protect trade.. think i'm going to cry. :(

[unmerged(15324)]

So I'm playing a Brandenburg -> Prussia -> Germany game. Colonized pretty much the entire east coast of the US, picked trade ideas. I've been steering trade from the Gulf of Lawrence to the North Sea and protecting it with ships for pretty much 200 years. Built a very nice income. Ofc I have my light ships set to go home at war. However, after my last war my ships went back to the Gulf of St Lawrence ... and just sat there. Tried sending them back to port and hitting "protect trade" again and then the node wasn't even there, despite my ships being in the region and a present merchant. After a couple of months the node appeared in the list again but once again once it starts patrolling it just cancels.

My capital is in Brandenburg, my trade range is 450. I've been doing this for almost two centuries and I can protect nodes that are even further away. What could've caused this?

 

[Wizzington]

Have you checked that your ships have supply range to the seazones there?

 

[unmerged(15324)]

I'll have to check. What could cause it to change though when I've had the same network going for 150+ years?

 

[Dr. B]

Do you directly own any provinces in the node or are there *only* colonial nations there?

I think maybe you have to own a province directly to be able to protect trade, so if you have colonized them all then you have to rely on your CN and not your own ships. I'm not 100% sure of this, but you can compare with other nodes to check. It was like this some time ago.

It would explain your situation, if you have recently turned your last colonies in the region i to colonial nations.

 

[canuckinmontrea]

Do you directly own any provinces in the node or are there *only* colonial nations there?

I think maybe you have to own a province directly to be able to protect trade, so if you have colonized them all then you have to rely on your CN and not your own ships. I'm not 100% sure of this, but you can compare with other nodes to check. It was like this some time ago.

It would explain your situation, if you have recently turned your last colonies in the region i to colonial nations.

In my Portugal game, I was able to protect trade in the caribbean despite only having CN's there, so it's possible to do it, however, this issue started to happen:

My ships took some damage at one point, and would immediately sail to MY closest port, not a CN's, for repairs. That trip would take them over open sea zones damaging them some more. They would park in my port and repair, then when at 100% would try to sail back to the caribbean, over an open sea zone taking minor damage. Then they'd immediately turn around and go back to my port for repairs.

Over and over, so they, in effect, were not protecting trade at all.

Eventually I forced them to park in Jamaica to repair, and once at 100% sent them to protect trade again, and things were ok, I assume until they accidentally take damage again.

 

[brifbates]

Do you directly own any provinces in the node or are there *only* colonial nations there?

I think maybe you have to own a province directly to be able to protect trade, so if you have colonized them all then you have to rely on your CN and not your own ships. I'm not 100% sure of this, but you can compare with other nodes to check. It was like this some time ago.

It would explain your situation, if you have recently turned your last colonies in the region i to colonial nations.

Having only CNs sometimes glitches things. Try sailing the fleet into harbor in your CN then giving the order...