Best 1.4 trading/merchant setup for Portugal at this stage

[pgroves]

Hi - I'm having a fun 1.4 1440-start iron man game as Portugal currently, but am wondering about an optimal trade setup. I currently only have 3 merchants (got the +1 from Portugal's National Ideas), though could get another one when I reach DIP level 10 with the Easter India Company decision (I may go for this instead of the much later, but better, special Portugeuse East India Company event), though that's a little way off, as haven't quite reached DIP 9 yet (but have completed the Exploration set of ideas). I'm at ADM/MIL 10 (almost MILL 11) and went for Exploration (completed) > Religious (2 off being completed) > Offensive (3 ideas taken) as idea groups - the latter mostly to help later with manpower and forcelimits, which are a problem for Portugual. For my next idea group I'm undecided, but thinking of either Trade or Naval (mostly for the increased naval force limits, to help with Trade power).

It's 1528 and I have Colonial Nations doing well in Brazil and Rio de Plata, but nothing else in the Americas. I have Portugal's starting provinces, but my only other aquisitions in Europa are the Canaries (taken off Aragon, Spain doesn't have a core) and Sardinia (ditto). In North Africa I have Tangier, Ceuta, Casablanca and Mellila (so I can take the Barbary Pirates defeated triggered modifer) and have just annexed my vassal Tunisa, which I'm now converting (I didn't go into Algieria and vassal feed, as am trying to avoid vassal feeding in this game - vassal feeding is harder in 1.4 anyway). I will probably take Fez soon, to get all of Morocco's provinces in the Seville node and to ensure Berber remains an accepted culture (it's at about 12% currently, with Temples in all Berber provinces). for a while longer.

My main power though is in my other overseas provinces, as well as Rio de Oro and Cape Verde, I have Gold Coast, Benin and Whyda (in between these too), as well as Ashanti's gold-producing province. Oyo and the Hausa are protecorates. I have Lunada and the Coastal Kongi provinces and one of the inland ones, but have left the others, as don't won't the high coring cost - instead I just invade them every 5 years for cash and trading rights.

Cape Province is mine, as is Inhambane, Zanzibar, Mombassa and the other province that belonged to Mombassa. I also have Marjeteen and Scotora Island, Bourbon, Mahe, the Maldives and Andammans and have just taken Cochin and another coastel spice-producing provinces off Vijayanagar. Mutapa (which has started westernings - might vassalise afterwards), Kilwa, Malindi and Mogadishu are protectorates.

i.e. I have most of the Centres of Trade on the trade route to India, apart from Aden (sadly - will be difficult to get - a big Hedjaz owns it and is allied with the Ottomans) and Ormuz.

Almost all my provinces have been converted to Catholic and I'm secure (currently) as Papal controller and have built an Embassy.

Spain and England are my allies (though not to each other) and I have Royal Marriages with both (but no others).

I'm now settling down for a period of consolidation for at least 5 years, as am in Regency (though have a decent heir), and apart from starting to colonise in Indonesia (prior to attacking Ayutthaya for Malacca when I can later) and am wanting to review my trade setup.
I'm currently steering in Zanzibar and Ivory Coast and collecting in Mauritania (and Seville, but not using a merchant for that). I'm earning about 9-10 ducats and month in Mauritania and about 10-11 in Seville. Whenever I've tried steering from the Western European node to Seville, instead of collecting in Mauritania I make about 5 ducts less a month, no matter my light ship configuration, so I think I want to avoid the WEN.

My navy currently comprises 8 early carracks (just captured 2), 58 barques, 6 galleys (in Tunisia) and 12 cogs. That's 86 ships, my current naval force limit is 68...

About 40 of my light ships are protecting trade in Mauritania or Seville, the rest are in Ivory Coast, a few in Kongo, the rest in Ivory Coast.

With only 3 merchants my options are quite limited. Longer term I want to do the Malacca>Zanibar run (and later to trade tea from China), instead of India>Aden, but that's not an option yet. What I'm wondering is whether to steer from Aden (though will need lots of light ships to generate power here, as have weak province trade power) and Ivory Coast (but not steering in Zanzbar) and collect in Mauritania, or to try something different e.g. steer from Aden, collect in Cape (maybe Kongo), and just steer (or maybe collect). in Ivory coast and hope some still reaches Seville. What elese might be worth trying? I have no Power in Timbucktu and no resources to do much about that in that region.

Also - should I go for the Trade idea group or the Naval group next?

Any other trading tips for Portugal?

