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Trade would be immensely improved if every trade route could flow either direction, and if trade flow could cause passive tech, idea, and institution spread, reform progress growth, religious conversion, map sharing, and espionage growth in a much clearer and more obvious way. There are probably also ways to fold diplomatic effects and more dynamic financial variables into it too. Maybe even have it affect military stuff such as worse morale and attrition when in a trade-poor area or one where a state has bad relationships with the dominant powers. In other words trade should affect literally everything while it creates profit.
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Jul 16, 2023 23:42
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Oh right, you can do that. You can get a tiny bonus to siege or a tiny bonus to spy network. And you need a merchant to even have the option of using it. For sure you're going to remember something this useless exists.
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Jul 16, 2023 23:51
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I like that there's some fixed elements to trade. Partly because heterogenous terrain makes for varied gameplay, partly for verisimilitude -- the westerlies and trade winds are there, and were pretty important for how sail routes worked. You can't run the Atlantic triangular trade backwards at the same cost without first spinning the planet in the other direction. 100% fixed trade routes where everything terminates in Amsterdam or London still aren't great, and figuring out which of the five billion available modifiers and bonuses to trade power, provincial trade value, mercantilism, trade efficiency, trade steering, caravan power and privateering are the important ones is almost malevolently complicated. It is very hard to make the current system dynamic without introducing fun bugs like cycles in the graph that generate infinite money. I guess the obvious way is to switch from abstract value being generated, transferred or consumed in a fixed path to a supply/demand system with sinks and sources for individual goods that then travel in some dynamic, max flow way along the graph ... but that's unlikely to be less complicated.
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Jul 17, 2023 00:34
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Xerophyte posted:100% fixed trade routes where everything terminates in Amsterdam or London still aren't great, and figuring out which of the five billion available modifiers and bonuses to trade power, provincial trade value, mercantilism, trade efficiency, trade steering, caravan power and privateering are the important ones is almost malevolently complicated. The only thing you can really control is the amount of land you control in any trade node. After that any changes you make will give you a tiny fraction of a positive or negative difference. Trade seems complicated because there's a ton of different variables. But in reality it's super simple because none of them matter. More trade power = better, that's where it starts and ends, and all of the trade power comes from provinces in the node. The rest of it all is based on ideas, technologies, and government reforms. Which keeps everyone pretty much equal, making all of them meaningless relative to each other as they all kind of add up to a negligible net difference. Lostconfused fucked around with this message at 00:43 on Jul 17, 2023 |
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Jul 17, 2023 00:39
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i think eu4 is pretty good, no need for anymore dlc or sequels. just appreciate what you have, finish your campaign, it'll be fine
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Jul 17, 2023 02:09
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Lostconfused posted:But in reality it's super simple because none of them matter. More trade power = better, that's where it starts and ends, and all of the trade power comes from provinces in the node. Not all trade power comes from provinces in the node though—downstream power, caravan power, and light ships protecting trade are all significant sources too. Though even so generally it's more efficicient to eliminate foreign trade power rather than increasing your own. E.g. in my current Anbennar game, I have all provinces in the Flooded Coast node, but between downstream power and a bunch of 15-dev EoA princes sending caravans, I've only got 55% of the total power, and that's with 40 light ships. 
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Jul 17, 2023 02:57
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All those modifiers you mentioned don't do anything if there's no merchant present. Your problem is that flooded coast isn't your main trade node, so you can see that you're eating huge debuff on your total trade power there. You should try making flooded coast your main trade node, then have your 2 merchants steer from Gablaine and Bahar to flooded coast and see if you make anymore money. If the computer merchants don't touch Gablaine then you can maybe steer from Marches to Gablaine instead. Here's the trade breakdown from that game Lostconfused posted:Saw a reddit post on Bianfang and yeah, they're the much much better Haless conqueror.  You can see that I don't need to touch most of the nodes and they handle themselves. There's only two or three nodes I need to worry about, the one leading to Aelantir because that's the main chokepoint for all of my trade. Then the Arawkelin which is my main node and the next split. I should have moved my trade node to Gulf of Rahen, and then just used 2 merchants to steer from Feiten and Arawkelin, but the game was long over before then so who cares. The 2nd problem after how much trade power you have is how much relative trade power you have. If the computer can't put merchants in your node, then even 1 trade power compared to their 0 would be enough. Which is why blobbing provinces and keeping the filthy foreigners out is helpful besides just gobbling up more trade power in a node. Cannor does specifically suck for trade because of that. There's a ton of tiny statelets that will steal your money. Lostconfused fucked around with this message at 04:07 on Jul 17, 2023 |
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Jul 17, 2023 03:48
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Lostconfused posted:Declining empires are just not fun from a player's point of view when the whole point of the game seems like it's about growing big and blobbing up. that's basically what I was getting at. Eventually you blob to the point where enemy countries are more bumps in the road than actual enemies, and it'd be nice to have game mechanics that make it as fun to manage an empire as to build one--and the threat of decline or collapse (which you avoid by playing well) is a part of that.
