Make downstream trade a multiplier

[Hirron]

Right now NA trade has been rendered pretty much worthless by the fact that in nodes such as the Caribbean can have 400+ Trade power from European nodes (Colonizing every province will give you about 100, or in other words 20%). You also get somewhat silly situations such as most of Tunis trade going to Servile with out a single trade ship, province or investment whatsoever.

Making downstream trade a multiplier would make trade networks more strong and encourage controlling trade over longer series of nodes. It would also mean that for anybody who right now is unfortunate enough to have to collect trade neighboring an end node has a way to take control of their own node by owning enough provinces.

Ideas ? Comments ?

 

[Schmoekoeksklok]

I really like this idea. I've never been a big fan of trade power propagation in it's current form, but the idea that it would make anything you do in those nodes more powerful is much more appealing then just getting a bunch of trade power for free (which in many cases completely dwarfs any trade power that can be amassed locally).

 

[Hirron]

This change would possibly strengthen small trading states as well given that giants won't simply auto-siphon everything around them.

 

[Aries666]

Playing a Kongo game, top 4 traders in Ivory coast at the start, England, Castile, Portugal and France from downstream transfers, not you know one of the plethora of nations that actually have a presence there, hell the Europeans havent even discovered the node!

 

[kitemasaki]

I agree 100%. The current downstream power is overpowered for little effort. If you do not have at least ships or a province in a node it should dbreak down that bonus. You shouldnt get power for having no presence.

 

[Jephery]

Agreed. Its silly that the moment Europeans discover a node, suddenly everyone there is instantly sending gold to Europe.

 

[VampireBoot]

Downstream trade power has gotten pretty overpowered. Instead of being encouraged to send a few trade ships to each of several nodes thanks to diminishing returns, I'm instead very hesitant to send ships anywhere other than my home node, since that gives so much extra trade power in downstream nodes. The WETN buffered the effects of this in previous patches, but now that it's gone, I can dominate New World trade without ever sending ships outside of Europe.

 

[kitemasaki]

They need to get rid of the fixed downstream pathing for EU5. Force the player(s) to invest in ships and trade to steer global trade in the direction they want making Trade Companies and Ports even more valuable. When the Europeans start feeling the money bag thin out, they will invest more in trade as a whole.

 

[Ultrix Prime]

Agreed. Its silly that the moment Europeans discover a node, suddenly everyone there is instantly sending gold to Europe.

Except that they're the ones that basically opened and controlled these trade routes, sent explorers out left and right to find better ones, funded expeditions solely focused on how to improve and expand trade, fought wars over trade and so on.

The Europeans *did* drive trade and, in fact, coffee, sugar, textiles, and so forth were driven from a trading standpoint by Europe in terms of money, volume, effort, national goals, you name it.

During the colonial era, the europeans colonized, subjugated and dominated much of planet Earth over trade. Their merchants profited mightily and very much more so than the locals they did business with in places like north africa, the middle east and asia. That was actually the point - buy low and sell high. The trade lines and the way they pull tends to reflect this.

I can certainly understand wanting to have Tunis or Morocco (Safi) be a dominant trade power ahead of Sevilla - but then what you're really saying is that they should be able to achieve economic parity in trade wealth when, in fact, either country being able to best Spain in trade income would be a good bit more "silly" it seems like.

*However*, rather than be unhappy with the trade lines, play the game to dominate them. So, yes, Tunis isn't a great place to try to build up trade power and make money; however, if you go conquer Alexandria, it turns out that with the addition of Aleppo you can basically dominate trade in terms of the money you make by driving Indian and Central Asian trade into Alexandria.

This is a big buff to Alexandria in 1.8 btw. In 1.7 and before, Persia went straight into Constantinople and thus making Alexandria into a huge money maker was perhaps possible, but extremely difficult as compared to simply getting Constantinople (simply - lol ). But with 1.8, if you're anywhere around, from Morocco to India, drive for Alexandria, pick up trade ideas and lay your merchants out to drive trade there and you'll soon enough have Alexandria as the new Constantinople. Given it's location and the relative weakness of the Mamluks being between various rocks and hard places (check out Ethiopia's starting tax base - they've gone from protectorate food to potential beast), driving to Alexandria and making it into a dominant trade hub wherein you drive all your trade power vis-a-vis your conquests, seems a very valid approach to countering European and Ottoman trade power.

Just a thought.

 

[kitemasaki]

Except that they're the ones that basically opened and controlled these trade routes, sent explorers out left and right to find better ones, funded expeditions solely focused on how to improve and expand trade, fought wars over trade and so on.

The Europeans *did* drive trade and, in fact, coffee, sugar, textiles, and so forth were driven from a trading standpoint by Europe in terms of money, volume, effort, national goals, you name it.

I don't think anybody would try to refute what you are saying. The point is that you should have to invest in trade to get trade, which Europe did and it paid off greatly for them. Right now, you can just sit back and reap the rewards of another nation that is doing the work. That is just bad game play. The great thing about the game is the ahistorical outcomes of every single session. If you want Europe to repeat the successes of trade, then you must invest in its development.

