Trade nodes-I wish they were more flexible

[robert.steven.marshall]

I wish end nodes were formed dynamically and if somewhere like Venice wasn't having a big trade pull then it would push trade onwards in whichever direction was strongest.

It seems a shame that trade node direction couldn't move in the opposite direction if appropriate changes in trade power or goods occurred.

It feels frustrating when choosing my home trade centre is basically pick an end node not where my centre of trade would make the most sense. For example, playing as France, I would logically like Bordeaux to be an end node, I have power in the new world that flows directly to it, power in the English channel, champagne, sevilla, Genoa. But instead I just have to pick Genoa and re-route everything to it, plus collect in the English channel.

You could get these semi-closed off trade markets early on that later expand to global trade routes. You could have an isolation China starve out Europe meaning that European powers would invade to force trade onwards.

I just think it's an opportunity missed.

[grotaclas]

That opportunity was missed long ago. The developers already said years ago that it would be too complicated/costly to change the trade system in eu4. But project caesar will have a more dynamic system: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/developer-diary/tinto-talks-10-1st-of-may-2024.1673745/

[robert.steven.marshall]

Originally posted by grotaclas:

That opportunity was missed long ago. The developers already said years ago that it would be too complicated/costly to change the trade system in eu4. But project caesar will have a more dynamic system: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/developer-diary/tinto-talks-10-1st-of-may-2024.1673745/

Cheers, this was actually very interesting

[Jean-Maurice Nya]

Trade was more interesting in EU3 and will be in EU5. They tried something, it's not that great, they'll try something else and on the paper it looks decent enough.

[Marquoz]

grotaclas has already talked about EU5, so I'd like to address optimal EU4 trade as France:

Originally posted by robert.steven.marshall:

For example, playing as France, I would logically like Bordeaux to be an end node, I have power in the new world that flows directly to it, power in the English channel, champagne, sevilla, Genoa. But instead I just have to pick Genoa and re-route everything to it, plus collect in the English channel.

I don't recommend this approach. The English Channel is by far the best node in the game. More of the world's trade can be sent there than anywhere else. Genoa is a distant #2 by comparison.

My EU4 mantra is always "let trade guide your expansion." As France, take advantage of your proximity to the game's best node. Conquer all of England and take over the Low Countries (either via the Burgundian inheritance or war). That will give you total control of the Channel. Then expand both in Europe (by taking over all of the North Sea, Champagne, and Lubeck nodes) and overseas (to North and South America and Africa with a special focus on the Ivory Coast, Caribbean, Chesapeake Bay, and Gulf of Saint Lawrence nodes).

Between colonial nations and trade companies, you'll get lots of bonus merchants to route all that trade home and will continue to generate more as you push around Africa to India.

[robert.steven.marshall]

Originally posted by Marquoz:

grotaclas has already talked about EU5, so I'd like to address optimal EU4 trade as France:

Originally posted by robert.steven.marshall:

For example, playing as France, I would logically like Bordeaux to be an end node, I have power in the new world that flows directly to it, power in the English channel, champagne, sevilla, Genoa. But instead I just have to pick Genoa and re-route everything to it, plus collect in the English channel.

I don't recommend this approach. The English Channel is by far the best node in the game. More of the world's trade can be sent there than anywhere else. Genoa is a distant #2 by comparison.

My EU4 mantra is always "let trade guide your expansion." As France, take advantage of your proximity to the game's best node. Conquer all of England and take over the Low Countries (either via the Burgundian inheritance or war). That will give you total control of the Channel. Then expand both in Europe (by taking over all of the North Sea, Champagne, and Lubeck nodes) and overseas (to North and South America and Africa with a special focus on the Ivory Coast, Caribbean, Chesapeake Bay, and Gulf of Saint Lawrence nodes).

Between colonial nations and trade companies, you'll get lots of bonus merchants to route all that trade home and will continue to generate more as you push around Africa to India.

I'm playing with random new world so that affects it a bit.

In my game the English channel is about a third of the trade value of Genoa and with numerous groups vying for it all of whom get pretty big aggressive expansion and as they are in the HRE get the protection of the emperor which has been almost exclusively Austria. I've taken most of England which is why I have a trader collecting there. Otherwise I have the vast majority of Genoa through expansion into Italy.. The New World hasn't really had a big effect yet. Maybe in 150 years that will change and the English channel will become viable.

Otherwise, to be perfectly honest, telling me to conquer places isn't really very useful advice.

[Marquoz]

Except it is. Trade becomes the most important source of income by the mid game if you conquer in ways that enhance it. You can make thousands per month from trade alone by then, and millions by the end of a world conquest if your campaign lasts that long.

Wealth is power in EU4--it enables you to have +5 advisors in all categories, to construct any buildings you want, to upgrade monuments to max in three days, to go way over your force limit, and so on. And the road to wealth is trade generated by deliberate conquests designed for that purpose.