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Jul 17, 2023 03:55
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Yeah that's fair, empires exploding in Crusader Kings is a tense moment, even though they also reach a stable point where nothing happens when your ruler gets enough buffs from being old.
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Jul 17, 2023 03:59
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Lostconfused posted:All those modifiers you mentioned don't do anything if there's no merchant present. Moving the main trade port to flooded coast and moving the merchant from there to Gablaine would probably make more money, true. Without testing it I'd guestimate 4 ducats/month more, which should be worth the diplo cost. But often you're collecting in multiple contested nodes, so you'll have to eat the penalty for collecting in a non-main node somewhere. I'll probably start collecting in Middle Alen soonish, once I take some more land from Gawed. And moving the trade port to Flooded Coast should only bring me up to ~70% power there anyway, so that's still 30% being siphoned off (so not worth steering there from Gablaine). That's fine in this case since there's not that much value there, but if there was a lot of value being steered in losing 30% would be really bad. I could maybe dig up some older saves, but I remember in my Chaingrasper game losing a lot of value in Middle Dwarovar from the Phoenix Empire (and a couple random Cannorian tags with trade ideas for some reason? that weren't even collecting in the next two nodes I think...) caravaning there before I conquered the node southwest of Seghdhir and started collecting there. Often just taking a node entirely isn't enough, you might also need to take over the downstream nodes to cut off the drain. (Which is currently quite inconvenient, since I can't make TCs in Cannor (including Western Cannor, Escann, and Gerudia) since they could be added to the Empire. Or maybe I could if they were non-contiguous, but either way not in Escann (without moving my capital). It would probably be better to just dismantle the EoA instead of being Emperor, move capital to Western Cannor, and TC most of Escanni trade power for the merchants and goods produced in non-TC provinces, but I want to stack the dev cost reforms with the Escanni wars dev cost reward + Corvuria permanent mission modifier from healing the Folly.)
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Jul 17, 2023 04:21
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Like I said the problem here is Cannor, you only need to collect in multiple nodes if you can't conquer the competition. And even then because of penalties it's a total wash and just steering trade would give you more or less the same amount of money. Like here  I own all of Castanor and it just doesn't even matter. I could be transfering from Silvermere and Castonath to middle allen instead of collecting, but then I wouldn't have 91% trade power in middle allen because other Cannor states would start transferring from that node. And then I would be making the same ammount of money anyway. So with only 3 merchants my only choice is do I transfer from the dwarves in westholds or collect in marches, because that's the only thing that makes a difference, and in the end you can see that they difference would still be only a tiny bit of money. So the only real question is do I have the stupid fantasy euros or the dwarves more? Because it makes no practical difference, because the numbers all work out to no real difference.
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Jul 17, 2023 04:38
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Lostconfused posted:Oh right, you can do that. You can get a tiny bonus to siege or a tiny bonus to spy network. But if all of those things happened regardless of merchant setting, in both directions, and you could only turn them off with embargo, it would be more interesting.
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Jul 17, 2023 05:01
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Trade is tedious and annoying and I usually just send my merchants out and leave them. Is there a button that just maxes out your merchant configuration? Half the time they add poo poo like that and I don't even see it
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Jul 17, 2023 05:04
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As I said, I think trade seems tedious and stupid if you try to min max it. But if you accept that it's all a pointless waste of time, then just slapping down your two merchants where number big, it's simple and straight forward. Edit: Like the only complicated part with that Corvuria setup is when are you supposed to send your trade fleet and collect in Dame' Ear node or whatever. Lostconfused fucked around with this message at 05:44 on Jul 17, 2023 |
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Jul 17, 2023 05:29
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Wafflecopper posted:Yeah this was what didn’t like about them. They were just very repetitive. You keep choosing between conquest or development mini trees which just had you doing the same things for the same rewards in different places. Yeah, they should have gone a couple more steps further with them. Sad thing the most of building bricks are there! For example, it feels bad you don't have loyal vassal/rebellious vassal mission tree that leads you to better alliance with the overlord or breaking free. If you start as a vassal state you only have generic missions to conquer the region. Except they did that thing for some countries like Athens! They have an interesting decision tree for that occasion. And other countries have unique MTs too that would work well if made more generic. And those generic Mats too have variety and optional paths based on culture. If only there were more of those you'd have your variety, so that Celtic tribe attacking Italia had special missions there because they're Celtic, because they're tribe and because the target has a city with high civilization value, or something like that.
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Jul 17, 2023 06:52
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Mantis42 posted:i think eu4 is pretty good, no need for anymore dlc or sequels. just appreciate what you have, finish your campaign, it'll be fine We wouldn't whine about specific modifiers in it 10 years after release if it wasn't one of the best.
