Trade Merchants

[IsaacCAT]

After Ports as Trade Hubs | Paradox Interactive Forums (paradoxplaza.com) some players (@Mr. Wiggles @Vohen @cristofolmc ) have requested a bolder and more comprehensive proposal for trade. I think I have an idea and because @Elmaz has said that we will have a ranking on the week from the 28th of December to the 3rd of January, I think we have the time to discuss the pros and cons before posting on the SPQR. Thus, please comment on this suggestion in order to improve it before submitting it:

Trade Merchants:

National products are sold and bought from trade merchants that monopolize trade through hubs and are independent of nations.

Every port and marketplace above level 2 (cities and metropolis) will have a trade merchant hub (EDITED) if at least it can capture 5 trades:

• They capture outgoing trade function of distance between provincial capital where the goods are produced and the trade merchant city (marketplace or port above level 2).
• They capture incoming trade function of distance between trade merchant city hub (marketplace or port above level 2) and the province capital where the goods are destined.

If there are two trade merchant hubs that are at the same distance, the most powerful trade merchant will get the trade. If both merchants are equally powerful, a flipping coin will decide which one gets the trade. Trade merchants are more powerful as more trades they concentrate.

Trade merchants can buy/sell other trade merchants from other cities, modifying the size of the trade merchant. The algorithm to buy/sell trade merchant between families is dependent on those families' wealth.

The player does not have a say on merchants growth. They represent the merchant families that dominate trade in the city, and they will remain even after invasions. Thus, the player could have trade merchants from foreign families with different cultures and religions.


Characters and trade cartels:

Originally, a trade merchant is from one family from the same nation where the trade merchant is located.

Characters can have jobs in a trade merchant, like having a holding. That gives them base power and income.

The player does not have a say on merchant membership or family ownership.


Nations and trade merchants:

Nations will tax trade routes originated and destined to its provincials' capitals as they do now.

Having a trade merchant inside the nation will give a new tax to the nation, extracted from all trades that go through that city, including foreign trades.

For all trades, if a nation does not have a trade merchant or there are nearer foreign trade merchant, trade routes will be captured by these foreign trade merchants.

This will be represented by three or two trade routes flying arrows:

• from provincial capital to the origin trade merchant hub
• from origin trade merchant hub to destination trade merchant hub (if the first trade merchant is also the nearest to the destination provincial capital, there will be only one trade merchant hub)
• From destination trade merchant hub to destination provincial capital

As it is, it could happen that a national trade in a small nation is captured by a foreign trade merchant and then sent back to the nation.


Trade window: (EDITED)

The nation will sell all its products and ask for its desired import products in the provincial trade window. The trade merchants will arrange and negotiate all the trades on behalf of the nation. As it is now, you will only import as many goods per province as you have trade routes on each province. You will make an ordered list with priorities so the traders can get your most demanded products as they are available.

The nation will negotiate with merchants on the trade window, something ala mercenary window:

• Check the head of family owner of the merchant guild. If its from your nation and it is loyal, you gain more influence points for that trade merchant. Check the family wealth. You could help the merchant family to increase its wealth so they can expand their business abroad buying other families merchant posts.
• Select each trade network to show its trade lines on the map. Your nation will have more influence on those trade merchants that your nation contribute more trade lines.
• Increase influence by reducing taxes on the trades in our nation of that trade merchant or decrease influence but get more revenues from trades.
• Use influence to embargo another nation trades own by that trade merchant (possible CB from that nation)
• Use influence to set your trades priority before other nations of that trade merchant (other nations with trades with this merchant will have less opinion of you)
• Use influence to ask trade merchant to buy another trade merchant guild that you are interested that they merge with (they could ask more money)

The trade merchant board of representatives are:

• The head of family from the most powerful trade merchants of your nation (if any)
• The head of family from the most powerful trade merchants on naval reach of your nation
• The head of family from the most powerful trade merchants on diplomatic reach of your nation

This is merely aesthetic, because you only negotiate trades, nothing personal to the representatives, but I think it is very nice to see their faces.


Products and trade merchants:

Of course, the same rules as there are now for products will apply to trade merchants. If there is no supply of products in your naval/diplo range, you will not be able to obtain that product.

But for everything else, the trade merchants will arrange all the trade routes, and no need to worry again for trade routes being discontinued. They own all the trades!

EDITED: changed cartel for merchant. Changed trade window text.

