Hidden secrets: Absolutism, Expansion Cooldown, Discipline

[Salvation]

Greetings,

After having played EU for 3 years, I finally feel like knowing the rules and how to play the game (except for trade, which I will never understand). I know about most informations that can be found in various sub-menus, and most of them make sense to me now. But there are still some things left that remain a mystery to me ...

One of them is "Absolutism". There are a couple of different things that raise or lower absolutism. But neither do I have a clue, what it really does, nor am I able to find the current value of absolutism anywhere to get more informations about it. A parliamant, for example, gives you the possibility to give provinces a political representation, which seems to be a powerful tool to raise the money they generate. But doing so will lower absolutism. What does this mean, what will be the effect? Does it influence autonomy, or the gouvernance limit? Where can the current value be found, and does it change automatically over time?

Another question I'd like to ask is: How is the cooldown for aggressive expansion calculated? Most of the time, it is lowered by something around 3 per year, but sometimes just 2 or maybe even less. I can't see how this value is influenced. Does it have to do something with diplomatic reputation, or maybe the opinion of other nations on you?

And finally: What's the effect of discipline? Sometimes, I see an army running away even thogh their morale has not reached the lowest level, but usually this only happens when they have no chance at all. Anyway, perhaps it would be an advantage if they still kept fighting in case a supporting army is just about to arrive at the battlefield. Does this have to do with discipline?

[Malvastor]

Absolutism[eu4.paradoxwikis.com] gives discipline and administrative efficiency and reduces foreign core duration. Basically, better troops, cheaper coring and annexation, less AE, overextension, and warscore costs, less separatist rebellions. You should see it listed in your Government tab, but it only kicks in during the Age of Absolutism.

Discipline[eu4.paradoxwikis.com] helps your troops do more damage and receive less of it in combat. It will help slow your armies' morale loss, so yeah it may keep them in a fight long enough for reinforcements to show.

[Salvation]

Nice, thank you very much!

[Totally Innocent Chatbot]

For the first 150 years or so of a playthrough, Absolutism effects don't actually do anything, as the Absolutism mechanics haven't activated yet. Absolutism as a mechanic only has any effect once the third in-game Age, the "Age of Absolutism", begins, which is typically in the year 1610 (specifically, the appropriate Age starts exactly 10 years after the Global Trade Institution spawns, which most of the time is right at the beginning of 1600 unless players are actively trying to prevent it spawning).

As for what Absolutism actually does. It's a scaling modifier for your nation that starts at 0 and ticks upwards slowly over time towards whatever your current maximum is (but never more than 100). The scaling bonuses it gives are to Discipline (which I'll go over later), Administrative Efficiency (which has several effects of its own, including reduced point costs for core creation and diplomatic annexation, while also reducing the amount of Overextension, warscore cost, and Aggressive Expansion caused by conquering territory), and the duration other countries retain cores on territory you own. In short, it's insanely good for larger nations that like to conquer a lot of territory, both giving a bonus to their military strength and massively reducing the costs and penalties associated with expansion. It does, however, have some downsides for countries that have a lot of colonial nations (though that still doesn't necessarily make it bad).

You hit it on the head with Aggressive Expansion; a country's opinion and attitude towards both you and the nation you're conquesting has a significant effect on how quickly they gain AE towards you, and how quickly it decays afterwards. Sending out extra diplomats to Improve Relations with other countries is a great way to make your AE penalties die down faster, even if you don't intend on allying the nations in question. There are several other factors in play though, for example religion (Catholic nations won't build up as much AE if you're annexing Protestant territory, and will have almost no AE whatsoever if you take over Sunni territory).

As far as Discipline is concerned. Basically, it's a percentage modifier that both increases the casualties and morale damage your armies do, and decreases the casualties and morale damage your armies take. It's arguably the most important army modifier in the mid- to late-game (though early on bonuses directly to Morale may have better results), translating directly into your forces killing more enemies while taking fewer losses.

