Trade doubt, or better said not understanding trade...

[trevi2]

Year 1543 playing as Austria.

I currently own as a province, the following nodes: Wien (node value 4,28), Antwerpen (11,45) and Cracow (1,11).

My trade tech level is 9 two below admin or militar levels.

No carabels at all = 8.

All first level buildings are built in my around 80 provinces.

My income is: Taxes (40%) 58, production 27.9 (40%) trade (15%) 4.67.

Fleet costs: Carracks 2 / 8 caravels / 3 galleys / 23 transports. 2.89 ducats.

What shoud I do to increase income from trading?

1. Building caravels: ok, I can but should I overpass the fleet limit? Currently 36/51

2. Constructing buildings: ok, but in the provinces that produce what?

3. My 2 merchants are in Antwerpen and Venice (My two nearer nodes with higher values)

Please help me understand how does the trade works.

 

[knoddy]

basically my understanding of trade is that you want to steer as much trade as possible towards your capital node.

I dont know which Node Austria's captial sits in. but basically you want to go upstream from your capital and set your merchants steering trade towards (downstream) your capital. collecting outside your capital node incurs huge penalties, and is hardly worth it unless you have no power outside your captial node.

The basic premise is that the more you forward trade on the more it makes when it gets to its destination.

Eg we have trade node A which is your capital node, B feeds into A, C into B, D into C.

your best course of action would be to have a merchant in D steering trade to C, another in C steering to B, another in B steering to A which is your capital. each node it passes through increases the amount, but the amount you steer is based off your trade power in that node, and if someone else has high tradepower they may be collecting in that node, or steering it somewhere else.

You also always collect in your captial with or without a merchant, so once you get some good steering going take the merchant out of your captial.

the best way to increase trade power is with fleets patroling or building trade buildings.


edit:
as an example, in my current Najd game, I collect in Basra, but I have my merchants in Indus, Cleyon and Gulf of Arden, forwarding trade from each. I have 4 large trade fleets patrolling each. quite a bit is collecting by the Indian countries because I only own a small amount of land there, but get quite a bit of tradepower from my ships.

almost no trade escapes from the Gulf to Alexandria, and Im forwarding about 15 gold from Indus, to basra, which I dominate and take about 90% out of.

 

[sigeena]

You have 2 merchants and 3 nodes which you can deploy them. Wien, Krakow and Antwerp.

If you have sufficiently high TP in Wien (> 35%) I recommend that you deploy the 2 merchants to collect in Antwerp and transfer in Krakow.

If Wien is lesser than 35%, consider sending the 2 merchants to collect in Wien and Antwerp.

For your light ships to protect trade in Antwerp.

 

[Nilmerf]

Austria is a land power and the money you'll make from trade is pretty minor considering your current setup and number of provinces. I would agree with the above that the best thing is to collect in Antwerp, transfer from Krakow to Vienna, and collect naturally in Vienna without a merchant. Set it and forget it with that. For your next game try a trade focused nation and strategy, maybe Burgundy or the usual colonial powers.

 

[trevi2]

What shoud I do to increase income from trading?

1. Building caravels: ok, I can but should I overpass the fleet limit? Currently 36/51

2. Constructing buildings: ok, but in the provinces that produce what?

3. My 2 merchants are in Antwerpen and Venice (My two nearer nodes with higher values)

Please help me understand how does the trade works.

And the three issues above... what do you think about them?

 

[Nilmerf]

Come to think of it, collecting in both Venice and Antwerp might be better than transferring from Krakow. I'd have to see the current map, but alternate between the two options and see what is more. You're just splitting hairs at that point though. Check the trade window, I bet the green sliver of pie that the trade to total income represents is incredibly small. Like I said, set it and forget it and play with trade next game!

 

[knoddy]

1. Boats are best, if the trade node you want power in is a naval region. Boats give +3.5 tradepower per boat(i think) most buildings only increase your tradepower in that region by 1. going over your naval forcelimit is nowhere near as bad as the army one. I regularly go over, and can go over by as much as 20 boats and only incur 1-2 gold extra per month of upkeep, as apposed to land forces which seem to cost a lot mroe when you go over.

2. Buildings are good too. You want the trade buildings (+1 trade power, marketplace etc) in provinces inside that trade zone that you want power.

3. I cant answer this as I have no played in that area so dont really know the trade nodes. the others gave you a good answer for this tho I believe.