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free Trade vs Mercantilism as The Hansa?

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Europa Universalis III 46143 EU3 - After Action Reports (AAR)
MasterOfGrey

MasterOfGrey

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Jun 16, 2011
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So basically, I'm playing as The Hansa with a moderately peaceful type strategy where the only European lands I intend to acquire are those with Hannoverian culture. After that I intend to go and either conquer or colonise overseas.

My question is, should I go Free Trade or Mercantilism? I'm a merchant republic which seems like it would make more sense to be free trade, but I've always been under the impression that Mercantilism is better if I own the CoT - which obviously I do.
 
Hmmm... but it's not that I don't plan to conquer much... just not much in Europe.
 
MasterOfGrey said:
So basically, I'm playing as The Hansa with a moderately peaceful type strategy where the only European lands I intend to acquire are those with Hannoverian culture. After that I intend to go and either conquer or colonise overseas.

My question is, should I go Free Trade or Mercantilism? I'm a merchant republic which seems like it would make more sense to be free trade, but I've always been under the impression that Mercantilism is better if I own the CoT - which obviously I do.
Click to expand...

With Divine Wind, the difference between mercantilism and Free Trade is no longer focussed on who owns the CoT. Mercantilism now gives compete chance bonusses for each province that trade via the CoT that you own. If you own a CoT surrounded by foreign territory, mercantilism will no longer help you there. If you are a small nation, mercantilism will not help you even if you own a CoT.

Besides, the concept of trade range has been introduced. You can only trade in CoTs that are within your trade range, which is increase with Free Trade and decreased with Mercantilism.

Bottom line: Free Trade is useful if you want to trade outside your territories and/or if you are small. As in most cases most of the trade is outside your territories, most people agree that Free Trade is the superior option, as it also gives increase trade efficiency.
 
Ok... I'm sure I read somewhere that every member of your trade league counts as yours with merchant republics though. Cause The Hansa is mostly Mercantile to start with and has 99% success chance in Lubeck, despite only having 3 provinces...

What if I just owned all the CoT's in the world and established a global trade league? Would mercantilism be better then?
 
knul said:
With Divine Wind, the difference between mercantilism and Free Trade is no longer focussed on who owns the CoT. Mercantilism now gives compete chance bonusses for each province that trade via the CoT that you own. If you own a CoT surrounded by foreign territory, mercantilism will no longer help you there. If you are a small nation, mercantilism will not help you even if you own a CoT.

Besides, the concept of trade range has been introduced. You can only trade in CoTs that are within your trade range, which is increase with Free Trade and decreased with Mercantilism.

Bottom line: Free Trade is useful if you want to trade outside your territories and/or if you are small. As in most cases most of the trade is outside your territories, most people agree that Free Trade is the superior option, as it also gives increase trade efficiency.
Click to expand...

As a Merchant Republic countries in your trade league count as countries you control for the purposes of mercantilism.

Hansa starts out deep mercantile already so while you can do it I really wouldn't recommend spending all those shifts just to go against the grain of the country. Something like Holland or Swiss are much more suited to the free trade game.
 
MasterOfGrey said:
Ok... I'm sure I read somewhere that every member of your trade league counts as yours with merchant republics though. Cause The Hansa is mostly Mercantile to start with and has 99% success chance in Lubeck, despite only having 3 provinces...

What if I just owned all the CoT's in the world and established a global trade league? Would mercantilism be better then?
Click to expand...
I didn't know that trade league territory counted for mercentilism, but it doesn't surprise me much (otherwise the merchant republics wouldn't really work).

Would be an interesting experiment to establish a global trade league.

Munashiimaru said:
As a Merchant Republic countries in your trade league count as countries you control for the purposes of mercantilism.

Hansa starts out deep mercantile already so while you can do it I really wouldn't recommend spending all those shifts just to go against the grain of the country. Something like Holland or Swiss are much more suited to the free trade game.
Click to expand...

It's indeed a harsh road from full mercantilism to full Free Trade. Still, I think that in many cases it is worth it. If you plan to remain small (f.e. in a peacefull game), it's really much better in general to still go for Free Trade, even if in the short run it hurts your income.
 
As long as members can leave the league at any given time or build their own CoTs, keeping a trade league together becomes an exercise in futility during the second half of the game.
 
if you can't get a country to sign a pact to join your trade league, perhaps you can get them to sign over trade rights for some of their goods. this also counts as 'owning' that province as a merchant republic.
 
Tjuk said:
As long as members can leave the league at any given time or build their own CoTs, keeping a trade league together becomes an exercise in futility during the second half of the game.
Click to expand...

May I ask why exactly this is? I've not played past 1550 yet in any game so I'm curious.
 
Tjuk said:
As long as members can leave the league at any given time or build their own CoTs, keeping a trade league together becomes an exercise in futility during the second half of the game.
Click to expand...

In my Hansa game staying in the trade league was manditory. Well, except maybe for England. They give you a CB when someone leaves for a reason, and vassals don't leave unless you boot them out yourself. :)
 
FietsPomp said:
I usually take over Venice, Antwerp and Novgorod within the first 100 years. So i keep merchantalism. CoT hunting is my favorite part of palying hansa.
Click to expand...

As I said in my post, in Divine Wind CoT hunting no longer works. As the OP has Divine Wind, you suggestion does not really help him.
 
knul said:
As I said in my post, in Divine Wind CoT hunting no longer works. As the OP has Divine Wind, you suggestion does not really help him.
Click to expand...

Actually, CoT hunting works if you're a Merchant Republic, because you get compete chance as if you owned all the provinces trading through your league.
 
TeutoDraeger said:
if you can't get a country to sign a pact to join your trade league, perhaps you can get them to sign over trade rights for some of their goods. this also counts as 'owning' that province as a merchant republic.
Click to expand...

By the time that happens you should be enormous outside of Europe (and in Europe if you want) so mercantilism still makes sense : p
 
FietsPomp said:
How do you meen "no longer works"? I take CoTs, and fill them with my merchants i get more money. How is that not working?
Click to expand...

Yes, it works with your game because you don't have Divine Wind. In Divine Wind, if you own a CoT whose trade mainly comes from foreign provinces, mercantilism won't give you a bonus. The way mercantilism works in DW is that for each province that trades in a CoT that is owned by you (or by a league member), you get a bonus in compete chance for that CoT. However, base compete chance is lowered with Mercantilism, so in the extreme case you own almost none of the province that trade throught a CoT, you even get a penalty to compete chance!

So the strategy of just taking a CoT and stuff it does not work anymore if you have Mercantilism. If you have Free Trade it will work, but then again with Free Trade it would also work without taking the CoT.
 
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