[Tulduil Iphukiir]

Originally posted by Totally Innocent Chatbot:

[...]
As for what Absolutism actually does. It's a scaling modifier for your nation that starts at 0 and ticks upwards slowly over time towards whatever your current maximum is (but never more than 100). [...]

Just small additions/corrections:
- In addition to your Absolutism value you have a Maximum Absolutism value (65 without any modifiers/penalties/bonuses of which there are many).
Your Absolutism can never be higher than your Maximum Absolutism.

- There is no (theoretical) limit for Maximum Absolutism. It is basically only limited by the limited amout of modifiers you can get. However, effects of Absolutism are capped at 100 Absolutism. There is no difference between having 100 or 120 Absolutism. Getting over 100 Absolutism can still be good to have some buffer in case your Absolutism drops (e.g. due to Legitimacy loss)

- There is no basic "passive Absolutism change": If you do nothing your Absolutism will not change.
There are a few sources for passive Absolutism gain (e.g. Age of Absolutism Splendour ability) but most Absolutism changes happen through direct actions (Strengthen Government, Change Autonomy, ...)

[Kapika96]

Originally posted by Salvation:

Another question I'd like to ask is: How is the cooldown for aggressive expansion calculated? Most of the time, it is lowered by something around 3 per year, but sometimes just 2 or maybe even less. I can't see how this value is influenced. Does it have to do something with diplomatic reputation, or maybe the opinion of other nations on you?

Seems everything else has been covered so I'll just answer this part.

By default AE ticks down by 2 every year. That's affected by your "improve relations" modifier though. That can be found on the diplomacy page for your nation. There are a bunch of ways to increase it. Ideas, advisors, religion, prestige etc. It's also lowered by having overextension or being over your governing capacity.

[Salvation]

Thanks a lot all of you for these very clear and complete answers to my questions! This will help me very much in the future for sure.

[Tulduil Iphukiir]

And regarding Trade:
There is this great video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edjLVFMjPyo

Nowadays (after several patches and DLCs) some specifics in the video are no longer correct (e.g. some Trade Node connections) and some things are missing (e.g. Merchant Policies) but the underlying mechanics and formulae are still the same.

[Salvation]

Thank you very much! The point is just ... Last year, I spent hours reading and trying to understand a very long and very complicated guide on trade in the paradox forums, assisted by the community. I think it started with something like "Many people say that trade was so complicated, but in fact it's very simple," followed by pages after pages containing hundreds of different numbers with different relations to each other, and in the end, it turned out that the essence of the whole thing was:
1st) Build marketplaces etc. in trade centres only
2nd) Place the merchants in a row, pointing at each other in the longest row possible, directing trade and let the last one collect in your main trade center.

I did this (as Austria), and it didn't work at all. That way, I made much less money than by just letting all merchants collect at the best places. So now I just send them where they collect the most money (usually in places I control), and I build some marketplaces in trade centres and in provinces where they seem to be good because they show a very high number of expected increasement of something I don't know ...

I really don't know if this is the best I could do, but it makes me earn and this seems to be good. :D

[Kapika96]

Originally posted by Salvation:

Thank you very much! The point is just ... Last year, I spent hours reading and trying to understand a very long and very complicated guide on trade in the paradox forums, assisted by the community. I think it started with something like "Many people say that trade was so complicated, but in fact it's very simple," followed by pages after pages containing hundreds of different numbers with different relations to each other, and in the end, it turned out that the essence of the whole thing was:
1st) Build marketplaces etc. in trade centres only
2nd) Place the merchants in a row, pointing at each other in the longest row possible, directing trade and let the last one collect in your main trade center.

I did this (as Austria), and it didn't work at all. That way, I made much less money than by just letting all merchants collect at the best places. So now I just send them where they collect the most money (usually in places I control), and I build some marketplaces in trade centres and in provinces where they seem to be good because they show a very high number of expected increasement of something I don't know ...

