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setting up the east indian trading route for britain?

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pac said:
No, the point is to make as much money as you can at any given time. If you don't have enough merchants, or don't control enough provinces to use as patrol bases, to get the trade all the way back home, just collect it wherever you can make as much as possible.

Also, if you do bring the trade all the way back to London, you are likely to lose some to competitors along the way, and some more to merchants from Antwerp at the very end. Even if they are only getting a relatively small share, thanks to all those multipliers by doing this you are making some competitors very rich! Collect at the Cape, and probably no one else in Europe will see a penny of it.
Click to expand...

Moving trade up a node can add between 20-45% to the value if you have a merchant steering it, so as long as there's less leakage than that (which can probably be done with light ship spam), it's better to have a longer route.
 
calvinhobbeslik said:
Moving trade up a node can add between 20-45% to the value if you have a merchant steering it, so as long as there's less leakage than that (which can probably be done with light ship spam), it's better to have a longer route.
Click to expand...
Thanks, yes, I know how the game works.

But I don't think you read what I wrote.
 
Lauri said:
Light Ships. Use Ligh Ships! If it's a one-way hub, Light Ships protecting your interest there will usually help quite a bit. You don't even need to place a merchant there.
Click to expand...

If you don't have a province or fleet basing rights, yes. Yes you do need a merchant there. Otherwise you won't be allowed to steer trade.
 
pac said:
Thanks, yes, I know how the game works.

But I don't think you read what I wrote.
Click to expand...

I did read what you wrote. Obviously, if you don't have the merchants/light ships, a longer route is harder, but Britain can easily get both.
 
What you wanna do is put effort where you get the most. Try annexing swahili or as much as possible, most importantly zanzibar, then you wont need merchant or ships there. Same with kongo. Get the eastern tip of africa and take some colonies in indus. Assuming indus is the point you wanna steer from, however malacca shouldnt be to hard either if you just mess aceh up. The trouble areas are Gulf of aden, indus, sevilla and bordeaux.... So thats where you want most of your light ships. Then set your merchants to Indus, Aden, sevilla and bordeaux. four merchants so you got a spare.... done. Just a guideline/example it depends a bit on where AI has its merchants, light ships and so on...

EDIT: I forgot to mention that you should grab the CoT in gold coast and south africa too.

EDIT #2: I just read your post again. You are trying to lead the trade around africa, yes? One merchant in Indus steering to aden, one merchant in aden steering to zanzibar, then you wont need any merchants until sevilla... This way you can put your spare (5th) in brazil, caribbean, north america or north sea. Or if Kongo/swahili/mali is collecting a lot in their respective nodes you can save yourself the trouble of taking one of them out.
 
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calvinhobbeslik said:
I did read what you wrote. Obviously, if you don't have the merchants/light ships, a longer route is harder, but Britain can easily get both.
Click to expand...
Okay, I'll try to spell it out then.

Imagine that you're in a multi-player game as England, and have managed to set up a super-long trade route from East Asia all the way back to London. You have a majority of power in each node so that, as you say, you're getting more income from each merchant boost than you're losing to competition. When it gets back to London, you have more money than you know what to do with.

But your rivals in Europe have also been getting loads and loads of money just from the drips and drabs they've siphoned off from you, and they know exactly what to do with it. Your fleet is light ships scattered all over the world. Theirs are heavy ships and transports which — before you know what's happening — have blockaded and invaded you, forcing you to hand over all the outposts you relied on to maintain that world-spanning trade route you invested so much in.

If you'd just collected everything earlier in the route, where you had a total monopoly and before any other Europeans had had a chance to get to skim a penny off you, you would have made a little less, but this would never have happened.

Now, that specific scenario is unlikely, but the general point holds true: in a competitive situation, you do not want such large amounts of money leaking to your rivals. With human opponents (or just more competitive AI), such super-long routes are not going to be feasible. So they're a bad habit to get into.

Lots of posters seems to be very excited over a trivial single-player exploit of the merchant boosting effect at the moment. But if patches do not change it, then the best mods will. And it would not work in a competitive environment anyway. And you can make plenty of money without doing it, so replying to every person asking for advice with trade by saying, 'What you need is this ultra-route from California to Antwerp' is not very helpful.
 
pac said:
No, the point is to make as much money as you can at any given time. If you don't have enough merchants, or don't control enough provinces to use as patrol bases, to get the trade all the way back home, just collect it wherever you can make as much as possible.

