How important is the Minimum autonomy for Trade Companies?

[Aksolotli]

How big factor?

[QTV]

Not much at all. Trade and goods produced are not impacted by autonomy in a trade company. So it is only manpower, production efficiency and taxes, which if that matters to you, you probably shouldn't be making trade companies to begin with.

[Marquoz]

There are also many ways to improve the territorial autonomy value. The Tier 3 government reform Decentralized Bureaucracy (a personal favorite of mine) boosts it by 5%. The Tier 10 reform Regional Representation boosts it another 5%. The Expansion idea group gives a 10% boost. Governor's Mansions are 5%. Being Economic Hegemon is a whopping 20% at max power. And so on.

On the production front, the Brokers Exchange is phenomenal and should be constructed in all trade company states. It gives 0.3 goods produced in each province and +50% production efficiency. In states with 4 or more provinces, that's more total goods production than a manufactory for an equivalent price, a great deal even before you factor in the efficiency bonus. Harbors boost efficiency by another 50% and add trade power, so they're not as strong but still can be helpful.

Combine all this and TC provinces are enormous cash generators. They won't outperform full states in the tax and manpower department, but they'll do fairly well. In combination with your home subcontinent's states, you'll have all the manpower you'll ever need, and tax income is unimportant after the early game. They'll make more production income than your states, give you bonus merchants, and enable you to create long and incredibly profitable trade routes.

[Damphair]

It's very nice but by the time you get to stack the modifiers to get to 50-60% autonomy, you're problably already rich enough that you don´t need it. However go towards stacking the minimum autonomy modifiers in any way you can, you can never have too much money and manpower.

[Aksolotli]

Originally posted by QTV:

Not much at all. Trade and goods produced are not impacted by autonomy in a trade company. So it is only manpower, production efficiency and taxes, which if that matters to you, you probably shouldn't be making trade companies to begin with.

Originally posted by Marquoz:

There are also many ways to improve the territorial autonomy value. The Tier 3 government reform Decentralized Bureaucracy (a personal favorite of mine) boosts it by 5%. The Tier 10 reform Regional Representation boosts it another 5%. The Expansion idea group gives a 10% boost. Governor's Mansions are 5%. Being Economic Hegemon is a whopping 20% at max power. And so on.

On the production front, the Brokers Exchange is phenomenal and should be constructed in all trade company states. It gives 0.3 goods produced in each province and +50% production efficiency. In states with 4 or more provinces, that's more total goods production than a manufactory for an equivalent price, a great deal even before you factor in the efficiency bonus. Harbors boost efficiency by another 50% and add trade power, so they're not as strong but still can be helpful.

Combine all this and TC provinces are enormous cash generators. They won't outperform full states in the tax and manpower department, but they'll do fairly well. In combination with your home subcontinent's states, you'll have all the manpower you'll ever need, and tax income is unimportant after the early game. They'll make more production income than your states, give you bonus merchants, and enable you to create long and incredibly profitable trade routes.

Originally posted by Damphair:

It's very nice but by the time you get to stack the modifiers to get to 50-60% autonomy, you're problably already rich enough that you don´t need it. However go towards stacking the minimum autonomy modifiers in any way you can, you can never have too much money and manpower.

I just conquered Livonion, Novgorod and Muscovy as Sweden, i put them all on Trade Company and now i make 100 ducats a month alone them. Like a pure solid 100 ducats from all three. I only have the third Reform.
But what about what buildings do i wanna focus on so Marketplace > Manufactorie > Regimental Camps?

[Marquoz]

Originally posted by Aksolotli:

But what about what buildings do i wanna focus on so Marketplace > Manufactorie > Regimental Camps?

For income, the buildings you want are these:

1) Manufactories. They should be constructed in literally every province you own. They boost goods production by +1 in their province, which massively increases both your trade and your production income.

2) Workshops (and their upgrade). In combination with 1), another big income boost. They don't affect trade, but they provide a major production improvement.

3) Brokers Exchanges. These should be constructed in every trade company state. I already discussed these in the post you quoted.

4) Temples. But only build them in the most profitable provinces that have spare building slots.

The other buildings you want are:

1) Courthouses and their upgrade. Construct these in every province that's not in your capital state. Their GC savings is enormous, particularly in trade companies. Trade company provinces with town halls (the courthouse upgrade) cost the absolute minimum of GC, 1%.

2) Statehouses. Build these in every full state, preferably in gem, paper, or glass provinces.

3) Regimental camps. Useful, certainly, but only in provinces with spare slots after you've constructed all the above buildings.

4) Barracks, if you need manpower. After the early game, you probably won't.

You don't see marketplaces anywhere on this list. That's because they're basically useless. They take a long time to pay for themselves, if they ever do. It's far more effective to establish total control of the trade nodes you care about by conquest, at which point marketplaces do nothing. The same holds true for light ships. Spend that cash on your military and the other buildings on this list instead.

The only times you should build marketplaces are when a mission or estate agenda requires you to do so, or if you're playing a tall game.

[QTV]

I don't know why you would build workshops in trade companies and then get lower autonomy to make them worth it, when you can just make half states for that stuff. Half core cost, for half autonomy and half government capacity.

Trade companies are good for making money. They get +200% trade power and the trade power of the trade company will buff goods produced in all non-trare company provinces in the entire node. It isn't necessary to build marketplaces ever, but it can be worth it in trade company provinces.

[Totally Innocent Chatbot]

Originally posted by QTV:

I don't know why you would build workshops in trade companies and then get lower autonomy to make them worth it, when you can just make half states for that stuff. Half core cost, for half autonomy and half government capacity.

The effects of Local Autonomy are halved for Production in Trade Company provinces (so a default autonomy of 90% counts in practice as 45% in a TC where production is concerned, which is already better than a half-stated province), and eliminated entirely for Trade-related values. Any attempt at arguing against the construction of Production buildings in Trade Company provinces applies even more to half-stated provinces.

[Marquoz]

Right. And just building the Brokers Exchange--which you want to do anyway for the goods production bonus--compensates for the 45% production efficiency reduction due to autonomy. That brings production to slightly over full state levels in your TCs even before factoring in the additional 0.3 goods produced per province. Reducing local autonomy by stacking modifiers further improves it, as does constructing the Company Depot building (in the Harbor chain).

With a little work, TCs easily outproduce full states, not just half states. The current half state meta is really about manpower, not production income. But after the early game, I never care about manpower. In combination with home subcontinent full states, TC provinces produce enough, especially once I complete the Expansion idea group and pass the T3 government reform. That raises them from 10% of normal to 25%, a 2.5x improvement.

[red1]

Early on in a game, I often raise autonomy in TC provinces to lower revolt risk. Especially, if I don't want to position troops there. This is opposite what I do for fully cored provinces that I want as states. Whatever minor economic hit is worth not having to send troops put down rebellions in TCs. Manpower conservation is usually important in the early game.