Complete monopoly in CoT

[ywhtptgtfo]

How does complete monopoly work? As in having a monopoly + 13 empty seats (the most I can ever achieve). Do other merchants have to compete with you to get an empty seat or do they only compete for a filled seat?

I've had times when I consistently had 13 empty seats and then there'd be a rush of foreign merchants from time to time. I find this to be rather annoying, as the # merchants does not really scale with the size of country and that the auto-send option does not automatically use extra merchants to force a complete monopoly. Worse yet, my vassals like to compete with me. It would be nice if they'd buzz off without an embargo.

 

[powermikew]

Well, they should be competing your monopoly to take an empty seat, as no one should be able to take any place in a Cot as long as there is a monopoly. If he successfully competes you you should drop down to 5 merchants and during the time it takes you to send another merchants, a few countries will slip in and take empty seats.
A friend of mine also had a problem where countries just bypassed his monopoly and competed with each other (altho didn't take empty slots), not sure if this is a common bug.
I do agree that there should be an option for auto send to create complete monopolies, as its usually too much of a hassle to manage them yourself.

 

[Karabas1543]

I do agree that there should be an option for auto send to create complete monopolies, as its usually too much of a hassle to manage them yourself.

Hm? If you set the auto-send to green, it will send merchants until it reaches 6 merchants in the CoT. Or are we talking about something else?

 

[ywhtptgtfo]

Hm? If you set the auto-send to green, it will send merchants until it reaches 6 merchants in the CoT. Or are we talking about something else?

Re-read my second sentence.

 

[ywhtptgtfo]

Well, they should be competing your monopoly to take an empty seat, as no one should be able to take any place in a Cot as long as there is a monopoly. If he successfully competes you you should drop down to 5 merchants and during the time it takes you to send another merchants, a few countries will slip in and take empty seats.
A friend of mine also had a problem where countries just bypassed his monopoly and competed with each other (altho didn't take empty slots), not sure if this is a common bug.
I do agree that there should be an option for auto send to create complete monopolies, as its usually too much of a hassle to manage them yourself.

It'd help if I can mod the minimum compete chance of 1% to something like 0.01% or even 0%. It's silly that everyone in the neighbourhood including their dogs and grandmas would throw all these merchants at you and each of them getting 1% chance regardless of how backward they are.

Vassals should be banned from competing with you too..

 

[DanubianCossak]

It'd help if I can mod the minimum compete chance of 1% to something like 0.01% or even 0%. It's silly that everyone in the neighbourhood including their dogs and grandmas would throw all these merchants at you and each of them getting 1% chance regardless of how backward they are.

Vassals should be banned from competing with you too..

IIRC in vanilla you also have events that automatically place merchants in cots, so no matter what you do things will change, merchants will come and go.

 

[herrhals]

Only thing to do as a mercantile megacountry (if you are not a megacountry, free trade is undoubtedly better), is to conquer everything in sight, starting with the stinking free traders (Navarre, Holland, Alsace, Bar, Lorraine, Denmark)

 

[brifbates]

Only thing to do as a mercantile megacountry (if you are not a megacountry, free trade is undoubtedly better), is to conquer everything in sight, starting with the stinking free traders (Navarre, Holland, Alsace, Bar, Lorraine, Denmark)

Yeah, but then some jerk comes along and releases the next wave of trader PITAs Toulouse, Normandie, etc...

 

[ywhtptgtfo]

Only thing to do as a mercantile megacountry (if you are not a megacountry, free trade is undoubtedly better), is to conquer everything in sight, starting with the stinking free traders (Navarre, Holland, Alsace, Bar, Lorraine, Denmark)

There's also Provence and Mecklenburg. I suppose I can try getting some of them.

 

[Pewt]

There's also Provence and Mecklenburg. I suppose I can try getting some of them.

And Brittany, Frankfurt, Switzerland, Aachen, Ulm, Morocco.

 

[glasszon]

And Brittany, Frankfurt, Switzerland, Aachen, Ulm, Morocco.

aka, conquer all of western europe + northern africa

 

[Ryuujin95]

Unfortunately the AI is not smart about where it sends its merchants. They see a huge CoT with lots of empty slots and they will send merchants constantly despite having a 1% compete chance due to the monopoly. When the monopoly finally breaks, a European mega-CoT will usually fill up in a week or two because so many merchants are being sent.

There are some tricks you can do to keep trading minors from sending merchants to your CoT. As a merchant republic you can vassalize and force the minors into your trade league. As an Iberian nation, you can move your CoT to North Africa because landlocked nations can only compete within Europe. As a colonizer, put your American CoT along the Pacific coast to keep it out of range of competitors. If you're playing with a high discovery spread time, place your CoT in a province that starts Terra Incognito, like The Azores or Canaries. Needless to say, complete monopolies outside of Europe are far more effective.

 

[alexti]

Just conquer everyone - then you can have monopolies with 14 empty seats everywhere

 

[ywhtptgtfo]

Unfortunately the AI is not smart about where it sends its merchants. They see a huge CoT with lots of empty slots and they will send merchants constantly despite having a 1% compete chance due to the monopoly. When the monopoly finally breaks, a European mega-CoT will usually fill up in a week or two because so many merchants are being sent.

There are some tricks you can do to keep trading minors from sending merchants to your CoT. As a merchant republic you can vassalize and force the minors into your trade league. As an Iberian nation, you can move your CoT to North Africa because landlocked nations can only compete within Europe. As a colonizer, put your American CoT along the Pacific coast to keep it out of range of competitors. If you're playing with a high discovery spread time, place your CoT in a province that starts Terra Incognito, like The Azores or Canaries. Needless to say, complete monopolies outside of Europe are far more effective.

Nice heads-up on land-locked nations. My main CoT's are all in the New World. The one they usually went after is in Ontario, which I have to regularly fight for. However, the one in Chanchan (Inca) was relatively unmolested except by ultra-rich OPMs with high tech... likely due to trade range as you've said. I suppose I'd just make all my CoT's in the west coast in the future just to save me the trouble. I'd make sure to hunt down all those little coastal OPM's next time as well.