's Trade League power comes from Mercantile policies which grant huge bonuses to your CoTs depending on the size of your league and give your centres a much greater "gravity" to pull in more trade.
Leave Free Trade v Mercantile arguements for another day. Like almost everything else in the game it's situational.
I stumbled upon that mechanic while looking around in the files, what does it do exactly?
It increases the chance of a CoT being pulled into trading with your centre of trade. Being in the same trade league also increases the "gravity" so if you are a very mercantile merchant republic, you have a fair shot at, for example, stealing Aquilea away from Venice and having them trade in Lubeck.
Of course it's not a sure thing. The only 100% guarantee of getting trade from a province is to secure a trade right for that good from the country owning the province. Since this reduces the trade value of the province, use it as a last resort.
I do not have numerical data for CoT "gravity" though. I don't think anyone but the devs do. In fact, I think I'll ask them.
Well assuming you get EITR, an EITC, and anything else that increases trade income modifier while blobbing alot, you will be very rich as a merc nation and this goes for the nations that you listed but venice/hansa have the easiest because of their decisions(that increase trade income modifier).
Also you're VERY wrong about merc being superior to FT in a WC. The infamy that you take doesn't affect your compete chance in your own cots, so assuming that you kill most of the european traders, you can easily hold down powerful monopolies in your cots(that and AI are really bad at trading). This also assumes you actively try to remove as many cots as possible so you own very few mega-cots. Merc is still good but its not better.
As for "just ruling" the mediterranian and colonising, free trade is still better. You won't be able to build up your trade league enough to make up for the lack of trade in foreign cots because theres only so many nations that you can invite. You could try to actively kill the other trade leagues and conquer cots... but then that wouldn't be "just ruling" the mediterranean and colonising.
"Taking out european traders" and "removing as many cots as possible" sound like very shitty tactic when you're doing a WC. Sure if you want to finish around 1800, but I prefer to do mine as efficient as possible.
Just clarify why I "think" they are shitty tactics:
I hope it's fairly clear to all of us that there are 3 main factor you have to consider when doing a WC, these factors are almost solely based on your own rules. The factors are #1 infamy ( under limit or not ), #2 manpower ( 5.1 or 5.2b ) and #3 colonists. When you knock out the former latter becomes the main issue while #3 is linked to #1.
Let's first examine your first "claim". I would argue that as any nation you need to take care of the 3 main colonizers England, Portugal and Castille. For catholic countries this means very heavy BB conquest. After you have succesfully "disabled" AI colonization your next priority should be the Hordes and Holy war CB, you should not be using valuable HW time on the likes of Holland. Your comment about infamy not affecting trade in domestic COTs means you completely missed the point. Infact the factor we care about is the number of uncored COTs at any given time. As we have already disabled AI colonization and we are using our colonists beating the hordes we should be leaving colonization to the backburner for about 100 years. Which brings us to your second claim. As every coastal COT gives you 0,1 colonists/year it's going to speed up your colonization considerably if you don't destroy most of them to keep your FR trading flourishing.
Yes I do understand this is not the only possible way to do a WC, but apart from collapsing to a horde I would argue it is the most efficient. I would also argue that money has very little relevance in the grand scheme of things when doing a WC so I personally see COT's main value in producing colonists rather than money.
Last edited by klanh89; 05-03-2013 at 19:47.
This doesn't really show why merc is better. If you're full FT then AI nations won't be able to compete with you in your own cots, even with loads of infamy. You can still have lots of mediocre cots for the colonists, but it just makes it harder to manage monopolies.
As every uncored COT gives you -15% compete chance across the board having just 2 completely nullifies the +25% compete chance abroad full free trade gives and leaves you with -30% compete chance in your own COTs. This is even more severe in 5.2b where you get extra -30% compete in owned for having full FT and buffed compete owned for merc.
No. You only get the penalty for owning a non-core cot when you try to trade in foreign cots... not your own.
Seems my memory got the better of me concerning that mechanic. Yes this brings some points towards FT argument, but is it really enough? I guess that's for everyone to decide for themselves.
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