How much you actualy gain from trade?

[unmerged(80402)]

I don't say trade is bad. It is good, i would even say that it is marvelous. But, but, but, sometimes, you can't realy gain from it.
The question is : "Why i fail in trade?"(1st question) "Does it worth to take serious effort in trading in certain situations?"(2nd question) "Should i realy send the merchants?"(3rd question)

1st question - "Why I fail in trade?" - cause you don't put effort in trade => to gain much income from trade you must get trade NI's, be pluto, and be or : full free trade or full mercantilistic - this makes another question : "When should i go free trade, and when Mercantile?"(4th questionn) But i will answer it later. Also, some players have big number of cavalry - and going plutocratic, would mean, they would need to pay much more for calvary, and thus, they would have less money to put into buildings. So this makes a question "Does it allwats pay to be plutocratic?"(5th question). So now then lets go to the second question which is:

2nd question - "Does it worth to take serious effort in trading in certain situations" - this asks - which situations - well then :
If i got high infamy - Yes and No - if you got high infamy, your trade will be dead if you trade in forgein COT - as you get penalty for trading in forgein COT's if you got high infamy - so unless you got your own trade centre, it is just useless to trade anyway - only put much in trade if you own COT's if you got high infamy.
If i am bad at trade sliders, and have no trading NI - Well, as long as you don't trade too much, you can get a little income from trade from forgein COT's if you are highly mercantile - but if you establish trade somewhere, it is never bad. But i wouldn't bet on getting most income from trade in such situation.

3rd question - "Should i realy send merchants?"
Yes, and No. If you have high infamy, or just every merchant you sent to a COT lost - because you got low compete chances, it is just throwing gold nugets into a well - nothing to gain, and much money spent. But otherwise - if you managed to establish at least like 5 merchant in a COT, it does worth it, as you will regain your money.

4th question - "When should i go free trade and when mercantile?"
Well that's a good question - If you only trade in your COT/COT's - and your COT's trade mostly thru your provinces, you should allways go mercantile, as it gives you much better trade chances, and if you got enough big trade tech, you can make full monopoly over your trade centre, and thus gain whole it's income. You will just throw out all forgein merchants from your COT's and gain full amount - without sending too much merchants. If your COT is like 1000K value, you will gain more, than having 5 merchants in more COT's if their value is lower than 4k. And you will have much bigger trade chances.
But if you own none COT's/small COT - you will gain more, for being free trade, as you will gain trade much easier, and you will gain additional trade effenciency (10% - early on quite good) so thus gain more income from trade. But if you have high infamy - it won't help you, so remember it - better to be mercantile and gain little income from your own small COT, than just gain no trade income.

5th question - (lama you made me post this - thank you, for increasing quality of the forum XP) "Does it allways pay go Plutocratic"
No. Not allways. This needs some calculations - which i am not realy sure about... i think you pay around 2,5% of cost as maintnance for cavalry unit. I think base cavalry cost is 21. So for cavalry maintnance each month you pay around 0,525. So, as aristocracy gives you 30% decreased price for cavalry, (25% for cavalry %5 for all units) - so it is 0,1575 less ducats. Compared, when you are at full plutocracy, you need to pay 25% more - which is 0.13125 ducats. So, then it is difference of 0,28875 ~ 0,3 ducats.
From 3600 ducats COT, if you get full income from it, you gain 300 monthly - 5% of it is 15 ducats.
So, as long as you have less than ~ 1 cavalry for 6 ducats or more monthly income** not counting plutocratic, it might be worth it. Otherwise, you will pay more than you gain...

Sorry, Lama i was wrong in my calculations - but not very wrong. It is just a good calculation now whatever...

EDIT:
* If so, then, being aristocratic is more favoured...
**At 100% TE, which means, if you gain 5 ducats on 50% TE, it is counted like 10 ducats, ETC. Just multiply it.

