Isn't it possible to auto-send merchants?
It's really annoying to manually send them out all the time ;(
It's really annoying to manually send them out all the time ;(
Trade
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Let's hope NOT. That would be a lazy fix, and wouldn't solve the root problem that effective trading requires micromanagement.
Instead of implementing auto-merchants, I would really wish they change the way free slots and competition works.
Instead of implementing auto-merchants, I would really wish they change the way free slots and competition works.
cccino said:
The current implementation isn't micromanagement. It's pure tedious busy work. No strategy is involved whatsoever and it sucks the fun out of an otherwise great game. Honestly, I might not even buy EU3 unless being able to auto send merchants can be modded in somehow.
Well, the way it currently works - or seems to work, anyway - is that you only get merchants in the CoT if there's a free space. If you send one merchant, after a waiting/travel/whatever period of time x he either takes a free spot or competes with another merchant. If that competition is successful, NEITHER merchant keeps the spot, it becomes open, and both merchants disappear. The NEXT merchant who completes his waiting/travelling time gets the free spot.
So in fact there is micromanagement, and that is in successfully timing a cluster of merchants so that the latter ones capture the spots. If you send them too close (in days) together, it seems they all fail; if you send them too far apart there is a greater chance of missing the window in which there is a free CoT - depending on whether or not your earlier merchants were successful. Since this is not guaranteed, it is typically most efficient to send at least 3 in a row, each a few days apart.
You do not get the same results sending the same number of merchants per month, but one at a time. So yes, you do need to micromanage a strategy.
As for auto-sending, why not auto-send colonists, or missionaries, or spies?
So in fact there is micromanagement, and that is in successfully timing a cluster of merchants so that the latter ones capture the spots. If you send them too close (in days) together, it seems they all fail; if you send them too far apart there is a greater chance of missing the window in which there is a free CoT - depending on whether or not your earlier merchants were successful. Since this is not guaranteed, it is typically most efficient to send at least 3 in a row, each a few days apart.
You do not get the same results sending the same number of merchants per month, but one at a time. So yes, you do need to micromanage a strategy.
As for auto-sending, why not auto-send colonists, or missionaries, or spies?
cccino said:
Why would you hope not? If you dont like it, you are free to send them manually.
Anyway, i really hope this feature gets implemented in a patch. For me atleast, its almost a gamebreaking feature. Clicking around to send merchants over and over and over again gets old really quickly.
However, i think you should be able to somehow create a better system, which doesnt require the same amount of micromanagement. That would naturally be the best option, but i doubt its gonna happen.
cccino said:
I agree that the merchant-sending-strategy you described seems to be the best. I do however not find it a very entertaining thing to do.
Im sure you are aware that there major differences between merchants and the other things you can send out. Is it really needed to describe why many ppl find it entertaining to send colonists, while they dont find it entertaining to send merchants to the same CoT over and over and over and over and over again.
ECV said:
If they implement a system whereby it doesn't matter precisely when the merchant is sent, then auto-sending will work fine and it definitely should be implemented. What I was trying to imply in my original post was that if they only fix one thing about trade, I'd rather they fix the core to which auto-sending can be easily added, than to simply restore the EU2 auto system and call the whole thing 'done'.
I think you completely missed my point.ECV said:
oYou're right, it isn't entertaining, but it is the only way to actually make headway into a CoT. They should FIX this so that some future auto-sending isn't a hopeless inefficient mess. Because, I bet if you sat down in EU2 and worked out how much money you can make in manual trade, and how much you lose in auto, you'd do it manually no matter how tedious. I certainly don't enjoy sending them out under the present system.
Hell, all they'd have to do for starters would be to make successful merchants replace the loser, instead of creating a hole.
Voila, no longer do you have to time a group to compete and grab the holes, and auto-send can be implemented without massive penalty.
Although it would no doubt need some balancing to merchant spawn rates, competition changes, trade efficiency, number of slots...
[EDIT:]You'd probably need to set merchants to queue, so that you can only compete once every x days, otherwise you could have a very reasonable chance of gaining 5 slots in one hit.
