Make proximity matter more for market access/influence (through rivers and coasts)

[gaplater]

The wealth of a location lost due to a lack of control funds rebels. So, low control means faster rebellions for wealthy locations. Issue of course is that low-control locations are naturally trending downwards economically (insomuch that estates, if they're operating by any sense of sanity, aren't going to invest in locations which they stand to make no money from investing).

Right now there is no "crown power" at the location level at all, since local estate power is what's also used to determine who gets the cut of the location's revenue.

To be clear, I'm just explaining the rationality behind Johan's logic here (and playing a bit of devil's advocate). I don't know what I want to replace the system with, assuming I even have the means to do so. The M&T system of "get less taxes" doesn't really hold up, either, after having thrown myself at so damn much about medieval taxation.

I honestly don't know what control should actually do.

I understand. So the problem stems from the fact that individual pops don't own wealth (but the estates have pooled wealth). So control or not, there is actually no "real" local economy (correct me if I'm wrong). Only taxable economy. The current control system works therefore best considering this. Okay, that's true, and I'm starting to see the reasoning behind Johan's choice.

Issue of course is that low-control locations are naturally trending downwards economically (insomuch that estates, if they're operating by any sense of sanity, aren't going to invest in locations which they stand to make no money from investing).

Fact is, implicitely at least (as you have stated there is no crown power), the fact that control stems from proximity means that it acts in essence similarly to a "would-be crown power", and the fact that, as you have stated, low-control locations are trending downwards economically, all mean that economies are stagnant in border territories/marches. But yeah if low control won't reduce food, RGO, and building production, and also trade, then I'm fine I guess, it's one possible abstraction, and one can imagine that when control is low the local economy visibleto the state + state estates is diminushed as those two can't interact much with the (abstracted) local elites of that particular far away low-control location.

The M&T system of "get less taxes" doesn't really hold up, either, after having thrown myself at so damn much about medieval taxation.

Clarification : From the M&T wiki : "Local autonomy affects how much mana you need to spend to extract taxes and levies from a province. A province with 100% or 1% autonomy will still give you the same amounts, but at a very big different mana expenditure. The lower the autonomy, the less mana needed." So basically, high autonomy will make it more expensive to extract the tax income, and that income that you do not get is not lost, it just does not end up in the coffers of the state. The state loses, some elite gets richer. Of course the elites themselves can tax (if they have the rights to do so), for instance the nobles can extract wealth from their peasants through rent dues or nobles dues, and the burghers can do the same with charter fees.

What does not hold up in this system according to you ? Of course compared to what we already have in PC. In PC there is no local economy, only taxable economy. But it's not the case in M&T.

 

[rasakblood]

Market attraction is the general attractiveness for the whole market, which is independent of a location's proximity. Market access is then both combined, as well as other factors, where imo control should not be one of them.

"Every location and coastal seazone will belong to the most fitting market, which depends on the market attraction of the market, the distance between the location and the market center, diplomatic factors, and more."

Market attraction is a modifier and i am unsure if it alone use proximity. But the actual selection of locations markets clearly do.

Control do provide market protection yes. Why should it not? Have to hard disagree on that one. To me its a perfectly reasonable representation of the states attempt to keep control.

If low market access is a problem you make another market. If goods is a problem you try to trade for more. Also building trade infrastructure if needed.

I agree on the taxation part, but if control is a metric for autonomy, I don't think that it should contribute to the attractiveness of a market, nor decide the market access.

Well it only effects locations in terms off others nations market. After all control provides market protection to be exact. And like i just said above it seems perfectly reasonable to me. And i don´t think it effects market access at all. I could be wrong on that one tho. Hard to keep track of all the trade things posted in so many different places. But as far as i know market access have nothing to do with control.

Trade goes both ways though: they also sell their goods on your market.

Filling shortages and providing goods needed yea. Would be more profitable if you did those trades yourself. But otherwise that's again mostly good.

The title of thread: proximity should matter a lot more to determine a market's sphere of influence, where rivers need a serious buff in proximity effectiveness (at least for trade).

Well thats more clear and digestible. In general i agree proximity should be a large part of the calculation. But this is more of a balance issue then a real change to the system. A simple change to the already existing calculations is all that would be needed. You talked a lot about rivers. I think they are doing control over rivers now? I hope this will work the same for markets and their locations. I see no reason it wouldn't.

