American Trade Before the Europeans Arrive

[Satcho]

I swear I saw something about this before but now I can't find it.

I just started a game as Arapaho and, to my surprise, Europeans are already pulling away trade value with the "Transfer from Trader Downstream" bonus. There is no way this is WAD, it makes no sense. The nodes are way out of their trade range, and the nodes aren't even discovered yet. How can they trade with a node they don't know exists? I played a game some time back as Iroquois and this wasn't the case.

I know this is a well known issue, so what's the story? Is it being fixed? Is there any ETA?

Thanks!

 

[Oryxslayer]

This is why there was the WETN in earlier patches. As horrible as it was, it prevented all this downstream stuff from ever happening between Europe and America.

 

[Less]

Hehe, you think that's bad. Play Central America, see Korea and Japan sucking away half your trade.

 

[Metz]

I was about to start a serious campaign on ironman mode until I read this thread. I will wait for it to be fixed first.


Can't there be a modifier that you can't trade with a nation or extract profit from them until their land is visible and you have to have had a ship pass through the water province next to the nation's land.

 

[Satcho]

I took a closer look and now it seems like the bug is in the interface.

 

[ahyangyi]

View attachment 119680

I took a closer look and now it seems like the bug is in the interface.

The "Transfer from Trader Downstream" bonus is only listed in the last column.

 

[josh127]

Hehe, you think that's bad. Play Central America, see Korea and Japan sucking away half your trade.

Only half? Check it out.

None of those countries have any land there, although they do pull a little bit from CNs and 75% of the trade is pulled out. This is after they discovered me, but it was like this all game. I wish I had one from later on because GB even pulled away without getting any ships over there protecting trade.

For reference, here's what the political map looked like. Except for a few provinces up north, all the European provinces are CNs. Luckily, my American money was coming from production so while I was annoyed at what they could pull for no effort, it wasn't a deal breaker on the game.

 

[bbqftw]

One fix to this is make it require a merchant to send trade value onwards. But this would require a large rework of merchant numbers and +merchant bonuses.

 

[MarkS00N]

Have the devs comment whether this is a bug or WAD?
Because if it is a bug then it is as bad as the shogun system situation in Japan (such as the Sakoku law bug) in my opinion (which they've commented)...

 

[Incompetent]

This is why there was the WETN in earlier patches. As horrible as it was, it prevented all this downstream stuff from ever happening between Europe and America.

Or they could just not make trade propagate along undiscovered routes. I'm sure it was true in some previous versions that you couldn't steer trade along an undiscovered route.

 

[Legend92]

also european pull trade from east africa before european reach cape of good hope

 

[Naeven]

Or they could just not make trade propagate along undiscovered routes. I'm sure it was true in some previous versions that you couldn't steer trade along an undiscovered route.

I'm pretty sure I saw a undiscovered trade node not steering a few days ago while working on a mod (Our Congo had like 30-40% outgoing TP, but 0 actual value was going out.) Seems odd if it doesn't work in vanilla.

EDIT: I just took another look at these screenshots - the first one does not actually send out any trade - eventho the TP is represented.

In the 2nd screenshot Holland/England has a merchants there, so they clearly has it discovered and in range.

 

[josh127]

Have the devs comment whether this is a bug or WAD?
Because if it is a bug then it is as bad as the shogun system situation in Japan (such as the Sakoku law bug) in my opinion (which they've commented)...

I don't find it as bad. The Japan bug makes the area virtually unplayable. It's frustrating to see people who haven't discovered your area pulling tons of trade, and it's frustrating after they discover you're area to pull the majority of trade without even trying. However, there's still plenty of money to be had for it to be playable.

Or they could just not make trade propagate along undiscovered routes. I'm sure it was true in some previous versions that you couldn't steer trade along an undiscovered route.

That hits part of the problem, but it doesn't make a lot of sense for them to be dominating trade nodes where they have no lands and aren't doing a single thing to try to pull it forward.

 

[Satcho]

EDIT: I just took another look at these screenshots - the first one does not actually send out any trade - eventho the TP is represented.

Yeah, that's what I'm seeing. Brittany has #1 trade power in the node, but it doesn't seem to have any effect on the value. So something seems to be preventing them from getting any benefit from the downstream bonus.

It doesn't seem as broken as it first appeared. Although it does seem a little broken that Britain, Spain, Portugal, and France have a serious advantage in American trade simply because of where they are located.