 

[IsaacCAT]

I will start a new game and try to draw the lines to trade merchants hubs at the starting date for one region to see how it looks. I will post the result here:

EDIT: quite difficult to map at the start, as only Carthage has a marketplace above level 2, though I would guess that many other ports like Syracuse would be above level 2.

The import/export trade window for each province would set the provincial priorities for goods, automated by governors or set manually by the player.

The trade window will be an interface to interact with trade merchants. You could do the following with each trade merchant:

• Check the head of family owner of the merchant post network. If its from your nation and it is loyal, you gain more influence points for trade merchant. Check the family wealth. You could help the merchant family to increase its wealth so they can expand their business abroad buying other families merchant posts.
• Select each trade network to show its trade lines on the map. Your nation will have more influence on those trade merchants that your nation contribute more trade lines.
• Increase influence by reducing taxes on their trades in our nation
• Increase influence by investing money in the merchant family
• Use influence for favors to:
  • Reduce revenues on other countries trades of this trade merchant
  • Embargo certain goods captured by this trade merchant for other countries
  • Set your needs of resources first and above other nations from trades captured by this merchant
  • Ask to expand its network in regions you want to secure goods that your nation requires or wants to control

 

[Vohen]

Wait, are we talking about completely outsourcing trade in the game?
The current system is definitely micro intensive and at many times tedious to deal with, but building a new system from scratch where you barely have to deal with it at all instead of an actually fun and engaging one seems like a mistake to me.
If this idea is to go forward, nations need to have a lot (and I really mean a LOT) more interactivity with these cartels.

One interesting thing is how this system could allow for supply and demand for goods from pops, or simulating fluctuation of prices, since it'd not be under direct control of the player.

Also, just how historically accurate is this?
Did patrician families actually form cartels in the ancient world?
I know that trade was mostly state controlled in the imperial period (that article you liked in another thread even mentions it), but I'm not sure about it in the republic or across the other nations of this period.
I can definitely imagine that this was not the case for tribes though.

 

[IsaacCAT]

Wait, are we talking about completely outsourcing trade in the game?
The current system is definitely micro intensive and at many times tedious to deal with, but building a new system from scratch where you barely have to deal with it at all instead of an actually fun and engaging one seems like a mistake to me.
If this idea is to go forward, nations need to have a lot (and I really mean a LOT) more interactivity with these cartels.

One interesting thing is how this system could allow for supply and demand for goods from pops, or simulating fluctuation of prices, since it'd not be under direct control of the player.

Also, just how historically accurate is this?
Did patrician families actually form cartels in the ancient world?
I know that trade was mostly state controlled in the imperial period (that article you liked in another thread even mentions it), but I'm not sure about it in the republic or across the other nations of this period.
I can definitely imagine that this was not the case for tribes though.

Instead of trade cartels, say trade merchants. It is not completly outsourcing trade, is like what they want to do with governors in 2.0 but with merchants instead of governors.

I am not sure the role of the state with trade, they sanctioned it, tax it, but dealt the trades? Also, trade merchants were from the ruling famlilies.

 

[IsaacCAT]

f this idea is to go forward, nations need to have a lot (and I really mean a LOT) more interactivity with these cartels

What would you like to do?

 

[Vohen]

Instead of trade cartels, say trade merchants. It is not completly outsourcing trade, is like what they want to do with governors in 2.0 but with merchants instead of governors. I am not sure the role of the state with trade, they sanctioned it, tax it, but broke it? Also, trade merchants were from the ruling famlilies.

The change with governors in 2.0 are more like a stopgap to a flawed system in the first place.
To avoid the tedium and micro managing of so many routes all round, they'll just automate it until they can think of a better system.
At least that's how it feels to me, in 2.0 trade won't be better per se, but will at least be hidden where it'd get in the way, so you could call it "less worse" than now.

If a new system, designed from the ground up, doesn't solve the inherent issues with the current one, I fail to see the point of it.

What would you like to do?

I mean, I'd add as many interactions as possible with these cartels, almost like they are a country in and of themselves.
Things like taxing their trade, increasing or decreasing a nation's influence over them, even simply improving relations, perhaps creating trade crises that could lead to war with other nations and the cartel itself, many, many events to interact with them, etc etc.
And of course, as I said before, pops could become agents in this system with their own demands for goods, driving social unrest and civil wars when not met, making a direct interest of the state to have a good hold on it.