 

[Ispil]

I understand. So the problem stems from the fact that individual pops don't own wealth (but the estates have pooled wealth). So control or not, there is actually no "real" local economy (correct me if I'm wrong). Only taxable economy. The current control system works therefore best considering this. Okay, that's true, and I'm starting to see the reasoning behind Johan's choice.


Fact is, implicitely at least (as you have stated there is no crown power), the fact that control stems from proximity means that it acts in essence similarly to a "would-be crown power", and the fact that, as you have stated, low-control locations are trending downwards economically, all mean that economies are stagnant in border territories/marches. But yeah if low control won't reduce food, RGO, and building production, and also trade, then I'm fine I guess, it's one possible abstraction, and one can imagine that when control is low the local economy visibleto the state + state estates is diminushed as those two can't interact much with the (abstracted) local elites of that particular far away low-control location.

Yeah, the way that low control works is that it only limits the money that trickles back into the estates, but that only kicks in after everything else. The rest of their economy will function just fine; goods are still bought and sold at their same prices and all the rest.

Honestly my issue with the current system is mostly that unintegrated locations have a control cap. I understand why, but I don't like the approach. With more localized tax specification instead of just "taxing the estates", then this can be replaced with reduced taxation without a control cap.

Clarification : From the M&T wiki : "Local autonomy affects how much mana you need to spend to extract taxes and levies from a province. A province with 100% or 1% autonomy will still give you the same amounts, but at a very big different mana expenditure. The lower the autonomy, the less mana needed." So basically, high autonomy will make it more expensive to extract the tax income, and that income that you do not get is not lost, it just does not end up in the coffers of the state. The state loses, some elite gets richer. Of course the elites themselves can tax (if they have the rights to do so), for instance the nobles can extract wealth from their peasants through rent dues or nobles dues, and the burghers can do the same with charter fees.

What does not hold up in this system according to you ? Of course compared to what we already have in PC. In PC there is no local economy, only taxable economy. But it's not the case in M&T.

For M&T, the issue is that the state usually wasn't the one collecting taxes in the first place. It makes sense conceptually under the premise that taxation was handled through sending out a bunch of bureaucrats to your cities to collect what was owed, but that's not how taxes were collected. As long as the state was upholding their end of the bargain (that is, providing defense and the like), cities generally didn't fight against their obligation aside from pressing for a lower value due to not being able to pay. The state, generally speaking, didn't have to do anything to collect taxes from municipalities in this era other than ask. Or, if they refused to pay, send an army.

I wrote up a whole 5000-word essay on the matter.

 

[gaplater]

Yeah, the way that low control works is that it only limits the money that trickles back into the estates, but that only kicks in after everything else. The rest of their economy will function just fine; goods are still bought and sold at their same prices and all the rest.

Honestly my issue with the current system is mostly that unintegrated locations have a control cap. I understand why, but I don't like the approach. With more localized tax specification instead of just "taxing the estates", then this can be replaced with reduced taxation without a control cap.

For M&T, the issue is that the state usually wasn't the one collecting taxes in the first place. It makes sense conceptually under the premise that taxation was handled through sending out a bunch of bureaucrats to your cities to collect what was owed, but that's not how taxes were collected. As long as the state was upholding their end of the bargain (that is, providing defense and the like), cities generally didn't fight against their obligation aside from pressing for a lower value due to not being able to pay. The state, generally speaking, didn't have to do anything to collect taxes from municipalities in this era other than ask. Or, if they refused to pay, send an army.

I wrote up a whole 5000-word essay on the matter.

I see. I think in M&T this is (in some way) abstracted through the bureaucracy rights regarding tax collection (basically the main variables are : the mana cost of taxation, the tax efficiency, and the Tax Revenue transferred to Elites based on Power share (which would be +30% if you have Tax Farming as your tax collection), while also enabling/disabling special forms of taxation like Inheritance Tax, Property Tax, or Alchohol Excise). But of course it doesn't address the issues you pointed. Thanks by the way, that was an excellent read.

 

[MTGian]

Problem is then you could just conquer the world with abandon because zero control doesn't actually mean anything other than less tax money. When you have things like estates being the ones responsible for building buildings and the like, it actually becomes beneficial to have less control, because your estates are still building with all that wealth that you're now simply not taxing.

