Other Effects of Mercantilism/Free Trade? Sticky-ness, CoT coverage etc.?

[pgroves]

Hi - apart from the obvious effects from DP slider settings of Free Trade/Mercantilism (# of Merchants, Merchant Cost, # of Trade Refusals before penalties, # of colonists), as listed here: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?142023-Domestic-Policies-slider-settings-1.08. and for Random Events, as listed here: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum...e-Effect-of-DP-sliders-on-Random-Events-V1.08), are there any other effects due to the setting of this DP slider? e.g.

* Merchant "compete chance" and "sticky-ness" - e.g. is a merchant less likely to get competed out if Mercantilism is high? What about the initial chance of Merchant placement/competing with other merchants, is this affected?

* Chance of a new CoT forming (or an existing one ending)?

* Area covered by a CoT (e.g. if I have high Mercantilism and am a CoT owner, does this have an effect on which provinces will join my CoT?)

I'm sure I read somewhere about all of the above being affected by the Free Trade/Mercantilism slider setting, but can't find this documented anywhere - could someone point me in the right direction?

For countries heavily involved in trade and/or exploration (e.g. Portugal, Venice...) this information is very important!

 

[ConjurerDragon]

Perhaps you´ll find some more info in that thread about Mercantilism:
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum...-week-s-debate-Mercantilism-versus-Free-Trade

 

[pgroves]

Thanks, though that thread seems inconclusive

 

[unmerged(94521)]

I've been wondering the exact same thing:

1) What governs when a CoT appears? When playing African nations, CoTs always seem to appear in European colonial provinces (especially Portuguese) even though i have many more provinces in the region than they have.

2) What governs what CoT a given province will supply?

Specifically if the free trade-mercantilism slider has any effect on this.

3) Does the 'free' trade embargoes given by mercantilism still reduce trade effeciency?

 

[pgroves]

I've been wondering the exact same thing:

1) What governs when a CoT appears? When playing African nations, CoTs always seem to appear in European colonial provinces (especially Portuguese) even though i have many more provinces in the region than they have.

2) What governs what CoT a given province will supply?

Specifically if the free trade-mercantilism slider has any effect on this.

3) Does the 'free' trade embargoes given by mercantilism still reduce trade effeciency?

Yes, these are all questions I'm interested in getting answers to as well! Given that trade is such a large potential source of income in the game, it would be great to have a better understanding of all this.

 

[ConjurerDragon]

I've been wondering the exact same thing:

1) What governs when a CoT appears? When playing African nations, CoTs always seem to appear in European colonial provinces (especially Portuguese) even though i have many more provinces in the region than they have.

The CoT modifier in provinces.txt:
"#cot_modifier = X Modifier for CoT creation. Can be negative (default is 0 if not specified)."

The higher the value the more likely the province is to get a new CoT if a new one is created by the game.

2) What governs what CoT a given province will supply?

What do you mean with "what CoT"? Do you mean which provinces will belong to a new CoT and which products they will supply that CoT with?

 

[unmerged(94521)]

The CoT modifier in provinces.txt:
"#cot_modifier = X Modifier for CoT creation. Can be negative (default is 0 if not specified)."

The higher the value the more likely the province is to get a new CoT if a new one is created by the game.



What do you mean with "what CoT"? Do you mean which provinces will belong to a new CoT and which products they will supply that CoT with?

And the cot_modifier is a fixed value for a given province, or does i change according to certain criteria?

And yes by 'what CoT' i do mean what you suggest. For example usually Pagan and Muslim provinces tend to switch over to trading in European owned CoTs, disregarding that the owning nation has a far greater number of big and wealthy provinces compared to a tiny European colony on the coast.

I mean which CoT a given province will trade its goods in, some provinces seem to constantly shift between two or more different CoTs.

 

[ConjurerDragon]

And the cot_modifier is a fixed value for a given province, or does i change according to certain criteria?

Why do you assume it would change when it´s a fixed value in provinces.txt?

And yes by 'what CoT' i do mean what you suggest. For example usually Pagan and Muslim provinces tend to switch over to trading in European owned CoTs, disregarding that the owning nation has a far greater number of big and wealthy provinces compared to a tiny European colony on the coast.

I don´t know the game mechanics for this case, but even the FtG Manual says on p. 76 "New colonies and trading posts will almost
exclusively end up under the authority of your own CoT". So european colonies are more likely to belong to an european CoT than a nearby african or american CoT.

I mean which CoT a given province will trade its goods in, some provinces seem to constantly shift between two or more different CoTs.

My *guess* would be the level of competition (high competition increases range of CoT, low competiton and CoT declines) and Trade Efficiency of the owner of the CoT. So two CoT´s would constantly try to get neighbouring provinces into their own sphere of influence when new merchants increase competition.