Petition: Don't remove supply and demand

[Te. Kenzo]

How so? You have Slaves with a cost of maybe 2 for a good portion of the game. Until the Triangle Trade comes along and increases it by 50% to 3. Then later on the abolitionists cause the price drop, maybe also by 50%, and slaves go back to costing 2 ducats.

And actually that's a nerf to African nations that have slaves. Currently in 1444 the price of slaves starts at around 2.5 ducats. By 1700 the price of slaves is usually around 8 ducats.

We can say if it work this way, we have seen only a screenshot and a conceptual description, we need to try it before.

 

[Wagonlitz]

The number was an exaggeration, I understand that by properly using the system the delta could be much higher.
However, you mostly care about money when you're small. And when you're small you can barely build a trade fleet, buildings boosting production don't exist yet (they're probably 100 years away), and even if they were available they'd be too expensive to mass build. Controlling the right provinces is hard since they most likely belong to strong and/or faraway states.
And once you do reach the spam production buildings stage it's just more efficient to just conquer anything you can.

You could play a peaceful trade game but a peaceful game of EU4 is a snorefest.

If you're starting as a large country things are just fast forwarded by 100 years. Go conquer and you'll make more money than by super optimizing trade.

Even when somewhat big using the supply demand system can mean you can afford several colonies over the number of colonists or a significantly larger army than else. In either 1.6 or 1.7 I played as Denmark and didn't really expand in Europe. I colonised much of the Americas and Africa thereby securing control over the very important trade nodes there. Then in Asia I initially just tried to control the trade, but slowly started expanding into already inhabited areas. Even though I weren't that big I quickly had an income above 1000 ducats a month which I most certainly did need to sustain my large navy, my somewhat large army and ~8--10 provinces I colonised at the same time.

How so? You have Slaves with a cost of maybe 2 for a good portion of the game. Until the Triangle Trade comes along and increases it by 50% to 3. Then later on the abolitionists cause the price drop, maybe also by 50%, and slaves go back to costing 2 ducats.

And actually that's a nerf to African nations that have slaves. Currently in 1444 the price of slaves starts at around 2.5 ducats. By 1700 the price of slaves is usually around 8 ducats.

We of course don't know how it ends up, but something like that would be bad. Firstly as you mention it would be a nerf to Africa; furthermore it wouldn't make sense that my empire with many West Indian plantations and some slave colonies should make less money on slaves just because some European nations decides to abolish slaves. That already has too big an impact and I fear it will become even more ridicolous, but lets wait and see.

 

[Slym]

At least I can always boot up EU3 and place a single infantry unit on every grain producing province to make it the most expensive good in the world.

I'm sad to see the system go but I really can't fault paradox for doing it. Most players didn't know how it worked (not because it is difficult to understand, there are many more complex systems that players learn, it's just that the reward for learning supply and demand isn't worth it, so no one cares to talk about it or learn it), events bring players' attention to the fact that it might be time to build some production buildings in the crappy slave/ivory producing provinces they conquered in Africa 100 years ago, and better performance is always good, even though I recently made a new computer and don't need it at all, most people (actually almost all people) aren't me.