Who says that low control has to only mean less tax money? In France, there were also issues getting areas that were far from the capital to implement laws. Lack of control of local troops could also go with low control in a CK type system. Low control could be made heinous in a bunch of ways that don't have direct economic consequences.

For M&T, the issue is that the state usually wasn't the one collecting taxes in the first place. It makes sense conceptually under the premise that taxation was handled through sending out a bunch of bureaucrats to your cities to collect what was owed, but that's not how taxes were collected. As long as the state was upholding their end of the bargain (that is, providing defense and the like), cities generally didn't fight against their obligation aside from pressing for a lower value due to not being able to pay. The state, generally speaking, didn't have to do anything to collect taxes from municipalities in this era other than ask. Or, if they refused to pay, send an army.

I wrote up a whole 5000-word essay on the matter.

The elites in control of the region were typically the group that collected the taxes (tax farmers needed to have a lot of resources and local knowledge, thus local elites). That put them into position to misappropriate funds for their benefit. So, it is logical that the state would get less taxes from regions with low autonomy and a portion of those taxes would go to the local elites.

Also, at least when it comes to France, pensions were a major expense. I'm nearly certain that the book that I have on Toulouse argues that most tax revenue stayed local. Pensions could be higher in places where the autonomy was higher as a sort of bribe. That could be abstracted by having lower taxes.

Anyway, long story short, you could imagine low taxation in high autonomy areas as a combination of corruption in collecting taxes and payouts.

I understand. So the problem stems from the fact that individual pops don't own wealth (but the estates have pooled wealth). So control or not, there is actually no "real" local economy (correct me if I'm wrong). Only taxable economy. The current control system works therefore best considering this. Okay, that's true, and I'm starting to see the reasoning behind Johan's choice.

Oh, goodness. I forgot that there aren't local estates. Instead, estates pool wealth, so you can't even represent tax revenue largely staying local. /facepalm

I'm so unhappy with this. It's really bad, imo. I'd forgotten how much I dislike it.

I don't think this is hard to fix.
1) Estates should have local representation.
2) Revenues collected should be largely spent locally.
3) Spending priorities should be based on autonomy and estate control.
4) Estates should have just as much reason to invest to improve the local economy as the state does.
5) Thus, there shouldn't be a large economic difference between high autonomy / low autonomy places over time.
6) Low autonomy should "feel bad" not just due to low taxation, but also a host of other penalties that make the place feel like it isn't under the player's/state's control.

I just don't think this is that complicated.

 

[Sulphurologist]

"Every location and coastal seazone will belong to the most fitting market, which depends on the market attraction of the market, the distance between the location and the market center, diplomatic factors, and more."

Market attraction is a modifier and i am unsure if it alone use proximity. But the actual selection of locations markets clearly do.

Based on the quote, I'm pretty sure they're separate. Especiallh considering the attraction is a market-wide modifier. Proximity then uses that modifier to carry influence outwards.

Control do provide market protection yes. Why should it not? Have to hard disagree on that one. To me its a perfectly reasonable representation of the states attempt to keep control.

But whether or not the state controls the market in a location, the locals still trade and earn money you aren't getting due to lack of control. What I'm trying to say is that control seems to be originating from your administrative centre, which does not necessarily overlap with your trade centre, and those influences should be somewhat separate.

If low market access is a problem you make another market. If goods is a problem you try to trade for more. Also building trade infrastructure if needed.

New markets in low access regions should indeed be possible and an important goal. For example, Lyon has abhorrent trade access, while through its position between Champagne and Marseille should potentially allow it to be a strong trade centre.
I'd personally not want a direct 'create market' option. Markets rose and declined due to organic dynamics. I think no major market simply sprung into existence because someone decided some day that would be a cool thing to do. But you'd also want a system in place where not every low access location spawns forth its own market, so yeah.
 

Well it only effects locations in terms off others nations market. After all control provides market protection to be exact. And like i just said above it seems perfectly reasonable to me. And i don´t think it effects market access at all. I could be wrong on that one tho. Hard to keep track of all the trade things posted in so many different places. But as far as i know market access have nothing to do with cocontrol.

I'd love for new, clearer explanations on all the modifiers, like what does 'market protection' mean exàctly? I interpret it as the defensive bonus vs the attractiveness of foreign markets. In that case, control should be less of a measure of market access, but how hard you can pressure a location to belong to your markets. That's just my take on it though.

