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unmerged(1249)

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Feb 26, 2001
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I have a second opinion question:

Do I get more income if I colonize a province to city,
or build 7 trade posts.


I play with Portugal and I wonder if it is wise to spend
7 setllers (gain 3 per/year) on Senegal or to build more
posts.
 
Generally I build posts to secure land, but ultimately you are better off changing most trading posts to colonies. If I end up with 40 trading posts I will pick two or three of them and colonize them all the way until they become a city. Then I will pick another three and move them all the way up. That way you are the least disruptive towards your economy...
 
You get more immediate income from building seven trade posts. However, these trade posts can be easily destroyed in a war and are incapable of anything other than generating a small amount of income. Building a colony into a city, although expensive, provides you with a base of operations that can be protected through fortifications, used raise armies and navies, and that increases in population. So it's best to build colonies in strategic locations whenever the money is available and use them to defend your trde posts.
 
Short term : trade post.
Long term : colony. Especially if this province has huge local population that will be integrated in your colony.

Other problem for a country like Portugal : colonies cost way more than TP. And in Africa, the population will decrease until you reach city status. You have to invest seven colonists in a short time to make it really worth.
 
One major difference - it is useless to make trade posts if you dont posses a trade center (Anglia in Grand Campaign). So better make a chain of 2-3 colonies to help explore overseas and then start bulding a city in especialy rich province. Buld the city and expand it - there is a good chance for a new trading center in this city. At least in my game I received new trading center of almost any from the yearly colonies I build. Later start bulding trading posts as crazy - just to prevent the others. Look for the foreign land explorers when possible. There is a good chance they will destroy the natives in this province. Steal it at once! In North America try to grab the WHOLE beach. Yuo will not succeed, but the build a trading post in the second row - this will prevent the other countries from expandind inland.
BUT REMEMBER - you practicaly dont receive ANY income from the trading posts, if you dont have your own trading center. Even if you send merchants in the others TC, you will receive quite a tiny share from your trading post.
 
BUT REMEMBER - you practicaly dont receive ANY income from the trading posts, if you dont have your own trading center. Even if you send merchants in the others TC, you will receive quite a tiny share from your trading post.


This is of curse incorrect. The one with the highest number of Merchants obviously take home the most profit. However it is cheaper & easier (better % chance) to keep the most merchants in one of your own COTs. By owning the COT you also recieve the 0,25 Dukats / merchant (even your own) to your monthly income.
 
I will build trade posts first everywhere especeally in
India.

You get money from trade posts from the merchants and
every time I played a new Cot was made in India and America.
Besides, whats stopping me from conquering Delhi and getting
the rich income from India!?

Only a big ocean!!!!


Thanks for your opinions.
 
Originally posted by Huszics
BUT REMEMBER - you practicaly dont receive ANY income from the trading posts, if you dont have your own trading center. Even if you send merchants in the others TC, you will receive quite a tiny share from your trading post.


This is of curse incorrect. The one with the highest number of Merchants obviously take home the most profit.
Click to expand...

Of course it is correct - you can put merchants in every free province in the far east and america end every ducat will go to the local COTs, which you probably will not see at all, IF YOU ARE NOT A OWNER OF A COT! But if you own a COT, every merchant you have will send the money only there, no matter how away the province is.
 
Mayby I used the wrong word (I don't have an english copy), but I mean the guys you send to CoTs when I say merchant (and so do you apparently Even if you send merchants in the others TC).

every ducat will go to the local COTs,

True (almost, you do get a small trade income from a TP).

which you probably will not see at all, IF YOU ARE NOT A OWNER OF A COT!

False. If you have the most 'shileds' in the CoT you also get the most!!
 
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I mean, you probably will not see the richest COTs in the yearly decades, because they are not in coastal provinces - Delhi, South America or are just too away - Japan, China. So you cannot even send there merchants. Using you few settlers for trading posts then will not bring you any income. But if you use them to create and then develop a thriving colony, then there is a big chance you will receive a CoT quickly in Anglia and in the colony. Then you can start making trading posts. In my game as England I received a CoT in practically EVERY early colony I founded.
Even playng as Portugal or Spain it is wise to settle a colonies overseas to serve as a foothold for defence from natives and those nasty British:)On the other hand, the Spain CoTs in Europa are heavily contended and the Spain is reaching trade lvl 3 (to establish monopol) quite late, so most of the money in the beginning will go to the others again. Looks like playing Portugal is better - Tago isnt very lucrative in the beginning and the contest is not very strong and the portugals develop trade lvl 3 quite soon.
 
