I don't like how port work now

[fusei]

How do they work?
Ports are now private buildings that produce Merchant Marine (a tradable good) and convoys (a capacity needed for port connections and troops overseas).
By default they are subsidized, which also means the AI will always have them subsidized.

Why is this bad?
Due to the AI permanently subsidizing them, the price for Merchant Marine will be low, so if you're not getting your convoys from other members of your market, you'll likely end up subsidizing your own ports.
This also means your ports are unprofitable, so good luck trying to keep the canal companies prosperous if you have them.
In the end, ports have the same drawbacks as Railways and in addition, they have to compete globally, so the AI subsidizing them is bad for you.

What could be done better?
In my eyes the best solution would be that ports only generate Merchant Marine and are not subsidized by default.
Then countries would need another way to convert Merchant Marine into convoys, but this way ports actually had a chance to be profitable.

 

[Delterius]

This also means your ports are unprofitable, so good luck trying to keep the canal companies prosperous if you have them.

Canal Companies are more prosperous than ever before, because they can actually own Trade Centers now. Incidentally, cheap merchant marine means the profitability of trade goes up.

In my eyes the best solution would be that ports only generate Merchant Marine and are not subsidized by default.

Several states in the game rely on Ports for infrastructure. Not subsidizing them by default will not only hurt Trade Center profitabilty, it will likely trigger infrastructure death spirals in some places.

so if you're not getting your convoys from other members of your market

Trust me, it is really hard to run out of convoys now. And I'm the guy burning them all the time for treaty trades.

 

[KopiG]

I have to agree. Merchant Marines are plentiful and always cheap. Without serious subventions (which eat into the profit) Canal companies cant really be made profitable. For me, they never build trade centers nor they trade so thats out of the window.

 

[yurcick]

ports only generate Merchant Marine and are not subsidized by default.
Then countries would need another way to convert Merchant Marine into convoys, but this way ports actually had a chance to be profitable.

I must say, I quite like that.
Just basically setting a "government purchase of merchant marine" level that will turn into convoys upon purchase sounds like a good idea.

Although I hope for a comprehensive infrastructure rework anyway, but that's a major thing, and your improvement is easier and can be realised in, say, 1.10.

 

[fusei]

Trust me, it is really hard to run out of convoys now. And I'm the guy burning them all the time for treaty trades.

In my current game I barely have any own convoys, they all are from my subjects or other market mambers.

Canal Companies are more prosperous than ever before, because they can actually own Trade Centers now. Incidentally, cheap merchant marine means the profitability of trade goes up.

As in my last game one canal company is doing okay, but the other is one bad executive away from becoming unprofitable.
And it's not like I can tell them not to buy / build ports.

 

[Dragnar]

Honestly, I'm not sure why merchant marine was added in the first place. How is it thematically different from convoys? Why do we need two different things for "capacity to transport stuff over the ocean"?
That just causes the same issue railroads have with transportation and infrastructure both being "capacity to transport stuff overland".
I assume there's an implementational reason they need to both be and not be goods for the game to function, but it's not really clean or logical, IMHO.

 

[magistairs]

Trust me, it is really hard to run out of convoys now. And I'm the guy burning them all the time for treaty trades.

I experienced the opposite, playing as France and sending 30 men in Indochina suddenly uses 1000 convoys, it is as many as all the port connections so effectively doubling the needs instantly

 

[Delterius]

As in my last game one canal company is doing okay, but the other is one bad executive away from becoming unprofitable.

Show us their daily profits and prosperity bar.

 

[fusei]

Show us their daily profits and prosperity bar.

Sure, here's one case where only the +7 bonus from the executive kept it from heading to lose prosperity and it could be even worse when you get an executive with negative poularity.

 

[Delterius]

Sure, here's one case where only the +7 bonus from the executive kept it from heading to lose prosperity and it could be even worse when you get an executive with negative poularity.
View attachment 1331750

The company profits are where I expected them to be but the port to trade center ratio feels kinda borked. How big is your economy and what year is it? How much of the world do you own, ie, how much more can you increase imports/exports? Maybe you can salvage this situation by cutting subsidies from ports in states where you can swiftly re-employ people. That way the overall equilibrium should improve. Let ports downsize wherever they aren't needed for infrastructure. Maybe sign treaty trades where you send merchant marine to other markets too. It is a different way to subsidize things, sure, but it should count as prosperity. What PMs are the themselves ports using?