These are just some off the top of my head, I'm sure a lot more can be done.
Again, if this system is just to get trade out of the way, there's no meaning to such a huge redesign imho.
A new system would need to go beyond that, it'd need to make trade actually fun and engaging to interact with.

 

[IsaacCAT]

The change with governors in 2.0 are more like a stopgap to a flawed system in the first place.
To avoid the tedium and micro managing of so many routes all round, they'll just automate it until they can think of a better system.
At least that's how it feels to me, in 2.0 trade won't be better per se, but will at least be hidden where it'd get in the way, so you could call it "less worse" than now.

If a new system, designed from the ground up, doesn't solve the inherent issues with the current one, I fail to see the point of it.


I mean, I'd add as many interactions as possible with these cartels, almost like they are a country in and of themselves.
Things like taxing their trade, increasing or decreasing a nation's influence over them, even simply improving relations, perhaps creating trade crises that could lead to war with other nations and the cartel itself, many, many events to interact with them, etc etc.
And of course, as I said before, pops could become agents in this system with their own demands for goods, driving social unrest and civil wars when not met, making a direct interest of the state to have a good hold on it.

These are just some off the top of my head.
Again, if this system is just to get trade out of the way, there's no meaning to such a huge redesign imho.
A new system would need to go beyond that, it'd need to make trade actually fun and engaging to interact with.

The POPs driven demand as well as the legions requirement of goods is something that can be done in parallel to this.

I do not think the system is flawed, and this suggestion does not pretend to rebuild it from scratch.

Your idea to add more interactions with merchants, I have to think about it. But first we must check that it is feasible the original idea.

One nice thing about trade merchants is the possibility of families working outside the state. There will be more important families and less scorned ones?

Another great thing about trade merchants is the need to build cities to capture trade and compete with other nations traders. It is an economic warfare without declaring war.

 

[Vohen]

this suggestion does not pretend to rebuild it from scratch.

True enough, my mistake there.
But it is adding another layer on top of the current system, and quite a complex one at that, only to basically automate trade and make it almost a non-factor in gameplay.
So it's not from scratch, but a complex rework that could pretty much be summed up as "automation of trade" is a lot of effort for too little gain.

The way I see it, a new system being more fun and engaging (beyond just less micro intensive and tedious) is a basic requirement for a trade rework.

I do not think the system is flawed

Well, er... Then you probably should post this on SPQR.
I thought the point here was to give feedback and try to work together on improvements, sorry if I end up sounding too importunate.

 

[IsaacCAT]

Well, er... Then you probably should post this on SPQR.
I thought the point here was to give feedback and try to work together on improvements, sorry if I end up sounding too importunate.

Not at all, you are helping a lot, this is an exchange of ideas, this is how dialogue works.

You expose your convictions, I answer with mines, then we try to find common ground, or change the point of view to look both favorable at the issue.

This process Is not immediate, meditation is required, sorry if I gave the wrong impression.

 

[Vohen]

One nice thing about trade merchants is the possibility of families working outside the state. There will be more important families and less scorned ones?

It'd probably be good to have minor families in the game as well.
It's a long time request from the community, and it'd work well to also give more dynamism to those merchants.

 

[IsaacCAT]

Things like taxing their trade, increasing or decreasing a nation's influence over them, even simply improving relations, perhaps creating trade crises that could lead to war with other nations and the cartel itself, many, many events to interact with them, etc etc.

These are very nice ideas. You can negotiate with trade merchants how much you charge them. If you sell and buy them a majority of their trades, you can ask for more. If you are a small portion of their trades, you do not have bargaining power.

Also you can ask for merchants to block trade to your enemies, almost all trade. There could be trade merchants factions, and you could improve your reputation and standing with one faction, and antagonize with another one. As more influence you have to a faction, more you can sabotage trades of your enemies, making them pricier or even unavailable. With a risk of the other nation knowing and having a CB against you.

If your nation families have a big trade merchant that is loyal to your nation, you gain more influence and reputation. To allow for that, nations could invest in trade merchants, promoting them.

 

[Tomikek]

True enough, my mistake there.
But it is adding another layer on top of the current system, and quite a complex one at that, only to basically automate trade and make it almost a non-factor in gameplay.
So it's not from scratch, but a complex rework that could pretty much be summed up as "automation of trade" is a lot of effort for too little gain.

