What effects merchants?

[EUnderhill]

I've noticed the same. For a certainty ownership of COTs affects the chance of success and sustainance. In fact except for, possibly, and mind you I'm doubtful of it, due to Ws2's finds on the matter, mercantilism, it seems pretty clear to me that everything that affects merchant sustainance also affects their chances for success when placed.

Myself, I'm postive that stab, ADM, TE, BB, and COT ownership/non-ownership all have sizeable and recognizeable affects on merchant success(by success I mean both sustainance and placing).

I don't know 100% whether religion, relations, or having TEs between competing countries in a neutral COT, actually have an impact. But if they do it would not susprise me.

Another thing about TE, is that in the long run it has by far the largest impact. Stab and ADM have a cut off point. And I've definitely noticed sizeable affects by them between competing countries that have small TE spreads between them. But with 1 country has vastly superior TE over another one, like 30%+ or something like that, the ADM and Stab discrepency between the two doesn't seem to be enough to compensate for it.

With BB, it seems to continually have an affect and I don't suspect there is a cut off point like with ADM and Stab. But it doesn't seem to me from what I've seen to be as big of a factor as TE. High TE, particularly very high TE, seems to have little problems compensating for it. For example, I had 80 BB for about 15-20 years in my Portugal game in the AAR, and still didn't lose a merchant for about 70 years. I had much less BB than this for the rest of the time too. But hey, if you're trying to get GTD, ya I've noticed high BB delaying it myself too.

Testing merchant stickiness at 250% TE is like taking a Corvair and whacking it against a brick wall at 200mph and then declaring the car to be safe because the excess speed is what "killed" the crash-test-dummies. TE is open-ended, the other parameters are not. Determining that which has the greatest marginal effect per increment of change at normal levels of all parameters is that which will lead to determining which factors are dominant.

 

[unmerged(6147)]

I appreciate the effort ws2_32 put into the study of merchant stickiness and I think it's great someone decided to figure out EU2 mysterious trade mechanism.

May I make a few suggestions though?

He mueller, are you back! Nice to hear from you! And as before your posts are excellent, I heartily agree with Tom on that!

 

[unmerged(31425)]

I notice in MP games that I'm rarely competed out of CoTs by my allies (which I thus have good relations with) or compete them out for that matter.
I do get competed out by my enemies (bad relations) a lot.

So I'd say yes relations matter when the game decides which merchant gets competed out by a merchant of a particular country.

That's interesting. I'm gonna start trying to pay attention to this. I suppose the main affect it would have is that the country that it targets, to be competed out, is more likely to be the one with worse relations. I think the BB may affect the trade in COTs in the same way. Not 100% sure though.

 

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Mercantilism:
I think the evidence presented by WS2_32 is not entirely conclusive because the mercantilism slider may have mixed effects. For instance, it may (or may not) be the case that mercantilism makes it more likely for merchants to stick in "domestic" COTs and less likely to stick in "foreign" COTs. For a clean experiment, samples have to be constructed accordingly. Ie give all European COTs to Portugal and compare how many merchants it loses at merc=0 and merc = 10. Then do the same test for Tuscany (or whatever) who owns no COTs.

That's an interesting idea. I suppose the change where mercantilism is supposed to make merchants have better sustainance, would still be technically true if this is the case.

 

[unmerged(31425)]

Testing merchant stickiness at 250% TE is like taking a Corvair and whacking it against a brick wall at 200mph and then declaring the car to be safe because the excess speed is what "killed" the crash-test-dummies. TE is open-ended, the other parameters are not. Determining that which has the greatest marginal effect per increment of change at normal levels of all parameters is that which will lead to determining which factors are dominant.

Well we don't disagree here then. Even in chapter 8 of my AI modding guide, I say that I thought TE's importance was perhaps over-rated and that stab and ADM were sizeable affecters. At similar TE levels between competing countries, stab and ADM both have sizeable and noticeable affects. In fact in EP I've seen the Scandinavians running my merchants out of my home COT like mad and I had higher TE not lower TE than them. They both of course had very high ADM and +3 stab at the time, and my ADM was lower.

But like you say TE is an open ended affecter. And that of course was the entire point to my remarks about the trade in 18th and 19th century in my Portugal AAR in the first place.

