After March patch: trade cancelled right after deal reached

[Maltz]

I am playing a new campaign after patch. First I noticed that it is now much more difficult to find anybody who wants to trade with me. About 85% of the clans simply do not want to trade with me. Well, I agree that trading was overpowered, so I think it is OK to make reaching a trade deal less easily than before.

But my problem lies in the 15% of the clans that do agree to trade. So far I have reached trade deals with 5 clans - Honma, Ashina, Chosokabe, Shoni, and Amako. That's not so bad - if they DO NOT CANCEL the trade IMMEDIATELY on their turn! If you don't want to trade with me, just say so like the 85% others. Don't agree and then immediately regret! This happened to me on Honma, Chosokabe, and Amako. THREE out of Five clans canceled their trade immediately after I reached a deal with them. (But I hooked up with Honma later and they kept the trade from then on. So the success rate overall is 3/6 = 50% so far.) I actually had a marriage deal with Chosokabe to make them very friendly to me, in the hope that they would keep the trade deal. No!

Then came something that really digusts me.
Here is a screenshot:



Here, Takeda asks me to trade with them - if I break trade deals with Chosokabe and Shoni (Chosokabe will immediately break trade when their turn comes up).

The problem is that I just reached the trade deal with these two clans in the same turn, and Takeda has NEVER MET Chosokabe and Shoni. Takeda has absolutely nothing to do with these two clans, either.

Somehow I just feel that game wants to break our trade - whether it makes sense or not. Why can't CA nerf trade income with more sense? Just lower the number of units of foreign goods from some nodes! It is not that hard...

[Jarmam]

That's really bizarre. Im actually also playing a campaign as Date and I haven't encountered anything like this. Shimazu, Chosokabe, Homna and Uesugi have all proven to be loyal trade partners. Also played the first 30 turns as Oda and I didn't encounter a single trade cancel that wasn't provoked by me murdering whoever I was trading with or their close friend.

What turn are you in? I noticed that you have zero enemies - this is a longshot but maybe CA made the AI more reluctant to pool the player if he's turtling passively aka isn't at war for a period of time?

[Maltz]

My Date is at about turn 24. It is build 5346 (the big March patch) and then upgraded to 5355.
Setting is: Domination, Legendary, no mods, all DLC except Fall of the Samurai.
I was at war with: Mogami (starts with the campaign). Strangely, the only trade partner that I have annoyed is Ashina - I incited a rebellion in Fukushima and took it from them. But Ashina resumed trading with me after the land route is open again. And they never break the trade.

[Jacobin]

Have always had more problems getting trade deals than you have in your AARs.

One thing I am now seeing is clans that I am allied to, have a friendly or very friendly relationship with and am a neighbour of refusing to trade at all (for instance Imagawa and Satomi in an early Hojo campaign).

I've also seen all my trade partners cancel deals in the same turn when I've gone to war (and this was long before Realm Divide when I still had only 6 or 7 provs) - suggesting that whatever the relationship level trigger is for abandoning trade it has been set lower (although IIRC several of those former partners remained very friendly!)

Overall the feeling is of more randomness.

Having said this I am not sure that grabbing every trade node and amassing huge fortunes by trade isn't both anachronistic and moving into exploit territory and as I am looking for ways to make legendary campaigns longer and more challenging this change may not be altogether a bad thing.

[Jacobin]

Looking at your screenshot is the AI reacting based on the specific resources being traded?

IIRC when I want to build a castle that needs the stone resource I usually have to trade for it with either the Chokosabe (Sanuki which they always seem to take) or Takeda (South Shinano ditto).

So is the Takeda AI calculating that it has a rare resource and attempting to establish a monopoly over it with all its trading partners? (not sure what the Shoni have but they usually will occupy at least one or two of the trade nodes around Kyushu so could be warhorses?)

If this is the case its a feature rather than a bug.

[Jacobin]

And there is an upside to this - a couple of turns ago the Chokosabe paid me a ridiculous 15,000 koku to open up trade (absurd as they and I playing the Hojo only have a handful of provinces each)

Now my Daimyo's just died in battle and my diplomatic relations have taken a hit and all my trade partners have embargoed me.