Honestly, I'm not sure why merchant marine was added in the first place. How is it thematically different from convoys? Why do we need two different things for "capacity to transport stuff over the ocean"?

Yeah to be quite honest, they should ax convoys.

Treaty trades are very fun right now, and it feels like a lost opportunity when you don't do them because you can have hundreds of thousands of convoys just sitting there doing nothing. Why not have barracks and your treaty trades just buy merchant marine in the local market instead? It could be much more elegant.

Long term, ax infrastructure too. Or, rather, keep it as a base value that buildings can increase via buying Transportation. Something that interacts with the market and pricing system instead of having ports and rail produce both infrastructure and trade goods.

 

[Dman1791]

Honestly, I'm not sure why merchant marine was added in the first place. How is it thematically different from convoys? Why do we need two different things for "capacity to transport stuff over the ocean"?
That just causes the same issue railroads have with transportation and infrastructure both being "capacity to transport stuff overland".
I assume there's an implementational reason they need to both be and not be goods for the game to function, but it's not really clean or logical, IMHO.

Merchant marine was added so that trade centers actually have to pay for some level of "transport" costs, with the side effect of making ports not entirely useless economically.

I agree with some of the others here that convoys should just be produced by the government buying merchant marine. By default it could just scale to whatever is needed for full supply lane effectiveness, with something like the tax level buttons to determine priority between trade and convoys in a shortage situation (though enough shortage would be fully penalty on both).

 

[Dragnar]

Merchant marine was added so that trade centers actually have to pay for some level of "transport" costs, with the side effect of making ports not entirely useless economically.

I agree with some of the others here that convoys should just be produced by the government buying merchant marine. By default it could just scale to whatever is needed for full supply lane effectiveness, with something like the tax level buttons to determine priority between trade and convoys in a shortage situation (though enough shortage would be fully penalty on both).

Yes, merchant marine being a tradeable good is great for the reasons you mention. I just think it makes convoys superfluous., in the same way transport makes infrastructure superfluous (just add a small transport need to every building, massively increased by rail transport PMs).
At the very least implement your idea of making convoys government spending instead of port output. But at that point, you could just delete them entirely and instead make the government spending buy merchant marine directly to supply their trade routes and overseas military.

 

[Manchura]

Sure, here's one case where only the +7 bonus from the executive kept it from heading to lose prosperity and it could be even worse when you get an executive with negative poularity.
View attachment 1331750

nationalize completely unneeded ports and raze them, also canal companies are STUPIDLY profitable if you get their HQ to spawn on natural harbor states with a good boat company providing cheap ships for them to use in that state since companies will prefer their HQ over other ventures of the same weight

 

[TitaniumMan91]

Yes, merchant marine being a tradeable good is great for the reasons you mention. I just think it makes convoys superfluous., in the same way transport makes infrastructure superfluous (just add a small transport need to every building, massively increased by rail transport PMs).
At the very least implement your idea of making convoys government spending instead of port output. But at that point, you could just delete them entirely and instead make the government spending buy merchant marine directly to supply their trade routes and overseas military.

This combined with turning the railroads into "infrastructure" as a building with canals or roads or whatever as a base PM.

Add a modifier to states that were candidates for canals that let's them build +1 infrastruture building or grants them +X infrastruture per level. Make it small so it's a nice bonus early, but completely dwarfed by even 1 level of electric rail in the late game. We could even add a PM slot for path/rocked roads/paved roads. At the most basic level, it should be all but free but utterly insufficient for even a semi-industrial state.

 

[Troyen]

Trust me, it is really hard to run out of convoys now. And I'm the guy burning them all the time for treaty trades.

AI Great Britain struggles. A building in India that requires 1 infrastructure costs 4 convoys to maintain so your Cargo Port supports 25 overseas infrastructure (it's based on sea node so Canada is cheaper). It's easy for EIC + the two dozen princely states + Australia to create a significant convoy tax for GB even before factoring in convoy cost of overseas military engagements.

GB is a bit of an outlier compared to the other countries, but the flip side of GB having 40-50 subjects is 40-50 playable countries on the map have to deal with GB's convoy management.

 

[fusei]

nationalize completely unneeded ports and raze them, also canal companies are STUPIDLY profitable if you get their HQ to spawn on natural harbor states with a good boat company providing cheap ships for them to use in that state since companies will prefer their HQ over other ventures of the same weight

Not an option if they are abroad or you run LF.

