because you're forced into sortition, which removes the big advantage of republics (re-electing for superior mana generation)
Am I missing something or are merchant republics incredibly weak?
- Thread starter fleetothemoon
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What I am saying is that most of the actions you will do as a successful merchant republic can be done by other countries. Yes, but the real bonus of being a merchant republic is that you have so much money to do it. Money is not often an issue in EU4, but test one merchant republic run and you will see that it is amazing how much ducats you are making. My net income (after spendings) was almost one ducat for 2 of my dev points. And this extra monet allows you to make things that you won't be able to pay for with another government, or at least far latter.
For me the Hamburg ride was pleasant, and certainly different from the usual conquering blob. To delete the province cap will basically transform the merchant republic into a standard republic with amazing trade bonuses.
For me the Hamburg ride was pleasant, and certainly different from the usual conquering blob. To delete the province cap will basically transform the merchant republic into a standard republic with amazing trade bonuses.
The big advantage of republic is to re-elect your rulers to have higher stats (+1 for each each re-elect). The Venetian republic is electing doges for life, giving you the choice between 3 rules, each having one of the three qualities of at least 2 (the MIL ruler has MIL>= 2). I have not done statistics, but my impression is that you finish having better ruler than the average monarchy. How it compares to a standard republic on the long term is to be tested, but with the shorter election term, other republic are probably better than the Venetian one. I guess that the Venetian republic will have a more flat MP generation, while other republic will fall with each new leader to 6 (or 7), jump to 9 (or 10) 3 or 4 years later, then to 12(13), then to 14(15), then to 16(17) and then to 18.
Estates and the ability to improve trade centers provide more trading capacity than the various merchant republic uniquities. Nothing you've described here is unique to merchant republics and non-MRs could have done all of those things faster and gain more benefits afterwards.
The absolutism hit alone is enough to dumpster-tier the MR if you're going to conquer trade companies.
I am hopeful that with the change to the Crown Lands mechanic coming in the eventual Europe update that Merchant Republics may get some kind of boost (or at least a QoL pass). So many aspects have become redundant (as others have noted) due to feature crawl. Maybe MRs can fall under the “tech debt” catchall?
Oh, who am I kidding, there’s probably so much dust gathered on Merchant Republics at this point they’ve probably become invisible.
Oh, who am I kidding, there’s probably so much dust gathered on Merchant Republics at this point they’ve probably become invisible.
Merchant republics as the devs intended them to be played are indeed trash.
But...
Currently, the merchant republic type is actually pretty strong, with up to 50% GPM modifier once you achieve high trade power control:
The trick is you have to negate the penalty associated with having too many states, and there is a way to do this. There is at least one way to do this, I leave it to you to find it (hint, you can't lose RT if you have none of it)
Kind of funny that the three most powerful non-rev republic types right now are all paradox design oversights.
But...
Currently, the merchant republic type is actually pretty strong, with up to 50% GPM modifier once you achieve high trade power control:
The trick is you have to negate the penalty associated with having too many states, and there is a way to do this. There is at least one way to do this, I leave it to you to find it (hint, you can't lose RT if you have none of it)
Kind of funny that the three most powerful non-rev republic types right now are all paradox design oversights.
As I mentioned in the original post, the trade bonuses are literally the only thing for MR that scales half-decently past mid game. However, I wouldn't go as far as to call this bonus 'extremely strong' as it is certainly not worth the self-limitation of 20 provinces.
Note that the relative impact of GM percentage bonus is dependent on how many percentage additional goods bonus you stack, since it is additive. The more you stack, the less proportionally impactful GPM is. Using your example, the relative impact of GPM bonus is only +34% versus one without GPM.
Also, a standard republic will be in a far better position to dominate multiple trade nodes than a MR, just by virtue of them being able to control more land, not to mention, far more efficient development growth. Even a republic that focuses on very tall play of 40 development per province, they will still be more mana efficient than a merchant republic who will have to go past that due to the 20 provinces limit.
That's great tip and all, but I don't think there is much merit in considering the exploitation of bugs as a strength for MR.
I'm lost. Is there a way to either prevent yourself from becoming a dictatorship at low tradition?Merchant republics as the devs intended them to be played are indeed trash.
But...
Currently, the merchant republic type is actually pretty strong, with up to 50% GPM modifier once you achieve high trade power control:
The trick is you have to negate the penalty associated with having too many states, and there is a way to do this. There is at least one way to do this, I leave it to you to find it (hint, you can't lose RT if you have none of it)
Kind of funny that the three most powerful non-rev republic types right now are all paradox design oversights.
edit: nevermind, found it. That's a stupid oversight, my preferred method is still trade companies, though, since that doesn't involve suffering 0 RT penalties
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edit: nevermind, found it. That's a stupid oversight, my preferred method is still trade companies, though, since that doesn't involve suffering 0 RT penalties
Can you share it with us who still don't get it, please?
but we're being all enigmatic and mysterious!
Although as I am writing this, I just realised that this doesn't work for ordinary merchant republics or venice, it only works for pirate republics (and presumably you would then take the merchant republic reform)There are two ways of getting the republican dictatorship reform. The first is by re-electing with low tradition, and happens immediately when you re-elect. The second is a MTTH event that can fire any time you are below 40 tradition. The first can be prevented by taking the sortition reform, because the sortition election event doesn't include a check for low tradition to force you into a dictatorship if you spend the 25 tradition to pick a ruler. The MTTH event can be stopped either by being a dutch republic (not relevant to merchant republics) a revolutionary republic (which is strange, given that the event then has a specific clause for revolutionary republics to force them into revolutionary empires rather than dictatorships) or by having the pirate republic government form.
It's possible that there's something I'm missing that means you can avoid the MTTH event as a normal merchant/venetian republic, but I don't know what.
I mean, this isn't a discussion on the merits of republics as a whole, and that only addressed the absolutism problem. If you could have no tier 1 reform whilst still having the merchant Republic bonuses to goods produced, then you might have a point
If we're recommending non-Merchant Republic forms like Pirate republic, might as well go all the way and eliminate all weakness IMO. Much simpler too. Much simpler than becoming a pirate republic too.
Except from the fact that pirate republics have the tier 5 reform called black market consortium, which gives them all the features of a merchant republic.
Wasn't aware of that I guess. Pirate governments are too silly for me to play. If its not linked to the T1 reform you could probably do the same thing to eliminate more of the Republic penalties though.
I don't think that will work, though, as you only have access to the unique pirate reforms at tier 5 if you have the pirate reform at tier 1
Aboslutism needs more of a downside but MR work well you just have to feed vassals to stay under the 20 province cap.
Absolutism does have downsides. You need to pay close attention to the relevant parameters (legitimacy, religious unity…), some actions are straight up not good anymore (raise aut, accept rebels, assign parliament seat…) because they lower your absolutism. And the usual route is to go through the very painful Court & Country disaster, which cripples your country for a while. Yes, it's good and effective, but it's certainly not for free.
Comparing the benefits of absolutism to the benefits of MR isn't fair imo, because you get MR benefits straight away, you have to work for a while to get absolutism running. And the fact that it is known how to do so, and thus it's very smooth for an experienced player isn't an argument either.
Absolutism will fire only in 1612. By this time, a MR will probably have its 20 provinces and all important places in TC land. And as a trade-based economy, a MR will then rather wage trade wars (asking for sharing trade power, war repairs and money) than conquest wars.
Again this is not compatible with a WC. But you can probably have the entire world giving you some kind a trade power at one time, that is another form of WC.