In general i agree proximity should be a large part of the calculation. But this is more of a balance issue then a real change to the system. A simple change to the already existing calculations is all that would be needed. You talked a lot about rivers. I think they are doing control over rivers now? I hope this will work the same for markets and their locations. I see no reason it wouldn't.

The proximity effect of rivers was already implemented (I remember seeing it mentioned somewhere with a map of Hungary), but the current market maps in the Tinto Maps posts illustrate the lack of influence rivers have on trade atm. A lot of people have been mentioning it throughout.

 

[MTGian]

New markets in low access regions should indeed be possible and an important goal. For example, Lyon has abhorrent trade access, while through its position between Champagne and Marseille should potentially allow it to be a strong trade centre.

Just an FYI, but Braudel claims Lyon was at least in competition with Paris as the economic center of France early in the time period. The trade with Italy and southern Europe was that important. He maybe says Lyon was more important (if someone really cares, I can look it up).

 

[Ispil]

6) Low autonomy should "feel bad" not just due to low taxation, but also a host of other penalties that make the place feel like it isn't under the player's/state's control.

How many systems actually exist, though, to represent this? Low levies? At one point you have standing armies anyway, so it doesn't matter. You aren't really "sending the king around" to these areas, so there's no real risk there.

Like, what does this sort of thing actually look like to you? What levers does the game have to make low control "hurt" in the ways that you're describing? Relevant both in 1337 and 1837?

 

[rasakblood]

But whether or not the state controls the market in a location, the locals still trade and earn money you aren't getting due to lack of control. What I'm trying to say is that control seems to be originating from your administrative centre, which does not necessarily overlap with your trade centre, and those influences should be somewhat separate.

I don´t really get your point. They are separated. Trade still happens. Just in locations where you have control there is a bonus to market protection based on the control value that then helps keep that location in markets belonging to a market center you control if you have one. But aside from that control is unrelated from the actual trading. And if the bonus is to little it will still belong to another market if that is more attractive.

Are you talking about the weird taxbase thing related to control? Because thats an entire different topic.

 

[MTGian]

How many systems actually exist, though, to represent this? Low levies? At one point you have standing armies anyway, so it doesn't matter. You aren't really "sending the king around" to these areas, so there's no real risk there.

Like, what does this sort of thing actually look like to you? What levers does the game have to make low control "hurt" in the ways that you're describing? Relevant both in 1337 and 1837?

Here's the list of things I've said so far (for a highly autonomous/low control region):
1) Taxes. The local elites control the purse and spend money on what will benefit them. Local elites choose local buildings.
2) Laws. The local elites will implement the laws of the state that they approve of and ignore those that they do not. Local elites choose local laws.
3) Military. The local elites will have the loyalty of troops from the region. Local elites control local armies.

I wouldn't underestimate the importance of those three things. The combination would give the elites in a highly autonomous region the resources to develop the region for independence. The player/AI would be pressured to ensure that such a region stayed happy while reducing its autonomy. If the player/AI fails to reduce that autonomy, then it would presumably only be a matter of time until the region seeks independence.

I did think of another idea, but it is probably too controversial.

4) Influence. A nation is made up of local elites. If the local elites in a highly autonomous region are able to create prestige and wealth for themselves using the above, then they could influence local elites from neighboring/other regions to desire the same privileges. To put it another way, autonomy could inspire autonomy. A monarch could be perceived as weak who allowed an autonomous region so much local control. And if an autonomous region sought independence, then that might also inspire neighboring regions to do the same.

This is pretty heinous, but its an idea if the above three are not nasty enough. If we really want to punish players for having high autonomy / low control, then I am confident that we can find ways to do so.

Edit: Regarding #4, I do like the idea of elites intermixing and having that do something. My guess is people will hate this idea, but maybe a variation on the idea would be cool.

 

[Ispil]

Here's the list of things I've said so far (for a highly autonomous/low control region):
1) Taxes. The local elites control the purse and spend money on what will benefit them. Local elites choose local buildings.
2) Laws. The local elites will implement the laws of the state that they approve of and ignore those that they do not. Local elites choose local laws.
3) Military. The local elites will have the loyalty of troops from the region. Local elites control local armies.

