Ideas for reworked trade

[jensen0james]

Under the current trade system, the goal of trade is to direct it all to one of the three in game trade nodes. By chaining together long trade routes and having a significant holding in either Genoa, Venice, or the English Channel a player can dominiate every other country when it comes to Ducats. Here I will outline a serious and, though insignificant in scope, monumental change to the trade system.

This thread outlines the changes for that reworked trade system

1. Rework trade between nodes so that the direction the trade flows between two nodes can be determined by the country with the most trade power in those nodes, say 50%
2. Once a country has embrassed Global Trade, grant a special casus belli 'Trade Conflict' to reverse the trade in any node where a country or its subject has a significant interest, perhaps 10% trade power. Countries can only take this action if they do not have 50% of the trade power.
3. The war is declared against the country with the largest share of trade power, not including the country declaring, and any country with a share of 10% or more may join this war as a defensive ally.
4. Once a trade conflict has been won between two trade nodes, the option to reverse the trade peacefully is grayed out or unavalible for 50 years.

These changes would allow playthroughs like that of an early United States or a trade empire Japan. The way these trade systems work now, trade within the Americas or Asia hardly get any chance to grow. The trade just simply moves away from these regions. This would not effect world conquest games much, as by definition you will have a significant stake in every trade node if you conquer the world. These changes are meant to provide more roleplaying opportunities to those wishing to play a trade build outside of Europe. As trade flows back to other parts of the world, say the Americas in the United States example, the other countries around you in turn would become wealthier and be able to divert more trade towards themsleves, mimicing what happens in Europe as trade flows through the current version of the game.

It is also worth noting that the description for Global Trade reads in part, "Iron mined and wrought in Scandinavia is being sold in West Africa by English merchants [...]" Trade from Scandinavia cannot reach any part of Africa, it all terminates in the English Channel. With these changes trade from Scandinavia could truely flow to West Africa through the English Channel.

Credit for the original idea goes to Alex Jensen, my brother. Love you bro! <3

I expanded on his idea of trade coalitions and designating certain trade nodes as end nodes. I incorporated the idea of reversing trade to create those end nodes and the casus belli for 'Trade Conflict' starting in the institution of Global Trade.

Thanks for your time reading my tread and feel free to expand on it. I hope I have been of service and that, just perhaps, this reaches the eyes of the devolopers. It might make a good DLC

James Jensen

 

[AndrewT]

Please post this in the Suggestions forum for whichever game you are referring to. Thanks.