So I go back to the Chokosabe, Date and Hatakeyama and between them they have now paid me another 20,000 to re-establish the trade agreements they have just cancelled (and as this is still relatively early in a legendary game being paid 35,000 koku for trade agreements in less than a year has a huge impact).

[Maltz]

Hm, in my game, when my trade is broken by the AI, they never agree to restablish it even if I pay them thousands.
There must be some thing good that you have done to make them so generous. If we can reproduce that, we will be rich!
Can you provide information on the following if you have the time? Thanks:

(1) For Chosokabe, just before the trade breaks
How much they make from you
How much you make from them
Your diplomatic relationship in number

(2) For Chosokabe, just after the trade breaks
Your diplomatic relationship in number

(3) For Chosokabe, just before the trade resumes
Your diplomatic relationship in number

(4) For Chosokabe, just after the trade resumes
Your diplomatic relationship in number
How much they make from you
How much you make from them

Thanks!
(or better if you mind to email me your save file just before the trade resumes? :))

[Jacobin]

Sadly it was legendary and I don't save after every turn.

However IIRC when I established the trade we were talking only 100-200 koku benefit on the diplomacy screen (i.e. you will make 126 per turn or whatever) as neither my or any of the other factions had more than a handful of provinces (i.e. Chokosabe only had three, the other two were probably 2-5) - which is why I was amazed that I could get 15,000 from the Chokosabe.

I also only had two or three trade or military ports and occupied just one trade node.

I had just married into the Chokosabe so that relationship was very friendly - although not friendly enough to accept an alliance offer in the same turn!

The other two were just friendly or indifferent but still paid me 5-8,000 each to re-establish the trade they cut off.

In a new campaign now (even those windfalls didn't stop the Hojo being overrun by multistack hordes of Ikko Ikki and Takeda) and if anything similar occurs will try and make a note of the numbers.

[Jarmam]

Im on my 3rd runthrough of Oda legendary and I am baffled to say that I've tried the following scenario no less than 6 times:

"sup Im Takeda. I know we beat the crap out of eachother 5 rounds ago - but lets trade. If you cancel your trade agreement with clan(s) x".

I have never tried getting that offer before this patch and more baffling is that its always Takeda offering it.

[Maltz]

Now I am a bit more experienced in trading after the March patch. Here are some repeated patterns that I have noticed. First, I think the AI clans' personality might be randomized in each game. So I will just call each AI by their traits, not by their clan name.

Trade Deficit plays a role for all AIs. But some clans are more jealous than others. They break trade with their friend (even if very friendly) as soon as their friend earns slightly more than themselves in their trade relationship. Let's call this a "jealous" AI. The bad thing is that they are completely not trustworthy. Te good thing is that they are usually happy to re-establish trade with you if they run a trade surplus from you. And they actually are willing to pay a bit to trade.

On the contrary you have clans who like to maintain trading with you and stay loyal. These clans are also less likely to backstab their allies. It is good to have reliable friends.

Relationship also plays a role. If you establish a trade relationship with a random clan and run a trade deficit to them (so they earn more than you do), chances are that the trade deal will be immediately dropped anyway, because your relationship is not good enough. (Ironically, after dropping the trade immeidately, your relationship becomes worse.)

IMO this is a bug in the game, as they should not agree to trade with you in the first place.

A good positive factor to increase AI's willingness to trade is that you and the clan share the same enemy. I think it is almost strategically sound to purposely declare war on a public enemy (like Ikko-Ikki) and purposely keep that enemy alive, as long as it is not too damaging on you, so you can trade with your enemy's enemies.

Your own military power seems to play a positive role, too. After I become powerful, suddenly a lot of clans are willing to trade with me, even if they previous had absolutely no interest. And I will earn thousands more than them in the trade! So it never hurts to become powerful. Military p0ower brings income, which brings more military power. It is a good idea to go for the four trade nodes in western Kyushu to give trade income a boost to support more army.

[Maltz]

I have never tried getting that offer before this patch and more baffling is that its always Takeda offering it.

In my current Date campaign it is Oda who always does that. These requests are so annoying.
But later on I have a common enemy with them, and they agreed to trade with no strings attached.