Quote:
Originally Posted by Nonfiction
Trade: Hard to explain but from what I have figured out you only want to be collecting trade in the node that your capital is in because you get a hudge penalty when doing it in a node that your capital isn't in. So you want a merchant collecting trade from whatever node your capital is in, and then any other merchants should be transferring trade from another node that flows into the node your capital is in. Light ships should be used to increase trade power in a node. You only get 2 trade power from having a merchant trading somewhere, which is basically nothing. Having provinces that give trade to a node and having light ships protecting trade give comparatively massive bonuses.
Example, playing as Mamluks, you want a merchant collecting trade in Alexandria. You will have very high trade power due to having so many provinces feeding the alexandria node, as well as your capital, and a fleet of light ships protecting trade. The only other country decently competing with you is Venice if they have a big fleet of light ships transfering trade to Venice, but you should still be able to collect a relatively big % of the Alexandria trade. You then want your 2nd merchant to be xfering trade from the gulf of aden, which will send more of the Aden nodes delicious monies to Alexandria instead of being transferred to Zanzibar or Persia or being collected in Aden. As monies are transferred downstream the amount gets increased. As I get more merchants I will have them transfer trade from Indus and Ceylon, which will then go through Aden and then to Alexandria, increasing the total monies.
In my current game, Alexandria has 5.19 local income and 2.23 incoming from gulf of Aden node. I have ~50% of the total trade power in Alexandria (no idea if this is good or optimal or what), which is netting me 3.74 income, and 3.71 is being transferred downstream to Constantinople and Venice.
Thanks for the explanation, the upstream/downstream + forwarding stuff seems pretty simple.
Doing some testing though, seems like maybe having merchants collecting instead of forwarding is better unless you dominate that trade node. Example, as Venice:
I have a merchant in Venice making 2.37 ducats. I recalled my merchants from Alexandria and Ragusa to reduce variables for simplicity so they're not forwarding anything to Venice.
Ragusa has 2.52 trade value. I send a merchant there to collect from trade (not to forward). He predicably has **** for trade power (5.3) and brings home 0.35 ducats to my bank account each month.
I recall him and send him back, this time to forward trade. He forwards 0.55 per month to Venice, but I only get a piece of that - my income in Venice goes up to 2.68 (gain of 0.31 over my previous income in Venice, meaning it's actually slightly better in that instance to have him collect instead of forward).
With the dude in Ragusa still forwarding to Venice, I now start my light ships patrolling around Venice to increase my trade power. My income in Venice shoots up to 3.60, and when I remove my guy in Ragusa (so they stop forwarding), it drops to 3.20, meaning I was making 0.40 off the forwarding - so once my trade power in Venice gets high enough, I'm taking a big enough piece of the forwarding $$ that it makes more sense to forward than to collect. But obviously if I was playing, say, any country other than Venice with its capital in the Venice trade node, it seems it would be smarter to collect in Ragusa rather than forward, because my trade power in Venice would be way lower and I'd be getting a smaller piece of what's forwarded than my guy would collect on his own.