EU4 Development Diary - 3rd March 2016

[Kazimierz IV]

Hopefully the reincarnated Hansa doesn't conquer Denmark in every game like before.

 

[Golwar]

I got to agree with all those voices that welcome the idea of reintroducing Trade Leagues, while also questioning their value, if they exist only as described. There is little use for a feature that only matters for some few decades. I hope the result will be more impressive than imagined, so far.

 

[Sanny]

Looks great, getting more excited about Mare Nostrum than I was before

 

[aqvamare]

Will trade union OPMs able to DOW each other,

I do not want to create in MP a lübeck hansa with 10-12 OPMs in my trade league and fail in the end, only because my little OPM start fighting each other.

If member of the same league are unable to DOW each other, it can be interesting to play. As long you as hansa blob in the space between them to stop there expansion. And it gives you a fast start into channel node, with friesia, utrecht and gelre as possible hansa member. If they do not eat ech othere.

 

[Sunspawn]

I doubt anyone will be raising mercantilism that way, unless they are at the limit of the mana pool and have high tech overtime. Also, trade leagues, unfortunately, cannot really represent the historical Hanseatic League. I mean, Sweden, the Teutonic Order and England were members (via their cities).

Also, are members kicked out if they expand?

 

[Balesir]

Except nobody sane would spend diplo points on mercantilism. A false choice that exists only as a newbie trap might as well not exist at all. Also buying mercantilism double-dips your corruption values as mercantilism adds corruption and being behind on tech adds corruption; by this logic it is never worthwhile to actually buy mercantilism. They literally wasted developer time on a feature nobody sane would ever use.

I don't disagree that the cost could do with "tuning", but that is just a matter of fiddling with multipliers. Mercantilism makes your trade more profitable by boosting your trade power - that is its primary (and existing) benefit. Maybe having it give a spy defence boost, as someone suggested, could be cool - and an option that is opened up by having it be a two-edged sword, instead of just something you boost whenever the (random) chance arises.

And you misread what I was saying about trade league alliances. I said that attacking into one results in pulling in a ton of allies that don't take up diplo slots. You get something like eight or nine allies for the price of one slot, and that's busted. Doubly so if you're attacking into a trade league from outside the HRE, because then you pull in the emperor as well. This can result in you fighting ~15 different nations just because you declared on an OPM in the HRE. That amount of nations on an OPM's side feels oddly reminiscent of the days when war leadership changed, despite it being fairly different in how it happens.

No, I understood you perfectly - but those allies are all OPMs! The limitation to a single province in trade leagues is necessary for this very reason. As a by-blow, maybe it will keep the HRE with more OPMs later into the game (which it could do with).

Lastly, if mercantilism did need a downside (I don't really think it did, given how tricky it was to gain for a lot of nations), swinging it in too far the opposite direction is just as bad as having it with no downside.

Playing as England right now I had no problems getting mercantilism up to 35%+. Corruption was a major factor in mercantilist states failing or being constrained in their development - one reason the later British Empire went for Free Trade rather than continuing a long mercantilist tradition. In the long haul, mercantilism is a dead end.

 

[RaptorCommander]

Trade Leagues are a good initiative but there needs to be more incentives so that they can become a viable counter style to blobbing:
Suggested Bonuses:
1. Force limit increase: The leaders force limit should increase as if the members of the league were there vassal
- This way the extra gold they are getting can actually be put to use
- This would increase incentive to keep members around long term
2. Extra Merchant: Being a member of league should give a free merchant (This way the trade network expands outwards by the members)
3. Development Cost Reduction: The leader should get a development reduction in his capital that is calculated not just on his total development but on the total development of all the members. Actually Members and leaders should get this bonus.
4. Member Size: A member should be able to have more then one province if they are overseas provinces
4. Long term members should be able to be made into "Trade Vassals"
- These vassals cant leave the league any-more
- Don't count to the leaders diplo cap
- Are similar to Marches in that they cant be integrated
- Provide additional merchant to leader

 

[jorishilhorst]

I miss Wiz, at least he'd answer questions, and created drama which was entertaining. I think at most i've seen Johan answer 2 questions and then he moves on to do something else. Like work or something else weird There usually are quite a few questions still open on these dev diaries.

 

[Dakka]

So if Venice forms a league, can Venice invite Florence, Mantua, Siena, and Lucca?

If say Venice is killed by Austria, would Florence lead the league?

Florence wouldn't be able to join because it has more than one province. Not sure what would happen to the league. I suppose it would disband since there wouldn't be any merchant republics left

 

[loup99]

Didn't you notice how Paradox basically claims it owns all mods? That is specifically designed to prevent anyone from complaining about Paradox "coincidentally" adding something similar to that which exists in a mod. I actually brought up to the rest of my team mates on M&T that we should make mercantilism not a straightforward increase as much as you can because there are no downsides mechanic and we discussed trying to represent the Hanseatic league over a year ago. Basically I'm just trying to say that just because you had it in your mod doesn't mean it is impossible for someone to completely independently come up with the same concept. Furthermore in the case of trade leagues I think EU3 actually had something similar so that may have actually influenced them.