[robert.steven.marshall]

Originally posted by Marquoz:

Except it is. Trade becomes the most important source of income by the mid game if you conquer in ways that enhance it. You can make thousands per month from trade alone by then, and millions by the end of a world conquest if your campaign lasts that long.

Wealth is power in EU4--it enables you to have +5 advisors in all categories, to construct any buildings you want, to upgrade monuments to max in three days, to go way over your force limit, and so on. And the road to wealth is trade generated by deliberate conquests designed for that purpose.

Mate, I was polite before. Your advice is ♥♥♥♥. I didn't ask for it either.

Trade is already my most important income in my game because I conquered round to control Genoa and hamstrung the colonial nations into giving me swathes of the new world and other valuable land with key trade value. In my game the English Channel is not as good as Genoa. It is about a third as good. Do you understand? If I chose the English channel now I would be wasting money and trade power and I would literally have to disband armies and destroy castles or face bankruptcy. At a push I could get it to half as much trade value with me getting about a third of that half.

You have no idea what has happened in my game. You have no idea why I chose to play as France or what I fancied doing in my game. It clearly wasn't, make the English channel the greatest trade node. Due to the English navy and other strong navies I couldn't just click the "conquer England" button. And I didn't want to keep pressing restart until I got the perfect conditions to play the game how you want me to play. I also couldn't just keep conquering in the same region without facing huge coalitions, a strong Austrian Emperor and rebels due to requests to return land. I couldn't click the "Burgundian inheritance" button. Far better opportunities presented themselves in other routes.

The advice to tell me to conquer half the known world including parts literally not in my game is just stupid. That's not advice. Blindly following a set route is only one way to play. In my game it would have ended poorly.

Btw if you are playing as Kongo just conquer China, India, the moon and the underwater palace of Atlantis. You're welcome for my super fantastic helpful advice.

[QTV]

Lol. Just use Genoa if you want to, it is perfectly fine to do you trade there and you really don't need the extra cash you can earn in English Channel, assuming you wanted to put effort in to doing that. Technically Marquoz is right, EC node is better. But sometimes it is just more fun not using it. Do you!

[robert.steven.marshall]

Originally posted by QTV:

Lol. Just use Genoa if you want to, it is perfectly fine to do you trade there and you really don't need the extra cash you can earn in English Channel, assuming you wanted to put effort in to doing that. Technically Marquoz is right, EC node is better. But sometimes it is just more fun not using it. Do you!

EC is not better in my game. In my game it is far far worse. I wouldn't get extra cash by using a trade node with a third of the trade value. It will most likely remain worse because the trade nodes from the random New World are different.

[Marquoz]

Originally posted by robert.steven.marshall:

Originally posted by Marquoz:

Except it is. Trade becomes the most important source of income by the mid game if you conquer in ways that enhance it. You can make thousands per month from trade alone by then, and millions by the end of a world conquest if your campaign lasts that long.

Wealth is power in EU4--it enables you to have +5 advisors in all categories, to construct any buildings you want, to upgrade monuments to max in three days, to go way over your force limit, and so on. And the road to wealth is trade generated by deliberate conquests designed for that purpose.

Mate, I was polite before. Your advice is ♥♥♥♥. I didn't ask for it either.

Trade is already my most important income in my game because I conquered round to control Genoa and hamstrung the colonial nations into giving me swathes of the new world and other valuable land with key trade value. In my game the English Channel is not as good as Genoa. It is about a third as good. Do you understand

Sure, I understand. I understand that you've set up a sub-optimal series of trade routes. The English Channel is "not as good as Genoa" in your game because you're routing trade there instead. But if you'd optimized the Channel, you'd make way more.

I, too, was polite before, and I'll remain so. It's not my advice that's bad. It's your understanding of trade nodes.

[QTV]

Originally posted by robert.steven.marshall:

Originally posted by QTV:

Lol. Just use Genoa if you want to, it is perfectly fine to do you trade there and you really don't need the extra cash you can earn in English Channel, assuming you wanted to put effort in to doing that. Technically Marquoz is right, EC node is better. But sometimes it is just more fun not using it. Do you!

EC is not better in my game. In my game it is far far worse. I wouldn't get extra cash by using a trade node with a third of the trade value. It will most likely remain worse because the trade nodes from the random New World are different.

I was not talking about how it currently looks in your game. Marquoz and I were talking objectively, if you can control all the trade in the world, EC wins by quite a lot. but sometimes it is just more fun to bully the channel and make any other node in the game better. I have done that as Denmark, keeping trade in Lübeck, because bullying the English gave me more satisfaction that conquering them. but I am weird, the way I see the game less tags, less enemies, less fun.
last game I privateered all but 6-7 nodes and spent over 15 years fighting France, because I was pirate doing pirate things and making the world angry. that is fun for me. I am all for doing what you think is fun. power to you!