Its been a while

;) :D ;) IGC-scenario



Several months passed since I started this thread, so now here is the
expirience I aquirred in months of Portugal play.


Trade posts are useful if you dont have enough money to build colonies
and you dont want to lose settlers (max 6 in "stock").

Besides this(I hate when settlers go in vain:D ), level 6 trade posts
generate production income in rich provincies ,that canot be colonized without a counquistador.


And last but most important, Portugal always recieves a cot in india,which takes over most of Delhi`s trade + rich south China provincies....
This is especially useful(profitable) when Spain doesnt have a cot in
indonesia(usually opens in the Fillipines
:eek:).


What I think is not right is the fact that placing a colonist in north american provincies and some brazilian results in a self-buildin city over time, while in India this is not possible.
If you place a setller in delawere for instance, over time it will grow into a city, while african,indian, and indonesian provincies all have - % growth rate...


A trade post owners nightmare: An army of 1000 men lands in your trade post and continues its way burning 10 of your expensive-setller- costing trade posts and than populating it with its own colonists.
 
Just an opinion to add: I would argue that it's NEVER worth expanding a trading post beyond level 1 unless there is absolutely nothing else you can do with your settlers (nowhere else to build a TP, no colonies to expand to 1000+, no non-state-religion provinces you can convert by missionary....) Only then would I consider expanding trading posts.
 
Originally posted by Heyesey
Just an opinion to add: I would argue that it's NEVER worth expanding a trading post beyond level 1 unless there is absolutely nothing else you can do with your settlers (nowhere else to build a TP, no colonies to expand to 1000+, no non-state-religion provinces you can convert by missionary....) Only then would I consider expanding trading posts.
Click to expand...

I'd agree w/ that.

Another thing to try. In the areas where your colonies experiance negative growth rate set up a trading post first. This will save you one colonist by giving you a buffer of ten population to loose. Also if you run the colony population up to 1000 that will usually improve the growth rate to positive numbers.

John J
 
Building a manufactory is sometimes enough to knock the growth rate into positive figures. Especially useful for refineries in Table, since you want one there anyway :)
 
Just two things:

- As a portuguese player (both in/out of the game), it does seems to be worth to rise TP up to level six, especially in India (at least to me, they generate 50+ each in commerce values).

And that's pretty good, since as soon as the Malaccan CoT opens up, I can get absolute monopoly over its goods quite easily (nobody else knows where it is :D ) and get all that trade neatly to myself.


The decreasing colonies in Africa and India are historically correct. We literally had to keep those indian colonies permanently 'filled' with colonists in order to have some 'white' manpower, while it wasn't even worth expanding the african ones until the XXth century - indeed, that is considered to be one of the biggest 'blood loss' our country ever had.
(for example, in the XVIth century an average 6000 portuguese left for India per year. Of those, 50% died in the voyage, and of the remainder, another 50% died of disease in the first year).

Also worth noting that, when India invaded Goa in 1961, apart from 7000 european portuguese (3000 of which soldiers that were stationed there quite recently), only 1500 people had mixed blood. The other 1,5 million inhabitants of the colony were all ethnic indians.

Regards,
Keoland
 
Originally posted by Keoland
- As a portuguese player (both in/out of the game), it does seems to be worth to rise TP up to level six, especially in India (at least to me, they generate 50+ each in commerce values).
Click to expand...

It's worth doing IF you have nothing else to do with your settlers. If you have the alternative, building six level 1 trading posts would generate a lot more income. Of course, once you've run out of spaces to put new trading posts in (or they're all occupied with extremely hostile natives) then you build up the ones you have.
 
Economically and strategically, a great place to found a colony and why not a refinery.

I know it is a rich territory and if you hope to expand to India and southeastern Asia, your colony in Table can be used as a relay for you ships/explorer and a good way to control passage.
 
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