Tell me why trade in EU4 is an improvement over trade in EU3

[salmanbabri]

Because in EU IV playing as a trade power means that your diplomacy & conquests revolves around trade. Not so much in EU III. For example (pre 1.8 patch) as Ragusa I crushed Venice but didn't wanted their land so I had them transfer their tradepower to me. Then I moved all trade to Venice node & collected there for a couple of years. Then I thought about moving even more trade to Ragusa so I carefully invaded Mamlukes & conquered Alexendaria & built my base there & strengthened my tradepower in that node. This gives more flavour to the game & you can roleplay it in more interesting ways. If it was EU III I would just spam merchants in every nearby CoT regardless of their location with almost no strategy & too much micro. Here I had to selectively conquer stuff & make sure not to annoy Ottomans or Austria (although I ended up having a fight with Ottomans because they wanted Egypt for different set of reasons than me).

 

[Gunburned]

I can understand a bit from where your coming from or sort of speak. But the system in eu4 really starts to shine in largs multi player environments, where you just want to sucre your navy.

 

[mgoetze]

Oh really?

You could make unreasonable amounts of money with OPMs in EU III. Just play Aachen or something like that and watch as you're world first on technology and have thousands of ducats after some time. No sorry, a nation with a single province should't make many times more profit out of trade than, say the Ottomans or Portugal.

Just because it was not well-balanced in EU3 doesn't mean the basic mechanic isn't superior to EU4.

It's not like EU4 is well-balanced... especially since Poverty of Nations introduced "Steering towards Inland" (yuck).

 

[Emre Yigit]

I also prefer the EU4 trade system. The micromanagement of trade in EU3 drove me up the wall; even if automated, the final trader was never sent, etc, etc.

I don't think the trade system in EU4 is perfect, but it's a better alternative, and a good base for EU5.

 

[Beagá]

EU4 trade system is better. Doesn´t mean it´s perfect.

I still want to see eventually control of naval supplies, copper and iron being important to keep a good navy (or at least a cheaper one), for example.

 

[MaxStrategis]

It's not an improvement. It would be an imprevement if you could somehow form your own trade nodes and chose the direction in wich trade goes like in EUIII. The only think I like more about EUIV's trade sistem is the trade patrolling fuction of light ships and privateers

PD: The current price system of goods is a joke. Are you telling me that the price of a good is still the same for 200 years just because an event didn't fire?

 

[radiatoren]

I am not familiar enough with EUiii to compare. However, I like the idea of centers of trade more than a single node system and the complexity of the trade numerically is interesting in theory. However, I dislike the scheme of static one-way flows from region to region. Starting in a start node makes relying on trade a bad strategy, while starting in an end node is easier than for everyone else in terms of becoming a trade empire. That seems a little too static to me, is all.

 

[Ame]

Dynamic Centers of Trade? That is called a fleet

What could a king change in 1500? Could he by royal decree declare that you no longer need to pass through the sea of marmara to trade with the black sea?

Could he decree that red sea trade didn't go to the nearest port to go by sea to the rest of the Mediterranean?

Could he declare that neither the traditional red sea-Alexandria trade nor the later Cape of Good Hope area held any relevance to trade and stop having trade depend on maritime activity around Africa or the Red Sea?

Could by royal decree he declare that you need not worry about transportation of goods from the new world to old world?

Does this mean the current system is fool proof?

No but in 1500 you as a king could do all of those historically absurd decrees and be absolutely correct.

All you really needed was slider in the right place+auto send. It wasn't a real part of the game you just auto-sent to newly conquered CoT as you conquered or create new CoT if you wanted to.

Whatever it's flaws the EU IV trade system is vastly superior in every imaginable way.

 

[1alexey]

I basically agree, however, one good thing about EU III trade system was that it was more dynamic than the current one. You could create CoTs and give or take away provinces from CoTs. In EU IV the system drives expansion very well. It gives sense to the conquering of a particular province/of some particular provinces, but it has the problem of CoTs not being dynamic (they cant be created nor destroyed. They can only be benefit or disadvantaged). Overall, I think EU IV system is better, but it also has its flaws.

It's not an improvement. It would be an imprevement if you could somehow form your own trade nodes and chose the direction in wich trade goes like in EUIII. The only think I like more about EUIV's trade sistem is the trade patrolling fuction of light ships and privateers

PD: The current price system of goods is a joke. Are you telling me that the price of a good is still the same for 200 years just because an event didn't fire?

But that`s the problem. States are not the only things affecting how and where trade goes. Centers of trade are usually defined by terrain and rivers, not the politics of the state, and the way trade flows tend to be from places that can create certain rare things or can support large urban population to create manufacturing goods.

Getting that right, is very complicated, and needs at least Victoria 2 level of economy. The idea that the state should be able to arbitrary define trade areas of trade and trade routes and not suffer in efficiency is lunacy, at best.

In fact, EU4 system is best compromise for a simple system.