 

[CyberianK]

I'd say if you want to collect in Sevilla you don't want Spain as your Ally you want to wipe it off the map. Or at least blockade them and sink their navies. Some would be true later with England once you are strong enough to dominate Western Trade node. So I think the better solution would have been to pick France as an ally and let it stomp Spain and England.
Another SOlution of course would be to move your Capital to South Africa and collect there. Cause there you can collect 100%.

As for Idea go Trade before Naval (if Naval at all but I like it for Thalassocracy +1 Merchant and Naval forcelimit).

 

[MiniaAr]

Religious ideas were perhaps not that much needed, you are going to get a lot of +missionary strength bonuses with decisions that would allow you to convert muslim lands steadily. I like Economic ideas for Portugal, at least for the first 4 ones, as combined with Portugal own National idea, you'll get a -45% in building costs which will help you develop your homeland and build profitable manufactories in provinces with high trade value goods (tobacco, spices, coffee).

If you are having a manpower issue, Administrative could also be a great group, as relying on mercenaries is quite a viable strategy once you're that rich.
I would go Naval before Trade however (and would consider Expansion also) as you don't need to have a merchant everywhere to steer effectively (Ivory Coast, Gulf of Aden) but you'll need a lot of ships to get enough trade power in order to steer trade from Arabia/India/Indonesia.

 

[pgroves]

Okay, idea groups first:

* I took religious second partly because I was trying a change of my normal strategy in 1.3, given that coring costs in North Africa have been reduced to +100% instead of +200%, and the event that gives you +200 ADM for coring Tangiers has been reinstated, so taking some territory from Morocco is more viable, but having too many wrong-religion provinces has a drastic effect on stab costs. You don't get alot of the missionary bonus events until late in the 15th century. The missionary bonus also help when some of my home provinces flipped to protestant during the reformation. Also I didn't take it just for the missionary bonus, but also for the grea CB it gives you, which has proved very useful vs. the East African states (though was perhaps not essential). The events associated with the Religious group are nice too, lots of stab-boosting ones.

* I probably should have taken a Military Idea Group second, not first, though, as wasted quite a few MIL points by having to acquire Tech levels with a substantial ahead of time penalty. As it was I definitely needs to take a Military group third otherwise would've wasted even more points. Quality would have been nice for Portugal, due to the Naval, not just army, bonuses, but Portugal suffers from low Manpower and, more significantly, low Force Limits, so I thought Offensive would help here - though any idea which increases the available Mercenary Pool also increases forcelimits - i.e. Administrative, Innovative, Plutocracy (though it's hard to become a republic as Portugal - though a Merchant Republic Portugal would be interesting!). Offensive also give leaders with +1 Shock and +1 Fire, which helps navies too.

In my next Portugal game I may try a different Idea Group strategy: Perhaps: Exploration > Quality > Administration? or maybe Exploration > Administration > Quality - as have the reduced coring costs from the Administrative group early would be nice.

I think Naval would probably be my forth Idea group, primarily for the Force Limit increase

Trade

Regarding which trade nodes to steer from/collect in - I'm still not sure on the best strategy here, but it seems avoiding the Western European Node is essential - Portugal just can't compete with England or France here, and they just steal your trade. Collecting in Mauritania seems better (I don't want to move my capital, though), which may mean trying to dominate in that node, acquiring all coastal provinces there etc. Another option would be to try to dominate in Timbuktu and to either collect there, or to steer to Safi (which goes direct to Seville), collecting in Seville (which you do automatically anyway), though have to compete with Spain there.

I don't really want to go to war with Spain, though, as Portugal really needs to deploy it's limited troops overseas and I have no desire to take over the Iberian Peninsula - I'd play Spain if I wanted to do that.

 

[JaxomCA]

I started a Portugal game in 1.4 specifically to get the 5 colonies achievement. As such, I ignored anything that did not make me progress toward that goal. I ignored Africa completely, except for the mandatory colony in Rio del Oro, I fought no wars in Europe and very few wars in Africa, after I was papal controller and calle.d a crusade on Algier. The game is in 1527 now and my last 2 colonial nations will form soon.

Even before 1.4, I always collected trade in Mauritany as it is very easy to have a monopoly on that node. Currently I collect trade in Caraibes and Sevilla (without a merchant), I steer trade from Mauritany and Mississipi River to Caraibes. I collect 15 in Caraibes and 8 in Sevilla. Castille got tangled up in Europe too often and there is only me and my colonies in America. I have not even explored pass Gold coast yet, so I get very little trade from there. Collecting in Caraibes is viable if you can make sure there is little competition, that means colonizing it as much as possible. If you focus on India first, then collecting in Mauritany is better and you can ignore anything north of Brazil in America.