The company profits are where I expected them to be but the port to trade center ratio feels kinda borked. How big is your economy and what year is it? How much of the world do you own, ie, how much more can you increase imports/exports? Maybe you can salvage this situation by cutting subsidies from ports in states where you can swiftly re-employ people. That way the overall equilibrium should improve. Let ports downsize wherever they aren't needed for infrastructure. Maybe sign treaty trades where you send merchant marine to other markets too. It is a different way to subsidize things, sure, but it should count as prosperity. What PMs are the themselves ports using?

I don't subsidize my ports which just resulted in the companies building ports abroad where they are subsidized.


My point isn't really about whether you can run the canal companies profitable or not. One of them was profitable throughout the game and the other somewhat recovered from me exporting silly amounts of prestige cars and prestige groceries and importing resources that I capped domestically.

My point is that there are two modes to run ports:

1. You don't subsidize them, which results in them not being profitable and not hiring pops, which results in you not getting convoys from them.

2. You do subsidize them, which will be a drain on your budget and an invitation for any investment pool to expand them.
This is the mode the AI is stuck in and I think it would be better if the AI were not forced to pay the upkeep for every port I (or any investment pool) build in their country.

 

[Dman1791]

2. You do subsidize them, which will be a drain on your budget and an invitation for any investment pool to expand them.
This is the mode the AI is stuck in and I think it would be better if the AI were not forced to pay the upkeep for every port I (or any investment pool) build in their country.

Unless I'm mistaken, the building AI does not consider subsidization when deciding what to make. I'm pretty sure it only makes ports if the profit estimate says it'll make money and/or you have negative convoys.

 

[Voidian]

I found canal companies to be an issue as well.

The way I solved them was either subvent merchant marine & ship exports.

or

Nationalize all trade centers in a huge commercial hub, like Minas Gerais with 170 car factories producing 800k and 100k+ in car exports, then grant a canal company a trade center monopoly so they buy them all, that should keep them profitable, even though they keep wasting money on random ports with 0 productivity and negative income in your own market and vassals.

 

[Baalzamon85]

Honestly, I'm not sure why merchant marine was added in the first place. How is it thematically different from convoys? Why do we need two different things for "capacity to transport stuff over the ocean"?
That just causes the same issue railroads have with transportation and infrastructure both being "capacity to transport stuff overland".
I assume there's an implementational reason they need to both be and not be goods for the game to function, but it's not really clean or logical, IMHO.

As I see it why they are separate, convoys is the only "physical good" in the game since it can be sunk and has storage build up to port capacity.
Second reason , if convoys were merchant marine, the demand would spike too high every time you have a naval invasion.
I think it's fine for now because you have different buildings that can cater to the demand ports & shipyards.

Regarding Infrastructure I agree with you, much more problematic right now and it's not just not "capacity to transport stuff overland". Infrastructure exist in a half a dussin different buildings/techs/pops/companies. This makes it very hard to target for the player&ai and not effect something else like transport price.

 

[HenryII]

As I see it why they are separate, convoys is the only "physical good" in the game since it can be sunk and has storage build up to port capacity.
Second reason , if convoys were merchant marine, the demand would spike too high every time you have a naval invasion.
I think it's fine for now because you have different buildings that can cater to the demand ports & shipyards.

Regarding Infrastructure I agree with you, much more problematic right now and it's not just not "capacity to transport stuff overland". Infrastructure exist in a half a dussin different buildings/techs/pops/companies. This makes it very hard to target for the player&ai and not effect something else like transport price.

Not an option if they are abroad or you run LF.


I don't subsidize my ports which just resulted in the companies building ports abroad where they are subsidized.


My point isn't really about whether you can run the canal companies profitable or not. One of them was profitable throughout the game and the other somewhat recovered from me exporting silly amounts of prestige cars and prestige groceries and importing resources that I capped domestically.

My point is that there are two modes to run ports:

1. You don't subsidize them, which results in them not being profitable and not hiring pops, which results in you not getting convoys from them.

2. You do subsidize them, which will be a drain on your budget and an invitation for any investment pool to expand them.
This is the mode the AI is stuck in and I think it would be better if the AI were not forced to pay the upkeep for every port I (or any investment pool) build in their country.

Absolutely agreed. I think a key issue is Laissez Faire and Foreign Investment deals (both of which I have). Presently my Suez company is only expanding ports abroad--by the dozens--all of which are already unprofitable, (so I don't see how the AI is calculating for profit here at all). In a previous I was able to make both canal companies profitable, but that's only when I was able to nationalize and exert more control of what and where they build.