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Originally posted by Garbon
I think we also run into the problem that pagan nations is such a large category. In West Africa neither Songhai, Benin, or Oyo had problems trading whereas the less organized Mossi and Ashanti did. All of which, however, start off as pagan nations; but, it doesn't seem right to penalize them as I don't think CoTs in the ROTW can really be interpreted the same way as European CoTs. If Portugal was to have traders in an 'Ivoria' CoT, they wouldn't have historically been competing with Oyo for slaves, and so it wouldn't make sense if they were to gain a 'monopoly'.

Why not? Portuguese controlled the slave trade and gained the bulk of its profit for centuries, since they went to Ivoria to buy the slavefrom Oyo landlords and sold them in the American side of Atlantic.

I think that once Europeans know routes to a ROTW CoT, they should get the most of the pie.
 
Originally posted by berhaven
It's not the same. The owner advantage for CoTs in Europe actually reflect merchantilistic trade barriers. The importance of - say - Venice, Antwerpen or Hansa was top be a point of junction between different "worlds" so you actually had English merchants going to Antwerpen to sell their carises and buy dutch fish.
And its the same idea for many areas in Asia. Maybe in Africa and America is different, but you shouldn't just blanket everyone outside of europe.

BUT I still stand my opinion that merchant level represents merely the overall influence of a particiular country within a market.
 
Originally posted by Sun_Zi_36
does trade efficiency affect the monthly income you recieve from your merchants though?
Yes. 3rd line in the income section of the financial summary screen, as well as shown in the mouseover hints when viewing a CoT. You know this :)
 
Originally posted by Jinnai
And its the same idea for many areas in Asia. Maybe in Africa and America is different, but you shouldn't just blanket everyone outside of europe.

BUT I still stand my opinion that merchant level represents merely the overall influence of a particiular country within a market.

Maybe the solution is a bit too aggressive:eek:
I concede that we could try different approaches, like lowering the cost of placing traders in owned CoTs even if they are far away from home capital (but I guess it's hard coded), or - as I said before - launching event-driven embargoes against the others.

My question remains: are we really sure that we currently represent in the best possible way the dramatic impact of overseas european trade?

I'm pretty sure we don't. The paradox is that a rich european trading country (let's say Venice in 1400, Portugal in 1500, Netherlands in 1600 and England in 1700) with a lot of CoTs and a high trade level finds itself expanding revenues from European goods only (having a competitive advantage in Europe) and not in long distance trade, unless produced in own colonies, since it is unable to outtrade Native Americans, Africans and Eastern countries.

What is the point for Japan to stricly close itself to foreign trade, if it is not giving any bad?
 
I agree, but I'm not sure that there is a viable solution that won't mess up everything.
 
There are some indirect ways.

We cannot change prices for merchants based on who owns CoT
We cannot for embargos through events
We cannot add merchants into a CoT via events

We can make the AI more or less aggresive with sending out merchants
We can add/remove merchants in a pool via events
We can change domestic sliders via events
 
Originally posted by Jinnai
We can make the AI more or less aggresive with sending out merchants

It think this is the main problem. When I played Sweden recently I was going to try and monoplize Shanghai at some point in the 17th century, so I put a lvl 2 merchant colony in there, but some war or whatever got in the way and I was distracted.

When I returned, like a 100 years later, the merchants where still holding those positions... You'd think that the AI nations and especially China would be intressted in claiming those incredibly rich markets for themselves, but apperantly they don't really care. Nice guys, if a bit dense, those AI traders...
 
Originally posted by berhaven
What is the point for Japan to stricly close itself to foreign trade, if it is not giving any bad?
they probably just dont want to allow foreigners taking benefits from their country while they dont need to trade in foreign markets. Domestic markets in Japan/China was barely threatened during the EU2 timeframe.
Originally posted by Peter Ebbesen
Yes. 3rd line in the income section of the financial summary screen, as well as shown in the mouseover hints when viewing a CoT. You know this :)
yea but it doesnt say whether the efficiency % is affected by the religious modifier and i never tried to calculate those things.
 
Originally posted by Sun_Zi_36

yea but it doesnt say whether the efficiency % is affected by the religious modifier and i never tried to calculate those things.
It is. The percentage you read in the financial summary is the sum of the tech, religious, dp-, and manufactory modifier. That is what make reformed countries such trading monsters.
 
ok. i guess i was pretty stupid to have asked anyway coz the religious modifier says it affects trade eff and if the % in the financial summary doesnt reflect this it would have been spotted as a bug a long time ago.:eek:

so maybe we could increase the trade eff for european religions and/or decrease the trade eff for other religions to make it more attractive for europeans to place merchants overseas if people think thats the problem.
 
Originally posted by Sun_Zi_36

so maybe we could increase the trade eff for european religions and/or decrease the trade eff for other religions to make it more attractive for europeans to place merchants overseas if people think thats the problem.
Pardon me for shouting: It is already more than easy enough for Europeans to dominate trade all over the world. The locals just do not stand a chance when superior trading trade tech and/or dp-settings come into play during the mid-sixteenth century.

