I love trade game so I want it to be more challenging/competetive. There are some great opportunites to make it so.
If I were able to mod/change it here is how I would do it. I want to explain it by whats my perspective on merchants/trade ships/privatering/local ports and summarizing it at the end.
Merchants are the officalls who are employed by the central autority to regulate trade to the benefit of his employer. Though they are represented as one person they are actually the ability to raise/employ trade experts by the government. So their main ability should be to direct trade. If country A does not have any trade official(merchant) at node B, country A should not have any say on the node B wheter it is steering trade downstream or collecting there. Main trade port is also considered as a merchant. Default steering should be zero.
Trade Ships are the ability to protect trade cargo at the open waters. Even though getting more trade power via ships is a bit wrong, for the sake of gameplay its understandable. After all if you dont have acseess to the cargo what use its to have numerous ships to guard/carry it. To polish their use and add more depth to this aspect of the game their power should change from node to node. Like inland nodes some nodes should be marked as open water nodes(?). At this marked nodes trade power from ships must be increased or decreased at those that are not marked. Lets take Carribean and Genoa nodes. I think it must be more important for France to have more lands at Genoa node to direct its trade compared to Carribeans. We can also say it like this it must be more important to have more ships at carribean to direct its trade than at Genoa for France. This would solve the problem concerning the current trade ships problem.
Privatering is used to damage rivals/competitors trade. Actually adding this mechanic to game brought so many possible flavours but I dont think its utilized good enough. Without going into super detail privaterering should be separeted into 3 major parts, barbary states/knights hospitaller piraveteering, European rivalery based government funded privetering, Rouge/Pirate Privateering.
---------Barbary/Hospitaller Privateering is the one which needs the most work. First these countries naval FL and maintanence must be completely overhauled to make it painfull for the other party. Letting them use all their ships on privateering mission might be a good choice, not just light ships. Also Europeans/Ottomans should be able to sponser them. In addition to that they should also effect their targets production and taxes at the coastal meditarenean provinces.
---------Funded Privateering is so much restricted for one simple reason. Currently you dont send any privateers to any node that you can either collect or steer. But It wasnt the case. If it were possible to choose target while fuding privateers it would be possible to simulate the situation at Carribeans. In addition to that sending privateers should not act as a separe entity collecting on its own account while sending a fraction of the outcome to the funder. It must decrease its targets trade power/efficency. Also as a con ships on privateering misson might from time to time be able dissapper completely or partly by events. And that brings us to next step:
---------Rouge/Private Privateering must be represented too at nodes that are highly populated with funded privateers. First those fleets that dissapered on privateering missions should decrease total trade value for a period of time representing their effect on every party. Second some local indivucual pirates should appear after empty nodes colonized to a degree. This also should be represented as events decreasing total trade value on provinces/nodes. To get rid of the effects you should either send patrols or spend money.
Local Ports are gateways to local markets. In reality Europens needed them but ingame you dont. Portugal after discovering south african route to india sized some of the local ports by force. Same goes for China and Malasia. So you should have at least one port to have any active trade at any node. I will explain why this is important later.
Well now I want to combine all the above, point some current problems and make a meaningfull statement by taking Portugal as an example.
As you know Portugal is sharing one of the best 3 trade nodes-Sevilla with Castilia and there is some oddities.
As soon as you discover Ivory node you get a big chunk of it and you dont even need to send a merchant there for a long time since you will be the only European that discovered it thus allowing Sevilla to propagete power. So I say putting a merchant must be a prerequisite. But that brings another issue. Lets say Sub-Saharans dont know anything about trade and putting a merchant there is enough to steal all their trade income.(In fact Saharan trade were so much lucrative that it created one of the richest countris of the age. Musa I of Mali's pilgremage voyage to meca devasteted the economy of the region by the sudden influx of gold devaluting the metal for the next decade.)
What about the Genoeese are they not aware of trade as well. Portugal already have a merchant at genoa at the begining. And by that alone portugal is the strongest at Genoa. So in addition to a merchant a local port should be a must.
You might ask why? Because it solves many problems and brings more strategic depth. Apart from the ridicules situation that Portugal being the strongest trader at Genoa it solves the end node problem, Ragusa/Novgorod/Costantinople... node problems basicly all of the Rotw's problems.