So to be more specific, TE is both somewhere around stab and ADM in the amount it affects both sustainance and chances for success at placing(both = merchant success) and TE is also by far the largest affecter, by virtue of it's non-capped potential affects.

 

[unmerged(3931)]

I notice in MP games that I'm rarely competed out of CoTs by my allies (which I thus have good relations with) or compete them out for that matter.
I do get competed out by my enemies (bad relations) a lot.

So I'd say yes relations matter when the game decides which merchant gets competed out by a merchant of a particular country.

I haven't noticed relations, but then I have poor relations with just about everyone in my WC games. I do notice that when at war, the nation with which I am at war will regularly compete my merchants out of their home CoT and maybe one or two merchants elsewhere also.

 

[unmerged(6147)]

I do notice that when at war, the nation with which I am at war will regularly compete my merchants out of their home CoT and maybe one or two merchants elsewhere also.

I as well can testify to this.

 

[unmerged(16441)]

He mueller, are you back! Nice to hear from you!

Thanks man
I have not played EU2 for a long while but I do occasionally lurk here. And perhaps I have abstained long enough to enjoy a good EU game
With EU it's like... well, you can check out any time you like but you can never leave

 

[unmerged(3931)]

Okay, I did not want to leave this issue unresolved. So I did a test with Oman that was inspired by mueller's post. Trade tech zero and trade tech ten comparisons using the same trade efficiency is complete for the 1.08 vanilla.

The results show clearly that, in 1.08 vanilla, raw trade tech does have a direct effect on merchant stickiness.

The Mercantilism effect was discovered to be in error in the Xhosa test. The effect is in fact the opposite of the 1.08 release notes that say, "Mercantilism now makes a merchant more likely to stay in a center of trade." The reason for the previous error was in transcribing the data. The data is presented in a form than descends from largest values to lowest values. This means that the Mercantilism ten values come first. However, in save game file naming and ordering based on the names, Mercantilism zero comes first. So I made an error in copying the original data. In the additional data, the error was not made and this explains the inconsistency observed between the various data sets. It also seems more likely that the release notes would be incorrect rather than the Mercantilism effect "flip-flopping" as was previously stated.

I have returned to the 1.08 save games to double check all the data. Check my signature for a link to the latest results. The Oman test is particularly convincing that raw trade tech does have a direct effect in at least one version of EU2.

 

[kurtbrian]

ws2_32, idontlikeforms and DSYoungEsq
please keep this thread friendlier than the last.

 

[unmerged(31425)]

Okay, I did not want to leave this issue unresolved. So I did a test with Oman that was inspired by mueller's post. Trade tech zero and trade tech ten comparisons using the same trade efficiency is complete for the 1.08 vanilla.

The results show clearly that, in 1.08 vanilla, raw trade tech does have a direct effect on merchant stickiness.

The Mercantilism effect was discovered to be in error in the Xhosa test. The effect is in fact the opposite of the 1.08 release notes that say, "Mercantilism now makes a merchant more likely to stay in a center of trade." The reason for the previous error was in transcribing the data. The data is presented in a form than descends from largest values to lowest values. This means that the Mercantilism ten values come first. However, in save game file naming and ordering based on the names, Mercantilism zero comes first. So I made an error in copying the original data. In the additional data, the error was not made and this explains the inconsistency observed between the various data sets. It also seems less likely that the release notes would be incorrect rather than the Mercantilism effect "flip-flopping" as was previously stated.

I have returned to the 1.08 save games to double check all the data. Check my signature for a link to the latest results. The Oman test is particularly convincing that raw trade tech does have a direct effect in at least one version of EU2.

Does Oman have autosend on?

 

[unmerged(3931)]

I doubled checked the save games. Merchants are not sent through autosend or any other means in any of the trials. Had autosend been used, it would only act to cause greater losses of merchants at trade tech ten. More merchants placed likely means more merchants lost. I machine-count the number of merchants lost in the log file. Merchants cannot be placed at trade tech zero.

 

[unmerged(31425)]

I doubled checked the save games. Merchants are not sent through autosend or any other means in any of the trials. Had autosend been used, it would only act to cause greater losses of merchants at trade tech ten. More merchants placed likely means more merchants lost. I machine-count the number of merchants lost in the log file. Merchants cannot be placed at trade tech zero.

