Home trade node for Portugal

[marteen]

Hi!

Regarding Portugal, what is actually my home trade node? I understand you get a bonus if you collect with a merchant in your home node. However, Portual has no province with a trade node, the closest is Sevilla, which belongs to Castille. So where do I, as Portugal, need to send my merchant to get the home trade node bonus?

 

[Bibor]

Hi. Trade nodes are just named after the most important ports or regions in the area. The nodes themselves don't belong to anyone.
For Portugal, Sevilla is indeed the home node. You can put a merchant there, but it might not be the best way to use that merchant. Placing merchants into nodes to steer trade to Sevilla node (Ivory Coast, for example), might do you more good. This is because you collect income in your home node whether you have a merchant there or not. Having a merchant there just gives a small bonus (which can be huge if you are collecting hundreds of ducats per month, but I guess you are not there yet).

If you want to increase your dominance in the Sevilla trade node, you have two ways - conquer/control more important centers of trade and river estuaries (both are visible on the trade map mode) or send light ships on missions to protect trade in the Sevilla trade node.

 

[ecrurudesby]

If you collect in your home node (which for Portugal is Sevilla) with a merchant, you get a 10% trade efficiency bonus in that node.

 

[Stanleykubrick]

Sevilla is your home trade node : The province of your starting capital, Lisbon, is located within the territory defined as "Sevilla trade node" if you click on the trade map view. By default your capital defines the home trade node as described above.

Of course you can move your home trade node (spending diplo points) or your capital (spending admin) , although there is no real need to do this with Portugal, unless you heavily expand towards the more downstream node of Genoa.

 

[Incompetent]

Of course you can move your home trade node (spending diplo points) or your capital (spending admin) , although there is no real need to do this with Portugal, unless you heavily expand towards the more downstream node of Genoa.

One reason you might want to move it is treasure fleets from colonial nations. Treasure fleets are bad because they are vulnerable to pirates and give inflation. If you put your trade hub somewhere the treasure fleets can't reach, you can tariff the gold instead (no inflation impact on you, and can give over 100% income if you push tariffs high enough).

 

[bradles0]

One reason you might want to move it is treasure fleets from colonial nations. Treasure fleets are bad because they are vulnerable to pirates and give inflation. If you put your trade hub somewhere the treasure fleets can't reach, you can tariff the gold instead (no inflation impact on you, and can give over 100% income if you push tariffs high enough).

So you would want your home trade node to be, like, the falklands? Or Bermuda?

 

[pheonicia]

I think Venice could work?

 

[ecrurudesby]

One reason you might want to move it is treasure fleets from colonial nations. Treasure fleets are bad because they are vulnerable to pirates and give inflation. If you put your trade hub somewhere the treasure fleets can't reach, you can tariff the gold instead (no inflation impact on you, and can give over 100% income if you push tariffs high enough).

The problem with avoiding treasure fleets is you also abandon all regular trade from the New World, possibly leaving it to your European rivals.

So you would want your home trade node to be, like, the falklands? Or Bermuda?

The Falklands are in the Patagonia node which is crap. And Bermuda is in the Caribbean which will still give you treasure fleets.

 

[bradles0]

The problem with avoiding treasure fleets is you also abandon all regular trade from the New World, possibly leaving it to your European rivals.

Well if you already have 100% trade power in genoa or the English Channel, it doesn't really matter whether your home node is there or not right?

 

[ecrurudesby]

Well if you already have 100% trade power in genoa or the English Channel, it doesn't really matter whether your home node is there or not right?

Hmmm I guess so. Personally I'd raise a few heavy ships and hunt pirates, rather than spend time thinking about whether I want to spend 200 DIP points to avoid my own treasure ships.

 

[Incompetent]

Well if you already have 100% trade power in genoa or the English Channel, it doesn't really matter whether your home node is there or not right?

Also if you're going full tariffs, it's better for your CN to collect as much trade as possible rather than you pulling the trade away from them, so it can be beneficial (or at least no real loss) to collect directly in the CN's node with a merchant.

 

[qwertzuiop]

So you would want your home trade node to be, like, the falklands? Or Bermuda?

I think Venice could work?

It depends where your CN is located. If it is not in the California, Rio Grande or Mexico trade node, then yes, Venice will work. In fact, any Old World trade node that is not Genoa, English Channel, Seville, Bordeaux, Champagne, the North Sea or Lübeck will work.

If the CN is located in California, Rio Grande or Mexico it is much more difficult because those nodes can steer trade to Asia and Europe which means that basically the whole global trading network is connected to them. In that case, it only works if your home node is one of the isolated ones, e.g. the African inland nodes or Tibet.

That's also one of the reasons why a CN in Peru is much better for this strategy than a CN in Mexico. It is possible to have your trading capital in a really powerful node such as Zanzibar, Persia, Bengal, Baltic Sea, Novgorod (or the already mentioned Venice) and still benefit from disabled treasure fleets. Anyway, I wouldn't recommend this strategy for Portugal unless the following case is true:

Well if you already have 100% trade power in genoa or the English Channel, it doesn't really matter whether your home node is there or not right?