This. The Hanseatic and mercantilism changes have also been repeatedly discussed on the forums, before the above mentioned mod even existed, so I don't think PDS were even aware of his system.

 

[CrisisCauser]

Agreed, lead this confederation AND conquer your neighbors. Only the members need to be one province minors, the leader can get as big, blobby and monstrous as he wants.

Yeah, this will make the leader very strong. You not only guarantee the independence of several OPMs with only 1 diploslot, but they are all in your alliance. Meanwhile you can still war monger around these countries with your usually allies helping you.

 

[guachi]

i find really hard to grasp why a big or even medium sized country would want merchantlism.

Merchantilism as far as i know is useless if you control 100% of a trade node. So a lot of big countrys that dived very deep in merchantlism like spain and england will actually fight to get rid of it. With corruption being a much bigger problem to them.

It is not useless if you control 100% of a trade node. 20% of province trade power propagates to each upstream trade node. Even if you control 100% of the English Channel node you'd still have 20% propagate to each of five trade nodes. In this case, the total power that propagates upstream is equal to the amount of power you have in the English Channel.

Without owning a single province in Champagne, you could suck a reasonable amount of trade value out of the node purely from having strong provincial trade in the English Channel and sticking a merchant in Champagne for an additional 50+ TP. Think of it as waging economic war on your enemies.

 

[Spacehamster]

Thirdly perhaps a hard cap on joinging merchant leagues is not the way to go. After all the teutonic order was part of the hansa and it most certainly wasn't an OPM. Perhaps instead of just OMPS countries can be part of the league if they are smaller than half the development of the merchant league?
Or perhaps a cap isn't the way to go at all, perhaps you could model the benefits in such a way that the benfits only outweigh the penatlies for smaller nations (preferably something with not having to spend money on a fleet of their own).

I think you are onto something there. Here's a crazy idea: how about all members sent their boosted production incomes to a common pool and that was then evenly re-distributed among the comrades? This way trade leagues could still make sense for small states and medium states sitting on all-grain. For larger states and small states sitting on a goldmine that would however be a bad deal.

To be honest though, trade leagues look more like colonial captive markets than the historical cartels...

I hope they will also add the diplomatic option to have non-members lease land to the trade league. It would basically mean the trade leauge gets the trade power from that province whilst the leaser gets some development in the province and other benefits.

 

[bbqftw]

> forthcoming patch makes the -50% coring discount more broadly applicable
> forumite says Paradox are punishing conquest

You're still stuck playing vassal feeding simulator if you're not an RCC tag.

I think the other mechanics (like punishing diplo-tanking) are more intended at nerfing blobbing

 

[net.split]

Well good news. Mercantilism is no longer tied to corruption.

This is the worst possible outcome. Literally the only interesting thing about Corruption was that it made Mercantilism a trade-off. For that to be removed in an attempt to justify a ludicrous 200-DIP expenditure feature in the DLC...

Well, perhaps I am speaking too soon. Did we learn anything more? Has a component been added to Corruption to replace it? Is there a different penalty tied to Mercantilism instead?

 

[Atridij]

I like the naval aspect, but everything else rather seems redundant.

 

[Erling01]

I love playing as an OPM. I like starting small and grow bigger.

 

[TheDungen]

Not England, but London. Same with Danzig, Wrocław or Dörpt - the countries weren't part of the Hansa, but cities were. There should really be a way for bigger countries to include their provinces as part of the Hanseatic league, at least those with trade bonuses(ICoT, estuaries etc.). What advantage would these big countries gain by doing so though?

Actually the teutonic order was a member the grandmaster had a seat on the hansatag in addition to the seat held by the major of danzig. There's a reason for this these organisations worked very much hand in glove, doing things the other could not.

 

[Incompetent]

HRE Merchant Republic (e.g. Lübeck) + HREmperor could make a fun MP co-op team. The idea would be to make the HRE as rich and successful as possible while preserving its original character. Both of them have an incentive to keep a whole bunch of OPMs alive and they can specialise, with the Merchant Republic 'going tall' and focusing on economy/navy (bankrolling the Emperor as necessary) while the Emperor builds a more conventional land/diplomatic power. Development by minors plus Merchant Republic bonus effects would lead to huge incomes all round.

Hmm, does anyone know if countries can be forced to join a trade league (e.g. via Trade Dispute CB)? It's not clear from the OP.

 

[Subbak]

OK, so I've been thinking about Mercantilism vs Corruption, and it actually sort of makes sense.
All other things (gov rank, techs...) being equal, your corruption spending increases linearly with your mercantilism and time.
Your trade income ideally increases linearly with your mercantilism and the value of your provinces (in reality you can get a better increase if you have access to end nodes, or simply nodes where more comes in that goes out, and less if some of your provinces are in a node where you can't steer home).

So for mercantilism to be worth it in the long run, you simply have to get better provinces faster than the rate at which your corruption spending is scaled. If it's the same as advisors, it should be easy.