IC. Well then I applaud you on your discovery. I won't go so far as to say your results for Oman are "conclusive." But I freely admit that they strongly suggest that trade tech is an affecter of merchant stickiness and that I don't doubt to the contrary.

I think it is worthwhile to note that 0 trade tech and 10 trade tech are very far apart. This being the case it would easily explain why others and myself have not noticed any difference from trade tech directly and instead have keyed in on TE, as your spreads divided by 10 would be puny, and thus undoubtedly TE has the more noticeable affect.

Also the mercantilism thingy is quite disturbing. As basically there is no justifiable reason for going mercantilist anymore.

Good tests Ws2. I mean that sincerely. I hope you take it that way.

 

[unmerged(16441)]

Great tests ws2_32. Thanks!

 

[unmerged(3931)]

IC. Well then I applaud you on your discovery. I won't go so far as to say your results for Oman are "conclusive." But I freely admit that they strongly suggest that trade tech is an affecter of merchant stickiness and that I don't doubt to the contrary.

"Conclusive" is a matter of semantics. Statistically speaking evidence is conclusive if you can draw conclusions. Only a 95% probability of being right is required for that except possibly in life or death type of studies on medications and things of that nature where 99% or 99.9% might be more acceptable. In other words, "conclusive evidence" is not the same as "definitive proof."

I think it is worthwhile to note that 0 trade tech and 10 trade tech are very far apart. This being the case it would easily explain why others and myself have not noticed any difference from trade tech directly and instead have keyed in on TE, as your spreads divided by 10 would be puny, and thus undoubtedly TE has the more noticeable affect.

The test performed is not entirely a real world test because every nation had so much money and extra merchants. Although the statistics cannot be compared directly a 2.925524 t-statistic for Xhosa's 20% of trade efficiency compared to a t-statistic of 7.291676 for Oman's ten levels of trade tech should give some idea of what we are talking about. One thing I should probably point out is that there is no saying for sure that the trade tech difference is exactly linear throughout all eleven values. A possible hypothesis to be tested could be that it is trade tech advantage that is key, and the amount of trade tech advantage is irrelevant.

One of my points all along is that, for a pagan for example, you cannot get infrastructure three, and then expect pumping refineries to get you to GTD. The tech costs are so huge that you have to make very selective choices. If you get infrastructure three and pump refineries, then you probably do not get trade four at a time when other nations have trade four. In my experience there is more going on than just getting a high TE and going GTD. However, that may be possible in the April 21, 2005 1.08 beta where I have no experience.

Also the mercantilism thingy is quite disturbing. As basically there is no justifiable reason for going mercantilist anymore.

There is no data on merchant placement success. If the release notes are backwards about one aspect, it could well be that the notes are backward about both aspects. Still, I would think it would be ideal. Suppose that placement success is better at full Mercantilism. You place a bunch of merchants inexpensively while as close to full Mercantilism as you begin; then to keep them in place you go toward Free Trade.

Good tests Ws2. I mean that sincerely. I hope you take it that way.

Yes, our differences are really petty. My sass and joking manner are part of my personality. I do not apologize for being myself, even though I have not been on my best behavior. There is one post where I took some low blows in this thread. I am sorry for that. I am glad we can settle our differences.

 

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"Conclusive" is a matter of semantics. Statistically speaking evidence is conclusive if you can draw conclusions. Only a 95% probability of being right is required for that except possibly in life or death type of studies on medications and things of that nature where 99% or 99.9% might be more acceptable. In other words, "conclusive evidence" is not the same as "definitive proof."

IC. Semantics like you say.

The test performed is not entirely a real world test because every nation had so much money and extra merchants. Although the statistics cannot be compared directly a 2.925524 t-statistic for Xhosa's 20% of trade efficiency compared to a t-statistic of 7.291676 for Oman's ten levels of trade tech should give some idea of what we are talking about. One thing I should probably point out is that there is no saying for sure that the trade tech difference is exactly linear throughout all eleven values. A possible hypothesis to be tested could be that it is trade tech advantage that is key, and the amount of trade tech advantage is irrelevant.

True. Though I don't suspect they aren't linnear, or at least more linnear than not, as that is a more logical way to make them.