The way I see it, a new system being more fun and engaging (beyond just less micro intensive and tedious) is a basic requirement for a trade rework.


Well, er... Then you probably should post this on SPQR.
I thought the point here was to give feedback and try to work together on improvements, sorry if I end up sounding too importunate.

Sorry but I do not share your opinion, in my understanding of this Isaac wants it to be more like a simulation system and less arcady.


Also it would be cool to see if like for an instance some merchant guild gained a monopoly on my country's trade and I needed to fight them to nationalise my trade again. Tbh a thing like fight between free trade and protectionism is really something what this game needs.


Like imagine if Carthage gained monopoly on Roman trade and had agents that had a role of installing a pro free trade ruler on Roman throne, what a fight there would blow up. I mean imagine if this was one of reasons for fall of Imperator empires like it was for Byzantium. Man that'd be soo cool.

 

[IsaacCAT]

Also it would be cool to see if like for an instance some merchant guild gained a monopoly on my country's trade and I needed to fight them to nationalise my trade again. Tbh a thing like fight between free trade and protectionism is really something what this game needs.

That could happen, if you do not build your cities with trade infrastructure (ports or marketplaces), other nations' merchant traders will get your trades, and you may have it more difficult to control your supply of goods. As other nations will have it easier to increase their influence to this merchant traders. If you want to compete with influence, you will be paying and increasing the wealth of a foreign family.

On the contrary, if you help your own families to control your trade and other nations' trade, you could embargo your enemies without waging war to control the mines in Iberia.

 

[Vohen]

Sorry but I do not share your opinion, in my understanding of this Isaac wants it to be more like a simulation system and less arcady.


Also it would be cool to see if like for an instance some merchant guild gained a monopoly on my country's trade and I needed to fight them to nationalise my trade again. Tbh a thing like fight between free trade and protectionism is really something what this game needs.


Like imagine if Carthage gained monopoly on Roman trade and had agents that had a role of installing a pro free trade ruler on Roman throne, what a fight there would blow up. I mean imagine if this was one of reasons for fall of Imperator empires like it was for Byzantium. Man that'd be soo cool.

I myself favor a simulationist approach pretty heavily as well, that's not what I was arguing against.
It seemed to me that the initial idea was for the whole interaction with merchants to be simply bargaining what you buy and what you sell, which doesn't sound very interesting to me.
Even the examples you gave on protectionism and external interference are exactly the sort of stuff I'm arguing for being possible in the first place.
Perhaps you misunderstood me somewhere.

These are very nice ideas. You can negotiate with trade merchants how much you charge them. If you sell and buy them a majority of their trades, you can ask for more. If you are a small portion of their trades, you do not have bargaining power.

Also you can ask for merchants to block trade to your enemies, almost all trade. There could be trade merchants factions, and you could improve your reputation and standing with one faction, and antagonize with another one. As more influence you have to a faction, more you can sabotage trades of your enemies, making them pricier or even unavailable. With a risk of the other nation knowing and having a CB against you.

If your nation families have a big trade merchant that is loyal to your nation, you gain more influence and reputation. To allow for that, nations could invest in trade merchants, promoting them.

Ah yes, I'd very much like that.

 

[IsaacCAT]

Also, just how historically accurate is this?

We need an historian to validate this system historical accuracy, meanwhile we can read this:

Merchant - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[cristofolmc]

Sorry Im iliterate and I dont understand really how it works. If you could sumarze the basoc idea Im sure Id be able to catch up on the rest.

So you still have a max limit of trade routes per provinces like now. And now you have characters that act like EU4 merchants? So who decides what trade routes to create and what goods to import? The character merchants? I dont understand the trade hubs bit then.


Sorry

 

[IsaacCAT]

Sorry Im iliterate and I dont understand really how it works. If you could sumarze the basoc idea Im sure Id be able to catch up on the rest.

So you still have a max limit of trade routes per provinces like now. And now you have characters that act like EU4 merchants? So who decides what trade routes to create and what goods to import? The character merchants? I dont understand the trade hubs bit then.