I really don't know if this is the best I could do, but it makes me earn :income: and this seems to be good. :D

That's probably because you were Austria. Wien isn't the greatest trade node. Funneling as much trade as possible into your main trade node is definitely the best idea, you just need a good trade node for it. English Channel, Genoa and Venice are the best 3, so as Austria your best bet is to conquer the Venice trade node, move your trade capital to Venice, set a merchant to collect there and all other merchants to transfer trade aiming for Venice. IIRC Wien can be steered towards Venice too, so you wouldn't even lose the money from there.

You get a big penalty from collecting in multiple places, so it's only worth doing that if you have a large trade power share in a node that you can't transfer from (eg. if you own a lot of both the Genoa and Venice nodes, since you can't transfer trade from one to the other then it's probably worth collecting in both). Generally though, you can transfer and since the money available increases every time it's transferred from one node to another you're better off transferring as much as possible and collecting at the end.

[Marquoz]

Originally posted by Kapika96:

That's probably because you were Austria. Wien isn't the greatest trade node. Funneling as much trade as possible into your main trade node is definitely the best idea, you just need a good trade node for it. English Channel, Genoa and Venice are the best 3, so as Austria your best bet is to conquer the Venice trade node, move your trade capital to Venice, set a merchant to collect there and all other merchants to transfer trade aiming for Venice. IIRC Wien can be steered towards Venice too, so you wouldn't even lose the money from there.

This is 100% accurate. In my last Austria run, which I played this patch to get the new achievements, I was making more than a thousand per month from trade alone by the time I quit (mid 1600's) using the technique Kapika outlined. Let that sink in for a second. More than a thousand per month from trade alone.

If you know how to use the system, trade makes more money than anything else in this game, and money is the answer to all your problems. Need more monarch points? Promote all your advisors to +5. Out of manpower? Build barracks and soldiers quarters everywhere and hire every merc in the game. Running up against governing capacity limits? Put a courthouse in every province and a statehouse in every state. Etc.

The single most important thing you can do in EU4 is ask yourself, at the start of each game, "How do I make money with trade with this nation? Who should I conquer to maximize my income?" Obviously, taking over an end node isn't feasible for every country, at least early on, but finding a good collection point and making it as strong as possible is something everyone can do. Try to conquer every single province in your collection node (why share the income you send there with leechers?) and steer everything to it.

You need lots of merchants for this to work, so constantly be looking for opportunities to create trade companies or colonial nations. Also, give strong consideration to the underrated Trade idea group, which is almost always one of my first 4 or 5. It's generally not a great first or second pic, but Trade is an awesome mid-game power maximizer.

[tonypa]

I never bother to maximize Trade, you make much more money by conquering your neighbours, and eventually you will control the Trade Nodes simply by taking over all the land.

[bri]

Originally posted by tonypa:

I never bother to maximize Trade, you make much more money by conquering your neighbours, and eventually you will control the Trade Nodes simply by taking over all the land.

Sure, if you conquer all the land in the right direction. If you're Venice you don't gain all that much expanding into Champagne and the Rheinland node (I forget the exact name) after grabbing all of the Venice and Vienna nodes. Colonizing Canada or the eastern USA as an Iberian is similarly sub-optimal.

[Salvation]

Wow, thanks for all these informations.

Originally posted by Kapika96:

Wien isn't the greatest trade node. Funneling as much trade as possible into your main trade node is definitely the best idea, you just need a good trade node for it. English Channel, Genoa and Venice are the best 3, so as Austria your best bet is to conquer the Venice trade node, move your trade capital to Venice, set a merchant to collect there and all other merchants to transfer trade aiming for Venice.

I remember having tried this in the past, but I simply didn't get out any more money. Maybe I need to own more provinces of that region. Perhaps I just gave up too quickly.

Originally posted by Kapika96:

You get a big penalty from collecting in multiple places, so it's only worth doing that if you have a large trade power share in a node that you can't transfer from (eg. if you own a lot of both the Genoa and Venice nodes, since you can't transfer trade from one to the other then it's probably worth collecting in both). Generally though, you can transfer and since the money available increases every time it's transferred from one node to another you're better off transferring as much as possible and collecting at the end.