EDIT: 5th question is was :

5th question - (lama you made me post this - thank you, for increasing quality of the forum XP) "Does it allways pay go Plutocratic"
No. Not allways. This needs some calculations - which i am not realy sure about... i think you pay around 2,5% of cost as maintnance for cavalry unit. I think base cavalry cost is 18*(or 21 - i am not sure). So for cavalry maintnance each month you pay around 0,45 at base cost if i am wrong could someone correct me? So, as aristocracy gives you 30% decreased price for cavalry, (25% for cavalry %5 for all units) - so it is 0,135 less ducats. Compared, when you are at full plutocracy, you need to pay 25% more - which is 0.1125 ducats. So, then it is difference of like ~ Quater ducat.
From 1200 ducats COT, if you get full income from it, you gain 100 monthly - 5% of it is 5 ducats.
So, as long as you have 1 cavalry/5 ducats or more monthly income** not counting plutocratic, it might be worth it. Otherwise, you will pay more than you gain...

But it was wrong and i edited it.

 

[unmerged(80402)]

Also about being plutocratic vs being aristocratic : You exchange 3 diplomats, for 2 spies and 1! merchants. As spies are not realy big deal - 1 spy yearly is just enough - and only 1 merchant yearly(well... it is not so great anyway) - the real good thing about being plutocratic, is that it gives +20% merchant chance - so this is the best reason to take it. It does not increase your income greatly, but if you use little cavalry, or just gain great income from trade, it helps you to gain even more income - or if you are monopolist having 1 big cot in your own country - it prevents other countries from defeating you on your trade. So if you gain more trade than fife time your cavalry, it might be worth to take it. Still, going free trade give you more increase in income if you are free trader.

But remember - the 5% of trade income isn't that great, aspecialy if you own like 100 cavalry units (try gaining 500 monthly trade income - even at 100% TE).

 

[brifbates]

In most cases the aristocracy/plutocracy slider is one that I don't pay all that much attention to. Generally, only if I need spies (fe: native americans spamming spies to hold off Euro colonisation) or diplomats badly due to other circumstances. The bonuses are nice enough I guess but there are other sliders that are far more important in most situations so I just let this one bounce around as the events fall.

question 1: I disagree with the needing to be plutocratic at all to succeed in trading. Although it can help boost you to gaining/losing $ from trading in borderline cases there is no need for it. By the time most nations can get it the gain is a fairly minor part of the overall calculation.

question 2 & 3: Pretty accurate, I personally won't bother to send a merchant if my compete chance is <70% in the CoT. I usually will then wait and see how it does before sending more-better to lose a few potential ducats of income than flush the ones I have in hand.

question 4: Pretty good answer, as noted both can work out pretty well depending on the type of game you are playing even with the same nation. You just need to tailor your play to suit the option you took. Also, the middle ground is pretty bad, you really need to commit one way or the other if you are planning to get any serious income through trade.

 

[Marshall Thomas]

Thanks Iwanow. Nice read.

Do you get a +2.5 compete chance from the +5 trade efficiency that plutocracy gives? or do you simply receive the increase in trade income?

In most games, I choose aristocracy because the ducats it saves you are for your treasury (not your monthly income). Early in a game this means less minting (so less inflation) and more ducats for building investments and sending merchants. So even if you can make more income with plutocracy, that income won't go to your treasury unless you mint.

Also, the +20% merchant chance from plutocracy doesn't seem very important to me because it's only applied when there's an empty slot in the CoT. Usually there isn't and even when there is your merchant chance is already pretty high. Also, sometimes you send a merchant to a CoT with an empty slot, but that slot is full by the time the merchant arrives. So it uses compete chance instead of merchant chance.

There also seem to be a lot nice events from The Nobility's appreciation of you favouring them in government. But maybe going plutocracy has good events too. I've never really tried going the plutocracy route. In the early game, you really need extra ducats. Later on, your treasury doesn't need as much help and ducats invested in research are more important.

 

[unmerged(57578)]

Also, the +20% merchant chance from plutocracy doesn't seem very important to me because it's only applied when there's an empty slot in the CoT. Usually there isn't and even when there is your merchant chance is already pretty high. Also, sometimes you send a merchant to a CoT with an empty slot, but that slot is full by the time the merchant arrives. So it uses compete chance instead of merchant chance.

