Europa Universalis 4 Thread 2: Comet Sighted!

[tonberrian]

Okay. In game, each trade node has 4 basic sets of ducats. What is incoming, what is outgoing, what is produced in the node, and what stays in the node. Each line on the trade map with represents a route, arrows the direction. The money produced in the node comes from all the provinces therein, based on goods produced and prices thereof (which currently depends on supply and demand, but won't at the end of the month). This is added to any ducats incoming from any other nodes, and then, based on the trade power pie chart, this total is divided up among nations collecting in that node and nations trying to bring it forward.

As an easy example, I believe the California node has no incoming trade - it's a beginning node, iirc. So say you are the only trade power in California - your capital is in the Americas, so no colonial nation there, and no-one is paying enough attention to send ships there. Your trade capital is there too, so you're automatically collecting all that trade. You basically double your production income in the provinces in that node, except instead of multiplying by production efficiency, you use trade efficiency.

This is not a good way to make money off of trade.

Oh no, Great Britain has decided to send a bunch of light ships to the area! They now control half the trade power in the node, and they are forcing half the ducats that would normally go to you to instead go downstream to Mexico! You control some of the trade power in Mexico as well, but not nearly as much - it's much more contested. You control a third, Great Brittain controls a third, and the Aztecs control a third. The Aztecs are collecting in the node - they take a third of all the trade money produced in the node plus whatever Great Britain is siphoning off from California and add that to their pool of money. You think you're okay - you control all of the Panama trade too, and like a third of the total outgoing trade should go there, right? Because there's three trade routes out of Mexico?

WRONG! Great Britain has a merchant there, and you don't! With no merchants present, it would be true that a third of the outgoing trade would go along each outgoing trade route. But with merchants present, the trade is divided up based on only the power percentage of the nations with merchants there. So since you don't have a merchant there, and Great Britain is the only one controlling outgoing trade, they control all the outgoing trade, sending it to the Carribean, where you have no presence. So you send your merchant there, but accidently pick to collect trade there. Your trade power goes drastically down - now you only control a sixth of the trade power in the node, while GB and Aztecs each control 5/12. This is because if you use your merchant to collect in a node other than the one with your trading capital, you suffer a 50% penalty to trade power in that node. Luckily, you can just click to change him to transfer trade power. But you still aren't seeing any increase in Panama! If you check the trade map mode, you'll see that your merchant is instead diverting trade to Nippon! This example is exaggerated, but the computer automatically assigns what direction your merchant diverts trade down, which might not be your best choice. Additionally, each merchant directing trade down a certain path increases the value of the trade going down that path by a certain percentage, meaning that what leaves California to go to Mexico could be less than what arrives in Mexico from California.

So finally, after years of purging the Christians and securing your place in Europe, you control the Sevilla node. Sevilla, and a few others in Europe, are the end lines for trade routes. Nations can't force trade out of those nodes to go somewhere else, which generally means they accrue a bunch of value from all the previous legs - though not as much as it used to be. You've still got your trading capital in California, because that's where your capital capital is. And you've got a merchant collecting in Sevilla, because you controll all the trade there - no one challenges you. You can choose to move your trading capital into the Sevilla node, where you'll collect that trade automatically, and the California trade ducats will instead move into the system, hopefully being increased a bunch along the way by merchants. You can also choose to collect in Sevilla with a merchant - this adds on an additional 10% to trade income in that node, which might be a lot... but it still might be more money to collect trade elsewhere. Everything is going smoothly... until Great Britain strikes again! This time, they've sent a whole bunch of privateers to Sevilla! Privateers use their trade power to collect for the Pirate nation, taking a significant chunk out of your profit for the node. Great Britain also profits off this - they get half the money the Privateers collect. Currently, the only way to deal with this is by declaring war on them, but this too changes at the end of the month.

You can also choose to embargo a nation. This gives a relations hit and a cb against you to them, and decreases their trade power in nodes based on how much trade power you have in those nodes - if you have no trade power in a node, theirs is unaffected. Unfortunately, if you haven't set them as your rival, you also lose some of your trade power, which generally makes it not worth it to embargo them. They would lose the causus belli if they chose to embargo you back, and you don't get a causus belli in return. Additionally, using privateers and embargoing nations that are your rivals gains you Power Projection. Also, if you control above a certain percentage of a trade good (not produce, control the trade thereof through trade power) you get a bonus, based on the goods. If you produce the most of a certain good, all provinces you control that produce that good produce more of that good. Both of these bonuses can be tracked on the ledger, under Trade -> Strategic Goods.

This is all what the trade routes do in game. Generally, they follow historical trade routes. The desire for certain goods is a very complicated beast known as supply and demand, which you can effect in some minute (or possibly more than minute) ways, but again is phasing out at the end of the month for a more event based approach.