Hmm, doesn't sound like those income penalties on higher difficulties are very damaging.

Sees kind of odd that between MTW and RTW trade has almost totally swung around-in MTW, there were few ships, but it was easy to blockade trade, but in RTW there are loads of ships, but it's hard to blockade trade!

How remarkable. Of course, if the AI did blockade as many ports as it could with it's huge navy, I'm sure my trade income could be counted on one hand...so I guess I should be thankful.