IIRC compete chance is the chance that your merchant will remove another merchant from the COT and then merchant chance relates to whether your merchant will fill the empty slot that this creates. So it would still be important in the situation you describe, although less so than compete chance.

 

[unmerged(368282)]

Mercantile is only good with full monopolys, 1400 income from 1 COT in N-America is very nice.

 

[safferli]

IIRC compete chance is the chance that your merchant will remove another merchant from the COT and then merchant chance relates to whether your merchant will fill the empty slot that this creates. So it would still be important in the situation you describe, although less so than compete chance.

This. Trade is super important. Depending on your county it can be over 95% of you're total income.

 

[unmerged(128725)]

My current game is a 100-province colonial game (with capital in NA). My monthly income is roughly 5% taxes, 55% production and 40% trade. Taxes are so high because I am college-spamming. I am focusing on production, with trade a secondary focus. Nevertheless, the trade income I get is furious, and that is without any post office or custom house. It is mostly from my own home CoT, though.

 

[unmerged(368282)]

My current game is a 100-province colonial game (with capital in NA). My monthly income is roughly 5% taxes, 55% production and 40% trade. Taxes are so high because I am college-spamming. I am focusing on production, with trade a secondary focus. Nevertheless, the trade income I get is furious, and that is without any post office or custom house. It is mostly from my own home CoT, though.

Mercantile or free trade?

 

[stnikolauswagne]

I think we first have to distinguish between mp and sp, in sp you can practically dominate the game while beeing fully decentralized and mercantile. Mp however is something completely different matter. If you dont trade there you have little money, plain and simple. To actually support the armies you have to can almost never rely on the money your own lands provide (there are exceptions but they are not in europe). I will just post a stat of a campaign I played in.
http://www.europa3.ru/cgi-bin/mpsta...XII&league=int&season=comp-2012&yearsave=1562
To elaborate a bit: As you can probably see Spain has a very large (and quite profitable) colonial Empire, yet, almost half of my income is from trade. For France, the nation with the probably richest European lands the situation is even more extreme. Far more than 50% of its income stems from free trade. Even a full monopoly of Frances own COTs would reduce its income by 1600 and probably cripple frances ability to field an army as big as it needs to fight a Freetrading austria.

 

[DDRJake]

Even the most hopeless western nation can become a trading powerhouse by 1550. That's how I succeeded as Finland. Taxes and production brought in about 50 ducats per month. Trade brought in several hundred.

 

[Lama43]

Here we are again, you're teaching people of your "wise" theories that are wrong, because all based on two very wrong assumptions:
-Cavalry is worth being built in hundreds of thousands
-You always have infamy.

I could write a LONG wall of text to prove you're wrong with evidences, but you will never accept it anyway because of your nature. I have other things to do, tbh.

 

[unmerged(80402)]

LOL, lama i don't said that. You assume wrong. I say : "In certain situation it worth to go plutocratic, in others not"
You say : "OMHDSJJADKFNAKJFKJDKASF, ur noob, lmao, gtfo ur idiot" - you don't say so, but your talk is that type of talking.

Actualy, cavalry wins for some time, so it is worth to build it in big numbers. Until XVI century, it wins in western tech, but for non-western it does win longer. Also at land tech 22 - it becomes good enough even in western, to keep like 40% of your army being cavalry(not counting artilery).

If you realy can write a long post do it. Show me I am wrong - i am open to discussion unlike you. Realy lama i am sorry. Sorry that it hurt your feelings, sorry that you never want to admit defeat, sorry if i insulted you anyway. But you want to just kick me for no reason - at least i take it so. I want to be nice to you, but you are just being stubborn.

Prove me wrong.

 

[Inem]

Here we are again, you're teaching people of your "wise" theories that are wrong, because all based on two very wrong assumptions:
-Cavalry is worth being built in hundreds of thousands
-You always have infamy.

I could write a LONG wall of text to prove you're wrong with evidences, but you will never accept it anyway because of your nature. I have other things to do, tbh.