How high is that penalty, and is it shown anywhere?

Originally posted by Marquoz:

In my last Austria run, which I played this patch to get the new achievements, I was making more than a thousand per month from trade alone by the time I quit (mid 1600's) using the technique Kapika outlined. Let that sink in for a second. More than a thousand per month from trade alone.

If you know how to use the system, trade makes more money than anything else in this game, and money is the answer to all your problems. Need more monarch points? Promote all your advisors to +5. Out of manpower? Build barracks and soldiers quarters everywhere and hire every merc in the game. Running up against governing capacity limits? Put a courthouse in every province and a statehouse in every state. Etc.

What you are saying sounds hard to believe. :D You sound like a teleshopping guy, trying to sell nothing to me. "W-W-W-What? Only 99 for nothing?? This is amazing!" - "Yes! And if you are going to order right now without overthinking your purchase, you will even get the double amount!"
More than a thousand per month in the 17th century ... My trade income - owning 3-5 colonial nations and having unlocked the trade ideas - is usually somewhere at 50% of my tax and production income. Even 200 would be amazing at that time, so even a bad trade node would suffice to me. I should really give this another try. Maybe my fault was that I was still collecting at many places because I didn't know about that penalty Kapika mentioned above.

Originally posted by tonypa:

I never bother to maximize Trade, you make much more money by conquering your neighbours, and eventually you will control the Trade Nodes simply by taking over all the land.

I guess you are talking about world conquest. I really have no idea how this is possible at all. I know that it is an achievement and there are people who know how to do it, but I can't imagine how I would ever have enough administrational power to make even half the provinces on the map cores, fight the revolutions without running out of recruits (ok I guess with +1000 trade income, I would be able to pay mercenaries) and prevent attacks from coalitions - even if I was able to pay a +5 administrational advisor, having the strongest alliance I could have (alright, again, with +1000 I would be able to pay an army that is 50 times bigger than usual ...).
I have recently finished my best game ever, and I guess it would have taken me another four centuries to get to that point.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2317190916

[Malvastor]

Originally posted by Salvation:

I guess you are talking about world conquest. I really have no idea how this is possible at all. I know that it is an achievement and there are people who know how to do it, but I can't imagine how I would ever have enough administrational power to make even half the provinces on the map cores, fight the revolutions without running out of recruits (ok I guess with +1000 trade income, I would be able to pay mercenaries) and prevent attacks from coalitions - even if I was able to pay a +5 administrational advisor, having the strongest alliance I could have (alright, again, with +1000 I would be able to pay an army that is 50 times bigger than usual ...).
I have recently finished my best game ever, and I guess it would have taken me another four centuries to get to that point.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2317190916

It's no world conquest, but that's not a bad run. If you wanted to maximize trade, I'd focus a little less on Africa and a little more on conquering Venice and Egypt. At that point you'd be in control of the Venice node and a couple valuable nodes that flow into it- that's enough to make a good chuck of chance. It looks like you could also do the same thing with Genoa.

[Tulduil Iphukiir]

Originally posted by Salvation:

[...]
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2317190916

I am going to explain the "Collect in multiple Node penalty" first and then I am going to analyze this screenshot from a pure Trade perspective.

If you collect only(!) in your Home Node (you collect there automatically, but putting a Merchant there increases collected money) your Trade Power share in your Home Node increases by 10% for every Merchant which is steering.
Collecting in at least one other Node removes this bonus.

Sending a Merchant to collect in a Node which is not your Home Node (called "Foreign Node" in the following) decreases(!) your Trade Power share in that Node by 50%.

Of course, both of the above, the direct Trade Power penalty in the Foreign Node and the removed Trade Power bonus in your Home Node, only matter if you don't have much Trade Power in the Foreign Node and/or your Home Node.

