Trade steering at 100% trade power.

[Chobies]

I have a few trade questions, mainly involving trade steering.

Is the idea with trade in general to control and develop upstream and let the trade flow to somewhere you are collecting?

Do you have to have a merchant trade steering in the node in order to steer trade downstream or do all nodes naturally transfer downstream?

Is trade steering mainly just used to change which node your trade power is going to?

I almost always have more income just collecting in nodes instead of steering but that might just be because I haven't had much experience controlling nodes upstream from my home node.

 

[Amadeu of Savoy]

I have a few trade questions, mainly involving trade steering.

Is the idea with trade in general to control and develop upstream and let the trade flow to somewhere you are collecting?

Exactly. The more nodes upstream you have transferring to your collecting trade node, the better.

Do you have to have a merchant trade steering in the node in order to steer trade downstream or do all nodes naturally transfer downstream?

They naturally transfer downstream if you have trade range, but you need a merchant transferring trade in the node to have a trade power bonus in your collecting trade node.

Is trade steering mainly just used to change which node your trade power is going to?

You need a merchant transferring trade in the node to change where you are steering your trade power.

I almost always have more income just collecting in nodes instead of steering but that might just be because I haven't had much experience controlling nodes upstream from my home node.

You get a big penalty for collecting away from your main trade node, but the trade strategy for your country will depend on trade flows. Sometimes you have no choice but to collect away for more income, but the ideal is collecting in your main trade node with several trade nodes flowing there being steered by merchants upstream.

 

[PhoenixG]

I have a few trade questions, mainly involving trade steering.

Is the idea with trade in general to control and develop upstream and let the trade flow to somewhere you are collecting?

Do you have to have a merchant trade steering in the node in order to steer trade downstream or do all nodes naturally transfer downstream?

Is trade steering mainly just used to change which node your trade power is going to?

I almost always have more income just collecting in nodes instead of steering but that might just be because I haven't had much experience controlling nodes upstream from my home node.

Trade always flows downwards if there is someone collecting their. If it branches into multiple nodes and no one is steering, the trade value will split evenly.

The advantage in steering over collecting is it increases trade value of the output by a total of max 5%.
But you need quite some trade power in the downstream node, or you'll just others.

About when to steer or when to collect, it's hard to tell. Since there are so many factors and the AI can change it each month