Chartered corporations
By the time the game begins, chartered corporations like the British East India Company were well established as the dominant actors in international trade, and in some cases were even granted rights that effectively made them states (e.g. they could autonomously conquer and administer territory, mint money, etc). One way that they could be implemented would be that you could issue some charter e.g. to establish a trading outpost in regions x, y, z, or establish a colony, etc, and the company could go off and perform the task without costing you any money (because it raises capital from its members). But the cost of this is that you don't control it; its activities may create diplomatic problems for you, or the regions it conquers and military forces it commands in your name are all auto-managed. For instance the East India Company's activities in India were immensely profitable to Britain but it also created problems by trading opium in China, and of course administration of India was taken off its hands after the 1857 rebellion.
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