[cayenne_spicy]

Gamer publicly outs self for having bad understanding of game mechanics, then becomes angry at other player for trying to help them to improve their understanding of game mechanics. More at 11.

[robert.steven.marshall]

Originally posted by cayenne_spicy:

Gamer publicly outs self for having bad understanding of game mechanics, then becomes angry at other player for trying to help them to improve their understanding of game mechanics. More at 11.

a) I'm not a "gamer"
b) What exactly did I not understand about the game mechanics?
c) Where did anyone actually explain or even attempt to explain game mechanics?

Originally posted by Marquoz:

Originally posted by robert.steven.marshall:

Mate, I was polite before. Your advice is ♥♥♥♥. I didn't ask for it either.

Trade is already my most important income in my game because I conquered round to control Genoa and hamstrung the colonial nations into giving me swathes of the new world and other valuable land with key trade value. In my game the English Channel is not as good as Genoa. It is about a third as good. Do you understand

Sure, I understand. I understand that you've set up a sub-optimal series of trade routes. The English Channel is "not as good as Genoa" in your game because you're routing trade there instead. But if you'd optimized the Channel, you'd make way more.

I, too, was polite before, and I'll remain so. It's not my advice that's bad. It's your understanding of trade nodes.

Answer me these questions:

What year am I on?

Who are the biggest powers in my game?

What trade nodes from the new world are there and where do they flow?

How many traders do I have?

How many colonies do I have and where?

What key trading ports do I own?

What is the current trade value of the English Channel?

What is my share of it?

What is the current trade value of Genoa?

What is my share of it?

If I changed to the English channel how much would I receive?

I could go on forever. You don't know the answers to any of these questions. So to claim that your strategy is outright better when it is LITERALLY IMPOSSIBLE for me to conquer places that don't exist in my game is beyond stupid. I've outlined reasons why JuSt CoNqUeR eVeRyWhErE isn't viable in my particular game and you just continue with your stupid "advice".

You weren't polite. You outright told me to just start playing my game in another way with zero understanding of the game I'm playing.

[robert.steven.marshall]

Originally posted by QTV:

Originally posted by robert.steven.marshall:

EC is not better in my game. In my game it is far far worse. I wouldn't get extra cash by using a trade node with a third of the trade value. It will most likely remain worse because the trade nodes from the random New World are different.

I was not talking about how it currently looks in your game. Marquoz and I were talking objectively, if you can control all the trade in the world, EC wins by quite a lot. but sometimes it is just more fun to bully the channel and make any other node in the game better. I have done that as Denmark, keeping trade in Lübeck, because bullying the English gave me more satisfaction that conquering them. but I am weird, the way I see the game less tags, less enemies, less fun.
last game I privateered all but 6-7 nodes and spent over 15 years fighting France, because I was pirate doing pirate things and making the world angry. that is fun for me. I am all for doing what you think is fun. power to you!

And I said it might become viable later. I'm aware that given the right circumstances it is usually the best. But I'm playing with random new world. That means the trade nodes are very different. How can you guys say that EC is "objectively better" in a playthru of a game where you don't know how the world map looks let alone the trade nodes?!

You objectively can't say that. Even then you're basically saying objectively, at the end of the game/mid to late game it's better when random new world is not on. That doesn't mean it isn't better in some circumstances to start out going for one trade node and later pivot. Genoa in my game was objectively the trade node with the most trade value for the whole of my game so far, well before I changed trade nodes.

When the New World is random you don't have as much info on which is the best trade node to try to dominate (excepting vaguely knowing there are some trade nodes marked ??? flowing into x trade node). The other point you've made is also another consideration, robbing others of trade is part of the puzzle. Making EC my main trading port would make my enemies stronger not weaker, it would give lots of places more income and mean no longer siphoning off income from the Ottomans for example.

Otherwise I agree with the sentiment that everyone should play the game how they want to. Causing disasters for the ai is one example I also find fun. I often start the game with a bit of a plan of how I might be most successful or what I want to achieve but the reason I come back to the game is because no two games are alike. I pivot away from a strategy and take other opportunities (e.g. make Milan my lesser partner in a union) depending on how things arise. If I followed the "advice" given in my particular game I'd be grinding away little by little taking small gains with little value, using manpower against an ascendant Austrian Emperor or giant coalitions and any misstep would result in my navy being smashed to pieces, armies isolated in theatres of war they're not needed in etc.

That's why it's frustrating for someone to ignorantly blindly rudely tell me to do whatever they want me to do with zero knowledge of the game I'm playing or any of the factors involved. It's not advice and it's not helpful to just say "Conquer X".

[QTV]

You do realise you can use embargoes and ships as well, both protecting and privateering. And sure that isn't the most optimal long term in every scenario, but they actually do work. Loosing 5-10% trade efficiency with embargoes can often mean loosing way trade value if you have and can wield trade power.