 

[ahyangyi]

I completely agree. My Tunis' trade was dirt poor.

Ironically, I can't get my investment back by protecting trade at home node, which is overwhelmed by the about 1,000 trade power from Portugal and about 800 trade power from Spain. And now that the trade embargo doesn't work I literally had no way to get rid of their trade power besides outright conquest, which I only managed to pull off on 1814 (after noticing the "Son of Carthage" achievement).

However, since the Seville node is quite rich, privateering Seville gives me much more return than protecting my own trade node... Well I can't complain, since this is the Berber nations' way to play this game after all..

 

[Santoes]

All of the nodes that lead somewhere are junk right now. You could control all the territories and still only get 60% of the trade and it makes no sense. There's absolutely no reason to steer trade unless you control a node that doesn't lead anywhere.

 

[Owl Raider]

Except that they're the ones that basically opened and controlled these trade routes, sent explorers out left and right to find better ones, funded expeditions solely focused on how to improve and expand trade, fought wars over trade and so on.

The Europeans *did* drive trade and, in fact, coffee, sugar, textiles, and so forth were driven from a trading standpoint by Europe in terms of money, volume, effort, national goals, you name it.

During the colonial era, the europeans colonized, subjugated and dominated much of planet Earth over trade. Their merchants profited mightily and very much more so than the locals they did business with in places like north africa, the middle east and asia. That was actually the point - buy low and sell high. The trade lines and the way they pull tends to reflect this.

I can certainly understand wanting to have Tunis or Morocco (Safi) be a dominant trade power ahead of Sevilla - but then what you're really saying is that they should be able to achieve economic parity in trade wealth when, in fact, either country being able to best Spain in trade income would be a good bit more "silly" it seems like.

*However*, rather than be unhappy with the trade lines, play the game to dominate them. So, yes, Tunis isn't a great place to try to build up trade power and make money; however, if you go conquer Alexandria, it turns out that with the addition of Aleppo you can basically dominate trade in terms of the money you make by driving Indian and Central Asian trade into Alexandria.

This is a big buff to Alexandria in 1.8 btw. In 1.7 and before, Persia went straight into Constantinople and thus making Alexandria into a huge money maker was perhaps possible, but extremely difficult as compared to simply getting Constantinople (simply - lol ). But with 1.8, if you're anywhere around, from Morocco to India, drive for Alexandria, pick up trade ideas and lay your merchants out to drive trade there and you'll soon enough have Alexandria as the new Constantinople. Given it's location and the relative weakness of the Mamluks being between various rocks and hard places (check out Ethiopia's starting tax base - they've gone from protectorate food to potential beast), driving to Alexandria and making it into a dominant trade hub wherein you drive all your trade power vis-a-vis your conquests, seems a very valid approach to countering European and Ottoman trade power.

Just a thought.

Historically Tunisia and the other Berber nations remained small and never amounted for much. In the game however you can conquer a ton of land as Tunisia and become extremely big and powerful. Yet as far as trade goes you'll still suffer greatly because most of the trade you're sending from your own colonies(which never happened in real life either for Tunisia and the other Berbers) back home, the Iberians steal most of it to Seville without investing anything into it, only strengthening their own trade power in Seville. Historical arguments only hold water in historical settings. When you change history historical arguments no longer hold any water.

 

[Jephery]

Except that they're the ones that basically opened and controlled these trade routes, sent explorers out left and right to find better ones, funded expeditions solely focused on how to improve and expand trade, fought wars over trade and so on.

The Europeans *did* drive trade and, in fact, coffee, sugar, textiles, and so forth were driven from a trading standpoint by Europe in terms of money, volume, effort, national goals, you name it.

During the colonial era, the europeans colonized, subjugated and dominated much of planet Earth over trade. Their merchants profited mightily and very much more so than the locals they did business with in places like north africa, the middle east and asia. That was actually the point - buy low and sell high. The trade lines and the way they pull tends to reflect this.

I can certainly understand wanting to have Tunis or Morocco (Safi) be a dominant trade power ahead of Sevilla - but then what you're really saying is that they should be able to achieve economic parity in trade wealth when, in fact, either country being able to best Spain in trade income would be a good bit more "silly" it seems like.

*However*, rather than be unhappy with the trade lines, play the game to dominate them. So, yes, Tunis isn't a great place to try to build up trade power and make money; however, if you go conquer Alexandria, it turns out that with the addition of Aleppo you can basically dominate trade in terms of the money you make by driving Indian and Central Asian trade into Alexandria.

This is a big buff to Alexandria in 1.8 btw. In 1.7 and before, Persia went straight into Constantinople and thus making Alexandria into a huge money maker was perhaps possible, but extremely difficult as compared to simply getting Constantinople (simply - lol ). But with 1.8, if you're anywhere around, from Morocco to India, drive for Alexandria, pick up trade ideas and lay your merchants out to drive trade there and you'll soon enough have Alexandria as the new Constantinople. Given it's location and the relative weakness of the Mamluks being between various rocks and hard places (check out Ethiopia's starting tax base - they've gone from protectorate food to potential beast), driving to Alexandria and making it into a dominant trade hub wherein you drive all your trade power vis-a-vis your conquests, seems a very valid approach to countering European and Ottoman trade power.

