Administrative penalty - does it ever recover?

[anweRU]

As to 55 provinces: what's the point? No faction can challenge you in ANY way at that size so you might as well disband all your armies and store your tax revenue in treasury.

First - the insane AI actually caused me to capture the whole of the Indian continent. I was perfectly content to hold Bangalore & Hindustan, but incessant DoWs by the Mughals and Marathas (and later Mysore & Portugal) resulted in my eliminating them. Having fresh full stack attacks from Mysore every second turn was especially galling...

The 55 provinces kind of explain why your commodity prices collapsed. You do not have anyone to sell your products to...

Second - no, it doesn't. To demonstrate: I didn't trade with the Mughals (ever) & Marathas (for most of the game). My trade partners have remained constant for the last 60 or so turns. In fact, the Austrians have grown larger by expanding into the European holdings of the Ottoman empire. By logic, this should increase their demands - at the cost of my trade with the Ottomans though. Yet trade prices go down even when I capture regions with no trade resources from tribes or nations that I - or anyone else - didn't trade with.

You're looking for a logical explanation in a game that doesn't have much AI logic...

[AussieGiant]

First - the insane AI actually caused me to capture the whole of the Indian continent. I was perfectly content to hold Bangalore & Hindustan, but incessant DoWs by the Mughals and Marathas (and later Mysore & Portugal) resulted in my eliminating them. Having fresh full stack attacks from Mysore every second turn was especially galling...



Second - no, it doesn't. To demonstrate: I didn't trade with the Mughals (ever) & Marathas (for most of the game). My trade partners have remained constant for the last 60 or so turns. In fact, the Austrians have grown larger by expanding into the European holdings of the Ottoman empire. By logic, this should increase their demands - at the cost of my trade with the Ottomans though. Yet trade prices go down even when I capture regions with no trade resources from tribes or nations that I - or anyone else - didn't trade with.

You're looking for a logical explanation in a game that doesn't have much AI logic...

You're not talking about AI logic, but macro and micro ecomomics modelled into the game.

Beware making blanket statements about how that actually works because they have probably had some PhD Econ's dude create the system. It's just a question of understanding it.

And of late, not everyone can understand that topic to therefore understand what's going on.

I'd say Slaists is right on the money (pardon the pun) with the explanation as to what is going on.

[anweRU]

Beware making blanket statements about how that actually works because they have probably had some PhD Econ's dude create the system. It's just a question of understanding it.

If they did, that person's PhD is worthless, for several reasons. Two major ones are:

- The supply & demand system is missing one crucial consumer - your own populace. Britain, and most of the rest, did not build empires so they could trade with others. They did so to supply their own demand - for raw resources and to develop markets for their own (home built) goods.

- Your commodities are distributed among all of your trade partners, such that all trade partners get all types of commodities. What is wrong with that? You end up exporting goods to a nation that produces more of that good than you do!

[Slaists]

If they did, that person's PhD is worthless, for several reasons. Two major ones are:

- The supply & demand system is missing one crucial consumer - your own populace. Britain, and most of the rest, did not build empires so they could trade with others. They did so to supply their own demand - for raw resources and to develop markets for their own (home built) goods.

I thought about that, but with a bit of a stretch of imagination the local demand (and consumption) IS modeled in the game already through the increase in wealth by constructing certain types of buildings. The wealth is the base for estimating the tax income of provinces so, in effect, local trade gets taxed and contributes to taxes.

One can see the goods ready for export as 'surplus' that's left over after the local consumption.

- Your commodities are distributed among all of your trade partners, such that all trade partners get all types of commodities. What is wrong with that? You end up exporting goods to a nation that produces more of that good than you do!

This part bugs me too: someone producing sugar to the extent of being able to export should not be importing it at the same time.

What bugs me more though is that a single pirate ship can blockade an obscure Caribbean island and effectively blockade ALL of the faction's North American trade, while trade routes form other provinces to Europe are obviously open on the campaign map. It does not make any sense.

Also, it seems, home province can have numerous trade ports, but, as long as ONE of them is blockaded ALL of maritime trade ceases. That PhD truly must be quite useles.

[Slaists]

First - the insane AI actually caused me to capture the whole of the Indian continent. I was perfectly content to hold Bangalore & Hindustan, but incessant DoWs by the Mughals and Marathas (and later Mysore & Portugal) resulted in my eliminating them. Having fresh full stack attacks from Mysore every second turn was especially galling...



Second - no, it doesn't. To demonstrate: I didn't trade with the Mughals (ever) & Marathas (for most of the game). My trade partners have remained constant for the last 60 or so turns. In fact, the Austrians have grown larger by expanding into the European holdings of the Ottoman empire. By logic, this should increase their demands - at the cost of my trade with the Ottomans though. Yet trade prices go down even when I capture regions with no trade resources from tribes or nations that I - or anyone else - didn't trade with.

You're looking for a logical explanation in a game that doesn't have much AI logic...

To be honest, I have not closely followed what happens to the commodity prices as I conquer each province. Will double check later tonight. But could it be that something "else" is happening as you conquer that 'extra province'? Maybe someone else got a production boost of the respective commodity?

In my games, I've noticed that commodity prices have huge swings, but they seem to recover once the trade techs of AI factions get higher.