Voila, no longer do you have to time a group to compete and grab the holes, and auto-send can be implemented without massive penalty.
Although it would no doubt need some balancing to merchant spawn rates, competition changes, trade efficiency, number of slots...
[EDIT:]You'd probably need to set merchants to queue, so that you can only compete once every x days, otherwise you could have a very reasonable chance of gaining 5 slots in one hit.
Ok, im glad that we to some extent agree.
When you autosend merchants, you are simply hoping that a spot will open right before it arrives. This is clearly not as good as sending a few together, but i for one am willing to settle with less income from trade, in exchange for not having to perform the send-merchant-routine 1-2 times each year. The game is easy enough as it is, so i can live with the lost income.
Regardsless, as already noted i would ofc prefer the merchant system to add some kind of entertainment and an extra dimension in the gameplay. As it is it tries to add an extra dimension, unfortunaly it fails badly since all it adds (for me atleast, but also for quite a few others i suspect) is a tedious routine.
EU2 "solved" this with the autosend option. You could simply ignore this part of the gameplay. By doing so you didnt get trade better than the ai, but you didnt trade any worse either. I could live with ignoring it.
I have no idea why this simply option was left out, since i would think paradox should know, that the trade aspect is by far the weakest aspect of the gameplay. Or even better, the merchant sending system changed to something alot less tedious.
When you autosend merchants, you are simply hoping that a spot will open right before it arrives. This is clearly not as good as sending a few together, but i for one am willing to settle with less income from trade, in exchange for not having to perform the send-merchant-routine 1-2 times each year. The game is easy enough as it is, so i can live with the lost income.
Regardsless, as already noted i would ofc prefer the merchant system to add some kind of entertainment and an extra dimension in the gameplay. As it is it tries to add an extra dimension, unfortunaly it fails badly since all it adds (for me atleast, but also for quite a few others i suspect) is a tedious routine.
EU2 "solved" this with the autosend option. You could simply ignore this part of the gameplay. By doing so you didnt get trade better than the ai, but you didnt trade any worse either. I could live with ignoring it.
I have no idea why this simply option was left out, since i would think paradox should know, that the trade aspect is by far the weakest aspect of the gameplay. Or even better, the merchant sending system changed to something alot less tedious.
THe mechanism with replacing out-competed merchants you propose and also a setting to auto-send only to player-specified CoTs would be perfect.
Even if it only offered a 'maintenance' option - that is, to automatically try and replace any lost merchants.
On a similar issue, it always seemed odd to me that it was really easy to get a monopoly, but really difficult to maintain it for more than weeks. I would have thought that in reality, it would take a long time to establish a monopoly, but once settled in, be really hard to shift.
On a similar issue, it always seemed odd to me that it was really easy to get a monopoly, but really difficult to maintain it for more than weeks. I would have thought that in reality, it would take a long time to establish a monopoly, but once settled in, be really hard to shift.
I would support this feature's inclusion since so many people wants it.
But really, it's not such a good feature. It drains your money badly.
cheers
But really, it's not such a good feature. It drains your money badly.
cheers
well, i would like to have an auto-send merchant feature.
It feels like the only thing i do, is to send out merchants.
Doesn't feel like i get that much money from it either.
In eu2 i got really rich from the trading and now i get, at most, 100 ducats a year.
excellent game though :rofl:
It feels like the only thing i do, is to send out merchants.
Doesn't feel like i get that much money from it either.
In eu2 i got really rich from the trading and now i get, at most, 100 ducats a year.
excellent game though :rofl:
Anyone knows why auto send merchant feature was removed in EU3? It seems like a step backward.
Well it didn't really work to your advantage in EU2 did it? That is, unless your goal was simply to have 0 merchants...
Probably because it sucked? Autotrading in EU2 usually cost you money.
With the ledger and the flashing merchant alert I find it no big deal to keep track of my merchant investments. I hope we can get an indicator of number of free spots for COTs in the ledger -- maybe on mouse-over.
With the ledger and the flashing merchant alert I find it no big deal to keep track of my merchant investments. I hope we can get an indicator of number of free spots for COTs in the ledger -- maybe on mouse-over.
