Trade Theatre Usage Analysis

**Didz** · 06-01-2009, 12:10

As you know I've been monitoring the 'Return On Investment (ROI)' on my expliotation of the Trade Ports in the various Trade Theatres during my current British Campaign. The current results can be found here: https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=117356

However, I also set myself an arbitary restriction, allowing myself to occupy only one Trade Port per Trade Theatre. In previous campaigns I've always started my game with a trade race to secure as many if not all of the Trade Ports in every Trade Threatre, even placing sloops and brigs on them just to stop the other factions occupying them. This gives you a distinct advantage over the AI factions as they are then denied trade income from the imported goods. I noticed that each AI faction usually limits itself to one Trade Port per Trade Theatre, so I decided to do likewise just to see what difference it made to the way the game plays.

It's now just over 50 turns into the game and I thought it would be interesting to conduct a survey of each Trade Theatre to find out exactly what happens if you leave the AI to option to expliot the Trade Ports in them unopposed.

I have dispatched brigs to conduct the survey and shall report the results below:

Ivory Coast

Trade Port#	Faction explioting	Ships present	Value of goods being shipped
1	Great Britain	7	2352
2	Portugal	3	1104
3	Pirates	4	No trade being generated
4	13 Colonies	7	No trade being generated
5	Russia	7	480

As you can see the AI is wasting two of the Trade Ports completely (3 & 4) and its pretty clear that Russia is not making full use of Trade Port 5 (most of the ships it has there must be warships). Only Portugal is making full use of its trade port, the 1104 revenue its getting from 3 ships is exactly the same as the amount I was getting when I had three ships on mine.

Whats also interesting is that Spain, France and the Italian States all have large fleets parked in the Ivory Coast Trade Theatre, but none of the them are doing anything to secure a Trade Port, even though they are at war with at least one of the current occupants.

Brazil

Trade Port#	Faction explioting	Ships present	Value of goods being shipped
1	Great Britain	4	1054
2	Maratha Confederacy	10	0
3	Portugal	4	578
4	Ottoman Empire	7	91
5	Pirate	4	No trade generated

The Maratha Confederacy has what looks like a battle fleet parked on #2, with quite a high ranking Admiral in charge. Its not generating any revenue, because the Maratha Confederacy has almost been eliminated. It only has Goa left under its control and no trade ports. So, really this fleet would have been more useful trying to keep some sort of trade flowing rather than parked in Brazil doing nothing.
Madagascar

Trade Port#	Faction explioting	Ships present	Value of goods being shipped
1	Pirates	6	No trade being generated
2	United Provinces	1	0
3	Sweden	6	0
4	Ottoman Empire	5	137
5	Great Britain	11	3740

The United Provinces cannot generate any trade as the French Navy have occupied Rotterdam. In fact, the French have occupied Rotterdam for about 24 years now, despite the main Dutch Army being just a few miles up the road and basically a boy scout troop could have kicked them out into the channel, where the main Dutch Fleet is parked ready to blow them out of the water. Likewise Sweden have allowed Denmark to blockade Malmo for a similar period and perhaps would have been better served using the ships wasting their time here to actually drive off the Danish Fleet.
East Indies

Trade Port#	Faction explioting	Ships present	Value of goods being shipped
1	Great Britain	14	4579
2	Mughal Empire	6	703
3	United Provinces	2	0
4	France	9	308
5	United Provinces	7	0

Its pretty clear from these results that CA have done a pretty poor job programming the AI to make best use of its resources. The vast majority of the ships in these trade zones are just wasting their time, and for the most part the AI will be making a loss of the investment made. Bear in mind also that all of these trade theatres have huge fleets just parked and hanging around doing nothing in case by some miracle a trade port becomes available.

If you use the British figures as a guide to what ought to be possible you can see how far short of adequate the AI routine is.

**jsberry** · 06-01-2009, 13:17

Does the AI ever attack ships docked at a trade port? I've found that all I need to do is park an Indiaman there and it is safe, even from pirates that are trolling close by.

**Didz** · 06-01-2009, 14:15

Originally Posted by jsberry

Does the AI ever attack ships docked at a trade port? I've found that all I need to do is park an Indiaman there and it is safe, even from pirates that are trolling close by.

No, at least not in my experience, and I think thats the gist of the problem. By rights factions should be fighting over these trade resources but they aren't allowed to. That just makes the parking of large fleets in the trade theatres doubly dumb. In many cases they don't even raid their enemies trade out of the zone.

**Fisherking** · 06-01-2009, 14:46

Originally Posted by jsberry

Does the AI ever attack ships docked at a trade port? I've found that all I need to do is park an Indiaman there and it is safe, even from pirates that are trolling close by.

It did pre-patch. I don’t know if it was nerfed or what. I had previously had pirates and other factions attack trade spots but it has not happened since the patch.

**anweRU** · 06-01-2009, 17:17

I never saw the AI attack ships in trade spots, pre- or post-patch.

**Ordani** · 06-01-2009, 18:03

AI navies never attacked anything parked on a trade spot. If you moved out of the spot anyone in intercept range would jump you. The trade spots are probably classified as some non-combat resource like a school or similar, likely related to why splitting fleets on them was so buggy.

**mmk** · 06-01-2009, 19:18

Very good research work!

Also very intersting, that you too came across the fact that the French fleet in Rotterdam is never attacked by the Dutch, therefore the Netherlands become pretty useless as a trade partner after around 6 - 8 turns in the game.