I wouldn't underestimate the importance of those three things. The combination would give the elites in a highly autonomous region the resources to develop the region for independence. The player/AI would be pressured to ensure that such a region stayed happy while reducing its autonomy. If the player/AI fails to reduce that autonomy, then it would presumably only be a matter of time until the region seeks independence.

I did think of another idea, but it is probably too controversial.

4) Influence. A nation is made up of local elites. If the local elites in a highly autonomous region are able to create prestige and wealth for themselves using the above, then they could influence local elites from neighboring/other regions to desire the same privileges. To put it another way, autonomy could inspire autonomy. A monarch could be perceived as weak who allowed an autonomous region so much local control. And if an autonomous region sought independence, then that might also inspire neighboring regions to do the same.

This is pretty heinous, but its an idea if the above three are not nasty enough. If we really want to punish players for having high autonomy / low control, then I am confident that we can find ways to do so.

Edit: Regarding #4, I do like the idea of elites intermixing and having that do something. My guess is people will hate this idea, but maybe a variation on the idea would be cool.

Isn't that just a subject, though? Otherwise, the issue is that the game just doesn't operate at that fidelity at all. There are no local laws (there's local estate privileges but that's about it), only national ones. Local armies is abstracted as reduced levies, and local taxes is abstracted as lower income because the game doesn't tax at the location level but rather the estate level. Even if it wasn't, since that location is still getting plenty of economic development this isn't as detrimental as you're making it out.

As per my reading, the state usually didn't have much difficulty in the way of gathering taxes in those areas which were considered "low control" such as southern France. The places France did struggle to raise taxes were, themselves, subjects in the first place (Brittany, namely). Levies? Yeah, sure, that can (and is) based on control and things like estate satisfaction. However, that influence goes away by the late game as you transition to standing armies (and consequently curb the power of local nobles).

As for your conclusion that they would "develop the region for independence", the historical examples of the most extreme levels of lack-of-control— France in peak feudal fragmentation— didn't actually do that. Those subjects of France, nominal as they may be, never actually left France. Serbia's collapse was much the same; no one actually seceded from the Serbian Empire. Rather, the ruling dynasty died out, and no one really had the means to lay claim to whatever vestiges of authority such a thing still had. Did the Emperor at that point even have much power? No, but that didn't mean that everyone broke away beforehand.

Also, per the bit on taxation, Johan did address this one at one point. You can just leave a location at zero control to have it "build itself up" without you having to care all that much, and then bother actually raising control to reap the rewards. That's not actually a penalty. Low levies are also not a penalty when you have a standing army. "Local laws", even, aren't a penalty depending on the relevance of whatever laws aren't being enforced there (which is also a giant implementation slog by the way).


Like, what you want this system to be (M&T's local authority) is not represented with control, but with that location being a subject state.

 

[MTGian]

Isn't that just a subject, though? Otherwise, the issue is that the game just doesn't operate at that fidelity at all. There are no local laws (there's local estate privileges but that's about it), only national ones. Local armies is abstracted as reduced levies, and local taxes is abstracted as lower income because the game doesn't tax at the location level but rather the estate level. Even if it wasn't, since that location is still getting plenty of economic development this isn't as detrimental as you're making it out.

As per my reading, the state usually didn't have much difficulty in the way of gathering taxes in those areas which were considered "low control" such as southern France. The places France did struggle to raise taxes were, themselves, subjects in the first place (Brittany, namely). Levies? Yeah, sure, that can (and is) based on control and things like estate satisfaction. However, that influence goes away by the late game as you transition to standing armies (and consequently curb the power of local nobles).

As for your conclusion that they would "develop the region for independence", the historical examples of the most extreme levels of lack-of-control— France in peak feudal fragmentation— didn't actually do that. Those subjects of France, nominal as they may be, never actually left France. Serbia's collapse was much the same; no one actually seceded from the Serbian Empire. Rather, the ruling dynasty died out, and no one really had the means to lay claim to whatever vestiges of authority such a thing still had. Did the Emperor at that point even have much power? No, but that didn't mean that everyone broke away beforehand.

Also, per the bit on taxation, Johan did address this one at one point. You can just leave a location at zero control to have it "build itself up" without you having to care all that much, and then bother actually raising control to reap the rewards. That's not actually a penalty. Low levies are also not a penalty when you have a standing army. "Local laws", even, aren't a penalty depending on the relevance of whatever laws aren't being enforced there (which is also a giant implementation slog by the way).


