Are the end trade nodes overpowered in 1.8?

[Denkt]

You only get power to the neighbour nodes which make it not as strong as I thought.

 

[Novacat]

How would you solve the problem of lightships protecting trade in lubeck, and thus propagading more to the upstream nodes?

Embargos should do economic damage proportionate to the provincial trade power of the embargoing country. As it is, a Moscow who controls 100% of Novgorod trade node simply cannot stop the Hansa from siphoning all the money through light ships and power propagation. An embargo is only a mild debuff. Infact, the biggest issue with the current trade system is that provincial control means absolutly nothing at all.

 

[Autoclave]

Embargos should do economic damage proportionate to the provincial trade power of the embargoing country. As it is, a Moscow who controls 100% of Novgorod trade node simply cannot stop the Hansa from siphoning all the money through light ships and power propagation. An embargo is only a mild debuff. Infact, the biggest issue with the current trade system is that provincial control means absolutly nothing at all.

I understand. Imagine that all those goods produced in novgorod, there is not enough demand for them, there are not enough buyers for them. But they are in lubeck. How will you solve this issue, assuming you need to sell everything you got? I think this is well represented by lubeck pulling the profits out of novgorod.

 

[Novacat]

Except it makes no sense that Moscow just hands over all the trade goods to Hansa ships to sell in Lubeck. Especially if Moscow has a trade embargo on the Hansa. On top of this, if there was nobody in Lubeck pulling trade, then 100% of the trade goods would be sold at full price in Novgorod.

 

[Denkt]

Embargo should be 100% dependent on provincial trade power but this should not make you immune from privateers and it should be an upper limit to how much damage an embargo can do because of smuggling which could depend on trade efficiency of the two countries.

 

[Novacat]

Of course, but at the moment embargoes are a joke.

 

[Denkt]

They could also add in a peace term that give the winner free embargo on the loser for the truce.

 

[BestOfTheWest]

Either conquer tangiers/ceuta/mellila and move your trade port there or use the money for privatering Sevilla node instead of building trade buildings.

Thanks, I thought of the first one but I might try privateering as well. Until now, I have focused on Africa, therefore I don't have invested much into my fleet.

 

[zdlugasz]

these are all valid complaints. I regard the current system as a simplification. I am an economist, and the inflation system is a very very unrealistic one, but for gameplay sake, i can bear with it.

How would you solve the problem of lightships protecting trade in lubeck, and thus propagading more to the upstream nodes?

It could be done by cutting down propagation, but most importantly IMO it should be that you have to have power in upstream node - say colonies or merchants with fleet in America. No investment - no gain.
And embargo should work like embargo. Somebody with lots of economic/military power could break through but protectionism was fact, and game should represent it.
So if you want to "steer/steal" trade, you move merchant and fleet to Novgorod or Carribean. If you were embargoed your power drops by factor 4? or 10? but you can send privateers (or declare war).

 

[Autoclave]

yeah, but in the case of your proposed system of embargo, your nation would have to suffer a production penalty, and thus a decreased trade node value. You cannot just hope to sell all that stuff you are producing if you are embargoing your trade partners.
You cannot hope to extra the full value of those goods when your local population is unable to consume it all. And then you will either sell it to lubeck for a minimum profit, or you will decrease your production.

 

[winsingtonIII]

I agree.

Also I cant imagine why France/Munster/Ulm etc. start with the same amount of merchants. I hope some official would care to explain the logic behind this.

Clearly it is this way for balance purposes. There are already plenty of benefits to being a larger nation in this game. I don't think they need higher base diplomats, merchants, missionaries, etc as well. It would be buffing something that doesn't need a buff.

 

[Novacat]

yeah, but in the case of your proposed system of embargo, your nation would have to suffer a production penalty, and thus a decreased trade node value. You cannot just hope to sell all that stuff you are producing if you are embargoing your trade partners.
You cannot hope to extra the full value of those goods when your local population is unable to consume it all. And then you will either sell it to lubeck for a minimum profit, or you will decrease your production.

The whole point of this conversation is to figure out ways to nerf end nodes. Saying that in order to buff something like embargo it also has to be nerfed makes absolutly no sense. The advantage of owning an end node is just too much, and that countries that lack end nodes are completely incapable of stopping their node from hemmoraging 40% or more of its value to countries that have zero physical presence in the node at all. Its kind of bullshit that provincial trade power is only a minor factor and you can run trade almost entirely off of masses of light ships and trade power propagation, which is completely ahistorical.

Whats even more bullshit is that the end nodes do not even particularly correllate to consumers. Why would a pan-Asian empire with more wealth and people than all of Europe combined have to be blackmailed into sending money to Europe just because the powers that be decided to put all the end nodes there?

 

[Aries666]

Transfers from downstream was giving portugal something like 800 power in the ivory coast, they were making 312 ducats per month towards the end of the game in trade. As songhai, I took tangiers and move my trade capital there and got up to 24% trade power in sevilla and was making 112d/month. I'd say end nodes are indirectly overpowered because of how much sheer momentum their controllers have, except maybe venice unless you play a gulf of aden game.

I had the same problem with downstream transfers as Kongo. Instead I moved my trade capital to the Cape and merchants steering in Aden and Ceylon netting me 150 a month with no competition.

 

[kitemasaki]

There isn't any point in talking about this right now until they actually fix the bugs in the trade system right now. If it isn't working correctly it would make sense that the end nodes would seem OP right now because they are not going through many filters. In 1.7 it was much easier to control a node and prevent trade from leaking. Right now its almost futile to even attempt it.