Curious to how the 1.9 Trade re-work will... work?

[Prob32]

I guess we're going to potentially find the answer to this question in a few hours lol

No answer- but did confirm it’s a MAJOR re-work which is a confirmation of sorts.

• Big ideas for changes are not off the table
• It’s performance intensive because they don’t 100% know if it can be optimized yet thus the reluctance to chat about it
• It’s going to end up being in the oven for 6-8 months assuming they started some pre work in Q4 last year- likely as they had prototype working by December.
• A timeline of early spring call it second or third week of march for a first dev diary puts us on track for a late May-June release date
• Just to benchmark here this is a similar amount of time if not more than it took to build 1.7 which required remapping ownership of every building in the world.
• It will probably include internal trade of some sort

Anything else?

 

[Prob32]

Trade routes as of 1.5 (when they added local prices and Market Access Price Impact, or MAPI) suffer doubly from it.

Fundamentally a profitable trade route will try to move a good between higher and lower price markets. The issue is that when the trade good is loaded onto the boat, it’s going to eat the MAPI hit for that state. And when it arrives in the destination market, it ALSO eats a hit for the MAPI there. This basically means if both sides have 85% MAPI, all the trade routes between them can have up to 30% erosion of the actual pice difference between the two markets. It grinds out a lot of potential profit.

It’s more than just this because you can’t just boost international trade volumes and profitability without simultaneously making the neighboring state somehow a less efficient supplier despite being one map province away. It’s all related

 

[IsaacCAT]

It’s going to end up being in the oven for 6-8 months assuming they started some pre work in Q4 last year- likely as they had prototype working by December.

No way, they need cash, this is coming in half that time

 

[Desseabar]

No answer- but did confirm it’s a MAJOR re-work which is a confirmation of sorts.

• Big ideas for changes are not off the table
• It’s performance intensive because they don’t 100% know if it can be optimized yet thus the reluctance to chat about it
• It’s going to end up being in the oven for 6-8 months assuming they started some pre work in Q4 last year- likely as they had prototype working by December.
• A timeline of early spring call it second or third week of march for a first dev diary puts us on track for a late May-June release date
• Just to benchmark here this is a similar amount of time if not more than it took to build 1.7 which required remapping ownership of every building in the world.
• It will probably include internal trade of some sort

Anything else?

Some other hints:

• "Improve on the Treaty Port mechanic and create more ways for countries to cooperate, compete with and exploit others using trade"
• "This is absolutely something we're aiming for with improving trade. Both making it more viable compared to autarky, and making competition for export/import much more of a thing."
• They don't want to announce an expansion pass without a big-ticket DLC to lead it

So, assuming 1.9 comes with a major DLC to open the expansion pass, I'd bet it's a focus on China. China's the most-played country, China's the most important country for any discussion of treaty ports, and competition of EU/US/JP access to Chinese markets would make sense as a cornerstone for a trade-based DLC.

There was a video a while back where the devs discussed other plans including a complete naval overhaul and a diplo play rework for limited wars, highlighting the Crimean War. A Crimean War+Naval Rework seems like a headline ticket too, so maybe that gets pushed into 2026? That said, if we don't get diplo play reworks in 2025, I'd be really disappointed given that they're probably my top obstacle to enjoying the game right now.

 

[Prob32]

No way, they need cash, this is coming in half that time

Well they said early spring- which is March sometime. They always do a minimum of 6 weeks dev diaries + marketing before a major release. So that means first week of May at the absolute soonest

 

[IsaacCAT]

Well they said early spring- which is March sometime. They always do a minimum of 6 weeks dev diaries + marketing before a major release. So that means first week of May at the absolute soonest

For an expansion pass this year ending with a big expansion they have three teams working in paralel, problably a four team on art assets.

1.9 in March/April
1.10 in August/September with a nation DLC
1.11 in November/December with a big expansion

 

[Prob32]

Some other hints:

• "Improve on the Treaty Port mechanic and create more ways for countries to cooperate, compete with and exploit others using trade"
• "This is absolutely something we're aiming for with improving trade. Both making it more viable compared to autarky, and making competition for export/import much more of a thing."
• They don't want to announce an expansion pass without a big-ticket DLC to lead it

So, assuming 1.9 comes with a major DLC to open the expansion pass, I'd bet it's a focus on China. China's the most-played country, China's the most important country for any discussion of treaty ports, and competition of EU/US/JP access to Chinese markets would make sense as a cornerstone for a trade-based DLC.

There was a video a while back where the devs discussed other plans including a complete naval overhaul and a diplo play rework for limited wars, highlighting the Crimean War. A Crimean War+Naval Rework seems like a headline ticket too, so maybe that gets pushed into 2026? That said, if we don't get diplo play reworks in 2025, I'd be really disappointed given that they're probably my top obstacle to enjoying the game right now.

Agree it will probably come with an expansion. I think it’s still somewhat possible they just do two major updates this year of Trade + Navy.

The nice thing about navy is it should be lighter weight in the sense you don’t have to rebalance the entire eco

 

[Timewalker102]

The fact that they've said the trade rework will be major and that they want to make economies less autarkic makes me optimistic. It implies to me that they know how neutered it is and want to totally rewrite and rebalance it.

 

[Álvaro Núñez de Lara]

It will probably include internal trade of some sort

What do you mean and where do you get this from?

 

[Álvaro Núñez de Lara]

The fact that they've said the trade rework will be major and that they want to make economies less autarkic makes me optimistic. It implies to me that they know how neutered it is and want to totally rewrite and rebalance it.

Yes im very optimistic. Nothing in the roadmap in December said anything about a major rework. As usual once they started working and brainstorming probably they came up with something much bigger, much like the ownership rework when thinking about the foreign investments or things like the economies in colonies.