Like, what you want this system to be (M&T's local authority) is not represented with control, but with that location being a subject state.

Sigh. I know you didn't mean it, but I found your response really frustrating. I wish you had just said "autonomous regions are represented using subject states" line in your first post. It would have saved us both a lot of time.

That was the same argument that basically ended the conversation in the TT. You either believe that or you don't. If you do, then I'm happy for you, but there is really nothing for us to discuss.

Personally, I don't think that is realistic. It means that every situation where a region is affluent and far from the capital will need to be modelled by a subject. If low control = bad economy, then that means low control & good economy = subject. 100% of the time.

If you don't think the current setup is a problem, then of course you aren't going to be interested in my proposals on how to fix the current setup.

 

[Oglesby]

How I understand such a system would prevent blobbing out, is precisely because the estates (and rebels) get maximum benefits from low control areas, giving huge rebel problems for the player.

Low control should empower estates, for good and bad (usually bad for the state).

And low control shouldn't mean that the estates are satisfied with the ruler. It should mean that the ruler is incapable, and in fact actually flare up the ambitions of said estates, demanding more and more privileges from the ruler (Bohemian nobility ruining the country during reign of Wenceslas 'the Idle'), or outright secession.

It's not like the ruler magnanimously granted those estates autonomy (low control) in exchange for loyalty. They are in control by their own power.

---

Low control does increase the relative power of the estates as there isn't a reduction to the amount of power the estate gets per pop of their flavor base on control while there is for the state.

 

[Kael Mahariel]

Yeah, the way that low control works is that it only limits the money that trickles back into the estates, but that only kicks in after everything else. The rest of their economy will function just fine; goods are still bought and sold at their same prices and all the rest.

May I ask where it is stated it limits the money the estates get? Has that been changed since the dev diary on it?

Just wondering due to Johan's response to the question way back in April 2024. I might not have noticed that this has changed since.

 

[Oglesby]

May I ask where it is stated it limits the money the estates get? Has that been changed since the dev diary on it?

Just wondering due to Johan's response to the question way back in April 2024. I might not have noticed that this has changed since.

View attachment 1260810

you need to look at TT #8.

If control represents the influence of the state over the province, should it not be the difference between 100% and « currently » which goes to the state, then applied with the taxation ?

Where does all the extra money above « currently » (0.76-0.44 = 0.32) go if it goes neither to the crown or the estates. Do the 0.32 just vanish ?

Its not created at all.

It is referencing this image about tax base, where it indicates what the tax base would be if you has 100% control. It also shows that your control is at 56.15% and trending to 58.20% and what the tax base is at those two points.

Spoiler: Tax Base

Edit to add this quote too

So previously i understood control as how much of the province the crown can reach to tax. So on a province with low control your state can reach the port town, but can't reach the forest dwellers nearby who live essentially free from you and your taxmen, keeping their wealth to themselves.

The "potential" money is not taxable nor the estates gets it.. it currently goes straight into the rebel-funding pool for that locations potential rebels..

 

[Sulphurologist]

Thanks to a post somewhere else, I realised I missed TT24 - naval aspects

Importance of Maritime Presence
First of all, we need to get back to the importance of maritime presence and naval capacity in Project Caesar. Before you can get advanced road networks through your country, your proximity propagation is much faster through places where you have maritime presence. Any seazone where you have no maritime presence OR a location without any road network costs about 40 ‘proximity’ to traverse through, which basically means you can not propagate any control more than 3 locations away. Of course, there are things that impact your proximity costs per location, like topography, vegetation, development and societal values as well.

For a coastal seazone, if you have 100% maritime presence, the base cost is 5 per location. If you have less than 100% maritime presence it will scale the price accordingly. So at 33% maritime presence, and you have no other modifiers, it would cost 0.33*5 + 0.67*40, i.e. about 28.45.

Lakes and Major Rivers are always considered to be 100% maritime presence sea zones for proximity calculations and market access calculations.

Major rivers do seem to have an impact, but I fear the classification of a major river will be limited to rivers like the Danube and Rhine, while all rivers over 100 m³ discharge easily have two-way traffic (per image of my OP).
I also think the effect of maritime presence seems to be rather limited atm?