Sorry

Not to worry, I will try to summarize and present it better in the next days

 

[IsaacCAT]

Let's try to summarize this proposal with some graphical examples:

First, on the provincial window the player will see the trade routes available and the goods available and produced on the province. But it will have a new button for trade:

This Trade button will open a window with all the goods that can be imported on that province that the player will have to rank with two numbers. This will inform the merchant traders about the priorities for imported goods for that province. The player will also be able to block goods from exporting at the provincial level:

The merchants traders will try to import as many goods as the province total trade routes. In the above example, their first priority is Iron and they will try to have 2 iron goods. The other trades are indifferent (blank), except for the eleventh trade, that the player has requested to be 1 elephant. The merchant traders will sell requests for goods except for the denied requests shown in the window. The player can select manually the trades on each province or allow the Governors to set the trades for their region provinces automatically.

The player will get the tax and goods benefits for all trade routes as now. The difference is that trade routes will go from the provincial capital to the nearest trade merchant hub and you will not be ever bothered if one trade is discontinued, the trade merchants will handle all the hassle.

Every port and marketplace above level 2 (cities and metropolis) will have a trade merchant hub. For example in this Carthage area there are four trade merchants, in Carthage city of Carthage, Atic city of Utica, Kerkouane city of Kerkouane and Lapki city of Leptis Minor:

Each trade merchant captures the provincial trades we have seen in the previous windows from all nations in the following way:

• Outgoing trade function of distance between provincial capital where the goods are produced and the trade merchant city (marketplace or port above level 2).
• Incoming trade function of distance between trade merchant city hub (marketplace or port above level 2) and the province capital where the goods are destined.

For example, the trade merchant in Carthaghe captures the 10 trade imports and 8 exports of the nation of Carthage for the province of Carthago but not the 8 trade imports of the nation of Utica for the province of Carthago as Atiq city has another trade merchant closer to the provincial capital of Utica in Atiq city. In addition, the trade merchant in Atiq city also captures the 8 exports and 1 import from the nation of Carthage for the province of Thabracania, because the provincial capital of Vaga is nearer Atiq city than Carthage.

Another example, the 10 exports and 2 imports of the nation of Carthage from the province of Zeugitana instead of going to Carthaghe trade merchant, they go to the trade merchant in Kerkoune city of the nation of Kerkoune because they are closer to the provincial capital Curubis City. That trade merchant also manages the 10 imports of the nation of Kerkoune for the province of Zeugitana.

Summarizing:

Cartaghe city trade merchant has 10 trade imports and 8 exports
Atiq city trade merchant has 9 trade imports and 8 exports
Kerkouane city trade merchant has 12 imports and 10 exports

Having a trade merchant inside the nation will give a new tax to the nation, extracted from all trades that go through that city, including foreign trades. For all trades, if a nation does not have a trade merchant or there are nearer foreign trade merchant, trade routes will be captured by these foreign trade merchants.

Having your trades captured by a foreign trade merchant not only represents lost revenue for you and a gain for a foreign nation but it could give the other nation an edge because you can influence the trade merchant with the trade merchant window. Below we can see an example of the trade merchant in Atiq City:

In this window we can see the following information:

• All trade merchants that capture our trade routes
• How many routes from our nation they capture from their total routes. This gives us more influence as more routes we have from the total routes.
• The total influence we have with that trade merchant. Is function of the trade routes our nation contributes, but also how we tax them and the loyalty of the trade merchant if he is from our nation. Some actions can lower our influence temporary with the trade merchant.

We can do the following actions with each trade merchant:

• Increase taxes or lower taxes for all trades if the trade merchant is in one city of our nation. Increasing taxes lowers our influence and the opposite for lowering taxes occurs.
• Embargo another nation trades captured by that trade merchant. We must have high influence and this will temporary lower our influence with the trade merchant, while giving the other nation a commercial CB.
• Preferent trades: gives us always preference for our import trades before other nations when the goods traded are scarce.
• Take over other merchant traders. This will start an event that may require that we pay some money to help the trade merchant buy another trade merchant hub.
• Sell assets to another merchant trader, the same as above but selling one trade hub to another trade merchant.

These actions are performed by the player in order to gain influence and achieve economic results (taxes or economic warfare).

Originally, a trade merchant is from one family from the same nation where the trade merchant is located. Characters can have jobs in a trade merchant, that gives them power base and income. But it is not a job assigned by the nation and it is passed from father to sons.

Strategies:

The player will want to have trade merchants in his/her nation and capturing as much trade as possible.

Carthage in the example, is loosing money to other nations. To avoid this situation they could invade those countries, or take out of business the other trade merchants.

