Trade Companies are currently rather absurd. As a European I can get more money, and more force limit out of owning all of India than an actual Indian could due to them not being able to state it all. Even if the Indian were technologically on par and had fully embraced the European ideal of subjugating everything and everyone for maximum profit, the only way that they could extract the same value out of India that I could is by moving their capital out of Asia and turning their own homeland into Trade Companies.
Here is a screenshot from the game I have been playing on and off over the last couple of months. Note I am currently paying over 100 ducats a month in interest because I took 25 loans to get the Revolution ticking faster. I also appear to have gotten very lazy about deleting conquered forts, but that's hardly surprising given that money is clearly no object at this point. Note how much money I make from Production income, Trade, and Tariffs. I've used Player map mode for easy viewing. I have Castile, Portugal, and Scandinavia under PU. My save file does not feature the word 'backup' a single time, for those wondering.
My first thought was that more trade company regions should be added so that wherever your capital is, you have comparable access to trade company land to exploit. At the moment if your capital is in Asia then almost your first order of business is to get it out of Asia. The problem with that is that the game's trade system is set up around Europe being the centre of everything - say you could establish trade companies in Europe as an Indian, you wouldn't actually be able to funnel the trade income back to India. You could just collect everywhere, though. And of course the Production income and FL from 0 LA are in many ways the real headline anyway.
I do understand that Asians making Trade Companies in Europe is ahistorical, but then again so is the above screenshot. Players can do stuff that is ahistorical and that isn't going to change. It strikes me though, that it would be less ahistorical (in the sense of being more realistic) for an Asian player that has conquered Europe to keep their capital in their actual homeland and make Trade Companies in Europe than to move their capital and all their states to Europe and turn their now-former homeland into Trade Companies.
The reduction in State Limit combined with the massive buff to Trade Companies has made it a lot more important to balance them somewhat for non-European tags. You can see at a glance from my screenshot that I am making only a small proportion of my income from my states. I'm probably getting less than half my force limit from them as well. I'm not objecting to Europeans being in the best position to do stuff since that's largely a historical/geographical consequence of the 1444 start, but it does bother me that a successful Asian nation simply can't replicate something like this without turning themselves into a European nation with a European capital.
Here is a screenshot from the game I have been playing on and off over the last couple of months. Note I am currently paying over 100 ducats a month in interest because I took 25 loans to get the Revolution ticking faster. I also appear to have gotten very lazy about deleting conquered forts, but that's hardly surprising given that money is clearly no object at this point. Note how much money I make from Production income, Trade, and Tariffs. I've used Player map mode for easy viewing. I have Castile, Portugal, and Scandinavia under PU. My save file does not feature the word 'backup' a single time, for those wondering.
My first thought was that more trade company regions should be added so that wherever your capital is, you have comparable access to trade company land to exploit. At the moment if your capital is in Asia then almost your first order of business is to get it out of Asia. The problem with that is that the game's trade system is set up around Europe being the centre of everything - say you could establish trade companies in Europe as an Indian, you wouldn't actually be able to funnel the trade income back to India. You could just collect everywhere, though. And of course the Production income and FL from 0 LA are in many ways the real headline anyway.
I do understand that Asians making Trade Companies in Europe is ahistorical, but then again so is the above screenshot. Players can do stuff that is ahistorical and that isn't going to change. It strikes me though, that it would be less ahistorical (in the sense of being more realistic) for an Asian player that has conquered Europe to keep their capital in their actual homeland and make Trade Companies in Europe than to move their capital and all their states to Europe and turn their now-former homeland into Trade Companies.
The reduction in State Limit combined with the massive buff to Trade Companies has made it a lot more important to balance them somewhat for non-European tags. You can see at a glance from my screenshot that I am making only a small proportion of my income from my states. I'm probably getting less than half my force limit from them as well. I'm not objecting to Europeans being in the best position to do stuff since that's largely a historical/geographical consequence of the 1444 start, but it does bother me that a successful Asian nation simply can't replicate something like this without turning themselves into a European nation with a European capital.
Besides merchant setup, I would guess you don't have enough light ships.