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Jul 17, 2023 06:53
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The funny thing with trade is that you can just collect everywhere if you want and still end up with like 90% efficiency of optimized routes like my Mongol Empire playthrough shows. This is like 1.5k/month in trade lmao
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Jul 17, 2023 10:51
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30 merchants helps
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Jul 17, 2023 12:28
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The annoying part of trade IMO is the caravan bonus, which ruins your ability to dominate your own node when you have a ton of nations collecting upstream of you (Poland). It incentivizes you to dominate and then collect in a coastal node where caravan bonus does not exist but god forbid you want to make your main node an inland one, nope gently caress you the HRE is upstream and even with 100 percent of the provincial trade power in that node you will never break ~40 percent of the total trade power
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Jul 17, 2023 21:40
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Sounds like they need too get rid of the caravan bonus and add trade ships and privateers to land trade same as sea trade, can make an entire new expansion out of it. Call it the silk road or something.
Lostconfused fucked around with this message at 21:48 on Jul 17, 2023 |
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Jul 17, 2023 21:44
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Lostconfused posted:Sounds like they need too get rid of the caravan bonus and add trade ships and privateers to land trade same as sea trade, can make an entire new expansion out of it. Call it the silk road or something. build little caravans (barques) and then early trains, could give a little movement and supply bonus too that’ll be in $15 dlc naturally
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Jul 17, 2023 22:14
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Jel Shaker posted:build little caravans (barques) and then early trains, could give a little movement and supply bonus too In addition, they'll add a modifier called Caravansary, and Caravan ideas, and they will be completely separate from the Caravan bonus and have nothing to do with one another.
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Jul 17, 2023 22:32
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Lostconfused posted:30 merchants helps It's a lot easier to prove my point with 30 merchants than 2, yes.
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Jul 17, 2023 23:25
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Detheros posted:It's a lot easier to prove my point with 30 merchants than 2, yes. Oh, ok, then I didn’t understand what point you're making.
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Jul 17, 2023 23:32
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Lostconfused posted:Oh, ok, then I didn’t understand what point you're making. That you can just collect instead of optimizing a trade route and still get like 90% of the value, the thing I literally said. Stop being obtuse.
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Jul 17, 2023 23:33
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I'm not being obtuse. I just can't understand the point, of the point you were making. Yes optimizing trade route matters less the more merchants you have. The entire trade system in EU is designed that the more merchants you have, the more money you make, the less you need to optimize. The exact opposite of what I was talking about. Edit, well, not the exact opposite, just that it's very hard to optimize because most of the time you do end up with almost the same results.
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Jul 17, 2023 23:49
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just collect, whats so hard to understand, literally all im saying is just collect, you're being obtuse in bringing up other poo poo that im not talking about
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Jul 17, 2023 23:52
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Ok, I'm sorry, my mistake. You're just talking about something else entirely, my bad, you can ignore my posts.
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Jul 17, 2023 23:56
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Lostconfused posted:Ok, I'm sorry, my mistake. You're just talking about something else entirely, my bad, you can ignore my posts. Nah I was kinda getting heated myself so sorry bout that.
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Jul 17, 2023 23:56
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Yeah, again sorry, didn't want to get into a serious argument or anything. I do agree that you can just collect if you have enough merchants to cover all of your nodes. Having more merchants makes a bigger difference than any optimization you can do. I didn't even know that the number of level 3 trade centers you have is based on the number of merchants you have in total. Also didn't know about caravan power making land trade nodes inherently a lot worse than sea nodes.
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Jul 18, 2023 00:09
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Huh, well that's a first  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEJ8lpCQbyw&t=89s
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Jul 18, 2023 01:02
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Nature is healing.
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Jul 18, 2023 01:12
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Welp, return of the king to whatever this is was pretty crazy But, I'm just going to stop here. Would have been nicer if the integrating the empire was an actual mission tree or something. Instead of me clicking a button hundreds of times deleting armies and building town halls everywhere.
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Jul 18, 2023 05:35
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If you want a more engaging experience I think you've reached the point you should try playing on VH, its a very different game
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Jul 18, 2023 06:47
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Lostconfused posted:Like I said the problem here is Cannor, you only need to collect in multiple nodes if you can't conquer the competition. And even then because of penalties it's a total wash and just steering trade would give you more or less the same amount of money. Clearly the correct choice is to play Roadwarriors and destroy all trade.
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Jul 23, 2023 04:24
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Lostconfused posted:Like I said the problem here is Cannor, you only need to collect in multiple nodes if you can't conquer the competition. And even then because of penalties it's a total wash and just steering trade would give you more or less the same amount of money. if you want to personally own all trade in cannor you just need to exploit the fact that the deepwoods counts as its own continent and is full of useless elves that can't fight good take it over, turn it into a giant Trade Company and attain infinite money this also works if you're a dwarf and take over escann or the deepwoods, since the dwarovar is also its own continent.
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Jul 23, 2023 05:06
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I've actually read the spoiler about deepwoods somewhere, but anyway. But that does explain why you can turn Eodard into a merchant republic. rate the border gore. 
Lostconfused fucked around with this message at 06:29 on Jul 24, 2023 |
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Jul 24, 2023 06:24
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hahaha, amazing
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Jul 25, 2023 06:03
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today i learned that if the horse event happens while the imperial incident is still ongoing, it just ends and you don't have to fight a war over burgundy poor marie had like two months as duchess
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Jul 25, 2023 10:27
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Greece game going well. 
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Jul 31, 2023 20:38
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