• a) Invading will give the taxes to the nation but it will not change the family that owns the trade merchant guild. That family will become part of your nation with their own culture and religion and with a big base and low loyalty.
• b) take out of business the other trade merchants: the obvious choice is the total take over by one of your loyal families controlled trade merchants. But the other family may have a price too high to buy out them. That depends on how much profitable and wealthy is that family. Before trying an hostile takeover, you could try to soften the target by recapturing some of the trades. This can be done by Improving your provincial capital cities to become trade merchants hubs.

Each time a city upgrades its port or marketplace above level 2, a new family will create a trade merchant. Only one trade merchant per city. They will be a target for hostile takeovers while weak financially, you will have to help them or ask another more powerful allied trade merchant to take over them before your rivals do.

Asking a trade merchant to sell some of their hubs to another merchant family may be used to lower the power base of that head of family as well as to get more influence with another trade merchant.

If a city loses its port or marketplace level, then the trade merchant disappears and its trades are captured by other trade merchants.

 

[Soot Shade]

And of course, as I said before, pops could become agents in this system with their own demands for goods, driving social unrest and civil wars when not met, making a direct interest of the state to have a good hold on it.

The POPs driven demand as well as the legions requirement of goods is something that can be done in parallel to this.

Okay, no matter how I think about it, this really should be at the core of the trade system. Even if it's not the direct point of this suggestion, I think it needs to be hashed out first, to figure out what sort of an implementation this idea could have. It's a simple way to simulate part of the equation that should naturally govern commerce. Whether it be trade being automated based on POP demand, or the player adjusts trade in part to meet that demand in order to get benefits from satisfying the POPs. To me a mix of the two seems most logical, and a good way to represent the role that a state would have in trade - securing supply of goods important for its own interests, and taxing the rest.

Purchase of trade goods should be mostly automated, prioritizing based on the types of POPs the province has, like they now get happiness bonuses from particular goods. The various other factors that should affect supply and demand can also be taken into consideration or left out, depending on how complicated it can reasonably be made without being too heavy on the system or on player attention: Difficulty of routes; distances and the difficulty of travel. Numbers of trade goods available. Differential purchasing power of POP types. How trade is taxed should also realistically effect how trade is directed. It's also one of the major ways you should be able to get involved with trade, by tailoring laws to decide how you tax import and exports, or different types of goods. Taxing trade should be a good way to make money for the state, but at the risk of disrupting said trade and possibly impeding the development of your territories.

The state (player) should then should have the ability to directly adjust these routes based on its needs, though probably by setting up a shopping list rather than directly maintaining the routes like now. That being said, you should then be paying an upkeep to maintain those routes, rather than profiting from them, on top of occupying the place of a regular trade route that you could tax. This would probably mainly mean ensuring that you get as many bonuses from your capital province as possible, if the current functions of trade goods are maintained. But I'd also like if buildings and legions required certain trade goods to maintain, or at least got bonuses from having access to them locally. Additionally, providing trade goods demanded by POPs should be a way to increase their happiness and encourage their development - like providing grain to a highly urbanized province, which could otherwise be discontent due to having to purchase large quantities itself.

With that out of the way, I think that there are a few different regards in which characters could reasonably get involved in trade. One would be as merchants, as described with this idea. Their overall role in the game should be to affect how trade and its profits are directed - the state/player should be interested in being able to tax these merchants, as well as in having them play a role in providing as much of the trade goods that are demanded by their POPs, and whatever interactions exist between the state and merchants should be within this framework.

Another way for characters to involved could be through holdings. Having some control over the trade goods produced in territories where they have holdings, or at least profiting from this trade in some way, seems logical. Perhaps they, or the state where no character has a holding, should simply be in the role of selling the goods to the merchants who then move on to sell them elsewhere, and their relations with the merchants could affect what kind of deals they are able to get from trading the goods abroad through the relevant merchant, as opposed to selling locally in the province, where their goods should naturally have a level of demand as well - since the trade system fundamentally works on the level of provinces.

 

[IsaacCAT]

That being said, you should then be paying an upkeep to maintain those routes, rather than profiting from them, on top of occupying the place of a regular trade route that you could tax.

This idea fits well with increasing inefficiencies for bigger empires to avoid money sinks. As you get bigger you have to pay more money to keep your ports, roads, etc..

For everything else we see things quite in the same way. However, I am more for incremental change from where we stand towards a more interlinked system before thinking even to add some features like POP’s differential purchasing power.