East Indian Trade Strategy

[unmerged(610709)]

Ah, i see. Because there is no single city in the trade node. I guess that would make sense.

Thanks for the reply

 

[jecjackal]

When you fully occupy them, you can take their capital.

So capitals don't have to be isolated or the last province taken anymore? nice

 

[Aquilegia]

I tried a new game with Portugal. This should theoretically work well, based on my observations:

Spoiler

0. Don't have European alliances. Dissolve the English alliance on day 1. Maybe the pope is useful if you combine it with improving relations+setting a matching rival, so you can become Papal controller (The extra diplomat is worth a lot as you can fabricate claims on more nations at the same time).

1. Fabricate claims on Benin. Conquer and core (Always core as soon as possible for extended colony range, don't forget your colonies too).
2. Increase relations with Oman, get fleet basing rights
3. Get first idea from expansion for colonist.
4. Colonize the province next to Congo. Fabricate claims on Congo. Conquer at least the inland province 'Congo' for the 'local trade center'.
....4b It's possible to move the colonist away before completion of the colony, it will cost more, but if you can pay for it, it's a good idea. Fabricating claims if you can do it is very important if you have to race the clock.
5. Colonize province north of Swahili. Fabricate claims on Swahili. Conquer at least Zanzibar.
6. Colonize a province in the South African trade node. Then go forth with Gold Coast (local center of trade) and other Ivory coast provinces.
7. Stop trade rights with Oman.
8. Increase relations with Indian nation (preferably small like Ceylon). (see point 13/14)
9. Fabricate claims on Oman and Yemen.
10. Conquer Aden and Muscat at least (the provinces which you have fabricated might be a good idea too, because they won't cost extra diplo power)
12. Get the diplo tech and possibly the +50% colonial range idea
13. Get fleet basing rights with the nation from 8. so you have colonial range to (theoretically) be able to colonize all of the Indian Coast.
14. Choose the mission 'Get a base on the Indian Coast'. You can get this mission when you have colonial range near India. You will get claims on EVERY Indian coast province which you can reach with your colonial range (This is why fleet basing rights with Ceylon is useful).

Now choose where you fabricate claims/colonize/conquer and send your trading fleets according to this: The longer and richer the trade route becomes the more important it is to have more % trade power in the nodes closest to home, otherwise you can lose a lot of potential money. The Mauritanian trade node is not important because both you and Spain will forward 100% of the trade towards Iberia. If more trade stays in one node than it locally generates try to get more power in that node, if not a lot of trade stays in that node, try to increase power in the next trade node.

Where to place merchants

Spoiler

The only place where you need a merchant on the route around Africa is the Gulf of Aden. In all other nodes, trade will flow automatically towards Iberia. This will be most useful if you have a lot of trade power there (by conquering Aden+Muscat), but will only be useful if trade also flows further in the nodes downstream. So if you don't have enough power in Zanzibar or haven't colonized somewhere in South Africa yet, don't bother, as all that diverted trade will be sucked up by the power in that node.

You can collect somewhere on the route before Lisbon, but I'm not sure if it's that effective. Having a merchant collecting in Iberia will be useful for the +10% trade income after all the calculations of trade power etcetera.

When you have three merchants it might become useful to dump him in Genoa, or Indus (if you have power there).

In 1519 I had a trade income of 11 and a total income of 25. But I didn't follow the points above at all times, so it could have been a lot more I think, especially because I had 2 horrible wars with France (They loved to take bites from Spain). :angry:

 

[Heatth]

So I tried this strategy: I conquered Benin, Loango, Kongo, the Cape, Zanzibar, Mogadishu/Horn of Africa, and Lower Sind, but my trade income only went up to around 8.3. I was lazy about building lots of barques to protect trade, so maybe that was the reason?

That seems a nice amount of trade for the early game, actually. I mean, considering the time constraint, I doubt you had time to consolidate the route, right? Not only with barques, but with buildings and technology. Once you managed to get the foothold you can actually start to actively work on improving your trade power in the key regions. Beating up some trade rivals, like Oman, might be a good way to improve your trade as well.

 

[Aquilegia]

So I tried this strategy: I conquered Benin, Loango, Kongo, the Cape, Zanzibar, Mogadishu/Horn of Africa, and Lower Sind, but my trade income only went up to around 8.3. I was lazy about building lots of barques to protect trade, so maybe that was the reason?

Barques can be really useful (as long as you stay <= fleet force limit) to temporally keep up trade power in an contested intermediary node with not a lot of total trade power (Especially Ivory Coast when you haven't got much provinces there yet and Zanzibar if you have not a lot (<60) trade power there but have a lot of power and trade flowing from Aden). And Iberia is important to get a bigger final share. Conquering parts of India isn't really useful until you have conquered a big share in the Gulf of Aden (for instance Muscat+Aden), because else that trade money will be sucked up by the nations there.

 

[Johnny Canuck]

Are you sure all of these steps are actually necessary? The Aden trade node only starts out 11 miles outside of trade range - if you 'buy' the next two Diplo techs, the 2nd gives you more than enough trade range to put a merchant into Aden without having to conquer anything along the way. From there, the key would be merchants in Zanzibar & Cape, as I can get a trade fleet to the Congo without colonizing, so you would need to get 2 more merchants (from the Trade Ideas?). This might not be doable in the demo, but from the 1444 start Portugal should certainly be able to set this up by the early 1500s. My point in mentioning this is that it may not really be necessary to conquer a bunch of African minors for the Portuguese to divert the Aden trade round Africa to Seville.

 

[Aquilegia]

Are you sure all of these steps are actually necessary?

They aren't necessary to get a tiny, unprofitable amount of trade from Aden. You could put a lot of light ships in every trade node (and colonize S-Africa, that one is mandatory) and send a merchant in Aden to steer. But you only have a limited amount of light ships you can use (fleet force limit) and if you don't conquer on the way, those light ships may still cost more maintainance than they give you extra profit. So using this strategy you can only have a few light ships per trade node between Aden&Iberia.

Without the territorial expansion in the Gulf of Aden, you won't draw much trade southwards. If you use most light ships here, then you could get a decent trade flow maybe, but then you'd go to the next problem: the trade node of Zanzibar. You'd have only a tiny amount of trade power here so all trade you have just diverted from Aden will be sucked up by Swahili! And then you still have Congo and the Ivory Coast to go which will also suck up your trade money.

When your trade route isn't that long yet, 50% trade power in Ivory Coast may be very good (easily gained with a few light ships, possibly only 1 conquest). This is because that trade node produces local trade money too, which gets moved towards you. But when the trade route gets longer and more profitable, you don't want to have only 50% trade power when maybe 10 trade value flows in, because then you'd lose a potential 5 trade income per month in only one intermediary trade node... So if you go for a trade route around Africa, the longer the route gets, the more important it becomes to get a bigger trade share. And this is only gained effectively by conquering those coasts and local centers of trade.

 

[Johnny Canuck]

Even a few barques will push on a good percentage of trade, as IIRC the African states get a penalty to trade power. Plus, trade value is increased each time it is pushed forward.