Trade Advice

[al-Aziz]

Does steering trade a long distance away create more power? (I think it does.)

Is it more beneficial to have light ships patrolling further away from me than closer to me?

How many trade ships are good per node as Venice in the early game?

What is the general consensus on where to collect from trade and where to steer?

Is steering power ever lost if I steer it towards a node I don't control (e.g. Constantinople - I haven't captured it yet)? If other countries are steering towards a node I'm steering from or control, do they also steer my trade power?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Gaamel]

Trade is quite simple in fact : in the ideal scenario, you control most of the trade power in your capital (let's say Venice), and you try to steer everything towards there. The top priority is of course to ensure dominance in your capital's node, so annexing provinces with trade power bonuses, making trade buildings, spamming light ships and destroying enemy fleets help greatly in that regard.
After that, the goal is to make the trade value "flow" to your capital by controlling all nodes leading to it through annexation of strategic provinces.

Sometimes you control very wealthy nodes overseas (Malacca...it's easy to achieve this with merchant republic with trade posts + trade companies + trade buidlings + huge mercantilism) but if you don't control the way back to your capital you lose the trade value. In that case it can be profitable to steer the value to a node where you are alone (typically : Cape of Good Hope) and collect there, because if you don't, the value will end up in Ivory Coast and eventually in Seville/Bordeaux.

Regarding your questions about long distance steering : every time trade value is forwarded a % is added, but local nations take their cut in the process, so it's not always profitable to steer for the sake of it. Trade power flows in the opposite direction of trade value : it goes upstream, which means by having a big TP in your capital you suck trade value around you.

Light ships : they are a means to have more TP, send them where you need them, there is no definite answer.

If you steer towards a node you don't control : you lose all the trade value, obviously :sad:

I have a feeling you're confusing trade power and trade value : if each node is a cake, trade value is the size of the cake, whereas trade power is your share of the cake.