Can't decide what's best/free trade vs mercantilism

[Chronicler]

Well, I just wanted to know peoples opinion on this.

In the one corner there is free trade, in the other there is mercantilism + tolls.

Now the question is, which one is best?

I mean for example, as Hansa I could easily finish their mission to get +15% from sound toll, then +10% from Krantor Crane (Da mar as Venice), then conquer for the two other tolls +35% global trade income modifier.

So a total of +60% global trade income modifer

With decisions and buildings this could easily be increased to +100% global trade income modifier, which means trade value to a cot would be doubled.

So what really is the best free trade or merc + tolls when running an effective colonial empire?

 

[safferli]

If you need cash now, because you're a small country and cannot survive/expand easily without, Free Trade wins, hands down. If you don't want to expand like crazy, and take the silly/exploitish Toll provinces, then Free Trade. If you gameplay those Tolls, and expand like crazy, Mercantilism might be good for fun. Still, Free Trade wins until you get there.

I always go Free Trade, as I can never be bothered with the Tolls. Also, in MP, Free Trade.

 

[Chronicler]

If you need cash now, because you're a small country and cannot survive/expand easily without, Free Trade wins, hands down. If you don't want to expand like crazy, and take the silly/exploitish Toll provinces, then Free Trade. If you gameplay those Tolls, and expand like crazy, Mercantilism might be good for fun. Still, Free Trade wins until you get there.

I always go Free Trade, as I can never be bothered with the Tolls. Also, in MP, Free Trade.

How does it work with sea-lane eff anyway? And tariffs, are the bonuses like viceroys...do they only add to the sea-lane eff base or what?

 

[unmerged(371738)]

Most countries are and will remain mercantalist, which means if you're free trade you'll out-compete them and end up with monopolies in every single CoT in your range, it's totally berzerk. Combined with the improvements in trade efficiency it grants (and especially combined with Plutocracy) you make absurd, absurd amounts of money. That's why tiny little Oman with its dirt-poor provinces is often one of the wealthiest countries in the world.

The only point I can see to Mercantalism is the tolls, which are nice but meh compared to the godzillians of ducats a full-fledged free-trader makes; even if you had many CoT in your territory and lots of tolls the reduction in trade efficiency would more than counter what you'd get off of free trade (and a FT focused nation will likely get the NI National Trade Policy which increases your compete chance by 5% (pretty much ensuring utter domination) and your trade efficiency by 10%. A full free-trade nation has NO use for Shrewd Commerce Practice, so I wouldn't bother with it.

If you build a giant land empire AND become a free-trading giant you'll seriously end up with like 10x the income of your next competitor. At that point you have Won The Game.

 

[knul]

How does it work with sea-lane eff anyway? And tariffs, are the bonuses like viceroys...do they only add to the sea-lane eff base or what?

Sea-lane efficiency has nothing to do with trade. What it does is reducing tariff income if you do not have enough ships to support your colonies. The Viceroy NI add to tariff modifier and does nothing for sea-lane efficieny. AFAIK the only thing to increase sea-lane efficiency is to have enough Big/Small ships for your colonies.

With DW, Free Trade is almost always better than Mercantilism IMO, but as most countries' sliders are firmly set to Mercantilism, going Free Trade has the disadvantage of require quite some slider moves.

 

[unmerged(371738)]

Sea-lane efficiency has nothing to do with trade. What it does is reducing tariff income if you do not have enough ships to support your colonies. The Viceroy NI add to tariff modifier and does nothing for sea-lane efficieny. AFAIK the only thing to increase sea-lane efficiency is to have enough Big/Small ships for your colonies.

With DW, Free Trade is almost always better than Mercantilism IMO, but as most countries' sliders are firmly set to Mercantilism, going Free Trade has the disadvantage of require quite some slider moves.

Yes, which has made countries like Burgundy even more broken than before.

In every Paradox game I've ever played, the being laissez-faire bourgeouisie is almost always better, the more so the more the game progresses.

For example, HoI2: Free Market + Open Society makes you produce faster, cheaper and have less dissent and more manpower from occupied provinces.
EU3: Free Trade and Free Subjects makes you incredibly effective as a military and economic power.
The same is true for Victoria. Basically, whatever sliders make you sound more like America in 1880 are going to make you awesome.

The only exception is if you start out very far on the side of socialism or protectionism, in which case the middle-ground can often be so terrible and the journey so long as to make it worth just sticking with what you've got. But in a game the length of the EU3 grand campaign or Victoria it's pretty much always worth it to (Eventually) become more libertarian.

 

[Chronicler]

Sea-lane efficiency has nothing to do with trade. What it does is reducing tariff income if you do not have enough ships to support your colonies. The Viceroy NI add to tariff modifier and does nothing for sea-lane efficieny. AFAIK the only thing to increase sea-lane efficiency is to have enough Big/Small ships for your colonies.

