OMG, can’t stop playing …so many new games, but can’t stop. At work I spend half the day browsing reddit for this game.
I am quite jealous of those of you who can put that level of hours into games. Before time tracking I probably dumped a good amount of hours into games, but since things like Steam tracking in the last decade my most played games seem to top out at 150ish hours. Wow, I am but a newborn babe.
Stupid achievements.
I am very close to finishing the Kongo - Africa Power one.
But I want to start another game with another country real soon.
I’m a noob as well, but i found a familiar spot to sit on.
You’ve more than lapped me! I’m at a paltry 1481 hours of my life sunk into this damn game. :)
Im at around 700. Would be more but I basically haven’t gamed for a year.
What are some of your most memorable runs with that many hours played?
Favorite nations?
Odds are the answer to one of those questions is Brandenburg.
Because, lets face it, it truly is one of the most enjoyable game options out there.
Space Marines!
I do have a question regarding Trade. Generally, I think I have a grasp on this fairly well - but the tooltips can throw me for a loop.
So, as Sweden, I’m collecting trade in my main trade port - Baltic Sea. I’m steering trade to this node via Krakow->Baltic and then a small chain of Kazan->Novgorod->Baltic.
I have two light fleets protecting trade in the Baltic Sea and Novgorod. I have a larger, 30 ship fleet protecting trade in Lubeck. Now, I know that the trade power in Lubeck (which I control) does give value upstream to Baltic, but it is heavily penalized. However, when you create a light ship, the tool tip does mention that the increased trade value in Lubeck is significant if you protect trade.
My question is… am I wasting time and money protecting trade in Lubeck if I’m not collecting or steering from the node? Would it make more sense to use this fleet to hunt privateers in my Novgorod and Baltic Sea nodes where I have extreme monopoly power? Or does it still make sense to protect trade in Lubeck? Or should I be doing something else?
My current goal is to expand into the English Channel, since colonization is picking up. Make that my main trade node, then steer trade from lubeck, north sea and chesapeake.
The answer is that we would need to see the trade breakdown for Lubeck. How much trade power is there, what total value, and how much gets steered towards your home port.
Basically for every ship there is a maintenance cost, and to justify the fleet has to steer more trade to a port you are collecting from (accounting for your percentage at that port) than it costs.
The reality is that we can only answer if you were to open up the trade node for Lubeck and show us the pie chart/ trade power breakdown.
You do have some trade power in upstream nodes, though it scales at a penalty, and by default this steers some trade towards the Baltic. A fleet can have a sizeable impact on this steering.
I kind of thought that would be the answer :)
I will take a screenshot tonight and post it… but it sounds like it may be worth protecting trade in Lubeck even with the steering penalty. I can probably also do some easy experiments dividing and moving that fleet around on different missions to see what generates the most cash.
I can tell you that my bloody warfare has left me in near complete control of Lubeck!
My gut feeling is that you may get most benefit out of changing your Home Trading Node from the Baltic to Lubeck, and then steer trade from the nodes directly upstream (so Baltic and the German ones).
Lubeck tends to be richer than Baltic- and will get a chunk of the Baltic trade value.
Don’t forget you also get a significant boost of 10% per transferring trader if you do not collect in any node apart from the home node.
PS - I may have a Paradox Problem:
Is this the reason people generally only collect in the home node? I’ve never taken the time to understand trade well enough to figure these things out.
It is a reason.
However there are exceptions. If, for example, you have an end node, such as Venice, transferring trade does little good.
So if you can get a majority from end nodes in addition to home nodes it is typically worth collecting in both.
But there is also the fact that trade goods gain value for each node they pass through. So if you collect in Chesapeake it isn’t worth as much as it would be if you push it to the North Sea and collect there.
Well that gives me way more direction on how to actually make good decisions with trade than I’ve ever picked up from just playing the game for a measly 162 hours.
I’m going to link some old posts of mine. They’re out of date, but the fundamentals are roughly the same.
@dionisus1122 this is for you too
Edit: if, after that, you have any specific questions, please send a holler! I have a pretty strong understanding of all the economic systems so can certainly shed light on these oft ignored or poorly understood ststems
I had been holding off on moving to Lubeck for 2 reasons (both of which may be bad)
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I wanted to save the diplo points from moving the main port twice
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I have better control of the nodes leading to the Baltic, so I figured that I could steer more value to the Baltic, rather than dealing with all the other nations in mainland Europe
Thanks! Planning on starting up a new game once the Manchu patch is out and I’ll be playing around with my trade setup way more than in the past.
I have 3755 hours :(
I knew my 500 hours would be the lowest here… Even guys with kids have more! What a n00b I am.