 

[LordThanatos]

Looking at that screenshot, I don't know that I'd want every river represented there impacting market/control spread majorly, as that would appear to make roads just about useless in the pictured area. That said, I'd also like it if more rivers were represented than the famous Rhine, Danube, Seine, Rhone, etc.

I wonder if there's a comfortable middle ground, somewhere. I also had a brief look at some of the rivers in your screenshot, namely those in the Alps, to see how navigable they looked, and from a layman's perspective it seems something more needs to be accounted for. An example of what I mean is the Dora Baltea, which appears on your map as navigable for trade, but appears to be a whitewater river for much of its length (At least upstream of Ivrea), has tons of rapids and looks decidedly non-navigable for general use - especially if you were going upstream. I'm no expert, though, and I can't speak for how many of those rivers share those characteristics - it was one of the first I looked at.

If that is valid, and it wasn't navigable in pre-industrial Europe, I wonder if somehow accounting for and filtering out that sort of waterway would provide a more balanced-looking map that would give more utility to developing for control and trade. I imagine it would still seem like there was no point roads with the parameters you've outlined, though - other than to try and expand your market into those of your trade rivals should they lack roads themselves - but I'd hope that expanding infrastructure like that would result in more revenue opportunity and better access to goods domestically, even in Europe which is lucky enough to have such extensive waterways.

 

[Sulphurologist]

Looking at that screenshot, I don't know that I'd want every river represented there impacting market/control spread majorly, as that would appear to make roads just about useless in the pictured area. That said, I'd also like it if more rivers were represented than the famous Rhine, Danube, Seine, Rhone, etc.

I wonder if there's a comfortable middle ground, somewhere. I also had a brief look at some of the rivers in your screenshot, namely those in the Alps, to see how navigable they looked, and from a layman's perspective it seems something more needs to be accounted for. An example of what I mean is the Dora Baltea, which appears on your map as navigable for trade, but appears to be a whitewater river for much of its length (At least upstream of Ivrea), has tons of rapids and looks decidedly non-navigable for general use - especially if you were going upstream. I'm no expert, though, and I can't speak for how many of those rivers share those characteristics - it was one of the first I looked at.

If that is valid, and it wasn't navigable in pre-industrial Europe, I wonder if somehow accounting for and filtering out that sort of waterway would provide a more balanced-looking map that would give more utility to developing for control and trade. I imagine it would still seem like there was no point roads with the parameters you've outlined, though - other than to try and expand your market into those of your trade rivals should they lack roads themselves - but I'd hope that expanding infrastructure like that would result in more revenue opportunity and better access to goods domestically, even in Europe which is lucky enough to have such extensive waterways.

The dataset has a lot more factors to play around with, and every river is split into each tributary. With fidgeting I could perhaps get a more representative river dataset. I think for mountainous areas the 100 m³/s is probably an overestimation due to yearly snow melt, with peaks in spring and dips in autumn. For temperate climate flat areas 100 seems perfectly fine (like the Scheldt river).

I'll turn that into another side project at some point (I'm working on a geographical resource compendium for the modding community)

 

[LordThanatos]

The dataset has a lot more factors to play around with, and every river is split into each tributary. With fidgeting I could perhaps get a more representative river dataset. I think for mountainous areas the 100 m³/s is probably an overestimation due to yearly snow melt, with peaks in spring and dips in autumn. For temperate climate flat areas 100 seems perfectly fine (like the Scheldt river).

I'll turn that into another side project at some point (I'm working on a geographical resource compendium for the modding community)

That makes sense. I figured it might be the case. Perhaps some sort of adjustment for slope, river width or some measure of 'roughness' would work. Regardless, it does make it difficult to judge which rivers are suitable from the image. Just excluding those in very mountainous areas still leaves most of the pictured area connected by waterways which seems unfortunate for the infrastructure gameplay as I understand it.

I'm struggling to remember if there's significant detail disclosed about how market access works, but I wonder if having such widespread river-access might just give most of Europe and other highly riverine areas a decent base capacity to supply goods, and that roads would still be necessary to support larger populations and more efficient taxation and supply. That might make it for something more interesting to me - though I think I'd still want to see at least two, or perhaps three tiers of river to represent the truly large and defining rivers separately from those smaller traversable rivers. (Perhaps those with over 100m³/s, 500m³/s, and 2000m³/s and traversable gradients, for each respective tier to pull numbers at near random?)