It looks as if people are trying to address an AI problem (the AI being an incompetent trader) by changing the rules of trade by giving bonuses to European nations in such a way as to make it:
  • Harder to play ROTW nations for a player, if you reduce their trade efficiency [lest people forget, the trade efficiency determines the trade taxes as well as the merchant income] (something that can be hard alread)
  • Easier to play European nations for a player (something that is usually easy enough already)

I consider these two side-effects most undesirable, just as I fear the potential impact on MP gaming of even easier and/or wealthier European trading.
 
*and now for something completely different*

IF there is a consensus that overseas trade/colonising/tp'ing isn't giving the economic power it gave IRL.. we might also consider a boatload of events to generate cash for europeans who do the trading/colonising/tp'ing.. just an option :)
 
Originally posted by ForzaA

IF there is a consensus that overseas trade/colonising/tp'ing isn't giving the economic power it gave IRL..
There is not such a consensus.
 
Last edited:
Originally posted by ForzaA
IF there is a consensus that overseas trade/colonising/tp'ing isn't giving the economic power it gave IRL.. we might also consider a boatload of events to generate cash for europeans who do the trading/colonising/tp'ing.. just an option :)
We can change the AI:s for some nations and add extra merchants in already existing events for trader states. But for a player to trade in ROTW it is easy enough now.
 
Originally posted by mnorrefeldt
We can change the AI:s for some nations and add extra merchants in already existing events for trader states. But for a player to trade in ROTW it is easy enough now.

This can be true for the XVIII century, once the trade level of a Trader State player can be 8 or more. It does not to be very true for - say - Portugal in early XVI century, i.e. the time when historically they had their golden era. The chance and cost of getting (and keeping) a monopoly in Malacca once they own it is likely to disrupt its economy.

But the question is not just competition against ROTW, but also against Euro power who know the route to a CoT but have not the infrastructure (chain of ports and/or a strong enough fleet) to support long distance trade routes.

For the game as it is today is infinately less expensive for a human player to get the knowledge of CoTs by a tricky behaviour (for example declare war and conquer Sardinia or Sicily when they are released by Spain) and then compete without building the necessary infrastructure.

In real world Portuguese (and later Dutch) control of the sea lanes was so strict that minor powers never were successful with their India companies.

During the 30 years war, for example, Venice established a company for oceanic trade, but its ships (built in the Netherlands) were seized and captured by Portuguese in the Indian Ocean.

My attempt is just to raise the question: can we do something to give a "bonus" for control of overseas CoTs to a dominant naval power?
 
Originally posted by berhaven

But the question is not just competition against ROTW, but also against Euro power who know the route to a CoT but have not the infrastructure (chain of ports and/or a strong enough fleet) to support long distance trade routes.

For the game as it is today is infinately less expensive for a human player to get the knowledge of CoTs by a tricky behaviour (for example declare war and conquer Sardinia or Sicily when they are released by Spain) and then compete without building the necessary infrastructure.

In real world Portuguese (and later Dutch) control of the sea lanes was so strict that minor powers never were successful with their India companies.

My attempt is just to raise the question: can we do something to give a "bonus" for control of overseas CoTs to a dominant naval power?

I understand what you are saying. This is however not the same thing as getting totally rid of the merchants of less developed states. The 1.07betas also have removed the possibility to plunder a capital for maps, you'll get the same amount of maps as you get when stealing rutter i.e. just a few. IMHO it has proved it difficult enough for non-naval powers to not start trading in the east to soon.
 
Originally posted by mnorrefeldt
I understand what you are saying. This is however not the same thing as getting totally rid of the merchants of less developed states. The 1.07betas also have removed the possibility to plunder a capital for maps, you'll get the same amount of maps as you get when stealing rutter i.e. just a few. IMHO it has proved it difficult enough for non-naval powers to not start trading in the east to soon.

This last change definitely helps a lot.

In any case I still do not understand how we can have Mayas or Atzecs trading sugar or coffee between themselves before the introduction of these goods by the Spaniards, or NA natives trading cotton (again introduced by the europeans) or even furs. In any case they were absolutely unable to capitalize even a minimal amount of the profit coming from the roaming European demand of "colonial" goods. Not to speak of Oyos making money from slaves.
 
Originally posted by berhaven
This last change definitely helps a lot.

In any case I still do not understand how we can have Mayas or Atzecs trading sugar or coffee between themselves before the introduction of these goods by the Spaniards, or NA natives trading cotton (again introduced by the europeans) or even furs. In any case they were absolutely unable to capitalize even a minimal amount of the profit coming from the roaming European demand of "colonial" goods. Not to speak of Oyos making money from slaves.
Because the spanish introduced them to europe, not america...
 
Originally posted by Jinnai
Because the spanish introduced them to europe, not america...

Maybe you're thinking about cocoa, tobacco, potatoes and tomatoes...

Sugar cane was introduced in Sicily and Andalusia by the Arabs, and grown in the Americas by Europeans.

Coffee comes from the Kaffa region and grows wild in Abyssinia. Again, the Europeans found a suitable enviroment for it un the Americas.