The way the trade system currently works, steering trade from one node to another takes value away from the source node and enriches the neighbor node. When you're trying to steer trade exactly one node away, this feels natural enough and seems to work.
However, things get strange when you want to transfer goods across a series of nodes. Each one of these transfers has to stop and recalculate value and forwarding amount for each node in between the ultimate source and destination.
For example, consider the case of Genoa in 1444. She has some provinces in Crimea and some islands in the Constantinople node; the clear intent here is to establish trade, taking goods from Crimea to Genoa and using the islands in the Constantinople node as a port. The game mechanics that attempt to simulate this require using Merchants to steer trade from Crimea to Constantinople, then from Constantinople to Genoa.
Unfortunately this is impossible in the game because Genoa's trade value in the Constantinople node is far too small to complete the transfer. Value will transfer from Crimea to Constantinople, but the overwhelming majority of the trade value will then stay in Constantinople, with the slightest trickle making it through to Genoa. This is very weird as the Genoese trade ships would not stop to give away those goods to the people that live in Constantinople and collect from there. Yet, this is precisely what happens; Genoa enriches Constantinople's collectors and gets almost nothing out of the deal.
It should instead be possible for Genoa to use its holdings within the Constantinople node to guarantee that all trade power that transfers from Crimea goes through Constantinople, without stopping, all the way over to the Genoa node, the ultimate destination.
Of course this would be quite powerful if that's the only change that was made; every nation could just take a couple provinces here and there and transfer 100% of power to wherever they wanted. This doesn't work in a number of circumstances, including the one Genoa finds itself in (represented by an event when the Ottomans take Constantinople proper). So, as a comprehensive overhaul, I propose the following:
1. There is a new Merchant option, Extract Trade, that allows you to take trade value out of a node and move it somewhere else.
This is distinct from the old Steer Trade, as you'll see below. The amount of trade extracted depends on your Trade Power.
2. Steer Trade no longer takes any trade from the target node. Instead, it allows you to forward any trade from upstream that has been Extracted.
You can Extract in one node, then Steer in two consecutive downstream nodes, to move the Extracted trade that many steps to a target destination. However, you don't automatically extract any value from nodes that you steer from. Because of this, you should be able to both Extract and Steer from the same node (using two Merchants) in order to continue building up trade value as you go on downstream.
3. Caravan Power and a new value, Maritime Power, affect how well you can Steer Trade in a node (as well as how effective your enemies are at the same).
In short, Caravan Power is being divorced from Trade Power. It doesn't affect how much you can extract or collect within a given node and instead affects how much you can actually transfer over to another node. Unlike Trade Power, you do not get Caravan Power or Maritime Power directly from province development. Instead, you get Caravan Power from Forts you own in the node, and you get Maritime Power from light ships that are set to Protect Trade (optional: Docks or a similar building in coastal provinces could also provide Maritime Power, and infantry units could be set to Protect Caravans, marching around the node and providing more Caravan Power). Caravan and Maritime Power have the same function, but Caravan Power applies to land transfers and Maritime to sea transfers.
4. You don't need full dominance of a trade node in order to transfer 100% of upstream trade downstream.
You shouldn't have to have complete military dominance of a trade node in order to make all your trade go through, but you do still need a notable percentage. Perhaps 20% will let you transfer 100%, which means every 1% of Caravan / Maritime power you have in a province lets you forward 5% of your extracted trade downstream. Of course, nodes with special features (like the Sound Toll, or the desert caravans south of Morocco) could impose severe penalties on all enemy Caravan or Maritime power in a node if a single nation is able to control key provinces.
5. In order to steer trade through a province, you need either a province with a fort (for by land / Caravan Power) or a coastal province (for by sea / Maritime Power, perhaps with a Docks, though this would require that Docks be unlocked at game start like forts at level 1).
So you still need a network of ports to get trade from the ultimate source to the final destination. However you don't have to have every single province in the node to guarantee your goods arrive.
6. Alliances, transfer trade power deals, military access, and fleet basing rights affect trade transfer.
The example in #4 assumed you had no or poor relations with all other nations in the node. However, the game should not count allies or those transferring trade power against you when determining how much trade you can forward. Additionally, if you have military access with a nation, then their Caravan Power doesn't count against you, and if you have fleet basing rights with a nation, then their Maritime Power doesn't count against you.
7. Employing Privateers directly captures trade value being transferred in a node by sea, sending that money directly to your coffers.
Effectiveness is reduced against enemies using light ships to protect trade. I'm not especially familiar with the treasure fleet mechanic, so I leave this to others to figure out how to incorporate this.
So what would all this mean?
It means you could establish a long-distance trade route from a node multiple jumps away back to your home collection node without having to dominate every node in between. If you do dominate every node in between, you need to use a lot more merchants to extract all that intermediate trade and keep it flowing.
This makes the additional merchants a lot more valuable (as-is it's easy to wind up with extraneous ones). It also means trade-focused nations / merchant republics can create valuable trade routes that directly enrich themselves without having to go full empire and conquer entire regions to do it. It makes light ships and privateers easier to understand and optimize their use. Finally, it diversifies strategic options by making capturing and holding individual provinces very important for the trade game, particularly for tall nations disinterested in excessive blobbing or those who colonize far-away islands without being able to dominate all intermediate trade power.
Divorcing steering power from actual trade power is the key element of this. As long as the Ottomans don't take Constantinople and complete the Sound Toll bonus, Genoa would be able to transfer power through the Constantinople node without being in a position to actually extract any power from it. The sudden depth of play this permits, not to mention the greater accuracy of the simulation, hopefully justifies the effort required to implement and balance a change of such a scope as this.
Thanks for reading this text wall! Please help by pointing out any problems or additional elements that could refine this into something even better. Trade is a key element of what makes the EU era stand out, and focusing on broadening its strategic implications is something I think is really important.
