Suggestion to Change the Trade Routes to Constantinople

[2dsoul]

So in my recent games playing around Persia and the Crimean region, it's come to my attention that the current node routing to Constantinople is heavily flawed. For one, the Crimea node doesn't make much sense to include Georgia and Trebizond, especially with the Caucasus mountains dividing the mountainous Caucasian kingdoms from the steppe hordes to the north, making the two economies very independent from one another. Not only that, but the fact that Persia doesn't connect the silk road into Trebizond and Georgia like it did in real life is an oversight that heavily hampers gameplay in the region. Trebizond was a famously wealthy city during the late Medieval era due to its unique geographic positioning as one of the endpoints of the silk road into the Black Sea.



Now, I've created some rerouting proposals to attempt to remedy the situation. I propose that the Crimean node be abolished, and in place replaced with a "Sarai" node (At game start, the Great Horde, while weakened, was still a relevant regional power. Sarai was still very much alive and booming), which will absorb the parts of the Crimean node north of the Caucasus while surrendering Nogai state and Tambov state to the Samarkand and Kazan nodes, respectively. For this to work, the Great Horde needs their capital to return from the ahistorical Saratov (Ukek) into their historical capital of Sarai. This does several things from a gameplay perspective.

1. It makes the Great Horde reconquest of the Tartary Crimea much more appealing and rewarding.
   
   
2. Though the Sarai node will be much bigger than the former Crimea node and thus far richer, the Sarai node will be faced with one extreme difficulty; it will flow into 3 seperate nodes (Kiev, Kazan, Constantinople), making the Sarai node a hotly contested zone for the major powers to be (namely Russia, PLC, and the Ottomans, as it was historically).
   

The second part of this proposal includes the southern Caucasus, Armenia, and Karadeniz to create a new trade node, "Pontus," centered on Trebizond, which will uniquely be the only node that Persia flows into (as part of this proposal, Persia's connection into Aleppo needs to be removed). This gives Persia real incentive to control Georgia and the Pontus as it did in real life (to prevent too much of their wealth from flowing out into the hands of their Ottoman rivals), while creating a unique region which can potentially become very wealthy if it's well connected with Persia, but at the same time extremely appealing for the Ottomans to take control of, to gain a stronger hand in Persia. This way, Trebizond and Georgia can have some of their historical wealth that is all but absent in the current state of this game, while actually connecting Georgia and Trebizond to Persian interests as it did in real life. From a gameplay perspective, this will...

1. Incentivize conflict between a Persian power and an Anatolian power for control over a strong endpoint of the silk road.
   
   
2. Give Trebizond and Georgia their historical, but Persian dependent wealth that they historicall had.
   
   
3. Better connect and integrate Persia into the economic politics of the region
   
   
4. Create a strong connect for pan-Caucasian gameplay, and tie the Armenian and Georgian regions together economically.
   

Pontus, however, will still be a weaker node overall than Persia; it will primarily serve as a wealthy buffer between Persia and Constantinople in a similar vein that Ragusa serves right now, buffering Constantinople from Genoa and Venice, and will flow into both Constantinople and Sarai (Crimean black sea exchange, which will give Russia / PLC another route to gain access to Persian wealth) in order to make sure that any power dominating Persia will prefer Persia to Pontus regardless.



I've provided a contemporary map of the medieval silk road below, which I used to some degree to reference my trade reroute proposal.

Reddit thread mirror: https://www.reddit.com/r/eu4/comments/g0t9rc/suggestion_to_change_the_trade_routes_to/

 

[Eruth]

View attachment 566426

So in my recent games playing around Persia and the Crimean region, it's come to my attention that the current node routing to Constantinople is heavily flawed. For one, the Crimea node doesn't make much sense to include Georgia and Trebizond, especially with the Caucasus mountains dividing the mountainous Caucasian kingdoms from the steppe hordes to the north, making the two economies very independent from one another. Not only that, but the fact that Persia doesn't connect the silk road into Trebizond and Georgia like it did in real life is an oversight that heavily hampers gameplay in the region. Trebizond was a famously wealthy city during the late Medieval era due to its unique geographic positioning as one of the endpoints of the silk road into the Black Sea.



