Is it still profitable to have a presence in India/Indonesia ?

[Magean]

Hi all,

Assuming you're a Western colonial power, with presence in the Americas as well as in India/Indonesia. Most likely, you'll have enough merchants to chain nodes from your American colonies to Europe. Doing so from the Eastern Indies is more difficult, and you'll have to choose. In this situation, what I did before 1.8 was collecting in my strongest Asian node, while chaining trade from the Americas.

But, now, with that feature of the patch :

If you don't collect trade anywhere else, your tradepower in your tradecapital grows by up to 10% per merchant active transferring trade, pending your relative power in the node that merchant is in

You'll lose a lot if you have a merchant abroad who is collecting instead of steering.

So, you can just be satisfied with the one province that enables the Indian Trade Company decision. After that, what's the point of growing an empire in India/Indonesia if you can't collect there, because it would break your "only collecting in capital" bonus ? Of course, if you have enough merchants to steer all the way from India, then it's OK. But it's difficult to do so while profiting from your American empire.

Thanks for your thoughts

 

[Gaamel]

In my current game as France, I have 100% of the tradepower in Bordeaux where I collect (Navarra and two Spanish provinces were annexed). I couldn't care less about bonus TP there, so collecting in Asia/Africa seems profitable.

 

[Taterthomp2]

Trade is and probably will remain for quite a long time, the one thing, i have absolutely no grasp of.

that being said, as a disclaimer XD (ignorant questions incoming)

is +10% tradepower going to make a difference if you already control the nodes?

so if you comnpletely control say, english channel, ...oh

i see that this person say this up there. nevermind.

 

[Denkt]

Move your trade port to somewhere in Africa/India and sacrifice europé trade for mega trade in asia?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Move your trade port to somewhere in Africa/India and sacrifice europé trade for mega trade in asia?

Europe is too valuable for that.

However, yes you can easily get tons of power in Asia and collect trade that you'd otherwise never see, and it will result in more money than just 10% more in home node by a significant amount.

 

[Alerias]

Of course it is but in SP why is a presence in India dependent on collection? I collect in the English channel. My TCs give me tons of merchants. I have holdings and fleet everywhere. My trade is steered from the far east to my Indian holdings to my stuff in Aden to my crusader state in Alexandria to my HYW French holdings to the channel

My issue is owning multiple end nodes. Stuff going to a end node can't be steered away so I MUST collect in Bordeaux too right? Is the trade going there wasted if I don't? Assuming 100% control.

 

[Trademaster]

Conquer some of the trade company charters. That should give you enough merchants. If you get them all you get 11+ merchants.

 

[Taterthomp2]

you guys seem well knowledged.

why is it there is end nodes, and why are inland trade so less valued in my experience?

 

[AdamonEU4]

Well I haven't played since the recent patch, but surely the trade value from the goods is still very useful, also since the 75% autonomy penalty is there any profit from production abroad?l

 

[Denkt]

I see, it only affects your trade power, not income so losing a bit of trade power in your trade nod, espacially if you allready have like 90% of the share is very well worth it for the riches of asia.

 

[Magean]

Europe is too valuable for that.

However, yes you can easily get tons of power in Asia and collect trade that you'd otherwise never see, and it will result in more money than just 10% more in home node by a significant amount.

My problem is that I'm the Hansa and I'm collecting in Lübeck, which suffers from having trade pulled downstream. It's more difficult to ensure ~100% trade power there.

Also, if you've a merchant collecting abroad, you don't lose 10% TP in your capital. You lose much more : you don't get the bonus for your other merchants.
If I understand correctly... Say, you've 5 merchants. All of them are transferring trade abroad, in nodes where you have 75% TP. In your capital, you get a bonus of 7.5% for each of them : that amounts to 37.5% bonus TP. But, if one, and only one of them is collecting abroad, you lose the entire bonus, not only the share of that merchant.


That being said, I didn't know that trade companies gave additional merchants. I haven't had the opportunity to try them before.

 

[Gaamel]

you guys seem well knowledged.

why is it there is end nodes, and why are inland trade so less valued in my experience?

End nodes are a disgusting asset given to certain countries (France with Bordeaux, Spain if you manage to take Tangiers+Portugal, Venice), to make sure they stay wealthy (lucky nations bonus was not enough). Indeed, when you collect in an end node nothing goes out, so you just need to own 100% of the provinces; whereas nodes like Lübeck require an investment in light ships/TP buildings if you want to keep as many value as possible.
Land nodes are not very rewarding because a lot of minors choose the trade ideas, with bonus to trade power when a merchant is steering inland. So when you play Austria and try to collect in Wien, you lose A LOT of TP just because there are literally dozens of minors steering trade to Saxony, Rheinland or Venice with ~50 TP each.

 

[Incompetent]

you guys seem well knowledged.

why is it there is end nodes, and why are inland trade so less valued in my experience?

End nodes exist because trade isn't allowed to go in a loop.

Inland trade can be valuable if you are Russia, say. But as others have said, it's hard to monopolise.