However, things get strange when you want to transfer goods across a series of nodes. Each one of these transfers has to stop and recalculate value and forwarding amount for each node in between the ultimate source and destination.
For example, consider the case of Genoa in 1444. She has some provinces in Crimea and some islands in the Constantinople node; the clear intent here is to establish trade, taking goods from Crimea to Genoa and using the islands in the Constantinople node as a port. The game mechanics that attempt to simulate this require using Merchants to steer trade from Crimea to Constantinople, then from Constantinople to Genoa.
Unfortunately this is impossible in the game because Genoa's trade value in the Constantinople node is far too small to complete the transfer. Value will transfer from Crimea to Constantinople, but the overwhelming majority of the trade value will then stay in Constantinople, with the slightest trickle making it through to Genoa. This is very weird as the Genoese trade ships would not stop to give away those goods to the people that live in Constantinople and collect from there. Yet, this is precisely what happens; Genoa enriches Constantinople's collectors and gets almost nothing out of the deal.
It should instead be possible for Genoa to use its holdings within the Constantinople node to guarantee that all trade power that transfers from Crimea goes through Constantinople, without stopping, all the way over to the Genoa node, the ultimate destination.
Of course this would be quite powerful if that's the only change that was made; every nation could just take a couple provinces here and there and transfer 100% of power to wherever they wanted. This doesn't work in a number of circumstances, including the one Genoa finds itself in (represented by an event when the Ottomans take Constantinople proper). So, as a comprehensive overhaul, I propose the following:
1. There is a new Merchant option, Extract Trade, that allows you to take trade value out of a node and move it somewhere else.
This is distinct from the old Steer Trade, as you'll see below. The amount of trade extracted depends on your Trade Power.
2. Steer Trade no longer takes any trade from the target node. Instead, it allows you to forward any trade from upstream that has been Extracted.
You can Extract in one node, then Steer in two consecutive downstream nodes, to move the Extracted trade that many steps to a target destination. However, you don't automatically extract any value from nodes that you steer from. Because of this, you should be able to both Extract and Steer from the same node (using two Merchants) in order to continue building up trade value as you go on downstream.
3. Caravan Power and a new value, Maritime Power, affect how well you can Steer Trade in a node (as well as how effective your enemies are at the same).
In short, Caravan Power is being divorced from Trade Power. It doesn't affect how much you can extract or collect within a given node and instead affects how much you can actually transfer over to another node. Unlike Trade Power, you do not get Caravan Power or Maritime Power directly from province development. Instead, you get Caravan Power from Forts you own in the node, and you get Maritime Power from light ships that are set to Protect Trade (optional: Docks or a similar building in coastal provinces could also provide Maritime Power, and infantry units could be set to Protect Caravans, marching around the node and providing more Caravan Power). Caravan and Maritime Power have the same function, but Caravan Power applies to land transfers and Maritime to sea transfers.
4. You don't need full dominance of a trade node in order to transfer 100% of upstream trade downstream.
You shouldn't have to have complete military dominance of a trade node in order to make all your trade go through, but you do still need a notable percentage. Perhaps 20% will let you transfer 100%, which means every 1% of Caravan / Maritime power you have in a province lets you forward 5% of your extracted trade downstream. Of course, nodes with special features (like the Sound Toll, or the desert caravans south of Morocco) could impose severe penalties on all enemy Caravan or Maritime power in a node if a single nation is able to control key provinces.
5. In order to steer trade through a province, you need either a province with a fort (for by land / Caravan Power) or a coastal province (for by sea / Maritime Power, perhaps with a Docks, though this would require that Docks be unlocked at game start like forts at level 1).
So you still need a network of ports to get trade from the ultimate source to the final destination. However you don't have to have every single province in the node to guarantee your goods arrive.
6. Alliances, transfer trade power deals, military access, and fleet basing rights affect trade transfer.
The example in #4 assumed you had no or poor relations with all other nations in the node. However, the game should not count allies or those transferring trade power against you when determining how much trade you can forward. Additionally, if you have military access with a nation, then their Caravan Power doesn't count against you, and if you have fleet basing rights with a nation, then their Maritime Power doesn't count against you.
7. Employing Privateers directly captures trade value being transferred in a node by sea, sending that money directly to your coffers.
Effectiveness is reduced against enemies using light ships to protect trade. I'm not especially familiar with the treasure fleet mechanic, so I leave this to others to figure out how to incorporate this.
So what would all this mean?
It means you could establish a long-distance trade route from a node multiple jumps away back to your home collection node without having to dominate every node in between. If you do dominate every node in between, you need to use a lot more merchants to extract all that intermediate trade and keep it flowing.
This makes the additional merchants a lot more valuable (as-is it's easy to wind up with extraneous ones). It also means trade-focused nations / merchant republics can create valuable trade routes that directly enrich themselves without having to go full empire and conquer entire regions to do it. It makes light ships and privateers easier to understand and optimize their use. Finally, it diversifies strategic options by making capturing and holding individual provinces very important for the trade game, particularly for tall nations disinterested in excessive blobbing or those who colonize far-away islands without being able to dominate all intermediate trade power.
Divorcing steering power from actual trade power is the key element of this. As long as the Ottomans don't take Constantinople and complete the Sound Toll bonus, Genoa would be able to transfer power through the Constantinople node without being in a position to actually extract any power from it. The sudden depth of play this permits, not to mention the greater accuracy of the simulation, hopefully justifies the effort required to implement and balance a change of such a scope as this.
Thanks for reading this text wall! Please help by pointing out any problems or additional elements that could refine this into something even better. Trade is a key element of what makes the EU era stand out, and focusing on broadening its strategic implications is something I think is really important.
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