This last game is about the craziest that I’ve seen, even with lucky random nations. Usually it is only one or two of the super powers who go crazy… rarely have I seen pretty much all of them disappear. In fact, this is the first game that I can ever recall where the Ottomans are gone by the mid 1500s.
But the game is great because whatever nation you play is like a totally different game. Roll around Europe with an elite Army managing your agressive expansion? Brandenburg. Colonize every possible province? Portugal. Blob the world? France. Makes tons of money with a tiny nation? Lubeck. Or go with distinct mechanics and try to survive colonization in the new world, or take over Africa and try to westernize and threaten the European powers. Every game ends up painting the map, but they feel so different as you go.
The only major players I haven’t been able to get into are Japan and China. I did a fun Korea game once, but got really bored eventually. I’ve done a southeast Asia game where I colonized the South Pacific which was interesting as well. And I’ve had a alot of fun in India… but once you kind of conquer any of the Asian areas, you’re left with weak nations to war with. Europe always has something going on, even as you’re crushing it under your boot.
(Note, I haven’t played an Asian nation in awhile, so recent expansions may have changed the experience)
Been playing the 1.2 beta. It’s stable (only crashes have been mod related.) Game play certainly feels different - more granular and organic from what I can tell so far (just started this past week.)
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.
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 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.
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.
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
