That's the rub. I'm not sure how lucrative they are for countries in western Europe vs. some country further up the trade line. I know in the case of Philippines you can steer it directly from there to California (or Mexico, one or the other) but not so for Moluccas/Malacca, their roads only go west

I *think* it may be possible to steer from Moluccas straight to Zanzibar and bypass India/Hormuz/Gulf of Aden? From there it can be steered around Africa to Ivory Coast, and there's a direct line from there to English Channel. I'm not at home but should look into that tonight.

ETA I know you can't state them if you add them to the trade companies and from what I understand the pro move is to always add them to trade companies.

nm asked and answered

https://eu4.paradoxwikis.com/images/...ith_arrows.png

Plus since I absorbed France it doesn't hurt me much to send it all to Genoa by way of Aden/Alexandria

Spice Islands aren't part of colonial nations. They are part of trade company so you get them to 0 autonomy without stating.

Yeah, I forgot about the trade company thing because I don't have that DLC (might be my Xmas present to myself).

Silly question for y'all -- do you know if adding DLCs affects performance much? I do run this on a potato laptop and it works fine as is, but...

Don't think so. If anything did it might be the unit packs but they can be turned off in the launcher.

Probably start a multiplayer game in a few hours if anyone wants in.

Got bored quick of the Scotland game. Too much fight England speed 5 for 14 years, etc.

Started an Ottomans game, because they don't have that problem. The world is in trouble.

You need to no dec someone and start adding to your holdings. Go after someone on the Ivory Coast and start setting up your colonial empire?

Don't have the DCs for that trade company stuff (just Art of War, Common Sense, Rights of Man). But yes, I'll get into Africa eventually.

As a follow up to that post though, I just did claim the throne in 1510 and win the war...

I'm trying to head east fast to get into India, because that's been a stopping point for me in a lot of past games and I feel like the sooner I get there the better; I've gotten as far as the straits of Hormuz and Sindh is just waiting to get it once I get the diplomatic situation under control.

Also, I can't actually SEE the Ivory Coast yet, which may make it difficult to declare on them.

I had my trade income well over 800/month last night. Not sure how good that is but it's far and away the best I've done in any game. My previous best was around 400/mo

Around 1800, you can achieve about 200k if you control majority of the world and optimize trade. Generally, England with most of Americas as CN and some random African/Asian holdings probably gets ~2k trade income later on, but trade income depends a lot of the year. Over time there will be more and more and manufactories and on average the events that affect trade good value more often increase them than decrease them.

Trade companies are the key to high trade income from Africa and Asia.

Yeah, I've got a good bit of trade company provinces in Africa and Spice Islands. I focused first on settling the provinces with the highest development and worked downward, occasionally deviating when it looked as though Spain or Portugal was about to try to cock block me.

From there I just built manufactories in all of those provinces along with those other trade upgrades everywhere. Weirdly, I was around 850 when I attacked Kilwa, and once I conquered Kilwa it inexplicably dropped to below 800, still haven't figured out why. That was late last night. I'm waiting to see if it goes back up once I've cored everything but I've no idea why it would drop in the first place, at least by that much.

Most likely because Kilwa was steering more trade from India/Gulf of Aden to Zanzibar than you are. Might also be that negative tolerance, it causes -X% good produced.

My economy in my new Ottomans game is craptastic. Spending 1/3 of my income to root out corruption is not good.

Basically the economy is heavily based on "stealing other people's cash". But they're running out.

On the plus side it's 1557 and I have like 1900 development personally, so, yeah.

Possible I suppose, though I have Humanism and my tolerance is positive with heathens, just barely but it is in fact above 0. Also I've been stating and converting central Africa regularly since conquering Kongo.

Last night I conquered almost all of North America and a big chuck of South America plus like 4 of Portugal's provinces in North Africa, also took Portugal's only two trade company provinces from it and took around half of South Africa from Spain (allied with Portugal). When I logged off I was down to 689 and change ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Also from what I understand, you're only supposed to "collect" in your home node and you should be "steering" from all other nodes. If I control both English Channel and Genoa (both end nodes, obv) is it advisable to send merchants to collect in both or no?

I don't remember having that much corruption to deal with in my Ottoman game or any other game, how did you get it so high? Also have you tried doing some pirate things in Venice and Genoa?

Yes, that's a good time to collect. Any of the end nodes really. It can also be right to collect in a non-end node if it's outside of your regular stream (like, I can't think of a great example but collecting in Sevilla if you have Iberia and Venice but not Genoa somehow would be one)

What you don't want to do is collect somewhere that will eventually flow into your main nodes.

Don't have the pirate DLC.

Suffice to say I've already got like +.72 corruption from territories in 1560. I've grown absurdly fast. Economy sucks, monarch points suck, but damn I have a lot of land and I should be able to grow out of it I hope.

Two years from hopefully claiming France's throne too!

That sucks. Maybe keep recycling advisors til you get one that gives - to corruption

Also DLC related I think.

I'm looking at idea groups/policies that will reduce it -- might actually take espionage!

Never mind that my diplo point situation is completely borked. I'm almost regretting taking Burgundy's throne way back when. Maybe I should have released a couple of the minors when I did that.

The rule is to either collect in one or in multiples. As long as you collect only in your home node, your merchants give trade POWER % bonus when steering. After you start collecting in Genoa, you might also want to collect in Cape and Mexico, as Caribbean and Gold Coast otherwise steer a lot of trade to Sevilla.

So I checked my game out briefly over lunch.

It's 1572. My corruption is at +.8 for territories (which good news I think is the max?), +.16 unbalanced research, +.01 religious unity. So with +1 stability and maximum rooting out, I'm reducing by -.05 per year.

That doesn't account for overextension!

I do have like 2200 personal development plus another 950 or so in subjects, so I got that going for me.

Probably will take defensive ideas next, then admin, then espionage (maybe flip those last two). Went influence and then religious (maybe not ideal but wanted to try it out, and get territories converted ASAP).