Also, if you do bring the trade all the way back to London, you are likely to lose some to competitors along the way, and some more to merchants from Antwerp at the very end. Even if they are only getting a relatively small share, thanks to all those multipliers by doing this you are making some competitors very rich! Collect at the Cape, and probably no one else in Europe will see a penny of it.
Click to expand...

You are not following the thread. Let me explain:
The only way to reach 2000+ value in a trade node is with chain trade steering. No alternative. That's because each time you steer, wealth gets multiplied. To be able to di that you need to have an interrupted connection between Asia and your capital. You need merchants for steering. That's why you don't go collecting in foreign nodes or steer in unconnected nodes.

Phystarstk said:
Go ahead and list my false assumptions.

I'll start by listing yours:
1. "Except that what is shown in that picture is impossible."
Wrong.
2. "There is no way the AI is going to use that many merchants to conveniently steer trade in your direction."
Partially wrong, as you don't need -that- many extra merchants steering to see the result, and you still see lots of steering at end-game as long as your upstream from an AI capital.
3. "Unless it's a mp match and you agree with every other player to do that."
Wrong.

Okay, your turn.
Click to expand...

1. Maybe it's possible. For some. I am saying this simply doesn't happen.
2. AI collects in most of those nodes. Doesn't steer. AI won't conveniently steer towards you. Because AI has capitals in those nodes. It doesn't make sense for them to steer. True. Unless you wipe out capitals in those nodes.
3. This is a part related to point 1 -_-


The things you are assuming is that I mentioned cheating in the first place. Some people seem obsessed with cheating. I have not mentioned it. Quit dreaming. If there is something that makes me cring is when people try to shove things you never said in your mouth. What you call cheating in mp is usually reffered to as "cooperation". Don't you ever work together with some player nations in mp? Or you probably do not play mp. I had a mp game where I was Castile and allied with Portugal. We both agreed to steer towards Sevilla.. Oh wait that's cheating? Please.

Alsn said:
I don't agree. Using exaggerated language like "impossible" is a terrible way to discuss a topic. His comment was warranted as my reaction was exactly the same. You definitely came off as if you were accusing the guy of cheating.
Click to expand...

Oh I am sorry. I shall use IMPROBABLE from now on. Spectacularly improbable.
I think you are another one obsessed with cheating.
 
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pac said:
Okay, I'll try to spell it out then.

Imagine that you're in a multi-player game as England, and have managed to set up a super-long trade route from East Asia all the way back to London. You have a majority of power in each node so that, as you say, you're getting more income from each merchant boost than you're losing to competition. When it gets back to London, you have more money than you know what to do with.

But your rivals in Europe have also been getting loads and loads of money just from the drips and drabs they've siphoned off from you, and they know exactly what to do with it. Your fleet is light ships scattered all over the world. Theirs are heavy ships and transports which — before you know what's happening — have blockaded and invaded you, forcing you to hand over all the outposts you relied on to maintain that world-spanning trade route you invested so much in.

If you'd just collected everything earlier in the route, where you had a total monopoly and before any other Europeans had had a chance to get to skim a penny off you, you would have made a little less, but this would never have happened.

Now, that specific scenario is unlikely, but the general point holds true: in a competitive situation, you do not want such large amounts of money leaking to your rivals. With human opponents (or just more competitive AI), such super-long routes are not going to be feasible. So they're a bad habit to get into.

Lots of posters seems to be very excited over a trivial single-player exploit of the merchant boosting effect at the moment. But if patches do not change it, then the best mods will. And it would not work in a competitive environment anyway. And you can make plenty of money without doing it, so replying to every person asking for advice with trade by saying, 'What you need is this ultra-route from California to Antwerp' is not very helpful.
Click to expand...

Well, I was assuming singleplayer anyway, but I do agree that it's much harder to set up a long route in multiplayer. But then again, most people play SP, so that's why i was thinking from that frame of reference.
 
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