Steering Trade from Asia to Europe

[drchaos2000]

is this even possible or intended to do so ? or are you just supposed to let your traders collect in asia if you control all of india ?

to steer the trade back to europe lets assume the best case seville (london would be even worse)

you have to go through Aden, Sansibar, Cape Hope, Kongo, Ivory Coast, Mauretania. thats 6 merchants...+ the one or two in india it self. china or indonesia would only make that worse.

even as merchant republic that resettled in seville with trade and expansion you wont ever have enough merchants to steer trade like this.


or is there a concept that i dont realize ?

 

[t2ange]

You'll often find the other colonial powers helping you out. It's in Spain's interest, for example, to also pull trade in the same direction. Let them do the work in Kongo and Ivory Coast or whatever, as it basically has the same result.

 

[drchaos2000]

but but... i am the only colonial power worth mentioning. i did my best to cut them all down....

 

[Quivis]

You'll often find the other colonial powers helping you out. It's in Spain's interest, for example, to also pull trade in the same direction. Let them do the work in Kongo and Ivory Coast or whatever, as it basically has the same result.

Also, it's easy to conquer some trade nodes entirely (like Congo), and 100% of the trade will be automatically steered without any merchants or fleet.

 

[Ju Li An]

You don't need merchants in most african ports - those that have only one exit. as long as you have at least ONE province in that trade node, send light ships to boost your trade power. the trade will automatically flow to your home port.
You kinda need a merchant in gulf of Aden, so that the trade doesn't go through europe, but around africa. For zanzibar, cape of GH, congo, you don't need any merchant there. just a province and some light ships - if you don't have a province, then you need a merchant and some light ships. And if there are other european trading powers, you don't even need that - the only point of trade power in those nodes is that the "home" nations (like swahili, kongo, mali..) don't eat your profits.
then a merchant on ivory coast to send it all to mauritan coast, there again no need for a merchant.
So basically 2 merchants and you can get trade from china, no problems.

EDIT: Merchants are only really usefull for two things: a) picking the best route in a multi-exit trade node b) allowing you to send light ships to nodes where you have no provinces.

 

[jeppev]

Yes - You are overlooking that tradenodes can exists as one-way only. So you dont need to place merchants to direct to trade because only direction is possible. Without the merchant you will auto steer in that one direction per default. You will miss out on the +20% value boost without the merchant though, but since we are talking merchant cap, this is not the issue =)

A strategy for sending trade around is building chains based upon one-way trade nodes, and stragically placed merchants in multidirectionally trade-nodes. To control the one-way trade nodes in your chain or chains - max or two chains I would advice; you need to keep in mind that you will need close to a monopoly, to stop natives, other players or AIs to place merchants and collects your trade. Don't go overboard, usually the natives has in the tens of tradepower, which is easily dealt with. And other players showing and collecting requires a physical pressence (province), which should keep you from being taken by surprise.

 

[t2ange]

You don't need merchants in most african ports - those that have only one exit. as long as you have at least ONE province in that trade node, send light ships to boost your trade power. the trade will automatically flow to your home port.
You kinda need a merchant in gulf of Aden, so that the trade doesn't go through europe, but around africa. For zanzibar, cape of GH, congo, you don't need any merchant there. just a province and some light ships - if you don't have a province, then you need a merchant and some light ships. And if there are other european trading powers, you don't even need that - the only point of trade power in those nodes is that the "home" nations (like swahili, kongo, mali..) don't eat your profits.
then a merchant on ivory coast to send it all to mauritan coast, there again no need for a merchant.
So basically 2 merchants and you can get trade from china, no problems.

EDIT: Merchants are only really usefull for two things: a) picking the best route in a multi-exit trade node b) allowing you to send light ships to nodes where you have no provinces.

c) Collecting in your capital trade node. Or is that just me? I like an extra 10%...

 

[Gladki]

You dont need merchants in nodes that have only one way downstream. For example Cape Hope, Zanzibar or Kongo just put enough trade ships there to send everything downstream. During my England game i was able to pull trade from beyond Ceylon to London through Caribbean and Chesapeake Bay with 5 Merchants (Ceylon, Aden, Ivory Coast, Caribbean, Chesapeake Bay).

 

[Ju Li An]

For example my english trade empire - I have 50 light ships each in Ceylon and Indus. no merchants. Then 80 ships and a merchant in gulf of aden to route it south. Then just a few ships in all the african nodes, then a merchant and 50 ships on ivory coast, routing it to carribean. Merchant+ships in carribean routing it to chesapeake, a merchant+ships there to route it to london. so 4 merchants, I can place the remaining 3 I have in some other nodes to give a boost to the trade value there.

 

[Kaiser Ludwig]

c) Collecting in your capital trade node. Or is that just me? I like an extra 10%...

Depends on how much more money he can bring in by steering from further away... If the node is worth 100, and you collect 50%, you get 50. If there's a merchant, that's 60. But if you send the merchant to a rich area and help steer trade, which increasesin value... well, now the node isn't just worth 100, but say, 130. Now you get 50% of that, which is 65. You'd have to test what gives you the higher income, though. Too many variables to generalize.

 

[Heliocon]

With the new changes to the trade nodes, playing Portugal is it worth collecting at Ivory Coast if I have high trade power there or routing it to the western Europe node where a large chunk of it will be taken by other nations?

 

[Heliocon]

bump, someone please let me know your opinion on this.

 

[hwoosh]

Test it out and do whichever is more profitable, obviously. We can't tell you which is more profitable in your situation because you have the numbers, not us.

However, if a lot of WETN value is being sucked away by other nations, then yes, it's quite likely that collecting upstream of WETN will be better for you.