Wealth of Nations Dev Diary 3: Companies and Canals

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Wealth of Nations Dev Diary 3:Companies and Canals

So, it’s time for the third dev diary on the Wealth of Nations expansion for EU4. This week I will talk a little about two brand new concepts, Trade Companies and Canals. This week all the stuff I will be talking about will be in the expansion and not in the free 1.6 patch.


Trade Companies

In Conquest of Paradise we looked at colonisation in the western hemisphere when we added Colonial Nations. With that feature you got independant colonial states that had their own goals and live their own lives but they could also expand your empire on their own and if you weren’t careful they could break free. Now when we add Trade Companies to Africa and Asia in Wealth of Nations we wanted to give them a very different feel. While colonisation in the west is about sprawling empires with a lack of control, trade empires in the east is a bit more specialised affair.


So, again we have divided parts of the world into a new type of regions but thats where the similarities ends. When you add provinces (something that you choose to do, and you can revoke it again) to a Trade Company you will still retain control of it but the way you gain benefits from it change. First of the province will produce radically less tax and manpower, but on the other hand it will provide a massive boost in Trade Power (we are still toying with the numbers here) and its also going to add 0.5 Naval Force Limit per province.


This makes the Trade Companies first and foremost a tool for Trade Empires, if you are the Mughal Empire and you are conquering India you are probably looking to increase your tax base and the amount of troops you can raise. On the other hand if you are Portugal you already have overseas penalties to manpower and you are instead looking to improve and extend your trading empire.


Now there are other little effects of Trade Companies. Most importantly, if your Trade Company is dominating the region (currently holds 51% of the modified province trade power) you are getting an extra merchant. This means that if you come into a region as a Trade Power you will start looking for the really good trade provinces (with the 1.6 patch we are also adding new icons to the trade map mode so you can better find the river estuaries etc) and with your superior Trade technology you have a good chance to dominate trade in the area. What we are looking to do is create layers of conflicts where Trade empires have each other as their main adversaries and have local alliances with the more primitive powers. To help that area we are also making it so that you can no longer westernize if you are only neighbour to a trade company (normally one of the requirements is that you have a high tech neighbour) on the other hand you can westernize if you own a core of an advanced nation.


Finally on the subject of Trade Companies, they are not going to be the powerful independent actors that Colonial Nations are but there will be frictions through a number of events where you can choose how to manage the friction created between yourself and your companies.


Now, on to one of the more controversial subjects.

Canals


Yes we are adding Canals to the game. In Wealth of Nations there are three buildable canals, Suez, Kiel and Panama. The latter is probably the least realistic but we wanted to add these three to give players that manage to build global empires something extra to strive for. Canals are basically massive building projects that when finished will be visible on the map. During these expensive projects you will also get events that allows you to face up to the historical difficulties of such projects. Canals will allow ships to sail through them, can be blocked by fleets and will also grant a substantial province Trade Power bonus to the owner so that you can use the canal to redirect the flow of trade (and no, it doesn't alter the trade routes but on the other had you already have trade routes across the canal routes). An interesting side effect of this is for future expansions and mods is that the canals are basically construction projects with events that can trigger during building and with on map objects when you are done so there is the possibility to add more interesting province specific works in the future.


That was it for this week, next week I will talk a bit about the new Religion Mechanics that are coming with Wealth of Nations.

trade_companies.png
 
What will be the (rough) cost level for these canals? Are there other costs apart from gold to build them? They should really be VERY rare to see in a game I think.
 
On Canals, I would suggest adding Volga-Don, Eerie, and Rideau. Maybe a few others. These probably shouldn't exist on the map or serve the same movement function as Kiel, Panama, and Suez; instead, they should serve as a boost for base tax, trade output, and manpower (representing the inevitable population growth that trade brings).
 
Wealth of Nations Dev Diary 3:Companies and Canals

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... we are also making it so that you can no longer westernize if you are only neighbour to a trade company (normally one of the requirements is that you have a high tech neighbour) on the other hand you can westernize if you own a core of an advanced nation.

Just to make sure I understand this, are you saying that you cannot westernise as a neighbour of a province allocated to a trade company but that if you go to war with that trade company and capture that province then you will be able to westernise?

Also, will you still be able to westernise if you neighbour a province of a western nation which has not been allocated to a trade company, for example in a game played in 1.6 without buying the expansion?
 
So how the world is divided for trade company?
Last time I saw in dev stream, the divisions are China, Southeast Asia, and India, but now Africa is mentioned as part of it so I would like to know more...
Also, is the trade company a feature of european nations only or other nations can also make one?
In a patch note read in dev stream, I heard something about China and here Mughal is being mentioned, maybe you could give more detail about what nations could have it?
 
An interesting side effect of this is for future expansions and mods is that the canals are basically construction projects with events that can trigger during building and with on map objects when you are done so there is the possibility to add more interesting province specific works in the future.

Does this mean that in the future it will be possible to de-populate a province via event? In other words, reduce it from a "city" to a colonizable, empty province? Currently that is not possible.
 
What will be the (rough) cost level for these canals? Are there other costs apart from gold to build them? They should really be VERY rare to see in a game I think.

20K gold, adm tech 26, with events that can and will delay progress. So it's not like everyone is going to have em. I mean how often does the AI stockpile 20K gold?
 
On Canals, I would suggest adding Volga-Don, Eerie, and Rideau. Maybe a few others. These probably shouldn't exist on the map or serve the same movement function as Kiel, Panama, and Suez; instead, they should serve as a boost for base tax, trade output, and manpower (representing the inevitable population growth that trade brings).
Please this. If Panama is there, others make sense too. :) Volga-Don would be awesome.
 
Just to make sure I understand this, are you saying that you cannot westernise as a neighbour of a province allocated to a trade company but that if you go to war with that trade company and capture that province then you will be able to westernise?

Also, will you still be able to westernise if you neighbour a province of a western nation which has not been allocated to a trade company, for example in a game played in 1.6 without buying the expansion?

That is correct.

Westernization will work as now if you have a neightbour that is not a trade company province, with just 1.6 and no expansion, that would be all provinces.
 
So how the world is divided for trade company?
Last time I saw in dev stream, the divisions are China, Southeast Asia, and India, but now Africa is mentioned as part of it so I would like to know more...
Also, is the trade company a feature of european nations only or other nations can also make one?
In a patch note read in dev stream, I heard something about China and here Mughal is being mentioned, maybe you could give more detail about what nations could have it?

At the moment its limited to westernized nations. We are currently rebalancing the size and shapes of the company regions, but they are located in sub saharan africa, India and the rest of Asia.
 
Canals look like a really great addition. The trade zone thing is pretty cool as it's optional, so one can choose what he wants to do.
 
The description in the subjects list is wrong (in the pic) it should say Company instead of Comapny, and further down it should say in instead of if (in faraway lands not if)
 
At the moment its limited to westernized nations. We are currently rebalancing the size and shapes of the company regions, but they are located in sub saharan africa, India and the rest of Asia.
Haha so that's why the mughals won't establish a trade company in india:laugh:
 
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Can you build units and buildings in territory held by your trade company?

Is the trade company's trade power independent from yours, or do you get 100% of the trade company's trade power?

Is the region that the trade company needs to dominate for the extra merchant the trade node, or the trade company region?

Do you have a different trade company for each trade company region, or does your nation have one big trade company?
 
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