Victoria 3 - Dev Diary #143 - Trade Rework: The World Market

[Wizzington]

How does infrastructure affect things? I am thinking of building up railroads for the most part, and maybe by the end of the game airports.

Infrastructure isn't really tied into this system much honestly. Trade Centers use infra and if Market Access is low then it also lowers World Market Access but a full logistics rework isn't in scope for 1.9.

 

[Wizzington]

I think it should be based on having coasts on separate bodies of water (taking into account the distance between them), with each one getting a single world market hub. So lets take the example of Russia. The Russian market area would have coasts on three bodies of water: the Baltic Sea, the Black Sea, and the Pacific Ocean. Each one of these should have its own world market hub. Russia would technically also have a coast on the Arctic Ocean but since the nearest sea node to those ports is off the coast of Norway and that's only a few nodes away from the Baltic Sea node it wouldn't get it's own world market hub. This would lead to sensible divisions like the US having two world market hubs, one for the East Coast and one for the West Coast, if it ends up pursuing Manifest Destiny. And then a country like France would only end up with a single world market hub rather than two since there's only a few nodes between the one in the English Channel and the one in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of southern France so it'd only be allowed to have one.

This is an interesting idea that I hadn't considered. I'd have to see how it works out in practice but at first glance I like it!

 

[Wizzington]

Is running an export-focused economy profitable now? Would be nice to be able to actually complete the Brazil content.

I'm going to avoid commenting on 'how is the balance working out right now' but the goal is definitely that running an export-oriented economy should be way more feasible, at least if you're able to stay on top of your competitors.

 

[Wizzington]

Can you elaborate more on this?
What does trade "directly" mean mechanically?
Is it using the old system, bypassing the world market to trade directly with China?
Or it creates a hub there, giving you advantage on that market?

Algarve is part of the Portuguese Market, a Trade Center built there imports and exports between the World Market and the Portuguese Market

Macau is part of the Chinese Market, a Trade Center built there imports and exports between the World Market and the Chinese Market

 

[Wizzington]

How would Portugal be able to exploit this in this case? Or the British with Hong-Kong?

For example by exporting silk directly from China and bypassing any export tariffs, or importing Opium while ignoring a certain ban...

 

[Wizzington]

Do pops build trade centers? If yes what is the considerations they make to invest in them? If not why not?

I love everything else but gatekeeping this system behind government construction seems fairly nonsensical, I think it'd be much better to just tie this trade capacity to something else, like port and railroad levels and have it automatically level up as before, maybe allow trade centers to be owned by government or pops but I am not onboard of this arbitrary bottleneck on trade being construction too. There are already too many things that depend on construction queue.

As the dev diary already said, yes they do. There is a calculation for trade potential in states which autonomous investment uses to determine where to build new TCs.

 

[Wizzington]

How fast can trade centers be built? I assume it will be close to the speed of construction center so that you can easily build and remove them.

They have a very low construction cost just like construction sector, yeah.

 

[Wizzington]

How would this impact immigration? In the current build of the game, a country is only eligible for a migration target if they have a trade route to the migration's source. Does it now use the new country-by-country trade deals that are going to be explained in a later dev diary?

It's unlocked by a sufficiently large world market trade volume between two countries.

 

[Wizzington]

Very interesting system. Overall I think it's an improvement. I have a few questions :

1. Will there be plans for canals and straits to be able to charge fees to trade routes passing through them? I feel like this would work well with the outlined system.

2. Will states with good harbours or locations get any kinds of advantage or bonuses?

3. As described, trade centers can only be built on coastal regions, a major benefit. Has any thought been given to also allowing this for states on major rivers and inland waterways? This would seem to me to make sense and be easy to add. EG for North America the whole Great lakes, St Lawrence River, and Mississipi should allow construction of trade centers. This could replace the MAPI bonus they currently get.

4. Will individual trade centers have any kinds of economies of scale separate from the national advantage described?

5. If treaty ports are now part of the original country's market, can you force the treaty ports trade centre to only trade with you? Can you levy your own tariffs on this treaty ports trade? What ways are there for you to gain revenue from the trade centres in treaty ports?

Trade Centers are not limited to coastal states, you're mixing them up with hubs. They tend to be more efficient in states with large ports though, since there's a local supply of Merchant Marine.

 

[Wizzington]

This will be crucial for land locked countries I guess.

All in all this looks like an amazing overhaul of the trade system. One thing I'm not sure about: Can a trade centre only export and import goods from and to the state it's build in or are those exports and imports from and to the market? In this case MAPI would apply if the goods come from or go to another state of course, so it would be basically treated like a good produced or consumed in the state of the trade centre.

They also go to the market exactly as if they were produced in the state.