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Inflation and trade

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Welcome to the forum!

You get inflation mainly from minting (the treasury slider in the budget window isn't completely to the left) and from gold inflation (if you own provinces with gold which make up over 40% of your total income, you get some inflation yearly). Other sources for inflation is for example war taxes and events. You can reduce inflation by promoting mayors to governors with infrastructure level 5. You can also cross your fingers for deflation events.

Inflation increases the cost for everything ingame, also tech costs. Even if inflation is bad for your economy, don't be afraid to mint some. Often it can be worth minting if you get enough ducats to build a manufactory/promote city officials and so on. But try to keep inflation on a reasonable level (e.g. 20%).

I remember when I was new to the game (EU2), I was afraid of running a negative balance in the budget window while treasury was at 0. But you don't need to start minting to avoid an automatic loan; the game will make sure of this, so just have your treasury slider set to the far left (spend your income on infra tech instead, at least early in the game). Of course, if your expenses > your income, you will get a loan no matter what.

Trade in EU2/FTG is very abstract, the resources aren't very meaningful. All settled provinces send their goods to a Center of Trade (COT). You get a share of the values by sending merchants there. Early in the game you won't earn much from it, but later on when you've discovered trade tech 3 (monopolies) and you have access to COTs with low competition, you can make fortunes. You find COTs with low competition mainly in America. Anyway, there's much to say about trading - maybe you can be more specific?

Btw, I recommend the EU2 wiki, it's relevant for FTG: http://www.paradoxian.org/eu2wiki/index.php/Main_Page
 
Might add that is always better to send merchants in groups and not send them one by one every now and then. Concentrate on a few cots and build up to to highest level of trade without getting a monopoly. Generally monopolies are only worth the effort in your own centers and the few really rich ones with little competition like Tenochtitlan or Manhattan.
 
Monkii-sama said:
Might add that is always better to send merchants in groups and not send them one by one every now and then. Concentrate on a few cots and build up to to highest level of trade without getting a monopoly. Generally monopolies are only worth the effort in your own centers and the few really rich ones with little competition like Tenochtitlan or Manhattan.
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This is only true if you are not willing to spend a bit of time and effort on trade. If you are, however, free slot technique is far more efficient. That is, you search through the CoTs you want to send to until you find a free slot. When you do, pause, send 1 merchant there, unpause. Then continue searching, over and over. In FTG this search is very easy: you only have to click the CoT and see the number on the lower right. If it is non-zero, send that many merchants.
 
The 2 are not mutually exclusive. I do both.
 
To make sure you give the less amount of time possible to the competition for sending the merchant which will ocuppy the vacant spot themselves. (was this clear? lol)
 
Samorim said:
(was this clear? lol)
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Not really :rofl: :) Perhaps:

To maximize the probability that your merchant will fill the empty spot. The more time that passes, the higher is the risk that some other nation's merchant fills the spot.

Additionally, in SP I pause before I do almost every click. This because my fear of clicking a pop-up window and selecting the wrong option (events, someone?).
 
I use to send traders on the second of a month. AI seems to prefer to send its traders on that date too, so chances seem best then. Of course one should use the empty slot technique. I use the ledger to check where there are marketshares to gain for my merchants.

Monopolies: One can easily calculate how long a monopoly has to last so that it pays for itself. But it's much easier to keep 5 traders in each CoT then to keep monopolies, so that is top priority for me after getting Tade Tech 3. Then I slowly try to get monopolies if possible. As there is more competition in some CoT's than in others, one should get a feeling, where monopolies are more easily kept.

If one is far ahaed in trade efficiency, it's possible to monopolize all CoT's of the world. In an AGCEEP Portugal game my TE is around 180 by 1640. Even reloading doesn't even touch my 29 monopolies. :D (That was for the price of keeping the BB at 0 as soon as AI countries got Trade Tech 4 - so the game went a little bit boring ;).)
 
Mats_SX said:
Not really :rofl: :) Perhaps:

To maximize the probability that your merchant will fill the empty spot. The more time that passes, the higher is the risk that some other nation's merchant fills the spot.
Click to expand...

That's much clearer, thank you! lol

Mental lesson to future: don't complicate what's simple. :p
 
20% inflation rate? Ya gotta be kidding me... in FTG, is that a reasonable level?

I'm currently at 6.75%... I thought that is pretty high...

Will it stop increasing at some point? I'm only claiming about 3 gold pieces per month for my treasury and it's still increasing steadily. Is it rising because my Inca Empire has too much gold and silver income?
 
ManOnTheMoon said:
20% inflation rate? Ya gotta be kidding me... in FTG, is that a reasonable level?

I'm currently at 6.75%... I thought that is pretty high...

Will it stop increasing at some point? I'm only claiming about 3 gold pieces per month for my treasury and it's still increasing steadily. Is it rising because my Inca Empire has too much gold and silver income?
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What does the tooltip on the inflation number say? (The same tooltip is also on the treasury slider.)
 
At the moment, you're minting a bit. That's causing .17% yearly inflation. You can remove it by not minting i.e. setting the treasury slider to the extreme left.

The .12% gold inflation can only be dispelled by increasing revenue from trade or production. With the Incas, it will probably take some time.
 
Therion said:
At the moment, you're minting a bit. That's causing .17% yearly inflation. You can remove it by not minting i.e. setting the treasury slider to the extreme left.

The .12% gold inflation can only be dispelled by increasing revenue from trade or production. With the Incas, it will probably take some time.
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Bah, as far as you can usefully spend the money you get by minting, I think it's ok. I currently let the treasury slider like 0.10% minting a year, I find it ok ^_^. You can reseach techs and colonize a little bit quicker, as an example, which in return helps you to raise your revenue a little bit quicker too. You have to feel what is the balance. For gold, yes, it's better to not encourage inflation and go below the 40% limit. The quickest way that comes to my mind is to be able to expand your territory somewhat. Diplo-annex a neighbour is nice for that, that's what I did with Zimbabwe in my last game.
 
Well, he wanted to know how to decrease his inflation and I replied.

Personally, I always like to leave it at 0%, but it obviously depends on circumstances. Minting 0.1% per year means that 10% of the budget doesn't go into investments and research is 10% slower. I like to reserve my minting for wars when extra income is available from synchronised looting. Generally I always try to be at 2-4% inflation so as to exploit any random deflation events that pop up from time to time.
 
Therion said:
Personally, I always like to leave it at 0%, but it obviously depends on circumstances. Minting 0.1% per year means that 10% of the budget doesn't go into investments and research is 10% slower. I like to reserve my minting for wars when extra income is available from synchronised looting. Generally I always try to be at 2-4% inflation so as to exploit any random deflation events that pop up from time to time.
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+1
 
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