 

[Michael Bachari]

I hope the developers rework both international trade as well as internal trade.

In the early game, we should see an adjusted EU4 style trading system. For example, the Mississipi region should be its own regional markt apart from the East Coast regional market. They are connected to each other through the Carribean regional market.

Trade routes between regional markets should be bidirectional, unlike EU4, in which they are unidirectional. That means you can move goods from regional market A to regional market B and vice versa.

Maybe there should be some overlap between regional markets, unlike EU4 in which provinces are entirely in one specific trade note, meaning that the local prices in a border state are influenced by multiple regional markets. Other states are entirely within a regional market, so the local prices are solely influenced by the specific regional market. This should likely come in a later patch since it would make it needlessly difficult.

In the late game, we should have the current situation in the game of only having national markets. In the mid game, we should have a transition from regional markets towards national markets. This transition should likely be influenced by the amount of railroads a country has.

 

[Nnorm]

Trade cannot be fixed until prices are fixed first. If - no matter what - "normal" prices are hardcoded across the globe, you cant really do anything serious with trade. If your workers earn 20x more than your neighbours "normal" price of Item is always the same, while in real world, your price would have been 4-5x cheaper and you'd flood other markets with cheap goods.

 

[Timewalker102]

Trade cannot be fixed until prices are fixed first. If - no matter what - "normal" prices are hardcoded across the globe, you cant really do anything serious with trade. If your workers earn 20x more than your neighbours "normal" price of Item is always the same, while in real world, your price would have been 4-5x cheaper and you'd flood other markets with cheap goods.

Why would this need to be the case? -75% to +75% is already a wide spectrum of price differentials - you can get up to 7x the price of another market!

 

[Fletz]

i hope for autonomous trading companies:

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/my-biggest-wish-private-trade-and-national-trade.1656315/

Pelly liked it at least... maybe this idea is part of the great rework in some way.

 

[Álvaro Núñez de Lara]

I hope the developers rework both international trade as well as internal trade.

In the early game, we should see an adjusted EU4 style trading system. For example, the Mississipi region should be its own regional markt apart from the East Coast regional market. They are connected to each other through the Carribean regional market.

Trade routes between regional markets should be bidirectional, unlike EU4, in which they are unidirectional. That means you can move goods from regional market A to regional market B and vice versa.

Maybe there should be some overlap between regional markets, unlike EU4 in which provinces are entirely in one specific trade note, meaning that the local prices in a border state are influenced by multiple regional markets. Other states are entirely within a regional market, so the local prices are solely influenced by the specific regional market. This should likely come in a later patch since it would make it needlessly difficult.

In the late game, we should have the current situation in the game of only having national markets. In the mid game, we should have a transition from regional markets towards national markets. This transition should likely be influenced by the amount of railroads a country has.

So basically more like EU5 trade system, but trend towards bigger national more unified markets as the game progress?

I have been wondering if the solution to the trade system is just copy EU5's.

 

[Prob32]

Interesting image of how difficult internal travel was in the 1830’s

 

[Prob32]

So basically more like EU5 trade system, but trend towards bigger national more unified markets as the game progress?

I have been wondering if the solution to the trade system is just copy EU5's.

If I had to guess they probably prefer bi-directional trade.

 

[Nnorm]

Why would this need to be the case? -75% to +75% is already a wide spectrum of price differentials - you can get up to 7x the price of another market!

It is not. Prices ten toward fixed normal price. In 1999 32'' tv in my country cost 1000 $. Nowadays, a few generations better and much bigger cost around 400$ while salary went up significantly. In Victoria 3, nominal price of that tv will always tend towards 1000$ because thats what devs intended tv to cost. Thats how economy is designed, your economy can consume more of them comparing to real world So, If your country produce 500k tvs, and they cost 1000$ and your wages are 10x of what are in country you want to trade with, you can not really do this, because prices will tend to 1000$ anyway. That is the main design flaw. And you really cant produce most of the goods beyond -20%, and the ones you do (like wood, or grain), are produced by AI in mid-late game cheap enough anyway.

 

[Timewalker102]

It is not. Prices ten toward fixed normal price. In 1999 32'' tv in my country cost 1000 $. Nowadays, a few generations better and much bigger cost around 400$ while salary went up significantly. In Victoria 3, nominal price of that tv will always tend towards 1000$ because thats what devs intended tv to cost. Thats how economy is designed, your economy can consume more of them comparing to real world So, If your country produce 500k tvs, and they cost 1000$ and your wages are 10x of what are in country you want to trade with, you can not really do this, because prices will tend to 1000$ anyway. That is the main design flaw. And you really cant produce most of the goods beyond -20%, and the ones you do (like wood, or grain), are produced by AI in mid-late game cheap enough anyway.

Inflation as we know it today didn't really exist in the same form in the 1800s. Here's a chart of the historical US and UK inflation rates:

The 2% inflation targeting rate we're all used to today is actually very recent and was invented in the 80s by the Reserve Bank of NZ. Up until then inflation was uncontrollable and jumped all over the place.

 

[Nnorm]

Inflation as we know it today didn't really exist in the same form in the 1800s. Here's a chart of the historical US and UK inflation rates:
View attachment 1244501View attachment 1244502

The 2% inflation targeting rate we're all used to today is actually very recent and was invented in the 80s by the Reserve Bank of NZ. Up until then inflation was uncontrollable and jumped all over the place.

It doesnt have anything to do with what I wtote earlier. I wrote that hardcoded prices are main factor that kills trade in the game. And how prices, supply and demand work pretty much make trade almost nonexistent.