Cool new beta patch!

[Stonewall]

From what I was able to see in an admittedly limited timeframe was that CoT's that didn't have a lot of competition gradually lost provinces to other nearby CoT's that had a lot of competition. Eventually, if noone is competing in a CoT, is disappeared, hence Zacatecas and Cuzco. However, another thing I noticed was that the European CoT's tended to merge into 6 huge ones (Andalusia, Venice, Thrace, Anglia, Moscow, and Holland), with the rest only garnering a 5 or 6 provinces, and they were very small. Admittedly, this could be a one time deal, or it could be an example of how the CoT mechanics are changing. Personally, I like the idea of competition level attracting more provinces to a CoT.

As for Dutch CoT's in the Indonesia, I wouldn't worry too much about those CoT's disappearing. With all the small island nations out there, there is never a lack of competition for slots in Malacca, Jakarta, or wherever a new CoT springs up.

And, if you think about it, the whole shrinking CoT makes sense. If there is no competition within a CoT, what incentive does a province have to send its goods to that CoT? None. They send it to another CoT that is close where the competition makes the goods more valuable in trade. I like the change and am interested to see how it plays out over the long term.

 

[Smirfy]

Originally posted by satan
I agree. Strong monopolies used to be an important goal of the game. Is the objective now NOT to have a monopoly? There are many good things about the change that could be interesting, but I will reserve judgement until I see how it works.

Could cause many uninteded side effects.

The problem is that the embargo of Ai minors from a cot causes an ahistorical amount of revenue for your country for no consequence.

Now imagine you are a Zulu you are embargoed from the Portugese Zanzibar COT along with all the other petty nations along the coast you and the countries that supplied Zanzibar with its comodities for trade will look for another market so Zanzibar will die.

State monopolies are fine against major nations (competitors) not every minor nation.

Like you satan I don't know how it will work out but i believe it is well worth a try as TE means nothing for certain nations that can use Embargo especially after a big minus stab event.

 

[unmerged(18314)]

Originally posted by Stonewall
And, if you think about it, the whole shrinking CoT makes sense. If there is no competition within a CoT, what incentive does a province have to send its goods to that CoT? None. They send it to another CoT that is close where the competition makes the goods more valuable in trade.

I don't know how competition can make goods more valuable. In fact, competition always makes goods less valuable...

And why shouldn't my own trading post send all the stuff to my own CoT if it serves me to monopolize my own goods?

 

[Stonewall]

Originally posted by Cassius
I don't know how competition can make goods more valuable. In fact, competition always makes goods less valuable...

Think of it like this. You are a weaver and make cloth for a living. You go to market to sell your cloth. The only person who is there to buy your cloth is person X. Person X has all the cards. Since you need to sell your cloth to make a living, you will sell it to person X for whatever he offers. This represents a CoT with only one or two countries trading in it. If this were the facts of your situation, what would you do? You would go to a different market where you could get a fairer price for your cloth...represented by a province switching from a stagnant CoT to one in which there are more buyers. So, if you think about it, the province switching makes sense and after a while if there are no proivinces left in a CoT, it should disappear.

And why shouldn't my own trading post send all the stuff to my own CoT if it serves me to monopolize my own goods?

I agree, it should. However, there's a difference between keeping a monopoly in a CoT and completely eliminating all trade in a CoT. If you do the latter, you should get penalized.

 

[Duuk]

Man, I'm just tickled to have something to test and report bugs on again.

I may hit that magical 1000th on-topic post tonight!

 

[Freebot]

The shrinking/disappearing CoT change takes away much of the incentive to create a colonial empire. Since this has been a major focus of the game in all previous versions, I don't see how this can be a positive change. At least the other changes make sense.

 

[unmerged(15309)]

Well,

I like it. It used to be TOO good to have those overseas monopolies.

After all, foreign traders would want to trade in provinces, even if they haven't 'found' the COT. After all, the COT is a bit of an abstraction.

 

[M@ni@c]

Originally posted by Stonewall
Think of it like this. You are a weaver and make cloth for a living. You go to market to sell your cloth. The only person who is there to buy your cloth is person X. Person X has all the cards. Since you need to sell your cloth to make a living, you will sell it to person X for whatever he offers. This represents a CoT with only one or two countries trading in it. If this were the facts of your situation, what would you do? You would go to a different market where you could get a fairer price for your cloth...represented by a province switching from a stagnant CoT to one in which there are more buyers. So, if you think about it, the province switching makes sense and after a while if there are no proivinces left in a CoT, it should disappear.

Yeah but then you should have the option to force your colonies to trade in your CoT, even if another CoT is more profitable. That's part of protectionism and mercantilism after all. Personally I think a CoT should shrink, but only shrink out of foreign provinces. If you're mercantilist at least, your province's trade should continue to go to your CoT no matter how few other countries trade there. Only if the total trade in the CoT would become very small as a consequence of this, eg 100 or 150 ducats a year, the CoT could disappear.

