Trade Strategy

[Kallocain]

Someone posted a long explanation of trade in the FAQ subforum:
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum...-the-EU4-Trade-System&p=15929030#post15929030

Really, you should take a look here!

 

[GAGA Extrem]

1) Send him to Ivory Coast to forward trade from there. This seems better than leaving him in Mauritanian Coast since everyone else at Ivory Coast wants to hold trade there, so very little is going forward. On the other hand, it's not a particularly valuable trade node.

Well, but where do you want to forward the trade from ivory coast towards?
Mauretanian coast, right into the hands of those collecting there? The Carribean where other nations will compete?
Unless you control either of those nodes, all you do is helping your enemies.

2) Send him to Bordeaux to try to send trade backward to Seville. I'm not clear on whether sending trade backward is different than sending it forward - is this harder/less productive? We also have no provinces here, so we only get the base influence from the merchant.

Never send a merchant to a node downstream of your home node. You do not transfer trade value, but instead TRADE POWER. You also get a -80% modifier on that, so you rarely get anything from controlling provinces downstream of your home node. All a merchant does is adding 2 trade power (which equals 0,4 after the -80% reduction). If you ever end up with significant trade power in a node downstream of your homenode COLLECT instead.

3) Send him to Genoa for the same reason. This seems pretty similar.

Genoa is upstream of Seville (check the arrows of the trade routes!), so here you would forward trade towards your home node.
So this can be a good idea. Now you have to check: How much trade power can you generate in each of these nodes, what trade power share can you create with that and how high is the trade value in that node?
If the trade node in Genoa is three times more valuable than Mauretanian coast, but you can only get a 10% share compared to 50% in Mauretania, then you should forward in Mauretania.
(e.g. 10 TV Mauretania * 50% share = 5 TV forwarded, 30 TV Genoa * 10% share = 3 TV forwarded)

4) Send him to collect from trade in Mauritanian Coast or Ivory Coast. This way I get a cut of the Mauritanian Coast trade, plus a second cut of what Spain forwards to Seville. This seems like the best option?

Depends. If the node is rich AND you have dominant trade power in it, that might be worth the while. Just calculate how much share you lose from the -50% TP modifier and compare it to what part of the forwarded trade you would get in Seville.

Then there's the merchant we have in Seville. We automatically get to collect income from our home trade zone, so all he's doing is adding ~2 trade power, which is a drop in the bucket compared to the ~150 you get from provinces and ships. It seems like he would be better served collecting trade elsewhere.

It also grants a +10% trade income modifier.

I'd go with forward in Genoa and Mauretanian Coast.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

In the scenario he described no one was collecting in Mauritanian Coast so it was all being pushed ahead to Seville (and with no capitals in the region that is likely to be the case most of the time). In my Portugal play through the demo that is exactly what I did, I also sent a fleet of ships so I got a hefty power percentage compared to the natives so it pushed about 75% of the trade there ahead. This ended up being a lot better than the pitiful fraction you can grab out of Genoa or Tunis with all the competitors pushing against you or collecting.

Yes, if you forward through nodes without serious competition, it is indeed worth the while.
I must admit I haven't played the demo and had checked it with the 1440 start date, so I probably didn't take the changes from a later start date into account.

This assumes you own a province in that node and are allowed to do so. While there are probably very few, I can envision scenarios where pushing back 20% of my power in a node to my capital would be a net gain over other options even if only by hurting my competition a tiny bit. One example would be the Baltic as Russia, pushing power back into Novgorod to keep those %^&&^% Swedes from stealing my trade income. That would depend on things like where in the world you are, how many merchants available, naval capability, and so on though. The malus for collecting away from your capital is pretty brutal...

Well, if you own significant trade power in a downstream node without having a province, you are doing it wrong.
And remember that trade power is transferred upstream even without a merchant, so again: No reason to ever assign a merchant to collect there. The fact that the button isn't greyed out is a trap.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

Switching the capital to a better trade node can be a powerful strategy. Not 100% sure if HAB has any decisions that require the capital in Vienna. If not - yes, switching can be a good idea to get that free collecting.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

Mmmmmh. Is there any way to get trade from the Americas into the Mediterranean? Gibraltar is locked for some reason (which precludes let's say Venice from conquering it to gain access to the Atlantic), so it should come from somewhere else. Does this somewhere else exist?

No. The only way for the Mediterranean nations to get a slice of the cake is to conquer a province in the Carribean and collect abroad
...or isolate the capital to move it oversea.

Not if that node feeds toward your capital.

You need at least ~75% power share at home in that case.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

Maybe Cheapskate bay is even better, since you could technically steer all American, African and Asian trade into it and cut Europe dry.

Yup.
I did that once as England. It is a really, really powerful strategy. I owned all provinces of the East Coast connected to Chesapeake Bay and dominated the Carribean with my light ships - it took almost until 1700 before the AI had enough power to break my monopoly. Roughly 70% of my income was from trade.

Now imagine that in a MP game - that will create actual trade wars!
°_°

 

[GAGA Extrem]

Reference trade route directions, are these fixed or dynamic in relation to trade power and steering and all the other terms that I should probably learn?

I... don't understand you question?
...but if you talk about direction of trade: That is fixed. Trade value always moves in direction of the arrows and this direction will never change.

According to the demo, I couldn't find such a modifier. There's a pretty massive change to your trade power though.

Yes it is -50% TRADE POWER. If it would be an income modifier, than you would have an exploitive way to suck trade nodes dry to hurt your enemies.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

If the -50% malus is applied to trade power instead of wealth collected (I thought it was the other way around), then yes. Well this means it's much easier to suck out wealth from foreign nodes.

It is indeed applied to TRADE POWER, not trade income.
And it makes it in fact harder to suck foreign nodes dry. Because if it would only reduce the trade income from your power share, you could use it to effectively reduce trade value in a foreign node. Sure, you might not as much money from it, but you would vastly reduce the income for any other competitor.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

Right, because trade power =/= percentage of control over the node. That's what I was mixing up.

Yup. But, tbh, its a bit inconvienient that you cannot easily see the combined total trade power of all countries to make assumptions where your trade power projection would be most efficient.