Just a thought.

We have mechanics for simulating that: Colonial Nations, Transfer Trade Power, Protecting Trade, Protectorates, and Trade Companies.

Europeans should have to actually use those instead of getting free trade power downstream.

 

[PiriReis]

Playing a Kongo game, top 4 traders in Ivory coast at the start, England, Castile, Portugal and France from downstream transfers, not you know one of the plethora of nations that actually have a presence there, hell the Europeans havent even discovered the node!

Yeah its silly.

 

[Ranjid]

Why are you so hung up on Europeans? This is not a european problem, you know? Try playing in Indonesia. 15 out of a 75 total ducats are drawn towards Bengal in my current game. Despite me owning all the provinces with fully built up Dip buildings and a 100 ship strong trade fleet guarding it. Bengal has a (1) ship and a merchant there.

 

[Zqrfmb]

Downstream trade power has gotten pretty overpowered. Instead of being encouraged to send a few trade ships to each of several nodes thanks to diminishing returns, I'm instead very hesitant to send ships anywhere other than my home node, since that gives so much extra trade power in downstream nodes. The WETN buffered the effects of this in previous patches, but now that it's gone, I can dominate New World trade without ever sending ships outside of Europe.

AI portugal is well aware of this and has 416 trade ships in sevilla, the node itself gets 180 ducats, in my game.

 

[ahyangyi]

Why are you so hung up on Europeans? This is not a european problem, you know? Try playing in Indonesia. 15 out of a 75 total ducats are drawn towards Bengal in my current game. Despite me owning all the provinces with fully built up Dip buildings and a 100 ship strong trade fleet guarding it. Bengal has a (1) ship and a merchant there.

This is not an European problem. This is a problem that happens when your trade node has at least one outgoing edge. It's at its worst if its destination node is super rich.

All end nodes are European and they are all super rich.

 

[Denkt]

AI portugal is well aware of this and has 416 trade ships in sevilla, the node itself gets 180 ducats, in my game.

Im trying to think how that would work:
At the court of the Ming Empire:
Trade advisor: Recent reports have shown that out trade income have decreased to only 10% of what we had at our peak only 50 years ago.
Our merchants complain they now very seldom get any offers to purcase the goods produced in our provinces.
Emperor: Even with all markets and depos that our provinces got?
Trade advisor: Noone attends our markets and our depos are all completly empty.
Emperor: But how can this come, our trade buildings should help us get more trade?
Trade advisor: Reports say that our provinces send their goods forward to the barbaric lands of such primitive nations like Spain, Portugal, France and England, nations that not even know of our existens.
This trend have also been noted in the other nations that we know of.
Emperor: But if these nations don't know of our existens, how can they project trade power all the way to our lands.
Trade advisor: The latest patch made it so that trade power is at large transfered from downsteam nodes to upstream nodes, rumor say that this is a fact these nations are well aware off such that each of them got such a large fleet patrolling their home node that it is literally a wall off wood, each of them have many thousends of trade power in their home node which is then transfered to our nodes.
Emperor: Can't we stop them?
Trade advisor: For the benifint of getting controll over our trade again, it would never pay for the cost of doing an very risky intercontintal invasion, for our benifint it would be better just forgetting about trade for the rest of the game.

I don't like that you can dominate trade in nodes you don't have any presence in, you should have to get provinces and ships to these nodes to be able to controll trade in them, not just have 1k ships protecting trade in your home node.

 

[ahyangyi]

Im trying to think how that would work:
At the court of the Ming Empire:
Trade advisor: Recent reports have shown that out trade income have decreased to only 10% of what we had at our peak only 50 years ago.
Our merchants complain they now very seldom get any offers to purcase the goods produced in our provinces.
Emperor: Even with all markets and depos that our provinces got?
Trade advisor: Noone attends our markets and our depos are all completly empty.
Emperor: But how can this come, our trade buildings should help us get more trade?
Trade advisor: Reports say that our provinces send their goods forward to the barbaric lands of such primitive nations like Spain, Portugal, France and England, nations that not even know of our existens.
This trend have also been noted in the other nations that we know of.
Emperor: But if these nations don't know of our existens, how can they project trade power all the way to our lands.
Trade advisor: The latest patch made it so that trade power is at large transfered from downsteam nodes to upstream nodes, rumor say that this is a fact these nations are well aware off such that each of them got such a large fleet patrolling their home node that it is literally a wall off wood, each of them have many thousends of trade power in their home node which is then transfered to our nodes.
Emperor: Can't we stop them?
Trade advisor: For the benifint of getting controll over our trade again, it would never pay for the cost of doing an very risky intercontintal invasion, for our benifint it would be better just forgetting about trade for the rest of the game.

I don't like that you can dominate trade in nodes you don't have any presence in, you should have to get provinces and ships to these nodes to be able to controll trade in them, not just have 1k ships protecting trade in your home node.

For more fun, replace "trade advisor" with "eunuch" (Apparently according to Paradox eunuchs are the only guys in Ming who knows something about trading)