This week's debate : Mercantilism versus Free Trade

[BiB]

This one is easy for me. I'm a rabid mercantilist I like to protect my interests. Get my own COT and control my own trade, which is less axxured if u are a free trade proponent. And no one interferes in these matters!

The loss of the colonist hurts a bit but when I play a colonial nation I get my settlers from other sliders and via other means.

The loss of merchants isn't that big. Just by being a stable nation u get enough merchants as it is IMO, that is, if u use them well. Which I tend to do as I trade quite a lot and play colonial nations a lot.

Then also the added bonus of cheaper merchants. This makes maintaining monopolies in overseas COTs that u own very easy which is how I like it.

The slower trade research, loss in colonists, extra merchants are all things I can do without if I can be my mercantilistic self.

Fewer colonists (losing 2 in practice as u go from +1 to -1) can be a bit offsetting when u are a nation which doesn't have too many but can be offset by other sliders. However if u got other priorites on these other sliders free trade makes a lot more sense. U can be more careless with merchants but they will cost u.

I can see my benefits to free trade and I don't this one as a clearcut one side is the way to go slider but mercantilism just suits me. Or am I mistaken ?

 

[unmerged(2833)]

Originally posted by BiB
This one is easy for me. I'm a rabid free trader I don't like to involve too much in trade. When i get my own colonial COT i will control my own trade, which is easily achieveable if u are a free trade proponent. And no one interferes in these matters if you embargo him!

The loss of the TWO(BiB) colonists hurts very much especially when I play a colonial nation since i need many of them, and still want to have cheap army.

The loss of merchants isn't that big, except the thing that you're much harder to compete when you have six in reserve.

Then also the penalty of more expensive merchants. This makes competing harder, but i don't go for monopolies, except in overseas COTs that u own very easy which is how I like it.

The faster trade research(?), extra merchants, and especially bonus colonists are all things I praise enough for beeing my free-trading self.

More colonists (2 in practice as u go from +1 to -1) is big bonus when u are a nation which doesn't have too many because they still want to be land powers. However if u got other priorites on these other sliders, like naval, mercantilist makes a lot more sense. U can be more careless with merchants because they won't cost u.

I can see my benefits to mercantilism and I don't this one as a clearcut one side is the way to go slider but free trade just suits me. Or am I mistaken ?

Nah, i agree with you

 

[unmerged(1302)]

I agree with Heiko, too. Who cares about free trade anyway?

 

[unmerged(2833)]

Originally posted by Crook
I agree with Heiko, too. Who cares about free trade anyway?

Who is Heiko, huh?

 

[unmerged(3236)]

I think merkantialism is better for small nations and free trade for larger nations.
The small dont have the money to send all those traders anyway, a large nation does and they often see the rich CoTs in rotw to and then it is fun with a boost to your merchants.

 

[BiB]

He's a betatester. Maybe he posted in this thread and then deleted his reply

 

[tkorsvold]

I prefer free trade! Those extra colonists plus the reduced trade tech cost is pretty important, at least in my games! It's not the first slider I change, though.


Thorstein

 

[unmerged(5098)]

Depends. If you are a colonial nation and you want to set innovativenes to the max, you'll probably want free trade to offset this.

 

[Nikolai II]

Size of CoT

Am I correct in assuming that less mercantilism means your CoTs are more attractive? It doesn't seem like that from what I have gathered from this and other threads, but I am still hoping that high free-trade would make you like one of the european nations in EU1 and protectionism would make your CoTs less attractive, as RoTW in EU1.

If this is the case then free trade could hold it's own. Mercantilism should not mean that all your provinces trade in your CoT if you have one even though it could make it more likely. All throughout history entrepreneurs faced with mercantilistic policies that would cut too heavily into profits have responded with smuggling or even obvious illegal trade.

I would write more but first I have to know, are CoTs owned by free traders more attractive to other nations than CoTs owned by mercantilists. ( I feel they should be)

 

[BiB]

Mercantimism makes for strong owned COTs and control of ur own trade as much as possible. Free trade is more subject to the free market. Provinces fluctuate COT more easily and such.