Whats Ragusa node problem? Well its an annoying situation where countries that have nothing to do with the region stealing half of its income. And they dont even need to use ships to do so. But lets say they were doing it by using fleets. It brings Costantinople/Novgorod problem.
Venice and Genoa were 2 main foreign traders. They both have local ports and had agrements with the local authorities(except when they are fighting). They were not bombarding with ships to steal it all away. It was a win/win situation. This win/win situation is represented by production boost via trading Merchant Republics/Trade Companies. In Multiplayer this is utilized best by humans but in SP which I play both of them is not so much. If some of the nodes were marked as open water nodes which I will come in a bit, the remaning nodes would be given half end node status. Basicly if trade power from ships were decreased at this remanig nodes all the complaints would be solved while keeping the upstream/downstream setup. By this end nodes would not be annoyingly rich without making any real effort. Ragarding any real effort upstream power propagation should be either gone or diminished too.
Some regions of the world did not have established markets untill some foreingers came and colonized there such as Carribeans, Cape of good hope etc. These nodes should be more open to trade by ships. Simply put trade ships should give more power at these nodes. As I mentioned before marking these nodes as open water nodes improves gameplay a lot for both Europa and Rotw.
And Strategic Depth issue. I want to explain this with a MP game that I played. If you remember London and Antwerpen were 2 seperate nodes before 1.8. And if I am not mistaken about the version, before 1.6 you need to have a province at a given node to collect trade. As England I went into quite a lot of mess just for keeping Calais which was at Antwerpen node. On my part even though I was the supreme ruler of the waves I run the risk of Burgundy player steering my trade while we are at peace or to start a war for that. But since I had Calais I have the chance of collecting trade at Antwerpen node if Burgundy ever tried steering my trade. On Burgundy's part he wanted to use steering London trade to Antwerpen as a levarage for me to let him colonize. So he did everything possible to get it.
But after a couple of sessions that requirement for collecting trade is removed by the next patch and I just left Calais to Burgundy and we lost that tension between us.
Another example on the issue is India.Lets say India is united and strong enough to challange colonizers. So if India were able to deny Europeans any province at her nodes she could keep all the trade to herself ending many complaints on the issue by the many Rotw players.
I hope you were able to read it all. I appriciate your patience.
If I were able to mod/change it here is how I would do it. I want to explain it by whats my perspective on merchants/trade ships/privatering/local ports and summarizing it at the end.
Merchants are the officalls who are employed by the central autority to regulate trade to the benefit of his employer. Though they are represented as one person they are actually the ability to raise/employ trade experts by the government. So their main ability should be to direct trade. If country A does not have any trade official(merchant) at node B, country A should not have any say on the node B wheter it is steering trade downstream or collecting there. Main trade port is also considered as a merchant. Default steering should be zero.
Trade Ships are the ability to protect trade cargo at the open waters. Even though getting more trade power via ships is a bit wrong, for the sake of gameplay its understandable. After all if you dont have acseess to the cargo what use its to have numerous ships to guard/carry it. To polish their use and add more depth to this aspect of the game their power should change from node to node. Like inland nodes some nodes should be marked as open water nodes(?). At this marked nodes trade power from ships must be increased or decreased at those that are not marked. Lets take Carribean and Genoa nodes. I think it must be more important for France to have more lands at Genoa node to direct its trade compared to Carribeans. We can also say it like this it must be more important to have more ships at carribean to direct its trade than at Genoa for France. This would solve the problem concerning the current trade ships problem.
Privatering is used to damage rivals/competitors trade. Actually adding this mechanic to game brought so many possible flavours but I dont think its utilized good enough. Without going into super detail privaterering should be separeted into 3 major parts, barbary states/knights hospitaller piraveteering, European rivalery based government funded privetering, Rouge/Pirate Privateering.
---------Barbary/Hospitaller Privateering is the one which needs the most work. First these countries naval FL and maintanence must be completely overhauled to make it painfull for the other party. Letting them use all their ships on privateering mission might be a good choice, not just light ships. Also Europeans/Ottomans should be able to sponser them. In addition to that they should also effect their targets production and taxes at the coastal meditarenean provinces.
