|AXiN| said:
Indeed. I see nothing wrong with them, and I SP only.
Unfortuantely you've summed up many people's opinions on this matter all too well.
But the fact that you or anybody else for that matter doesn't see anything wrong with them doesn't mean that there isn't anything wrong with them. It just means that you like many others haven't been paying attention to what's wrong with them. I'll be dry and technical friend so as to make you aware of the problem and hopefully not offend anyone in the process.
TEs and TAs have no viable usage to us humans. Although some of us may mistakingly believe that the trade efficiency penalties aren't that big of a deal, the fact is that they are. Trade efficiency losses results not only in the loss of income per merchant in COTs but also the loss of trade tax in every single province you own, including TPs. No province in your entire empire is unaffected by even one TE or TA. In addition to this the diminshed trade efficiency decreases the lifespans of your existing merchants as well as decreases the chances that recently placed merchants will be successful. This all translates into quite alot of dough.
Realistically the only really useful way to use TEs or TAs would be if you are a really small country and a TA or 2 would have a direct impact on you being able to double or say triple the amount of merchants you can sustain as active at a given time. The problem with this tactic is that human players don't stay small. They get big fast and then even a few more merchants being active isn't worth the loss of income from the 4 areas I mentioned above and consequently is not a viable options for us humans. In fact even if you made TAs early as a small country the benfit would probably not outweigh the CBs given to the countries that you break TAs with later as by the time it's no longer profitable for you to maintain them, you won't be big enough to survive the attacks of AIs, without a net financial loss bigger than your previous profit from the use of the TAs, that would most likely be your competitors. They would of course most likely be the AIs that are larger than you.
Altough Lawkeeper, Jinnai, and yourself may suppose that there is no big problem, undoubtedly because you aren't actually paying attention, while playing/playtesting a game, to what I'm talking about and doing the math while doing so, the second you actually look into what I'm talking about you'll find out that what I'm saying is correct. Until you do this, since apparently you are genuinely unaware of the effects of what I'm talking about, I reccommend you keep an open mind about the matter and not just suppose that I must be incorrect.
And as far as AIs are concerned, they of course only lose from them as they tend to stagnate around mid 30s to low 40s, in ducats anually per merchant, as of mid game. You see the penalties on them are so severe that when they hit trade tech 4, after they've gone through a bout of TEs, they actually lose trade efficiency overall not gain trade efficiency. Yes that's right they literally go down in income when they hit trade tech 4. Hard to believe? But the second you actually observe what I'm talking about, you'll know that I have a valid point as far as AIs and the trade efficicency penalties they incur from TEs and TAs. How could anyone, who actually does understand how these penalties are effecting the game, not think that it is crippling to AIs? It's pure math, zero opinion, although it does require actually paying attention to the matter to realize that the problem is genuinely there.
I hope this information was useful to you all and/or encourages you to actually go ahead and observe this phenomen. My apologies if I sound too abraisive. It's not my intention.