*speculating mode on* If a Dutch COT was set up between a French and English COT, which are merc and free trade oriented respectively, I think it'll belong to the English one. However if a French one gets set up close to the English one it'll still go to the French one. And so on *speculating mode off*

The way I play though that doesn't bother me too much. I will take care of my own interests, I'm not too overly bothered by other people's TP.

Good to see this one going head to head, nicely balanced, it seems, a real policy choice

 

[unmerged(6568)]

I officially voted for Mercantilism, but I have played both sides of the spectrum in my recent games and have ranged the entire gambit in a single game.

This is always the most difficult slider for me to choose. Part of the fun of the game is the entire subjectiveness to the sliders. They all interact with one another in unique ways and the composite picture is capable of being different each game, thus never the same game twice.

I will begin be delineating the various attributes of both, their effects, and the various ways that you can cover the weaknesses of the attributes.

I will begin with Free Trade. At its worst, it costs you colonists, but adds both number of merchants and cost in sending them. It also costs you trade tech for embargoing because none are free. I find the cost to be the most important factor here. You must ask the question, "What would I like to spend money on?" perhaps, "What other things would I rather spend money on?" For most nations, you acquire trade status in European centers that you would like and then are forced to shell out the bucks to get the overseas ones. The added merchants are beneficial only if you can afford to send them to these lucrative overseas centers. The same is true for the colonists. You can have a lot of colonists per turn, but they are only useful if you can afford to send them, otherwise, your sliders might be better adjusted elsewhere. Now, you must spend both on trading and colonizing, and a limited budget could prove problemsome. Now, if you are a military nation and need a defense budget, you'll have it hard both in the colonizing and in the trading unless you are really stinking rich.

I personally find the only way to cover the Free Trade problems is to be rich. For this reason, I am not the fondest of Full Free Trade early in the game. Later in the game once colonization and conquest have paid their dividends, then it is worthwhile to round out the victory by achieving domination in the remaining trade arenas.

At the other extreme, severe mercantilism costs you Merchants and costs you colonists. However, your placement is cheaper and you can embargo more without penalty. I have found this beneficial for England as your overseas ventures generate more centers of trade and protestantism adds one colonist, shipyard adds one colonist, and some degree of naval adds a colonist. Additionally, you might go towards narrowminded just to gain the cheaper stability costs, but also generating another colonist. So with all these colonists, you don't need more, so Mercantilism works out very well and makes a tight budget more managable. Your later wealth usually balances the tech race problems too. I find the same phenomenon is true with France to a lesser extent. You need some of your budget each year for defense and any wars you happen to be fighting, you need less colonists and Mercantilism can help you utilize your present merchant most effectively, thereby generating more income.

The biggest problem with this setting is that sometimes it is impractical to cover the colonist losses through the other sliders. When this happens, it is necessary to keep a balanced mercantilist approach.

To be honest, I have found never extreme really satisfying. This is usually the indicator that fits around what is happening on the other sliders. Thus, I often play at mostly Mercantilistic and occasionally drop to a little below Mercantilism depending upon my needs at a given time. Earlier in the game, colonists are needed to grab the land. However, having the right number of colonists per year so that you spend your money but don't have colonists sitting is probably the best spot to be in. As things happen, you can adjust sliders accordingly, such as building a shipyard, going protestant/reformed. Later in the game, land can become scarcer depending upon your country, full Mercantilism isn't a bad position to be in, especially if you've already maxed trade tech.

I am wondering how other people view this slider. Is it the one you always adjust around the other sliders? or Is it one that you mainly focus on and adjust other sliders around it?

my two cents

Xenophon

 

[BiB]

It's not a slider that gets priority in my book. However that is helped by the fact that the slider starts at quite mercantilistic for most nations so doesn't require much work in my case. I'll do other sliders I find more important first (quite a few) and then look at it. If it was vert free trade oriented I'd prolly look at it first to get it more in the middle and then later go mercantilistic.

As I tend to only play MP nowadays I often end up controlling majors. Still I find merc the best. As noted colonists can be gotten elsewhere. For smaller natiosn cheaper merchants can be very handy. I'd even consider it more an important policy option for them.

