Merchants steering trade inlands is just broken

[Nils]

The title says it all. Its rediculous! (Im playing Venice (but no merch rep anymore), 1554, tradenode ragusa) I have alle the provinces in the area, have 40 caravels supporting trade and 10 different merchants (from austria, bohemia etc.) get 30-50 inland trade steering bonus which results in me having laughable 20% tradepower within the node. So 18gold are steered towards wien and 6! towards my venice. before 1.6 it was like 2 gold going awry ...

Its simply laughable. No matter what i do, most of my trade money from asia goes through Constantinople and therefore through Ragusa and i simply cant get much money to venice, since the inland merchant bonus is simply overwriting all the other tradepower mechanics like ships, provinces and buildings ...

[Bandit17]

Ragusa and Venice have always been rough early game collection points. The amount of competition and lack of value in those nodes can be madenning for a player in that region.

The trick I found with Wallachia was to just keep conquering all my smaller trade rivals. Eventually it'll be only you and a handful of medium/strong powers and some of them you can embargoe.

So just keep focusing on a strong military campaign and wipe your rivals off the map and the trade income will come.

Edit: Don't forget about Power Projection as it can give you some very nice bonuses not only in Trade but in other areas as well.

[Nils]

I HAVE conquered almost everything in the venice and ragusa trade area und 1/3 of the wien area!
But countrys even further down the trade stream send merchants up to ragusa (Hamburg, Hansa, Wurzburg, Hesse ...) and every single one getting the 30,40,50 tradepower simply for sending the merch and steering towards inland. This problem should apply to all inland nodes near the HRE or any other area with many small nations. A single merchant gives as much trade power as owning the whole ****ing area (~50). Its just nonsense and trade ships and trade buildings in any such node are not worth **** anymore ...

[Narf]

Originally posted by Bandit17:

Ragusa and Venice have always been rough early game collection points. The amount of competition and lack of value in those nodes can be madenning for a player in that region.

The trick I found with Wallachia was to just keep conquering all my smaller trade rivals. Eventually it'll be only you and a handful of medium/strong powers and some of them you can embargoe.

So just keep focusing on a strong military campaign and wipe your rivals off the map and the trade income will come.

Edit: Don't forget about Power Projection as it can give you some very nice bonuses not only in Trade but in other areas as well.

His problem is not the control over the trade node. He said he owns every single Ragusa node province. His problem are the 1.6 changes:
Inland Trading:
- Several trade nodes in the game are designated as inland trading nodes where trading nations can use their influence to gain direct power even without provinces or ships.
- When having a merchant in inland trade nodes, you now get direct bonuses from your trade efficiency as well as some ideas.
- When having a merchant steering towards an inland Trade Node merchant republics as well as nations with Plutocratic and Trade ideas get direct bonuses.

The bonuses mentioned are so huge when added up between several small nations that even with complete control over all provinces of a node and a sizeable fleet protecting trade the largest chunk of the trade is redirected to Vienna instead of Venice. And I agree that this is certainly stupid and should not happen. When somebody has managed to actually control every single province and has trade fleet that does not pale in comparison with the ships other nations send to the node then that should amount to 50% influence in that node MINIMUM.

[Bandit17]

I think Power Projection (keep it maxed if possible!), diplo tech (light ships being used) and Ideas play a large role as well. If you have Trade Ideas finished and can manage to pick up Plutocratic Ideas and have the best light ships available for that time period than you "should" do well. Finally, the amount of trade competition will dwindle over time as the smaller trade nations get eaten by larger foes.

Here is a screeshot of my current Trade situation in Europe as Ireland:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=266995560

I have no problem dominating Lubeck, Antwerp (2nd largest TP) and London. Now on a side note you can see that Austria is having all of it's Wein trade stolen inland but they are pushing that stolen trade from Frankfurt to Antwerp where they have the most Trade Power of anyone.

So I'm not yet convinced the system is broken even though the Wein situation is worrying. I'm still learning about all the new changes in 1.6 like everyone else.

[Narf]

Originally posted by Bandit17:

I think Power Projection (keep it maxed if possible!), diplo tech (light ships being used) and Ideas play a large role as well. If you have Trade Ideas finished and can manage to pick up Plutocratic Ideas and have the best light ships available for that time period than you "should" do well. Finally, the amount of trade competition will dwindle over time as the smaller trade nations get eaten by larger foes.

Here is a screeshot of my current Trade situation in Europe as Ireland:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=266995560

I have no problem dominating Lubeck, Antwerp (2nd largest TP) and London. Now on a side note you can see that Austria is having all of it's Wein trade stolen inland but they are pushing that stolen trade from Frankfurt to Antwerp where they have the most Trade Power of anyone.

So I'm not yet convinced the system is broken even though the Wein situation is worrying. I'm still learning about all the new changes in 1.6 like everyone else.

Your examples do not work, since there is no inland path from Antwerpen or Lübeck. Antwerpen is a dead end and Lübeck only feeds into Antwerpen, not into an additional inland node like Vienna. The situation is simply not comparable to Ragusa and Venice.

[Bandit17]

Yes but I was also showing you in the screenshot that Venice is the Largest Trade Node outside of Antwerp and Lubeck in Europe. That Wien is losing almost all of it's trade to not only Frankfurt but to Venice as well. So it's a double edged sword. If someone is stealing all your trade in one node you can do it right back.

It also doesn't negate my argument that with the proper Ideas, tech and units that trade can still be competed for against strong inland rivals. Nils is only using 40 Caravals 100 years into the game, he's no longer a Merchant Republic and I'm not sure if he has Trade ideas finished or Plutocratic Ideas. Some decisions and policies can also help.

Edit: lol, my bad. i just realized venice is cut off in that screenshot. My computer gremlins will be sacrificed! But it's value is at 32.

[Brahir]

Nils. Im playing as Venice too and at one point, had your same problem. I have every province in the Venice node, every province in the ragusa node, and every province in the balkans except Constantinople. There are 2 easy solutions to fix that.
The first and more obvious, send trade ships to Ragusa. Im sending 80 trade ships there, and 70% of the gold is going to venice. Since I Own every province in Venice, I barely need shps there.
The Second option, is to steer the gold throug the Gulf of Aden into Alexandria and then straight into Venice.

One thing that helps a little bit. Send your own merchants to Krakow and Wien to steer some back into Venice.
With the new Merchant from the Trade Companies, its easy to steer the money in the direction you want. Right now Im working on Genoa to get all that money that gomes through the Ivory Coast into Tunisia.

I almost forgot. Always build Trade buildings in the Ragusa node provinces. That node is very important to keep money flowing into Venice.

[Nils]

But isnt that kinda pointless brahir? Id have to spent more gold (and lots of dip points) on ships and buildings then the trade is producing.
And Id love to go through Alexandria, but Im not that far advanced into asia yet. My control ends at persia and basra. Tax and Production produce double the money (50-60) of trade anyhow, so i will just live with it and save my dip points for annexing (thats also so expensive my dip tech is stagnant despite ruler with 6 and +3 advisor :< )
Thats quite disappointing though as i had a trade empire encompassing the asian continent in mind when i started as venice :x

[Brahir]

I dont think its pointless. Thats just how the game works. Every node with lots of money on t will be contested. You need to invest in order to keep that money on your realm. Trust me, Having Portugal and Spain sending prvateers is not fun either, but its just how it works. There are things you can do to counter their actions, and I found out that investing in buildings and trade ships were the best ones.