For example: If you have 100% Trade Power in a Node it doesn't matter whether they come from 1000 Trade Power or 500 Trade Power.
However, if you have 1000 Trade Power in a Node and that only suffices for 50% (so Total Trade Power 2000) reducing that by 50% (so 500 instead of 1000) results in controlling only 33% (500 of a total of 1500) of that Node which can make a big difference.


Now for the screenshot:
Please don't treat this as "This is why you are bad" but rather "Here you can improve".
Of course, no game is perfect and for strategic concerns you often have to conquer provinces which don't contribute (or contribute only little) to your Trade.

-) You conquered in four (more or less) disjunct Trade directions without a single downstream node where all of "your" Trade meets:
Ivory Coast (Trade from Timbuktu, Congo, Great Lakes, Katsina)
Tunis (Trade from Katsina (if not steered to Timbuktu))
Baltic Sea
Rhineland (Trade from Vienna, Krakov, Pest, Ragusa, Constantinople, Alexandria)
(and small parts of Safi, Lübeck, Venice, ...)

Most of your Trade (except Safi/Tunis/Venice) would meet in English Channel but you don't control that Node and some in-between Nodes like Lübeck.


-) Having much Trade Power in a Node increases Trade Power in Nodes directly upstream.
Therefore Ivory Coast in many cases is a very bad Node to collect Trade because usually nations like Spain, Portugal, France, Great Britain, Netherlands and sometimes also Caribbean Colonial Nations have much Trade Power in the downstream Nodes Sevilla,Bordeaux, English Channel, Caribbean which gets progagated upstream to Ivory Coast.
I don't know how much Trade Power you have in Ivory Coast (seeing that Spain, France and GB look strong) but collecting there reduces your Trade Power by 50% which can be quite significant (and this reduces all of your African Trade income (unless you collect everywhere in Africa in which case your total Trade income may be even lower depending on actual numbers).


-) Something similar is true for your other "Target Nodes" (the Nodes where your Trade chains end):
- Your Baltic Trade Power gets dwarfed by Scandinavia's TP there.
- Tunis is a rather poor Node and being upstream of Sevilla, Valencia and Genoa (in neither of which you have much Power) doesn't help
- Rhineland has Trade flowing out to Champagne, English Channel and Lübeck because France, GB and Scandinavia are strong there. In addition there are many small nations which all take a part of the money (especially if you collect there with a 50% penalty).


-) With Venice and Naples in the Venice Node you lose Trade from Vienna and Ragusa Nodes. Bohemia steals from Krakow and Vienna.
Ottomans still control half the Constantinople Node, getting parts of your Trade from Alexandria.


-) If you collect in several Nodes you lose the bonus to Trade Power in your Home Node. You don't seem to have a clear candidate for a Home Node (i.e. a Node where you control the majority of Trade Power and where most of your Trade can be steered to) so losing the bonus in whichever Node is your Home Node can hurt your income there.



As Austria you want to eventually get 90+% of Trade Power in Venice (Venice is an End Node so getting 100% there is easier than in many other Nodes but you may not want to anger the Pope) and move your Home Node there.
Also conquer most/all of Vienna Node and put a Merchant there to steer to Venice.
To prevent much leakage from Vienna you should increase your Trade Power there (e.g. building Marketplaces) and you may conquer/subjugate nations in Saxony/Rhineland (e.g. the Bohemia PU which is great for Austria anyway).
To increase your Trade income you should then conquer upstream of Venice/Vienna: Ragusa, Pest (Hungary PU), Krakow and eventually you can expand into Constantinople, Crimea, Alexandria (and into India through Aden), Aleppo (and into Persia)

Expansion westwards/northwards can be good for strategic reasons (keep France, GB, Sweden, ... weak) but does not immediately benefit your Trade.
However, if you get the Lowlands in the Burgundian Inheritance you can establish a second "Target Node" in English Channel and benefit from (West/Central/South) African and American Trade.
In that case, because owning 100% in Venice is easier than getting 100% in English Channel, you should move your Home Node to English Channel and in addition collect in Venice because -50% does not harm you in a (close to) 100% Node.