I do not always have infamy. When I try to trade heavily I do other things that do not incur infamy (or keep it low), like colonizing and personal unions, even vassalizing 1 at a time or doing it diplomatically and absorbing that nation 10 years later.

That does not even include the cores/conquest missions you get from events.

I do however think arist is much better than plut because the the trade efficiency is very little, and merchant chance hardly matters. Spies can be useful, but that depends on your Merc slider if you need them

 

[stnikolauswagne]

I just love how you ignore actual posts who kind of contradict your oppinion to just jump on your "discuss with lama"-wagon

 

[safferli]

And now everyone back on track, please.

 

[unmerged(57578)]

Well Merchant chance from plutocratic is useful, but only early on. So the countries that really benefit from the increased merchant chance are those that begin plutocratic (i.e. switzerland) as it becomes more redundant as trade efficiency increases.

Also you haven't mentioned the modifiers at all, although this is more mp specific. They are incredibly difficult to achieve whilst mercantile and provide very worthwhile bonuses. Grain and naval supplies increase forcelimits by 25%, which is a big bonus once people have started spamming conscription centers and naval buildings. Salt also decreases maintenance. (Do iron and wool decrease maintenance aswell? i can't remember)

 

[unmerged(80402)]

Well actualy, the merchant chance bonus you get is the biggest reason for take plutocracy IMHO - 5% TE is small enough to not realy matter. Aspecialy counting the fact that Aristocracy decrease price of ALL units by 5%.
So as infantry base price is 9(i think) and artilery base price is 30. So you get 0,01125 for each infantry unit and 0,0375 ducat for each artilery unit. So lets say you got 500 infantry - it is 5,625 ducats less/more. Now you are men who don't like cavalry and use instead artilery + infantry units. So you got 500 artilery units - it is 18,75 ducats less/more. As it is 500 infantry vs 1200 ducats COT, so 100 monthly trade income, so it is 5 infantry per 1 monthly trade income. In artilery it is 500 artilery vs 4500 COT, so 375 trade income - which mean it is 5 artilery units per 3 trade income. It might not be very impressive, but it is something that should be taken into account. But i have to say, i built forces larger than 100k cavalry, and larger than 500k infantry. Thou, never realy had much artilery in my forces, as AI almost never build it... players too, build only little artilery forces. Only i saw once a player that have build like none cavalry(but also, none artilery). This actualy shows me pretty clear, that cavalry is usefull - mostly because no one realy care to build much artilery (40K artilery is pretty big force). As it is so, and also because of the fact cavalry is cheaper than artilery, and wins with infantry, if artilery does not help infantry in the fight, shows that it is just good to keep large cavalry forces - as long as you have good enough cavalry - because if you got western cavalry, it is pretty useless until land 22(but then, only indian shock, wins with it, AND it win with infantry).

I just love how you ignore actual posts who kind of contradict your oppinion to just jump on your "discuss with lama"-wagon

Well, i can answer, them, but to do that i need some time, and first i answered lama - but ok, i will answer the other ones if you want it so... but only those not answered by the others, as i do not have infinite time.

Even the most hopeless western nation can become a trading powerhouse by 1550. That's how I succeeded as Finland. Taxes and production brought in about 50 ducats per month. Trade brought in several hundred.

Well ok. so? Never said trade is bad - I do trade in my games if i can. But not allways it worth to send merchants - aspecialy if you got low TE, and merchant compete chance...

I think we first have to distinguish between mp and sp, in sp you can practically dominate the game while beeing fully decentralized and mercantile. Mp however is something completely different matter. If you dont trade there you have little money, plain and simple. To actually support the armies you have to can almost never rely on the money your own lands provide (there are exceptions but they are not in europe). I will just post a stat of a campaign I played in.
http://www.europa3.ru/cgi-bin/mpsta...XII&league=int&season=comp-2012&yearsave=1562
To elaborate a bit: As you can probably see Spain has a very large (and quite profitable) colonial Empire, yet, almost half of my income is from trade. For France, the nation with the probably richest European lands the situation is even more extreme. Far more than 50% of its income stems from free trade. Even a full monopoly of Frances own COTs would reduce its income by 1600 and probably cripple frances ability to field an army as big as it needs to fight a Freetrading austria.

