Daveybaby
06-03-2009, 12:14
I'm having real problems coming to terms with the way trade spots work in ETW. In essence, i dont think theyre much fun, and they unbalance the game.
* Once you've grabbed a trade spot it's yours for keeps, for the rest of the game.
* There is an initial rush to grab as many trade spots as possible.
* After this rush is over, there isnt much to do other than tediously spam trade ships to stack up the spots you grabbed, because more ships equals more money.
* Control over a large number of trade spots is unbalancing, because of the large income they can generate.
Once a player realises this, they will go all out to produce indiamen (or equivalent) in order to grab as many trade spots as possible. It's not uncommon to grab upwards of 90% of the trade spots in the game if you put your mind to it, which gives the player a permanent economic advantage for the rest of the game.
In fact, you can quickly come to the realisation that grabbing as many trade spots as possible is effectively an expoit, and that in order to keep the game balanced (and thus, hopefully, challenging and entertaining to play) the player must play under self imposed house rules, limiting the number of trade spots they control in the initial phase of the game. In Didz's thread here (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=117493) he has done exactly this, and (probably/possibly) as a result of this is facing far more energetic and challenging french and spanish nations than usual.
Another problem is that once all of the trade spots are occupied, there isnt really any gameplay to be had from them for the rest of the game (apart from the odd opportunity to take a spot vacated by a destroyed nation, which is a rare occurrence anyway if you grabbed 90% of them in the initial turns)
What we need is some way to limit ability of the player to spam trade ships and monopolise the trade spots early in the game, and also to keep the sea trade aspect of the game interesting after the early game.
Suggestion:
(1) Limit the number of trade ships the player can produce based on the number of commercial ports they control. For each level of a commercial port allow another trade ship to be built.
(2) Dont make trade spots exclusive, i.e. allow multiple nations to park trade ships on a trade spot. Trade income from each spot is split between nations based on the ratio of trade ships on that spot.
(3) Give income bonuses for monopolising (worldwide) trade in a resource, e.g. if you control >50% of the trade in ivory, you get a 10% bonus, >75% gives a 20% bonus, etc
Point (1) and (2) together will stop any one nation gaining an unbreakable trade dominance in the early part of the game. Points (2) and (3) together might encourage players (and the AI) to move their trade fleets around in order to gain monopolies in certain resources (and to try to break the monopolies of others). i.e. it gives you something to do with the trade ships throughout the game. Point (2) also means you could try to move trade ships to another spot or theatre if youre being excessively raided in the current one.
It would also be great if...
You used trade ships to build trade routes between your home territories and your colonies, and nations with which you have trade agreements also being able to trade those routes (you would get a slice of the income generated from that) - this makes you decide how to balance your trade ships between your colonies and trade spots, and maybe gives a bit more importance to trade agreements, and thus makes declaring war on someone a bit more of a big decision.
And another thing
While i'm at it... blockading one port in a nation's home theatre completely cuts off their trade income. This is too powerful - once a nation (i.e. the player) gains naval superiority it becomes trivial to destroy the economy of an enemy by simply blockading one of their home ports. I'm currently having to stop myself from doing this as it's starting to feel like an exploit. If a nation has 4 home ports, and i blockade one of them, then just reduce their trade income by 1/4. If i want to completely blockade them, then at least make it cost a me a bit by forcing me to build more ships, and/or making it easier to break the blockade by forcing me to split my fleets making them more vulnerable to piecemeal attack.
So basically
Please redesign the entire sea trade mechanism CA. kthxbye. :grin:
Yeah, yeah... whatever
I know none of this will never get implemented (maybe in an expansion?.... nah). But i wanted to vent. So there.
* Once you've grabbed a trade spot it's yours for keeps, for the rest of the game.
* There is an initial rush to grab as many trade spots as possible.
* After this rush is over, there isnt much to do other than tediously spam trade ships to stack up the spots you grabbed, because more ships equals more money.
* Control over a large number of trade spots is unbalancing, because of the large income they can generate.
Once a player realises this, they will go all out to produce indiamen (or equivalent) in order to grab as many trade spots as possible. It's not uncommon to grab upwards of 90% of the trade spots in the game if you put your mind to it, which gives the player a permanent economic advantage for the rest of the game.
In fact, you can quickly come to the realisation that grabbing as many trade spots as possible is effectively an expoit, and that in order to keep the game balanced (and thus, hopefully, challenging and entertaining to play) the player must play under self imposed house rules, limiting the number of trade spots they control in the initial phase of the game. In Didz's thread here (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=117493) he has done exactly this, and (probably/possibly) as a result of this is facing far more energetic and challenging french and spanish nations than usual.
Another problem is that once all of the trade spots are occupied, there isnt really any gameplay to be had from them for the rest of the game (apart from the odd opportunity to take a spot vacated by a destroyed nation, which is a rare occurrence anyway if you grabbed 90% of them in the initial turns)
What we need is some way to limit ability of the player to spam trade ships and monopolise the trade spots early in the game, and also to keep the sea trade aspect of the game interesting after the early game.
Suggestion:
(1) Limit the number of trade ships the player can produce based on the number of commercial ports they control. For each level of a commercial port allow another trade ship to be built.
(2) Dont make trade spots exclusive, i.e. allow multiple nations to park trade ships on a trade spot. Trade income from each spot is split between nations based on the ratio of trade ships on that spot.
(3) Give income bonuses for monopolising (worldwide) trade in a resource, e.g. if you control >50% of the trade in ivory, you get a 10% bonus, >75% gives a 20% bonus, etc
Point (1) and (2) together will stop any one nation gaining an unbreakable trade dominance in the early part of the game. Points (2) and (3) together might encourage players (and the AI) to move their trade fleets around in order to gain monopolies in certain resources (and to try to break the monopolies of others). i.e. it gives you something to do with the trade ships throughout the game. Point (2) also means you could try to move trade ships to another spot or theatre if youre being excessively raided in the current one.
It would also be great if...
You used trade ships to build trade routes between your home territories and your colonies, and nations with which you have trade agreements also being able to trade those routes (you would get a slice of the income generated from that) - this makes you decide how to balance your trade ships between your colonies and trade spots, and maybe gives a bit more importance to trade agreements, and thus makes declaring war on someone a bit more of a big decision.
And another thing
While i'm at it... blockading one port in a nation's home theatre completely cuts off their trade income. This is too powerful - once a nation (i.e. the player) gains naval superiority it becomes trivial to destroy the economy of an enemy by simply blockading one of their home ports. I'm currently having to stop myself from doing this as it's starting to feel like an exploit. If a nation has 4 home ports, and i blockade one of them, then just reduce their trade income by 1/4. If i want to completely blockade them, then at least make it cost a me a bit by forcing me to build more ships, and/or making it easier to break the blockade by forcing me to split my fleets making them more vulnerable to piecemeal attack.
So basically
Please redesign the entire sea trade mechanism CA. kthxbye. :grin:
Yeah, yeah... whatever
I know none of this will never get implemented (maybe in an expansion?.... nah). But i wanted to vent. So there.