Now, I've created some rerouting proposals to attempt to remedy the situation. I propose that the Crimean node be abolished, and in place replaced with a "Sarai" node (At game start, the Great Horde, while weakened, was still a relevant regional power. Sarai was still very much alive and booming), which will absorb the parts of the Crimean node north of the Caucasus while surrendering Nogai state and Tambov state to the Samarkand and Kazan nodes, respectively. For this to work, the Great Horde needs their capital to return from the ahistorical Saratov (Ukek) into their historical capital of Sarai. This does several things from a gameplay perspective.

1. It makes the Great Horde reconquest of the Tartary Crimea much more appealing and rewarding.
   
   
2. Though the Sarai node will be much bigger than the former Crimea node and thus far richer, the Sarai node will be faced with one extreme difficulty; it will flow into 3 seperate nodes (Kiev, Kazan, Constantinople), making the Sarai node a hotly contested zone for the major powers to be (namely Russia, PLC, and the Ottomans, as it was historically).

The second part of this proposal includes the southern Caucasus, Armenia, and Karadeniz to create a new trade node, "Pontus," centered on Trebizond, which will uniquely be the only node that Persia flows into (as part of this proposal, Persia's connection into Aleppo needs to be removed). This gives Persia real incentive to control Georgia and the Pontus as it did in real life (to prevent too much of their wealth from flowing out into the hands of their Ottoman rivals), while creating a unique region which can potentially become very wealthy if it's well connected with Persia, but at the same time extremely appealing for the Ottomans to take control of, to gain a stronger hand in Persia. This way, Trebizond and Georgia can have some of their historical wealth that is all but absent in the current state of this game, while actually connecting Georgia and Trebizond to Persian interests as it did in real life. From a gameplay perspective, this will...

1. Incentivize conflict between a Persian power and an Anatolian power for control over a strong endpoint of the silk road.
   
   
2. Give Trebizond and Georgia their historical, but Persian dependent wealth that they historicall had.
   
   
3. Better connect and integrate Persia into the economic politics of the region
   
   
4. Create a strong connect for pan-Caucasian gameplay, and tie the Armenian and Georgian regions together economically.

Pontus, however, will still be a weaker node overall than Persia; it will primarily serve as a wealthy buffer between Persia and Constantinople in a similar vein that Ragusa serves right now, buffering Constantinople from Genoa and Venice, and will flow into both Constantinople and Sarai (Crimean black sea exchange, which will give Russia / PLC another route to gain access to Persian wealth) in order to make sure that any power dominating Persia will prefer Persia to Pontus regardless.



I've provided a contemporary map of the medieval silk road below, which I used to some degree to reference my trade reroute proposal.

Reddit thread mirror: https://www.reddit.com/r/eu4/comments/g0t9rc/suggestion_to_change_the_trade_routes_to/

I support this.

 

[mclemente]

If anyone is interested, here's a mod on how it should work. I'm not sure if the lines are correct since I have no idea how the Nudge tool works exactly.

One the problems you'll notice quickly is that Golden Horde's main trade node will be Kazan due to their capital being in Saratov.

 

[2dsoul]

If anyone is interested, here's a mod on how it should work. I'm not sure if the lines are correct since I have no idea how the Nudge tool works exactly.

One the problems you'll notice quickly is that Golden Horde's main trade node will be Kazan due to their capital being in Saratov.

I'll try this out, thanks. And yes, I made a mention about how Great Horde's capital should be their historical capital of Sarai for this; there is absolutely 0 historical or gameplay basis for the Great Horde capital to be in Saratov (Ukek), and honestly I'm not sure why Paradox hasn't fixed this even after all this time.

 

[RichTArt]

I really like this idea. It would make playing the Caucasus region a little more rewarding especially Trebizond which in its current position can't even afford to sustain itself.