One of my points all along is that, for a pagan for example, you cannot get infrastructure three, and then expect pumping refineries to get you to GTD. The tech costs are so huge that you have to make very selective choices. If you get infrastructure three and pump refineries, then you probably do not get trade four at a time when other nations have trade four. In my experience there is more going on than just getting a high TE and going GTD. However, that may be possible in the April 21, 2005 1.08 beta where I have no experience.

I understand this. I understand that a pagan cannot get trade tech 3 quickly. But they can get it eventually? Correct? And when they do, you could then mass produce refineries, that would then make trade teching faster? No? Also you could start teching trade heavily, at the point where you know that if you do, trade tech 3 is not too far away. Now perhaps this is a midgame thing and not early game. I'm not disputing that. I don't have the timing memorized. I'm justing saying seeing how the latest beta works with trade, it seems likely to me that when hyperteching trade and getting mass refineries is possible it should be decidedly worth it.

There is no data on merchant placement success. If the release notes are backwards about one aspect, it could well be that the notes are backward about both aspects. Still, I would think it would be ideal. Suppose that placement success is better at full Mercantilism. You place a bunch of merchants inexpensively while as close to full Mercantilism as you begin; then to keep them in place you go toward Free Trade.

It could be that they are backwards. Any plans to test out Mueller's idea in the last paragragh of post #39?

Yes, our differences are really petty. My sass and joking manner are part of my personality. I do not apologize for being myself, even though I have not been on my best behavior. There is one post where I took some low blows in this thread. I am sorry for that. I am glad we can settle our differences.

Agreed.

 

[unmerged(3931)]

True. Though I don't suspect they aren't linnear, or at least more linnear than not, as that is a more logical way to make them.

If they are linear, then one trade tech level advantage is possibly equivalent to 4% or 5% of trade efficiency, in the 1.08 vanilla. That is not exactly puny, especially considering that the trade tech also causes an increase of at least 5% trade efficiency as well. That means if Xhosa is behind a trade tech level, Xhosa is going to have to pump ten extra refineries to catch up and then pump some more to gain an advantage. At those types of manufactory costs, the trade tech research is roughly the same cost as the ten refineries only without the inflation.

I understand this. I understand that a pagan cannot get trade tech 3 quickly. But they can get it eventually? Correct? And when they do, you could then mass produce refineries, that would then make trade teching faster? No? Also you could start teching trade heavily, at the point where you know that if you do, trade tech 3 is not too far away. Now perhaps this is a midgame thing and not early game. I'm not disputing that. I don't have the timing memorized. I'm justing saying seeing how the latest beta works with trade, it seems likely to me that when hyperteching trade and getting mass refineries is possible it should be decidedly worth it.

The flaw in your discussion is that it takes infrastructure three to build refineries not trade tech three. If I tech up to infrastructure three, that has basically cost me a trade tech level that I might have otherwise reached. If I pump cash for 15 refineries, that has also cost me a trade tech level. Also, trade tech becomes so much more expensive as a result of inflation. The refineries will end up paying for themselves eventually, but the game is far past half over at that point and WC is no longer possible. Either way you cut it, a pagan might get 65% trade efficiency by mid-game, but that is not going to help much since they will still be behind in trade tech and will not have that significant of an advantage in trade efficiency. Land tech will be far behind, so any conflict with Europeans is going to be a great hardship, especially if going to zero Land (full Naval) and zero Aristocracy due to morale and troop costs. If a pagan expands to have any decent income, there is going to be regular conflict with a European even if an alliance is maintained. Also, badboy points will be high and stability costs will be high. So, stability is going to generally be low. Badboy points are high, especially if going to zero Aristocracy. And the monarchs are not that good. These all affect trade, as well, as far as I know.

Pagans have penalties applied to how much trade their CoTs can draw. Pagans do not get new CoTs. There is likely a penalty for pagans trading outside of pagan CoTs. Pagans are not going to get the same benefit from trade as nations of other religions. All things considered, trade tech and refineries are poor investments for WC hopeful pagans, in the 1.08 vanilla at least.

It could be that they are backwards. Any plans to test out Mueller's idea in the last paragragh of post #39?
Agreed.

Yes, once I finish my AAR I can do a lot of testing. That may be a month or more away.

 

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The flaw in your discussion is that it takes infrastructure three to build refineries not trade tech three.

Right. That was a typo. Sorry bout that.