I mean just get elected HRE and revoke then vassal swarm my way to all the Roman Empire (the decision) provinces.

So you never passed the last reform?

Honestly the last reform seems like it sucks to me and is only there for a map coloringg

I never pass the last reform, except at the end to make the map one color. The vassal swarm is just too strong.

Already got the hardest parts done. 1550 with revoked privilegia. Ended up annexing Austria and East Friesia because they hated me for some reason. France is allied. Breaking up Ottomans, swallowing Aragon (that integrated Naples), and just generally cycling through wars all along the Roman frontier with the swram is all I gotta do now.

I'm already committed to taking the decision to form the Roman Empire because I can't move capital to Egypt otherwise. For now, I have to culture shift back to Tuscan so I could form Italy and get -25% core cost. This just takes money and a lot of annoying clicking.

How big a priority should Australia be as far as CN go? I've been racing round the world trying to spread my seed to every time zone and I've reached that area, but given that it's only got one trade center province + it's 25,000 miles from everything else I'm starting to think I would be better served to focus on colonizing everything in Africa I can especially the trade company provinces

I mean I guess having a foothold in that area is nice in order to access the spice islands. Downside is I might be exposing myself to Ming before it's necessary (and before I'm ready to take them on)

Meh? I think if you have enough other CNs (and there's like ten available?) it's not that big a deal. I think overall the Americas have better stuff. Yes, it can give you a foothold on the spice islands, but so will a nice 20 stack of troops and a war declaration against bumblers with bad military tech, and that's faster and cheaper.

Australian and African provinces are mostly not worth colonizing. A lot of them are 1/1/1 and most don't have valuable trade goods. Ivory Coast and South African coastal provinces are important for trade power but the inland provinces aren't worth fighting the natives for. I'd make an Australian CN anyway just for the extra merchant.

Assuming you're still playing Portugal, you want basically full occupation of Caribbeans, very strong presence on the Ivory Coast, an outpost at the Cape and then use your missions to get Indian and spice island outposts. After that it's mostly a waiting game. Once Americas gen colonized (not necessarily by you), you'll be rolling in trade income.

Once you have outposts everywhere, just colonize based on the trade situation.

Wtf I can barely revoke as Austria by 1550, and you did it as Florence

I spend too much time staring at the pretty map and not enough time just powergaming

Yeah this makes sense

This is not the first time I've seen the bolded and I really wish I'd paid attention. I feel like I wasted a bunch of time getting CNs established in Brazil and La Plata that would have been put to better use gobbling up the Caribbean. I mean, I did get some of it: Gitmo on Cuba, 3 of 5 Hispaniola provinces (including the one where the trade node is located), and a couple of Windward islands, enough to form the CN. BUT while I was shipping settlers to South America and not paying enough attention, GB got colonies of their own up and running in the Caribbean and now they control most of the area (Holland has a handful of islands as well). Had I been focusing, I could be in control of the whole thing right now.

Meanwhile, other than a single province in Brazil which Norway just settled, I have zero competition right now in South America other than the natives. Lesson learned there.

Looking at the trade company map, Ming is really hamstrung when it comes to trade companies and I feel like not playing it optimally is a big reason I didn't do better in my Ming run. They're automatically ineligible for a whopping 11 of them by virtue of the fact that they're located in Asia. If not for the 4 provinces on Papua New Guinea that are considered part of Australia, that number would be 12. I should have been more focused on getting African trade companies up and running ASAP.

Obviously it's not a uniquely Ming problem as it also applies to every other Asian nation, but it's a yuge advantage for Euros who act quickly. I should be printing ducats by 1620.

That Caribbean situation sounds like a superb reason for a war

Heh, yeah. I'm finally rivaled to them after so much time trying to make it work. They also have one lone province in west Africa in what used to be Jolof before I conquered it, it's super annoying seeing that one splotch of red in an otherwise green land.

I can already tell GB is going to be a major pain to fight going forward because of their navy. once we start fighting they're going to be able to drop troops basically anywhere in the world they want and the whack-a-moling will commence.

I kinda wish I could re-ally them and dump the stunningly useless (at least in my game) France who has literally not one time helped in any war in 120+ years of my current game.

Fortunately, the AI is TURRRRIBLE at sea invasions. They'll wreck your ships something fierce, but then they'll drop a 30 stack in South Africa to utterly secure that 2% war score while you take over the war goal and the rest of the Caribbean.

That reminds me of something I wanted to ask here: If your trade company falls below 51% of the trade value in its given node, do you lose the bonus merchant? Or do you keep him til the end of the game once you get him?

You lose it until you get back to >50%.

And this is why you want to move your capital outside trade company regions, for example as Mamluks you might want to move it Crete or as Asians to some pacific island.

As Ming I dont even bother with trade because Beijing is basically a terminal node for all the internal Chinese/Japanese/Korean trade.

After that you can do malacca (this let's you capture all south east Asia and spice islands) zanzibar, Cape and gradually move up the traditional European trade chain.

ty ty

One last trade question for the day: I control the trade node in Patagonia, which is upstream from Brazil and the only direction for trade to flow from Patagonia is toward Brazil (only one arrow).

From my understanding of trade this means that the only way trade can be steered from Patagonia is toward Brazil (I can't send it from Patagonia to Ivory Coast for example). Given this, does this mean that putting a merchant in Patagonia and telling him to Steer Trade to Brazil provides no added benefit? Also if this is the case, what should I do with that merchant?

Correct. Send that merchant somewhere else. You should be collecting in all the end modes and routing to a main node that you dominate and collect from.

So in this case I'm better off sending him to Zanzibar (where I hold no provinces) and steering that trade to Ivory Coast, correct? (I already have one in Ivory Coast steering to Sevilla)

ETA and I should also be collecting trade in Sevilla and ONLY Sevilla and steering from everywhere else?

I guess I lied about the one last question thing

The only reason to steer out of Patagonia would be if someone else is collecting there and you want more of it to flow out. If nobody's collecting, a merchant is pointless.

Yes, Zanzibar is probably better, though you won't be exerting much trade power with just a merchant. Still better than nothing though!

My serious answer is try just moving the merchant around and see what gives better results; if it's not really obvious which is better already, it's probably a minor difference in income. And seeing the numbers change might help something click as to why.

I think the merchants add total of 2 trade power to the node, so sending him is kinda pointless. Your full trade power in the node steers away from it anyways.

There is one benefit in steering in single-direction nodes, although it is very marginal one most of the time. The merchant adds 5% TRADE VALUE and an additional 5% per 100% of trade steering. So if your trade steering is 150% and 10 ducats leaves the node, 11.25 ducats arrive in next node.

In addition, there is apparently a multiple merchant bonus when your merchants create an unbroken chain between nodes which adds few %.