With DW, Free Trade is almost always better than Mercantilism IMO, but as most countries' sliders are firmly set to Mercantilism, going Free Trade has the disadvantage of require quite some slider moves.

I never said it had anything to do with trade?

I put free trade against have a large colonial empire with full merc and all the tolls.

And then I asked what viceroys tariffs etc if that's always 33% tariffs or if it's just +33% of whatever sea-lane is.

 

[Konstantinos XV]

I mean for example, as Hansa I could easily finish their mission to get +15% from sound toll, then +10% from Krantor Crane (Da mar as Venice), then conquer for the two other tolls +35% global trade income modifier. So a total of +60% global trade income modifer

Now hold on there. Trade income modifier doesn't really increase your trade efficiency (cash from merchants), does it. Does it in any way influence the trade value of provinces contributing to you CoT but not belonging to you? Because in case of a negative answer I figure all those boni do not really matter for trade (unless you are the major contributor to all your numerous big rich CoTs). Do I miss anything?

 

[Chronicler]

Now hold on there. Trade income modifier doesn't really increase your trade efficiency (cash from merchants), does it. Does it in any way influence the trade value of provinces contributing to you CoT but not belonging to you? Because in case of a negative answer I figure all those boni do not really matter for trade (unless you are the major contributor to all your numerous big rich CoTs). Do I miss anything?

It increases the trade value a province contributes to a cot. So if a province has a trade value of 25, and my global trade income modifier is +100%, it would become 50 in trade value (then that cot would show 25 ducats more up for grabs)

And yes, I would also own many cots.

EDIT: And was thinking with merc giving huge bonuses to cots you own...you could grab all that extra value yourself.

 

[unmerged(371738)]

Protectionism and missions/decisions giving you bonuses to it can often net you quite a nifty income, but you'd basically have to own all of Europe and the American Coast to make up for the fantastic income you can get with monopolies in every CoT from New York to Beijing, and the latter is usually achievable faster and with less cost than the protectionist juggernaut.

I'd say that if you're Muscowy Russia you have so many more prioritized sliders (centralization, free subjects, etc.) that the protectionist strategy is a viable alternative; but if you're playing most W. European, Indian, Asian or Hoarde countries it is well worth it to click over to free trade.

 

[Chronicler]

Protectionism and missions/decisions giving you bonuses to it can often net you quite a nifty income, but you'd basically have to own all of Europe and the American Coast to make up for the fantastic income you can get with monopolies in every CoT from New York to Beijing, and the latter is usually achievable faster and with less cost than the protectionist juggernaut.

I'd say that if you're Muscowy Russia you have so many more prioritized sliders (centralization, free subjects, etc.) that the protectionist strategy is a viable alternative; but if you're playing most W. European, Indian, Asian or Hoarde countries it is well worth it to click over to free trade.

Maybe, free trade is more dangerous it seems though in an mp game.

Guess I have to compare merc/tariff-income with the free trade one+tariff.

 

[unmerged(371738)]

Maybe, free trade is more dangerous it seems though in an mp game.

Guess I have to compare merc/tariff-income with the free trade one+tariff.

Well, multiplayer is a whole different ball game, because the other players are going to deliberately game their centers of trade and/or go free trade themselves. In single player, though, the computer never does that; which is historically accurate because it's a politically difficult to get people to give up special privileges. Germany had incredible tariff levels right up through the early 20th century, even though the (relatively) FT/free banking regimes of Britain, Switzerland, Sweden and the USA were making them look poor and backward by 1850.

 

[Chronicler]

That's also why I wondered how tariffs work with viceroys, full naval and trading in slaves for example.

Do they add to eff. from sea-lane or do they just add a raw number of tariffs or something.

 

[knul]

I never said it had anything to do with trade?

I meant no offense with my comment, I just thought you asked if sea lane efficiency has something to do with trade.

I put free trade against have a large colonial empire with full merc and all the tolls.

And then I asked what viceroys tariffs etc if that's always 33% tariffs or if it's just +33% of whatever sea-lane is.

That's also why I wondered how tariffs work with viceroys, full naval and trading in slaves for example.

Do they add to eff. from sea-lane or do they just add a raw number of tariffs or something.

As I said, tariff efficiency and sea lane efficiency are two separate things. Essantially you multiply your tariff income with the sea lane efficieny to get your real tariff income. Sea lane efficiency is solely determined by how many Big/Small ships you have per colony. If you have 1 or more per province, sea lane efficieny is 100%. Any lower and your sea lane efficiency drops.

Tariffs are the combination of tax and production income from overseas provinces (= provinces on different continent than your capital). Tariff income is then multiplied by your tariff efficiency, which is determined by your Land/Naval slider, Viceroys, slavery trade, events and such.

