Capital / Trade capital

[PedroVargas]

I'm a little unsure about the use of moving your trade capital for 300 diplo.

Played as Yemen, moved my capital to Aden. Later when I conquered Alexandra I thought I'd have the capital in Aden and the trade capital in Alexandria so I'd collect in both places. My income dropped quite a bit. So in your capital you don't collect after you've moved the trade capital? What's the actual use then? In what case do you move trade capital but not the actual capital?

 

[EtuBrutes]

You can move it when it would be more profitable to more your trade upstream or downstream.

Example as Spain: you control all of Genoa trade node so you move your trade capital to Genoa and steer your trade from Andalusia to Genoa and make more money.

 

[slv]

Your capital determines what's "DIstant overseas".

Sometimes you may want to move capital to Tukey as European to have Asia and Africa not Distant overseas. If your provinces are landconnected to a capital they will not have 75% autonomy floor.

Quite often if I am playing as Venice I want to have my trade capital in Genoa and my usual in Turkey to not have Africa as distant overseas.

Note that it is possible to move your trade capital to other continent, this is impossible with usual capital. If you play as Malacca and managed to conquer Europe it may be handy.

You can move it when it would be more profitable to more your trade upstream or downstream.

Example as Spain: you control all of Genoa trade node so you move your trade capital to Genoa and steer your trade from Andalusia to Genoa and make more money.

Question was "Why should I move my trade capital for 300 MP if I can move it for 200?". Also it's not possible to steer from Andalusia to Genoa.

 

[Jorous]

Good example for this was my colonial game. I needed capital to be in cheasapeake to form the US. But i would collect in St. Lawrence, because i steered all of the trade from cheasapeake and multiple other notes (Canada, California, ohio, mississippi) there.

 

[thErgonomic]

One good example is with Byzantium if you manage to conquer Italy, Balkans and Venezia and move your trade capital there.

 

[Halaberiel]

You can move it when it would be more profitable to more your trade upstream or downstream.

Example as Spain: you control all of Genoa trade node so you move your trade capital to Genoa and steer your trade from Andalusia to Genoa and make more money.

Why would Spain ever move their trade capital to Genoa lol, that node sucks in comparison to Sevilla at any point in the game.

OP, your trade capital is where you collect trade. It can be anywhere & you want to put it wherever you will make the most money. Your diplomatic capital is by default your trade capital but if you move your trade capital it is now just a province that does two things: firstly it decides travel time for envoys / colonists / merchants etc, secondly it is worth more in warscore if conquered and is difficult to take during a peace deal. So for example, I'm playing as Tuscany, I've conquered most of mainland Italy & moved my trade port to Venice since that is the most profitable trade node for me (Tuscany's capital is located in the Genoa trade node by default). Now I think, where is the safest place to put my capital, where it is least likely to be conquered? Perhaps an island like say Sardinia. You could just leave it where it is of course, depends how vulnerable you are.

Personally I almost never move my provincial capital, but I move my trade capital almost every game. If you collect somewhere not in your trade capital you get a huge penalty, around 50% I believe to trade power.

EDIT: Read more here