Well SO?

First off, the french player just got realy bad trading policy - he got 2 COT's, that are quite small. In my game, Ile-de-France, got like 3k income, and got like 250 income from full monopoly on it. For free trader - and it is hard for free trader to get even regular monopoly over COT - you would need to trade COT's with value of like 12K value. And hope, that their owners, does not embargo you. Also, actualy he got more income than the ausrian player... Actualy, i think, that for france, if you will invest much on trade buildings, you can gain more income from your own COT's, than from forgein(aspecialy if you will be smart, and will dominate whole italy). Also, the income i say, is ONLY from french provinces, not from italy.

Well it is just like that - to get much trade income, from your own trade, you need to invest much money in trade buildings, of level 1-4(I did so in my game) and possibly production ones. Also, france can dominate, even in MP game enough to have big SOI, and great empire just on the continent.

Secondly OK, the trade is important, and you should take as much income from it as you can, but what it does have to the problem? If you just have no chances to gain any trade, because you got bad trade position, and others just monopolize the trade, so you just are unable to trade anyway - you should just not care about it, and find other way of funding your wealth. And if you will do it by accquiring more territory, and going mercantile, and building your own COT, you may find it a good way to gain more wealth than those traders.

Also, not much know, but france is very good trading nation actualy - wealthy, can easily fix it's sliders, and got decent trade chances. Only problem may be infamy, but it is only if you defeat burgundy.

Still your french player could gain much more trade income, if he would just build lot of trade buildings(only 30+ markets, and nothing more??? LOL...), and make monopoly over his own trade centre, than he gained from free trade, aspecialy with his big number of provinces. At that year, he should have trade buildings all over france, and, just all possible buildings in much bigger number...

My current game is a 100-province colonial game (with capital in NA). My monthly income is roughly 5% taxes, 55% production and 40% trade. Taxes are so high because I am college-spamming. I am focusing on production, with trade a secondary focus. Nevertheless, the trade income I get is furious, and that is without any post office or custom house. It is mostly from my own home CoT, though.

Well so, for you it is better to go plutocratic possibly. But you gain 5% from taxes cause you are colonial... And what is your tarrifs income anyway? You accounted it into production?

IIRC compete chance is the chance that your merchant will remove another merchant from the COT and then merchant chance relates to whether your merchant will fill the empty slot that this creates. So it would still be important in the situation you describe, although less so than compete chance.

Well so you say : "Plutocracy gives you bigger chance your merchant will take empty slot" or "Plutocracy gives you better chance your merchant will defeat other merchant" ?

If it is the first sentence, then the bonus is pretty useless, as it is anyway quite high without it (and it cannot be higher than 99% whatever)

If second sentence, then i admit it is usefull, but, i would not take it as first slider to move if i were free trader, as it is better to just move free trade first, as it gives better modifire anyway...

EDIT: Just took a look at http://www.paradoxian.org/eu3wiki/Trade ... and it looks like it is useless...

You just get merchant placement bonus chance...

And merchant placement chance is not something you will gonna have problem with anyway...

So we are at point when we see only positive thing about going plutocracy is 5% TE, and 1 mechant... spies... well if you like to play with them...

 

[unmerged(57578)]

Well actualy, the merchant chance bonus you get is the biggest reason for take plutocracy IMHO

As i said, it is good. However by the time you have say 75 TE your merchant chance is 100% basically just from having stability +3, prestige > 0, >ADM 4 ruler. so as i also said, it does deteriate in importance.

 

[unmerged(80402)]

So we are at point when we see only positive thing about going plutocracy is 5% TE, and 1 mechant... spies... well if you like to play with them...

So we got :

+ 3 diplomats
+ 1 leader shock
- 25% cavalry cost
- 5% regiment cost
VS
+ 2 spies
+ 1 merchant
+ 5% TE
+ 25% cavalry cost