Inland steering - the Ragusa node problem

[greendevil]

I've played a bit since 1.8 came out, did some campaigns (I generally get to mid 1600 / 1700 then lose interest and start anew). I've noticed something: the AI tends to steer all the mediterranean trade from Ragusa to central and then northern Europe, with Lubeck first and then the English channel becoming the wealthiest trade nodes in the game, with Venice severely impoverished.

Am I the only one to think that it's weird? As far as I know there wasn't a lot of trade going on from the Balkans to Austria -> Germany -> Northern Europe, while Venice was actually master of trade in the Adriatic Sea.

The northern european nodes should become more wealthy later on, if they manage to open the Atlantic trade. Right now, they are immediately wealthier because OP inland steering steers everything north of Ragusa.

What are your thoughts?

P.S.: I'm almost tempted to mod it myself and remove the connection between Ragusa and Wien. How would I have to do it?

 

[Cossack_PL]

Maybe just removing 'inland' from Ragusa would be enough, with no inland bonuses it wouldn't be that easy to steer the trade out of Venice which also can use ships to dominate that node.

 

[Sorellis]

This has been happening since the "steering towards inland" bonus was added with WoN. I honestly don't think it is a problem, because before the change the Venice node was absurdly wealthy from the beginning of the game. If any change was to be made I would like to see trade income reduced slightly at the beginning of the game and then increase dramatically when the Atlantic opens up, as you suggested.

 

[Schmoekoeksklok]

Maybe just removing 'inland' from Ragusa would be enough, with no inland bonuses it wouldn't be that easy to steer the trade out of Venice which also can use ships to dominate that node.

You mean removing 'inland' from Wien, I hope

But I think removing the connection is a bit weird of a solution, I'd personally just nerf all inland trading bonuses, and/or make sure that the German minors don't all take Trade ideas.

 

[jockedahl]

Code away the german minors taking trade ideas. Inland powers shouldn't take trade. Especially not in HRE. They should take diplo or influence or something instead.

 

[Ranjid]

This has been happening since the "steering towards inland" bonus was added with WoN. I honestly don't think it is a problem, because before the change the Venice node was absurdly wealthy from the beginning of the game. If any change was to be made I would like to see trade income reduced slightly at the beginning of the game and then increase dramatically when the Atlantic opens up, as you suggested.

Venice WAS absurdely wealthy back then. Now it's a minor trade node comparable to Aleppo in wealth.

But I have another problem right now. Trade Income in Europe as a whole is way too high in the beginning. I was banking a few thousand ducats as the TO after just 2 decades. Despite building almost everything in all my provinces. In 1600 the Channel node has 75 income while Lübeck has 47. That's mind boggling.

 

[greendevil]

Venice WAS absurdely wealthy back then. Now it's a minor trade node comparable to Aleppo in wealth.

But I have another problem right now. Trade Income in Europe as a whole is way too high in the beginning. I was banking a few thousand ducats as the TO after just 2 decades. Despite building almost everything in all my provinces. In 1600 the Channel node has 75 income while Lübeck has 47. That's mind boggling.

Agreed. I tried playing as England and had been swimming in gold for all the campaign, since day 1.

 

[anomalacaris]

Inland trading bonuses are seriously broken. It was better when it came mostly from provinces. Now OPMs with no realistic way to compete with merchant republics can have some serious trade power in inland nodes/ steering to inland.

 

[Schmoekoeksklok]

Agreed. I tried playing as England and had been swimming in gold for all the campaign, since day 1.

England is a bit of a special case since it now has a proper trade node though.

I'm pretty sure with the removal of supply and demand especially the most common goods have gotten considerably more expensive in the early game. Things like grain and fish used to be much less valuable early game then they are now, and there's a lot of those two in Europe.

 

[208]

Now OPMs with no realistic way to compete with merchant republics can [trade]

Doesn't taking Trade Ideas mean that they are acquiring the means to compete with merchant republics, almost by definition? They still won't be as strong at trading without the government & national idea bonuses that MRs get, but they'll at least have a chance to get some of the wealth. What else should they be required to do to compete?

 

[anomalacaris]

Doesn't taking Trade Ideas mean that they are acquiring the means to compete with merchant republics, almost by definition? They still won't be as strong at trading without the government & national idea bonuses that MRs get, but they'll at least have a chance to get some of the wealth. What else should they be required to do to compete?

No, taking a national idea should not grant that much free power. Just look at how messed up nodes like Frankfurt, Wien and Krakow are. For example Poland conquered entire Krakow node, now you think they can at least sell stuff to its own people? NOPE. Everyone opm in HRE is going to divert trade their way and you end up with like 20% power even if you build everything.

And it's not only the trade idea though. In inland node everybody gets power from trade efficiency. So good luck building all your trade buildings, it still can't match OPM trade efficiency bonus.

The problem here is not the concept, but the numbers. Taking Trade should make you better at trade, but it should be percentage based like +10% damage or +10% tax like everything else. Unlike at sea where you have to build a merchant fleet, on land you just take idea, do some techs, and bam you are trade superpower!

 

[Holland989]

No, taking a national idea should not grant that much free power. Just look at how messed up nodes like Frankfurt, Wien and Krakow are. For example Poland conquered entire Krakow node, now you think they can at least sell stuff to its own people? NOPE. Everyone opm in HRE is going to divert trade their way and you end up with like 20% power even if you build everything.

And it's not only the trade idea though. In inland node everybody gets power from trade efficiency. So good luck building all your trade buildings, it still can't match OPM trade efficiency bonus.