---------Funded Privateering is so much restricted for one simple reason. Currently you dont send any privateers to any node that you can either collect or steer. But It wasnt the case. If it were possible to choose target while fuding privateers it would be possible to simulate the situation at Carribeans. In addition to that sending privateers should not act as a separe entity collecting on its own account while sending a fraction of the outcome to the funder. It must decrease its targets trade power/efficency. Also as a con ships on privateering misson might from time to time be able dissapper completely or partly by events. And that brings us to next step:
---------Rouge/Private Privateering must be represented too at nodes that are highly populated with funded privateers. First those fleets that dissapered on privateering missions should decrease total trade value for a period of time representing their effect on every party. Second some local indivucual pirates should appear after empty nodes colonized to a degree. This also should be represented as events decreasing total trade value on provinces/nodes. To get rid of the effects you should either send patrols or spend money.
Local Ports are gateways to local markets. In reality Europens needed them but ingame you dont. Portugal after discovering south african route to india sized some of the local ports by force. Same goes for China and Malasia. So you should have at least one port to have any active trade at any node. I will explain why this is important later.
Well now I want to combine all the above, point some current problems and make a meaningfull statement by taking Portugal as an example.
As you know Portugal is sharing one of the best 3 trade nodes-Sevilla with Castilia and there is some oddities.
As soon as you discover Ivory node you get a big chunk of it and you dont even need to send a merchant there for a long time since you will be the only European that discovered it thus allowing Sevilla to propagete power. So I say putting a merchant must be a prerequisite. But that brings another issue. Lets say Sub-Saharans dont know anything about trade and putting a merchant there is enough to steal all their trade income.(In fact Saharan trade were so much lucrative that it created one of the richest countris of the age. Musa I of Mali's pilgremage voyage to meca devasteted the economy of the region by the sudden influx of gold devaluting the metal for the next decade.)
What about the Genoeese are they not aware of trade as well. Portugal already have a merchant at genoa at the begining. And by that alone portugal is the strongest at Genoa. So in addition to a merchant a local port should be a must.
You might ask why? Because it solves many problems and brings more strategic depth. Apart from the ridicules situation that Portugal being the strongest trader at Genoa it solves the end node problem, Ragusa/Novgorod/Costantinople... node problems basicly all of the Rotw's problems.
Whats Ragusa node problem? Well its an annoying situation where countries that have nothing to do with the region stealing half of its income. And they dont even need to use ships to do so. But lets say they were doing it by using fleets. It brings Costantinople/Novgorod problem.
Venice and Genoa were 2 main foreign traders. They both have local ports and had agrements with the local authorities(except when they are fighting). They were not bombarding with ships to steal it all away. It was a win/win situation. This win/win situation is represented by production boost via trading Merchant Republics/Trade Companies. In Multiplayer this is utilized best by humans but in SP which I play both of them is not so much. If some of the nodes were marked as open water nodes which I will come in a bit, the remaning nodes would be given half end node status. Basicly if trade power from ships were decreased at this remanig nodes all the complaints would be solved while keeping the upstream/downstream setup. By this end nodes would not be annoyingly rich without making any real effort. Ragarding any real effort upstream power propagation should be either gone or diminished too.
Some regions of the world did not have established markets untill some foreingers came and colonized there such as Carribeans, Cape of good hope etc. These nodes should be more open to trade by ships. Simply put trade ships should give more power at these nodes. As I mentioned before marking these nodes as open water nodes improves gameplay a lot for both Europa and Rotw.
And Strategic Depth issue. I want to explain this with a MP game that I played. If you remember London and Antwerpen were 2 seperate nodes before 1.8. And if I am not mistaken about the version, before 1.6 you need to have a province at a given node to collect trade. As England I went into quite a lot of mess just for keeping Calais which was at Antwerpen node. On my part even though I was the supreme ruler of the waves I run the risk of Burgundy player steering my trade while we are at peace or to start a war for that. But since I had Calais I have the chance of collecting trade at Antwerpen node if Burgundy ever tried steering my trade. On Burgundy's part he wanted to use steering London trade to Antwerpen as a levarage for me to let him colonize. So he did everything possible to get it.
But after a couple of sessions that requirement for collecting trade is removed by the next patch and I just left Calais to Burgundy and we lost that tension between us.
Another example on the issue is India.Lets say India is united and strong enough to challange colonizers. So if India were able to deny Europeans any province at her nodes she could keep all the trade to herself ending many complaints on the issue by the many Rotw players.
I hope you were able to read it all. I appriciate your patience.
