Any good Portugal strategies for taking over trade in the Indian Ocean and re-routing it around Africa? I always seem to get small incomes compared to the thousands that some people seem to rack up.
Any good Portugal strategies?
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Gulf of Aden.
Basics : colonize Majerteen (then get some event that make it a somewhat trade center), put a merchant here with a few dozens lightships protecting trade. Divide the remaining of your light ships between Zanzibar (to make sure all goes out), Ivory Coast (same) and Seville of course (to get a good share of the final product)
Alternative : collect in Malacca and Brazil instead and don't care about steering.
Basics : colonize Majerteen (then get some event that make it a somewhat trade center), put a merchant here with a few dozens lightships protecting trade. Divide the remaining of your light ships between Zanzibar (to make sure all goes out), Ivory Coast (same) and Seville of course (to get a good share of the final product)
Alternative : collect in Malacca and Brazil instead and don't care about steering.
In relation to the alternative: won't you get wallopped with a 96% or something malus for not steering to your home node?
I'm pretty sure that's to trade power, not income. Even with an 80% or whatever it is mallus, you still collect all the income if no one else has any trade power in the node.
Collecting in a non-home node halves the trade power. The percentage penalty of trade power shown varies because that is the number needed to reduce trade power by half after considering the other additive bonuses.
Ah I see, so if I'm bum-smacking Trade Power by three or four times my next rival - I shouldn't worry?
In my current Portugal game I've colonized both Brazil and NA dominantly. I'm collecting in Sevilla, Brazil, and Chesapeake Bay and it seems to be working pretty well. Is this not the best strategy?
no I think not. imo the best strategy is to try to dominate the Caribbean. I don't even mess with Chesapeake because you can't redirect trade to Sevilla and its hard to get it and the caribbean both which I prefer the later because virtually all of the other nodes feed it. I also try to dominate the Congo and The Cape of Good Hope, pretty much everything in the Indian ocean is preferable, plus at least the centers of trade in main land India.
Then finally try to dominate Malacca and succeeding that you can go to Canton or Haungzhou if you fancy. As Grozny Von Raoe said the Gulf of Aden is key in all of this, if you can't dominate that node all the Muslims will steal your trade.
here you can see what nodes I am trading in. From the mouse over you can tell which 3 I am collecting in, I have the trading ideas maxed out. I basically try to steer everything in India down to the Cape, which I control 100%, I own all of the key trade centers in India except the one in Bengal. I also control all of the Caribbean making collecting there fairly easy with minimal effort. Sevilla, I dominate as well, own Tangiers for the extra trade center, and have trade buildings all over, iirc I have about 80% trade power there.
I struggle to have enough ships everywhere, well because I need them everywhere. I am like 30 over the forcelimit and building more still, about 10-15 over the forcelimt on land and still making more money than I can spend. Also note that i have absolutely spammed manufactories and just about all buildings in general but especially trade buildings in key locations so its really starting to snowball.
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Thanks for that reply, Shiggs. Had never prioritized the Caribbean before, always the mainland. Guess I'll be doing both from now on 
Can we have a subforum with a thread for each popular country? Every week we get one like this about Portugal. I wish they had gone together. I always play Portugal.