I took exploration as first idea, which I filled out a while ago, and Quality as second idea, which will be completed very soon now. 15% discipline goes a long way to make up for low manpower. My third idea was a difficult choice between Administrative, expansion and trade. Because of my short term goal, I wanted that extra colonist so I went with expansion. That left me with way too much adm points, so I went ahead and took some land in North Africa. Even so, I will probably waste some adm on ahead of time penalties before I can get my 4th idea.

Long story short, yeah, as Portugal, you want to avoid the WETN. And you have many options to avoid it.

 

[sinisalo]

This is a post I made in a prior thread, but it outlines how I set up as Portugal in 1.4. As for ideas in this save we went with, in order, Exploration, Defensive, Religious, Offensive, Naval, Quality, Trade and Innovative.

I just finished an ironman Portugal save. We finished as the 2nd ranked country behind the Blottomans who ran away with it. I didn't fight any European wars at all for the last 300 years, so obviously we were highly focused on colonization and trade. We went east and held the entire Cape of Good Hope node, almost all of Zanzibar and were strong in the East Indies and southwest Pacific. Through ideas and at least one Act, we had 7 merchants. At the peak we were making 400+ ducats per month in trade. I was only collecting in one zone, Cape of Good Hope (and Sevilla of course, but not with a merchant). the remaining 6 merchants were transferring from Philippines, Malacca, Indus, Ceylon, Aden and Zanzibar. Our power was very high in Philippines, Malacca, Zanzibar and Cape. Power was mediocre to low in Indus, Ceylon and Aden. But essentially it was a solid network from Manila to Cape Town. I set it up this way mostly because my power was weak along the west coast of africa and the Caribbean. And I hoped to grab as much as possible before I had to fight for it in the Western Europe node. We just couldn't compete with Great Britain, France and other European powers for the Atlantic ducats. And it worked for the most part as Cape was collecting over 300 per month. But I do wonder what it may have been with a few more merchants to keep steering it home along west africa.

Late in the game I wondered what this network would bring in if all of the merchants were collecting in the same node instead of transferring. It's so tempting because at first glance it looks like you'll be pulling in more this way. It's not so apparent at first how the trade snowballs as it passes from node to node. So I changed all of the merchants to collect without changing anything else and that 400+ per month dropped to 205. So obviously that's a 100% increase for setting it up for transfer. As mentioned before, early on collecting in the home node is more lucrative, but the goal should be to get a true network set up to maximize trade income as the years tick by.

And always check which direction your transferring merchants are actually steering to. It doesn't always set it to optimal. For example in late game placing a merchant to transfer in Philippines defaulted to go across the Pacific toward Panama, despite the setup of the above mentioned network and virtually no power at all in the new world (just 7 provinces there total). And if you want to set up a similar network to the one in this portugal save, be sure to check Malacca, as you can go straight to Zanzibar with all of your East Indies trade and bypass Aden completely.

 

[pgroves]

Okay, decided to restart in the end, and take a different approach - began by allying with Aragon, Navarre (and later France), and broke my alliance with England. Then I attacked Castille... in the first war I took Seville and the Canary Islands, and forced Castille to release Galicia, which I diplo-vasslised, was hoping to diplo-vassalise Navarra too, but Aragon beat me to it. Aragon took Murcia. I then attacked and vassalised Granada. In my second war with Castille I took Cadiz, Aragon took Burgos and Vizcaya. Then my king died and I'm in regency, but have claims on Badajoz and Cordoba. I now have a healthy trade income from the Seville node (about 7.5 gold a month in 1460) and Castille has no navy to speak of, I now have 8 Early Carracks, due to captures in battle (though might disband 2), 19 light ships and 9 cogs. I'm also now colonising Rio de Oro.

That should slow down Castille's colonisation somewhat

Ultimately I guess I should whittle down Castille far enough so that I can vassalise it, but still leave it with a port or two to be able to colonise from. I'm also aware that I should let Aragon get too strong. At some point I will probably take Tangiers from Morocco (for the CoT), but it's probably too late now to get Berber as an accepted culture (I thought of doing that first, then attacking Castille, but was aware that I would likely need all my strength early on to defeat Castille...), though probably still worth it, if I can get the mission to core it which gives 200 ADM points. Probably won't try to take any more of Morocco for a while, though.