Does being at war affect trade efficiency?

[Yagami Kira]

From what I understand, having been to the eu2 wiki and read a lot of threads on this forum, trade efficiency is only supposed to be affected by your trade tech level, certain policy sliders, refineries, embargoes, trade agreements, monopolies and some religions. No mention of war affecting TE.

But it seems like whenever I go to war (whether I start one or one is started against me), suddenly a lot of my merchants start getting competed out in COTs. Of course that can happen anytime, but it seems to happen at a higher rate while i'm at war. Like, shortly after a war starts i'll lose several merchants, one or two from multiple COTs, at once or in very quick succession. It's a pain having to try to regain all or most of my monopolies while i'm trying to focus on a war, and it seems like my merchant sends fail more often during that time.

Is it because my trade efficiency is adversely affected by the war, or maybe it's just that going to war makes the AI more active? It's well-known that the EU2 AI kind of "falls asleep" somewhat after a while of playing, which is why there's a burst of AI activity (including merchant sends) when you load a saved game. Does going to war have the same effect?

Or maybe it's just that, since i'm distracted by the war and am mainly focusing on paying to recruit soldiers rather than sending merchants, it only seems like i'm having trade troubles because i'm not sending as many merchants during wartime? I consider this possibility unlikely though, because it really does seem like I lose merchants at a higher rate during war.

Any thoughts?

 

[ConjurerDragon]

From what I understand, having been to the eu2 wiki and read a lot of threads on this forum, trade efficiency is only supposed to be affected by your trade tech level, certain policy sliders, refineries, embargoes, trade agreements, monopolies and some religions. No mention of war affecting TE.

But it seems like whenever I go to war (whether I start one or one is started against me), suddenly a lot of my merchants start getting competed out in COTs. Of course that can happen anytime, but it seems to happen at a higher rate while i'm at war. Like, shortly after a war starts i'll lose several merchants, one or two from multiple COTs, at once or in very quick succession. It's a pain having to try to regain all or most of my monopolies while i'm trying to focus on a war, and it seems like my merchant sends fail more often during that time.

Is it because my trade efficiency is adversely affected by the war, or maybe it's just that going to war makes the AI more active? It's well-known that the EU2 AI kind of "falls asleep" somewhat after a while of playing, which is why there's a burst of AI activity (including merchant sends) when you load a saved game. Does going to war have the same effect?

Or maybe it's just that, since i'm distracted by the war and am mainly focusing on paying to recruit soldiers rather than sending merchants, it only seems like i'm having trade troubles because i'm not sending as many merchants during wartime? I consider this possibility unlikely though, because it really does seem like I lose merchants at a higher rate during war.

Any thoughts?

Being at war shouldn´t affect trade efficiency. However if a country embargoes you - even if that country does not own a CoT - it lowers your TE by -3%
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/economy-faq-for-1-09.238483/

Another point is stability. If that drops due to declaring war the chances of your merchants to compete are lower.

 

[Yagami Kira]

That's possible, I suppose. I was aware of stability affecting TE, by the way (which is why I tend to pour investment into stability as soon as I take a stability hit, to get it back up as quickly as possible), but I forgot to include it in my post. It's possible that stability is the issue, but i'm still unsure, because while there can be a stability hit from starting a war, having a war started against you doesn't cause a stability hit. Yet, even then, it seems my merchants always start getting competed out in quick succession once the war starts. It just happened to me today in a Muscovy game I have going; someone declared war on me at some point (I forget who it was, either Lithuania or Denmark I think), and at that very moment I suddenly lost three merchants from different COTs, one from Tago, one from Thrace and one from Moscow. It could be a coincidence, but I wonder. I'm still in the early game (1485 now), so trade is still relatively unimportant, but once I get to trade level 3 and start trading more, i'm going to pay close attention to that.

This is just a theory, of course; I was just curious what other people thought of it and if anyone else has had a similar experience.