Trade Spots and Indiamen: A Suggestion

[Daveybaby]

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 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.

Yeah, yeah... whatever
I know none of this will never get implemented (maybe in an expansion?.... nah). But i wanted to vent. So there.

[jsberry]

I agree with your premise. I'd take it even farther - why spam Indiamen on the first turn when you can spam sloops to grab the spots a turn faster. It becomes a game within a game. And most good gamers have an instinct to do the best they can under the given set of rules.

So, there must be a way to limit trade-anchor spots.

Optimally, the best limit would be a systematic change rather than a strict quota. It would work if (1) the trade spots were not "safe harbors" that the AI ignores, and (2) the AI raced for them like a human would. Then, it would be *possible* to dominate trade zones, but you'd have to really work for it and defend your spots. However, this would require AI improvement, which is CA's "weakness" (to be nice).

The cap of one per trade port might be better than anything I can think of. But it is arbitrary - why fight for command of the high seas if you can't expand?

Here's another idea. The human must limit himself to one spot per zone. The basis of this is that the spots are abstract anyway, it's not like they are specific actual ports. So you always have competitors. You can expand by piling up ships but just in that one spot.

Other ideas would be helpful.

[Hosakawa Tito]

If the AI would just attack undefended/lightly defended trade convoys on those spots the game would be much more challenging and competitive in the trade theaters. How many times have you seen a large convoy of ships just hanging out instead of attacking enemy ships on the trade spots? Is it because the AI convoy has no trade ships within the group so it's not programmed to enter the trade spot? If so, then that needs to be fixed.

[Didz]

In my latest campaign I simply decided to limit the number of trade spots I would use to one per trade theatre. effectively leaving 4 in each for the AI factions to squabble over.

I've documented the results here: https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=117566

As you can see the results are pretty uninspiring, it seems the AI can't even use a 'gift horse' when you hand it the reigns and walk away.

[jsberry]

As you can see the results are pretty uninspiring, it seems the AI can't even use a 'gift horse' when you hand it the reigns and walk away.

Right. You can't help the AI. You just have to dumb-down yourself. Talk about an uninspiring game...

[PseRamesses]

Many of the current "problems" with the trade would be solved if the AI would attack your merchants. If they did you had to send actual fleets to protect your trade and there would be more anchor-swapping between nations.

[Dead Guy]

Many of the current "problems" with the trade would be solved if the AI would attack your merchants. If they did you had to send actual fleets to protect your trade and there would be more anchor-swapping between nations.

Exactly. Messing with numbers back and forth to adjust income is trying to treat the symptom, not curing the disease. If there were competition for trade slots, it would work itself out.

[Didz]

Yes, but what needs to happen first is that AI needs to be programmed to play on the same basis as a human player. e.g. It needs to be made aware of the need for resource acquisition and management, as a pre-requisite to achieving the goals of whichever faction it is playing. The fact is that even with unopposed access to Trade Ports the AI doesn't understand their value, or how to expliot them. Thus fighting over them becomes pointless anyway and would simply serve to drain its merger resources still further, like the pointless wandering of armies round the map burning farms for no purpose.

[al Roumi]

If there were competition for trade slots, it would work itself out.

True. it would also make navies more varied as frigates & other lighter ships became more relevant to the game as trade ship raiders & escorts, rather than just a plug for the gap until you can build 3rd rates.

[Didz]

The use of lighter vessels would also have more meaning if they actually travelled faster than the heavier ones. That was actually their main value. The old adage is that 'What it can't beat it can outrun.' It was very rare in this period for a ship with heavier armament to be able to catch a smaller one, and yet for some reason 3rd rates can out run frigates, at least on the campaign map.

Also, I thought the whole point of the East Indiaman was that it could outrun virtually anything. Wasn't that the reason they were built?

[Daveybaby]

The suggestions i made werent really trying to fix the deficient AI - in fact, since theyre actually trying to make the trading game more interesting to play theyre reliant on the AI being improved even further so that it can compete (so, yeah, that makes them even less likely to be implemented).

IMO, even if the AI was playing the current trading system well, the game rules themselves are fundamentally flawed in this area. Even assuming a great AI theyre not going to be much fun to play after the initial gold rush.

[Didz]

Well I was very dissapointed in my current 'self-restricted' British Campaign. Having elected NOT to do the sensible thing and grab every trade port for myself, I sort of assumed that the result would be an ongoing trade war in each of the trade theatres.

After all from a player viewpoint one of the key targets as soon as war breaks out between my faction and an AI faction is to send a fleet to sink all its trade vessels and grab any trade ports it owns for myself. Likewise, to get a fleet out and prevent them from raiding my trade lanes.

So, I foolishly assumed that the AI would do the same if it had some trade ports to protect. But it doesn't. Waring AI factions happily co-exist in trade theatres and even when the AI owns a trade port it seems unable to make proper use of it.

Given that many of the wars of this period were either about Succession or Trade this game completely misses the point of 18th Century warfare.

[al Roumi]

Given that many of the wars of this period were either about Succession or Trade this game completely misses the point of 18th Century warfare.

Would you like to add that to the bug list?

[jsberry]

Would you like to add that to the bug list?

It is not a bug. It is CA (specifically and intentionally) programming the AI to do something stupid.

[Didz]

It is not a bug. It is CA (specifically and intentionally) programming the AI to do something stupid.

Or neglecting to programme the AI to do something sensible. Or perhaps, simply neglecting to programme the AI.

[alpaca]

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 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.

Exactly. It's an exploit and you have to limit yourself. The house rules used in APE:TI concerning this are one spot per theatre and having a decoy stack around so you at least have to defend your trade a bit.

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.

That's a really good idea in my opinion. Will mod that in some time.