The 43 trade thieving princes of the HRE.

[greendevil]

I think it makes sense.
Trade flows according to borders.
The single biggest problem and steering tool for trade in that age were tariffs.
And tariffs are levied by individual princes.
They simply slap enough tariffs on any trade going your way that merchants decide to not go there.

How exactly are HRE princes going to put tariffs in the Ragusa node area?

It makes no sense at all, they have no provincial control, no ships and it's also quite far away from their area (with them having no power projection whatsoever). It's just an arbitrary bonus they get which is multiplied because there's so many of them. Unrealistic as hell.

 

[Freudia]

How exactly are HRE princes going to put tariffs in the Ragusa node area?

It makes no sense at all, they have no provincial control, no ships and it's also quite far away from their area (with them having no power projection whatsoever). It's just an arbitrary bonus they get which is multiplied because there's so many of them. Unrealistic as hell.

The concept of end nodes and one-way trade flow is also unrealistic as hell, and those have much bigger sweeping gameplay implications than trade flowing to the HRE from Ragusa does. Venice is not hurting while this happens, so I still don't see the big deal about it.

 

[greendevil]

The concept of end nodes and one-way trade flow is also unrealistic as hell, and those have much bigger sweeping gameplay implications than trade flowing to the HRE from Ragusa does. Venice is not hurting while this happens, so I still don't see the big deal about it.

"There are bigger issues so this one is a non problem!". Okay, there are other issues with the system, so? This is still retarded.

And for the record Venice is actually badly damaged by the setup. In the 15th century Venice was the biggest commercial hub in Europe and the only place where you could buy certain goods. In the current version it's much poorer than Lubeck. The only way I was able to bring it on par with Lubeck in terms of richness was to conquer all of balkanic coast and Greece, Byzantium, Egypt and the Levantine Coast (and even if I had 500 trade power in Ragusa, half of trade was still being steered away north).

 

[Autoclave]

"There are bigger issues so this one is a non problem!". Okay, there are other issues with the system, so? This is still retarded.

And for the record Venice is actually badly damaged by the setup. In the 15th century Venice was the biggest commercial hub in Europe and the only place where you could buy certain goods. In the current version it's much poorer than Lubeck. The only way I was able to bring it on par with Lubeck in terms of richness was to conquer all of balkanic coast and Greece, Byzantium, Egypt and the Levantine Coast (and even if I had 500 trade power in Ragusa, half of trade was still being steered away north).

I think we should be thankful for Aleppo -> Alexandria and Alexandria -> Venice routes. This does help to combat the problem with Constatinople -> Ragusa -> Wien

 

[gagenater]

In my opinion trade isnt right at the minute. Currently as Bengal I own everything from Persia to Korea yet I only make 40 in trade. The reason, Portugal has a chain of provinces through to Zanzibar allowing them to propagate power into Ceylon and Malacca without needing a single ship. When they showed up my trade income went from 100 to 40 and they control almost no provinces. This has made tiny Portugal the richest country in the world with an income of 450 whilst the combined income of China, se Asia, India, and Persia can only muster a paltry 350!

That actually sounds historically correct though. In real life Europeans would show up in an area like that, set up a few trade stations on islands or along the coast and pay top prices for local goods. The European country would then forward those goods back home where they sold at a much higher price and make a boatload of profit. No light ships/trade protection were usually involved until other European ppwers showed up to contest the trade. Merchant shipping ventures are invisible in EU.

Having LOTS of people competing for trade in Venice also sounds historical. After all it's the most important trade point for a large portion of the game. It may not be making the most money for the state (ie the player owning the province) but it sure is the most important for the economy of Europe as a whole.