Going Free Trade does increase your province's demand for colonial goods, so if you're big, going Free Trade increases the demand for your colonies's trade goods, thereby increases production income of those provinces and thus (finally!) increases tariff income. But as you can see, Free Trade does increase tariff income in a very indirect way and only in a significant way if your empire is really big.

 

[RobRoy3]

... as Hansa I could easily finish their mission to get +15% from sound toll, then +10% from Krantor Crane (Da mar as Venice), then conquer for the two other tolls +35% global trade income modifier.

So a total of +60% global trade income modifer...

Well if you're talking exploits, HSA can get "free shipping through sound" for 15% plus dominate the Sound Toll, itself (+20%). Added to other triggered modifiers Black Sea (15%) Indian Ocean (20%), as well as Lubeck (10%), you're looking at a possible 80% bonus before considering decisions and buildings, if you go mercantile.

But any mercantile country has bonus possibilities of up to 55%, which need to be considered in the whole mercantilism/free trade debate.

I'm not sure why going after the Toll provinces would be considered silly or exploitive, though. They're clearly in the game to make certain (historic) goals and actions more rewarding. Yes, it might seem silly for the HSA to be controlling the Turkish straits, but their rivals VEN and GEN almost did! And you certainly had powers like England, Russia, Austria, who had trade ambitions in both areas. Many countries had ambitions in at least one. And most had ambitions in Indian Ocean trade, as well.

I still prefer free trade, though, as well. Seems to me, the better ability to generate revenue from multiple foreign CoTs outweighs the possibility of dominating even a huge home CoT. And I find monopolies almost impossible (or prohibitively expensive) to maintain.

 

[knul]

I'm not sure why going after the Toll provinces would be considered silly or exploitive, though. They're clearly in the game to make certain (historic) goals and actions more rewarding. Yes, it might seem silly for the HSA to be controlling the Turkish straits, but their rivals VEN and GEN almost did! And you certainly had powers like England, Russia, Austria, who had trade ambitions in both areas. Many countries had ambitions in at least one. And most had ambitions in Indian Ocean trade, as well.

The reason why I see it a bit exploitive (and perhaps others do as well) is that owning the Danish or Turkish straigts shouldn't increase all your trade income. As it is, you income from the Far East CoTs or the Americas is increased if you own those straits. I know that with the EU3 engine there's little to do about that, but the Toll modifiers are a bit misplaced if you have a lot of trade outside the East Sea /Black Sea areas.

 

[Chronicler]

Well if you're talking exploits, HSA can get "free shipping through sound" for 15% plus dominate the Sound Toll, itself (+20%). Added to other triggered modifiers Black Sea (15%) Indian Ocean (20%), as well as Lubeck (10%), you're looking at a possible 80% bonus before considering decisions and buildings, if you go mercantile.

But any mercantile country has bonus possibilities of up to 55%, which need to be considered in the whole mercantilism/free trade debate.

I'm not sure why going after the Toll provinces would be considered silly or exploitive, though. They're clearly in the game to make certain (historic) goals and actions more rewarding. Yes, it might seem silly for the HSA to be controlling the Turkish straits, but their rivals VEN and GEN almost did! And you certainly had powers like England, Russia, Austria, who had trade ambitions in both areas. Many countries had ambitions in at least one. And most had ambitions in Indian Ocean trade, as well.

I still prefer free trade, though, as well. Seems to me, the better ability to generate revenue from multiple foreign CoTs outweighs the possibility of dominating even a huge home CoT. And I find monopolies almost impossible (or prohibitively expensive) to maintain.

True, question was though if I have a colonial empire at the same time.

And in an mp game everyone will still go free trade, will be a lot of competition.

EDIT: You sure that Hansa can keep mission bonus if they get sound toll?

I have suspected this to be possible but I never tried it.

 

[herrhals]

Also, everyone is forgetting the bonuses gained from dominating a certain resource. Which can only be achieved with a free trader:
Wine -25% stab costs
Grain +25% force limits
Naval supplies +25% navy limits
fur +1% prestige per year
etc etc etc

 

[Chronicler]

Also, everyone is forgetting the bonuses gained from dominating a certain resource. Which can only be achieved with a free trader:
Wine -25% stab costs
Grain +25% force limits
Naval supplies +25% navy limits
fur +1% prestige per year
etc etc etc

Why can they only be achieved by a free trader? Seems to me you only need to control most of the trade in a good and the cot it's traded in, seems merc is good for this imo.

Also...won't everygone compete for these things in an mp?

 

[herrhals]

Why can they only be achieved by a free trader? Seems to me you only need to control most of the trade in a good and the cot it's traded in, seems merc is good for this imo.

Also...won't everygone compete for these things in an mp?

Unless you personally own half the world, you might only get a few bonuses. A free trader can get all the bonuses within 10 years of gamestart + 50 years to get to the CoTs in Asia.