(damn these threads, all my MP opponents will know my strategy this way )

 

[unmerged(3902)]

Free trade early in the game when you have < 12 merchants naturally and need the bonus merchants. Mercantilism later when you can get to 12 merchants anyway w/o the free trade bonus.

I agree with bib though, this one isn't a priority slider like quality or land/navy.

 

[unmerged(1909)]

How can you Merchantilists afford all these trade embargos? In order to keep your CoTs "all to yourself" you need to embargo every county that knows about it, and that costs -1 stability EACH. This was tough enough in EU1. But now, with EU2 and all these obscure new "nations" such as Navahos, Shawnees, Mayas, Dahomys, Congos, Atjahs, etc... I mean, forget it! With all these new kids on the block, even your non-European CoTs are now a major pain to monopolize.

Its hard enough keeping your stability up as is, especially for a large (ie, colonial) power. I just can't figure out how you guys can do this.

So I've become a Free Trader by default. Not that I don't see the wonderful benefits of a few big CoTs all to my greedy little self, but I just can't stomach all the stability I'd lose getting to that point. So, I've given up on Merchantilism; I'll settle for the nice extra colonists, thank you very much!

 

[unmerged(6568)]

Stability isn't a problem. yes, it is -1 per hit, but if you are a large colonial power, you will have a lot of income per turn. It also depends upon the other sliders. Narrowminded allows you cheaper stability costs and colonist/missionary bonuses. Often this is a good offset, especially with a large global empire. You can set the narrowmindedness just low enough to get a missionary every so often which works well on pagans by the way, and get a colonist, and have cheaper stability costs. Also, we are talking big colonial powers here. It is not unusual to have a 200-600 monthly investment in technology with a 1200-2000 advancement for stability. Just set the stability investment to full....and in less than a year, +1 stability recovered.

-1 for embargoes is the least of my concerns. The random events can cost more.

Xenophon

 

[Johnny Canuck]

I voted for free trade, mainly cos I like playing as a colonial power & like to get as many colonists as possible.

My quibble, though, is that for colonists, the settings are actually reversed. Mercantilism should get the colonist bonus, while free trade should get the colonist bonus. Historically, England was a top colonizer when it was mercantilist (17th & 18th centuries), and hardly cared about its Empire when it was the leading free trade nation (mid-19th century). Think about it. The whole point of owning colonies is to have access to raw materials and markets for finished goods, right? Well, under a free trade system, you can buy raw materials from any colony/country at the same price as a colony you own, & the same goes for selling finished goods. At the same time, the free trade empire still has to pay defence & administrative costs for the colonies, while receiving no benefit. This was the critique that free traders made of the British Empire in the mid-1800s.

I doubt that, at this late stage, the settings will be changed. It just means that I have to suspend my disbelief and play England as a free trade nation in the 1600s!

 

[TheDarkside]

It's a good debate. The problem is, as a colonial country, you really need the free trade. Especially Portugal! with only 3 core provinces you need to colonize if you ever want to be competitive, or do what i did and put all your chips into a war vs Castile But then a problem occurs! You develop these great colonial cities, whose main profit lies in trade! Your home CoT quickly becomes the talk of Europe, everyone sends their merchants to your CoT to STEAL your profits. So now all of a sudden, you really need mercantialism!

 

[Idiotboy]

I voted for merchantilism, being my usual greedy self but reading a lot of the posting i might have to rethink, nah I´d still like to monopolize those huge CoT´s.

 

[unmerged(5361)]

Ladies and Gents,

Free trade all the way for me... Sure winner!

Extra colonists + bonus merchants are a MUST HAVE for my playing style. I like to grab as much as land as possible around the map, even though this leaves me with a lot of undeveloped TPs and lvl 1 colonies...

Then again I've only played with Portugal and Denmark and needed all the colonists + merchants I could muster...

QUESTION: When playing as Portugal new COTs popped up in my colonies all over the world after i had the slider maxed to Free Trade (trade center in Yukon, Cartagena, Penambuco, Table and Pondicherry). Does anyone know if this slider gives higher poss. of new COTs???

Grateful for any insight on this.

 

[Jos Theelen]

Is it correct to say that when you own some (rotw)-CoT, you should go to mercantilism, but when you own no CoT's and aren't planning colonial expansion, you should go to free trade ?