The problem here is not the concept, but the numbers. Taking Trade should make you better at trade, but it should be percentage based like +10% damage or +10% tax like everything else. Unlike at sea where you have to build a merchant fleet, on land you just take idea, do some techs, and bam you are trade superpower!

This. Because all the HRE OPMs have 2 merchants, 1 of which is either placed in Ragusa or Krakow and because they get the inland bonus, so it doesn't actually matter if you own the entire node. It feels weird seeing the Ottomans only getting like 20% of the Ragusa node at most (solely taking provinces into account). Maybe a (small) penalty to trade power if you don't actually own provinces in a trade node would balance things?

 

[Christopholes]

Maybe buff trade power from provinces?

 

[Ranjid]

This. Because all the HRE OPMs have 2 merchants, 1 of which is either placed in Ragusa or Krakow and because they get the inland bonus, so it doesn't actually matter if you own the entire node. It feels weird seeing the Ottomans only getting like 20% of the Ragusa node at most (solely taking provinces into account). Maybe a (small) penalty to trade power if you don't actually own provinces in a trade node would balance things?

A penalty won't help that much. Inland trade steering has to be overhauled. As it is right now it's way too powerful. Ragusa isn't the only example. Try any nation with an inland node. It's impossible to get some money out of your trade. In my current Byz game OPM Genoa who's sitting in Azov is pulling 1/3 of the Persia trade node towards Crimea. That's 12 ducats just because he has a merchant there, while Persia exists and has all it's cores.

 

[A Swell Guy]

This has been happening ever since wealth of nations and the addition of inland steering bonuses to merchants. The problem is that the majority of HRE countries pick trade ideas, and they all end up stacking their merchants in Europe, pulling an insane amount of trade, regardless of whether or not you control every single province in the trade node. This leads to the odd situation where the best way to consolidate trade in a node is to annex every single steering nation upstream, which is completely opposite and counter-intuitive to the trade nation style of play.

 

[Morik]

I have a question--why was the inland steering bonus added? Naively it doesn't seem to make sense to me--isn't trading via ship much faster/profitable? Why would merchants carting stuff overland have an advantage of taking more of the market share?
I assume trade power can be thought of as market share. I.e., how much of the trade my nation is driving.
Why would taking goods inland, vs by boat, increase my market share?

Is it a balance thing? Or do I not have the right mental model with regards to how trade works? (I'm looking to make sense of this from a realism standpoint--if its a balance thing, nuff said. If it is meant to represent some realistic thing that I don't know about, I'm curious what that thing is.)

 

[greendevil]

I have a question--why was the inland steering bonus added? Naively it doesn't seem to make sense to me--isn't trading via ship much faster/profitable? Why would merchants carting stuff overland have an advantage of taking more of the market share?
I assume trade power can be thought of as market share. I.e., how much of the trade my nation is driving.
Why would taking goods inland, vs by boat, increase my market share?

Is it a balance thing? Or do I not have the right mental model with regards to how trade works? (I'm looking to make sense of this from a realism standpoint--if its a balance thing, nuff said. If it is meant to represent some realistic thing that I don't know about, I'm curious what that thing is.)

I have often wondered about the same thing.

 

[aitaituo]

I have a question--why was the inland steering bonus added? Naively it doesn't seem to make sense to me--isn't trading via ship much faster/profitable? Why would merchants carting stuff overland have an advantage of taking more of the market share?
I assume trade power can be thought of as market share. I.e., how much of the trade my nation is driving.
Why would taking goods inland, vs by boat, increase my market share?

Is it a balance thing? Or do I not have the right mental model with regards to how trade works? (I'm looking to make sense of this from a realism standpoint--if its a balance thing, nuff said. If it is meant to represent some realistic thing that I don't know about, I'm curious what that thing is.)

It was thought that inland nodes were too static and difficult to influence, because the only way to increase trade power in them was by conquering provinces and trade buildings.

So they made trade ideas give ludicrously large bonuses to merchants steering to inland nodes, so an OPM with trade ideas has more trade power than a nation with 20 provinces but didn't invest in trade buildings or ideas at all.

 

[Graerth]

Inland steering could be reigned in a bit by applying same method as multiple merchant bonus has on boosting the output of trade node, as in the more inland traders in the node, the less each subsequent merchant would do (think of it as the inland merchants competing so they eat each others power).

Example with numbers out of my hat:
1 nation has a merchant steering towards inland: He gains the amount he now would (+possible national extra modifiers).
2 nations have merchants steering there: They both gain ~75% of the bonus they'd receive now.
3 nations and they'll only receive 66% of current amount.
4 for maybe 60% and if there's 5 or more everyone bonus is halved (maybe even add more steps).

Remember that's just an example and the actual numbers would need to be actually thought over for more than 10 seconds. These could also be relative to "Is it toward same inland node, or any inland node".

Maybe you won't get hurt as bad on your bonus power if all other inland traders are steering to one node while you steer to another alone.

Just a fast thought which would leave some possibility of non-naval trade, but weaken the effect of stacked merchants from small nations on few nodes.

 

[greendevil]

After taking a look at the files I agree that the problem in the urnealistic and too wealthy trading setting also lies in the prices for goods.

Without the Supply & Demand system most prices are awfully similar, and frankly a lot of common goods are way too expensive, making a lot of european nodes way more wealthy than how they actually were at the start. I lowered the prices for Wool, Grain, Fish and Naval Supplies while raising those of Spices and things seem to be better balanced now.