I've despised the merchant system since EU1; it feels so gamey, and doesn't feel as though it simulates anything remotely historical. It's just click-click-click and wander off to something else; even if there's some subtlety, it's not meaningful and interesting subtlety. I was hoping that they'd replace it with something better, but there it is.
So in EU2 I used the auto-merchant feature, for what (little) it was worth, unless I was in a pinch for cash. I hope they put it back. And you'd think that the auto-merchant would be pretty good; unlike the diplomatic and military AIs the probabilities and revenues are very cut and dry.
So in EU2 I used the auto-merchant feature, for what (little) it was worth, unless I was in a pinch for cash. I hope they put it back. And you'd think that the auto-merchant would be pretty good; unlike the diplomatic and military AIs the probabilities and revenues are very cut and dry.
Intelligent autosend?
Autosend might function better if in the ledger page of CoT a column was added making it possible to autosend to ONE specific CoT conditioned on number of available merchant. Say if you want to send merchants in pairs, you mark 2 as the condition. Then you automatically will send two merchants to the specified CoT whenever they are available. Or you could decide only to send after having 4 available mercants, to send a 'swarm'.
This would require additions to the CoT ledger page of a column marked 'check autosend' with the possibility of entering a number for the line of the specific CoT (and '-' for all other lines).
Then it also should be possible to choose: 'Send always/send when not having monopoly'. The first option would be amenable against loosing trade levels in very valuable CoTs far away with long merchant travelling time, but it will have a heavy cost. The last option would be amenable for working a CoT trying to get as high in trade level as possible.
This system would take the tediousness out of trade, while still having some control.
It would work well with a strategy of concentrating on one CoT but not if dividing investment between different CoTs. In that case autosend might be more complicated. althought it could be possible to have some decision rule based on comparing different CoTs, but the time it takes for the merchant to arrive at a CoT could make such a system not work well.
So the possibility of chosing to autosend in batches to one CoT might be usable compromise and a valuable addition to the system.
Another matter is if Paradox really are planning to revise EUIII?
Autosend might function better if in the ledger page of CoT a column was added making it possible to autosend to ONE specific CoT conditioned on number of available merchant. Say if you want to send merchants in pairs, you mark 2 as the condition. Then you automatically will send two merchants to the specified CoT whenever they are available. Or you could decide only to send after having 4 available mercants, to send a 'swarm'.
This would require additions to the CoT ledger page of a column marked 'check autosend' with the possibility of entering a number for the line of the specific CoT (and '-' for all other lines).
Then it also should be possible to choose: 'Send always/send when not having monopoly'. The first option would be amenable against loosing trade levels in very valuable CoTs far away with long merchant travelling time, but it will have a heavy cost. The last option would be amenable for working a CoT trying to get as high in trade level as possible.
This system would take the tediousness out of trade, while still having some control.
It would work well with a strategy of concentrating on one CoT but not if dividing investment between different CoTs. In that case autosend might be more complicated. althought it could be possible to have some decision rule based on comparing different CoTs, but the time it takes for the merchant to arrive at a CoT could make such a system not work well.
So the possibility of chosing to autosend in batches to one CoT might be usable compromise and a valuable addition to the system.
Another matter is if Paradox really are planning to revise EUIII?
I'll go ahead in chime in here too. Trading in the EU games has always been (since EU Prime) my least favorite part of gameplay. As others have mentioned, it is tedious and just no fun (maybe some masochists here like it :wacko: ). I was sorely disappointed to see that red headed stepchild from the other games make its way into EU 3. So far, in the EU series, trading is just about as enjoyable as a tax audit. Anyways, I do love the series and am awaiting my EU3 CE with baited breath.
However, I do hope that during the patching(or upgrading) of the game, trading is made more abstracted. I personally wouldn't bat an eyelash if merchant sending (at least in its current form) were done away with altogether.
However, I do hope that during the patching(or upgrading) of the game, trading is made more abstracted. I personally wouldn't bat an eyelash if merchant sending (at least in its current form) were done away with altogether.