How does that rule sound?

 

[Alerias]

The rest is good, but

"- Centers of Trade will now stagnate and lose provinces, to eventually dissappear, if they do not get a steady competion through them."

STINKS!

Frankly, i just dont like it. Its an horrible change. SP AND MP.

M@ni@c 's proposal makes sense though!

Under this new ruleset, a country which conquered the world, even though thats not the point of the game, would see ALL the cots disapear. Thats crazy. With his change, you eliminate that absurdity, and allow strong mercantilist nations to exist.

 

[Carolus Rex]

Good to see ur still working on it, even though u shouldn't be.

 

[EUnderhill]

Originally posted by Alerias
The rest is good, but

"- Centers of Trade will now stagnate and lose provinces, to eventually dissappear, if they do not get a steady competion through them."

STINKS!

Frankly, i just dont like it. Its an horrible change. SP AND MP.

M@ni@c 's proposal makes sense though!

Under this new ruleset, a country which conquered the world, even though thats not the point of the game, would see ALL the cots disapear. Thats crazy. With his change, you eliminate that absurdity, and allow strong mercantilist nations to exist.

A new CoT will emerge when the others disappear.

 

[M@ni@c]

A new CoT will emerge when the others disappear.

Then it's an eternal cycle of CoT emergence and decline: A colonial CoT pops up, and you monopolize the trade in it, which is both historically plausible and making economic sense from the monopolizer's point of view. But then the Cot's range immediately starts declining until it disappears. After a while a new CoT pops up in the exact same province. Go back to step 1 and repeat the process until eternity...

This sounds quite silly and unrealistic to me.

 

[von Kluge]

even though u shouldn't be

shhhhhh CR, don't tell him this

 

[The Cabl3 Guy]

Yeah I guess I support this but It kinda messes up the fantasia scenario.

 

[Porcius]

Any word on when a new official patch can be expected?

Keep up the good work, Johan...

 

[Jayavarman]

Originally posted by Porcius
Any word on when a new official patch can be expected?

Keep up the good work, Johan...

Don't think 1.08 will be out for a few months... around Victoria completion.

 

[Stonewall]

Originally posted by M@ni@c
Yeah but then you should have the option to force your colonies to trade in your CoT, even if another CoT is more profitable. That's part of protectionism and mercantilism after all. Personally I think a CoT should shrink, but only shrink out of foreign provinces. If you're mercantilist at least, your province's trade should continue to go to your CoT no matter how few other countries trade there. Only if the total trade in the CoT would become very small as a consequence of this, eg 100 or 150 ducats a year, the CoT could disappear.

How does that rule sound?

This rule is already in place...kind of. The Mercantilism slider affects how your provinces are distributed in CoT's. IIRC, the more mercantilistic you are the more likely that trade will go through your own CoT's.

 

[Stonewall]

Originally posted by Alerias
The rest is good, but

"- Centers of Trade will now stagnate and lose provinces, to eventually dissappear, if they do not get a steady competion through them."

STINKS!

Frankly, i just dont like it. Its an horrible change. SP AND MP.

M@ni@c 's proposal makes sense though!

Under this new ruleset, a country which conquered the world, even though thats not the point of the game, would see ALL the cots disapear. Thats crazy. With his change, you eliminate that absurdity, and allow strong mercantilist nations to exist.

Before passing judgment, play a few games and see how things work out. Also, remember that there are guaranteed to be at least 18 or 22 (don't remember which) CoT's in the game. At least thats what it says in the .inc files. If this is true, then the problem of all CoT's disappearing is moot.

 

[SJG]

Originally posted by EUnderhill
A new CoT will emerge when the others disappear.

It's the wrong way round, though, isn't it? In reality a COT would close because an a more attractive alternative COT became available. That means a new COT should pop up and cause the old one to close.

This change has the effect that the old COT will close and cause a new one to pop up. This is kind of like having the cart pull the horse.

It remains to be seen whether the change is an improvement but it certainly isn't a good realistic model.

 

[unmerged(7034)]

I think there might be a misunderstanding about how this is going to work.


If I understood the manual correctly, having a monopoly counts as having 20 traders. So I don't think you need to fear your monopolising trader will count as only 1, and make the CoT disappear.


As far as stagnation goes, most times you have to fight fiercely to maintain a monopoly. Even though your monop. merchant is the only one present, it may take 10-12 merchants a year to keep him there. This definitely wouldn't count as a stagnating CoT. The one situation where the new rule might affect things is when you get a colonial CoT no one knows about and hold an unchallenged monopoly there. I've been abusing that feature frankly (when colonial CoTs still formed) and I'm glad to see the chance to do so is eliminated. Now if no one knows about your CoT, and you're the only one there, its range will be smaller. Very realistic.

Overall I like the changes very much and hope that the new CoTs pop up more frequently, too.