 

[Znikii]

Low control doesn't hinder Trade potential in a location, it just makes it harder for you to keep it in your Market, or in other words, locations where you have high control will make it much more eiser and likely for you that said location will join your primary Market (think how with good control and maritime presence Venice will be able to incorporate island outpost from east Adriatic Sea - Corfu - Crete - Cyprus all into its home Venetian market, thus controling the flow of Trade in eastern Med....).

I think Maritime trade is by far the strongest option, since the efficient distance to Market Capital modifiers & Trade Volume (number of units aka transport costs / trade capacity), but it's all the most expensive to maintain over larger distances (naval & sailor upkeep)

Being Market Capital is more than having a prosperous local production and busy marketplace in a semi-autonomous city (state). It's about how far your Trade Power (state Trade capacity + Burgher Trade capacity + trade range + market presence) can influence the flow of goods to your benefit. Mind you, tag with the highest market power has a priority on buy orders, which are not limitless, but finite, and secondly those highly populus cities like Ghent, Cologne, and Augburg didn't prosper because they could direct, control and hold a Market Capital. They were prosperous because they acted as intermediaries between different Markets and more importantly because of it's high population and business connections far and wide made them an ideal place for the development of expert master crafts producing highly developed production knowledge of specialized high-quality goods.
Venetians having control of N. Austria at game start is correct. Venetian bankers and traders controlled the exchange of silver/gold mined in Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia and Slovakia; they were responsible for Papal tithe collection & logistics for the kingdoms of Bohemia, Poland and Hungary; they controlled the majority from Spice trade entering east Med. and distributing them to the rest of Europe; Venician bankers were some of the first to offer financial services to the wider Europe; and it's manufacturing process and expert knowledge in metallurgy, mirror making, lens production and an industrial level capacity and division of labour for printing press, shipbuilding,.... all this well into late 18. century. oooh, and there was also a coalition of cretain Free Imperial cities. Prague and Budapest that came under the agreement that they should embargo all trade in Vienna.
so what if Calais, Béthune, and Arras have coasts and rivers, so does millions of other places? You need a strong navel fleet, so as soon as England or Antwerpen/Amsterdam builds up a sizeable navy, those places will flip over from Parris to Antwerpen/Amsterdam.

You complain about a bunch of other stuff that is already confimed and works as you whish.... for example low control does not mean low economic activity, it just means how much taxes the crown can extract from the place. So, you can have highly prosperous and economically developed location, but with low control. Meaning the Estates controlling this location will get a greater part of the profits!

But!,....
Totally agree on the importance of rivers!
... while I know that we are still waiting for Rivers TT, so obviously we hardly know anything about how they will do them.
...but still, they were of huge importance over the whole of human existence, so they deserve proper breadth and depth!

Compilation of my own suggestions for Rivers:
I would like to suggest the following idea: rivers have 2 tiers

Major rivers and rivers

I hope we will get 2 lvl tiers for rivers. Major river (bonus to trade, but a huge penalty for crossing if you don't have proper infrastructure built,...) - and river (minor trade bonus, only minor crossing penalty without the proper infra., but completely negated if you have it,...). Each river would also offer a few special buildings for its tier type that can be only built next to them:

• Major river: River Port (urban), River Docks (Urban), Fishing village (rural),...
• river: Bridge (urban), Pulley System (rural), Watermill (rural),...
  
  Hmm, more and more I am convinced of 2 things:
  -River navigability wouldn't add anything of worth
  -there should be a system in game that represents the presence and use of river navies, especially for denying crossings/trade/patrolling and as a side mini battle happening alongside larger land battles.
  
  Urban city location next to a major river could build a River Fleet Base building, which would give additional harsh River crossing penalties to the attacking army.
  So I would add to my previous suggestion for urban river naval bases, there should also be a rural version of a building: River fort.
  
  Both buildings would have several different PM representing how strong a river fleet presence you have in any given location. Going from Patrol Boats, Gunboat flotilla, River Armada.
  
  Giving all kinds of harmful debuffs to the enemy (trade, river crossing times, land combat penalties, and even denying the crossing in full) and positive to you (land combat buffs, increased control, faster army crossing).
  
  The presence of enough number of enemy artillery would quickly remove any de/buffs.