Question about Trade Routes

**Maharajah** · 09-28-2006, 19:16

I was wondering something about trading. I assume (and please correct me if I am wrong) that to set up a trade route to a foreign province, that province does not need a port, trading post, etc, it just needs to have goods to trade and as long as you have the facilities in your province you can make money.

My question is must that foreign province be controlled by a faction? i.e. can you set up a trade route with a rebel province?

In my Early-Normal-English campaign, I took over Sweden so I could add it to my trade empire (and come in the HRE's back door of course

), but I was thinking why waste men and time invading Denmark now, if I can just stick a ship in there and make some $$.

Afterall, those vikings seem inordinately tough, I took on 4 60-man viking units with 100 Spears, 2 60 FMAA, 2 Royal Knights and 1.5 units of Archers and only managed to win with a 230-75 Kill to loss ratio. The terrain was nasty, but I figured I should do better than that! But I don't want to keep replaying it, it's tad dull compared to carving up the HRE and building a crusade.

Thoughts?

**highlanddave** · 09-28-2006, 22:36

yes, you can trade with rebels.

your province and the target province to trade with must both have ports. with each level of trader you have in your province the trade amount will increase. the target province doesn't need goods or a trader just a port. to build a trader you will need goods in your province. of course your province must have goods to start a trade route at all. if you are building your network of ships to the target provinces note how many ports you see off that sea zone. if you can put that next ship in a 2 port sea zone or a 4 port sea zone, pick the 4 port sea zone.

see ah dut's economics 101 paper with some percentage increases from traders.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=32726

**Martok** · 09-28-2006, 22:46

Originally Posted by Maharajah

I was wondering something about trading. I assume (and please correct me if I am wrong) that to set up a trade route to a foreign province, that province does not need a port, trading post, etc, it just needs to have goods to trade and as long as you have the facilities in your province you can make money.

Actually, a foreign province does does need to have a port in order for you to extract trade income from it. (This is why you can make so much money deploying ships in the Adriatic and along the northern & eastern shores of the Mediterranean--because there are ports all over the place.) On the flip side, a foreign province does not need to have trade goods in order to make money off of it; only *your* province(s) has to have trade goods.

Originally Posted by Maharajah

My question is must that foreign province be controlled by a faction? i.e. can you set up a trade route with a rebel province?

Yes you can (at least in my experience). As long as there's a port there, it doesn't matter if a province is owned by a faction or if it's independent. Of course, it's pretty rare for a "rebel" province to have a port in the first place, unless it broke away from its original faction.

Originally Posted by Maharajah

In my Early-Normal-English campaign, I took over Sweden so I could add it to my trade empire (and come in the HRE's back door of course

), but I was thinking why waste men and time invading Denmark now, if I can just stick a ship in there and make some $$.

Afterall, those vikings seem inordinately tough, I took on 4 60-man viking units with 100 Spears, 2 60 FMAA, 2 Royal Knights and 1.5 units of Archers and only managed to win with a 230-75 Kill to loss ratio. The terrain was nasty, but I figured I should do better than that! But I don't want to keep replaying it, it's tad dull compared to carving up the HRE and building a crusade.

Thoughts?

Simply trading with a province/faction rather than conquering it is often the more economical choice, but it really depends on the situation. In your case, Maharajah, you might very well be better of just plunking down a couple ships in the Skaagerak & Baltic. On the other hand, Denmark does provide a good jumping-off point for an invasion of the HRE, and/or open up a second front against them. So it's really up to you to decide which choice would be more beneficial to you overall. Either way, I wish you luck!

**Geezer57** · 09-29-2006, 13:01

Originally Posted by [B

Maharajah[/B]]My question is must that foreign province be controlled by a faction? i.e. can you set up a trade route with a rebel province?

One other point in addition to the ones posted earlier - you won't be able to trade with Rebels if you've ever attacked or bribed any. That puts you in a state of war, which precludes commerce.
If all rebels on the map are eliminated, and then some reappear, you should no longer be at war with them.

**gaijinalways** · 09-29-2006, 16:05

One other point in addition to the ones posted earlier - you won't be able to trade with Rebels if you've ever attacked or bribed any. That puts you in a state of war, which precludes commerce.
If all rebels on the map are eliminated, and then some reappear, you should no longer be at war with them.

Gee, I didn't remember this, all the rebels are at war after one little attack

!? Or even bribed them? After all my hard spent money went to improve their province for the good of my empire

?

**Maharajah** · 09-29-2006, 16:12

Originally Posted by Geezer57

One other point in addition to the ones posted earlier - you won't be able to trade with Rebels if you've ever attacked or bribed any. That puts you in a state of war, which precludes commerce.
If all rebels on the map are eliminated, and then some reappear, you should no longer be at war with them.

Thank you Geezer57 (and Martok and highlanddave)

you have answered my questions completely. Looks like I will have to slap the vikings around afterall since I have bribed many different rebel bands to join me.

Sigh. Can't we all just get along? And by get along I mean surrender and declare your loyalty to King Henry of the English of course.

Take care all.

**Zild** · 09-29-2006, 17:19

Just one more thing, I thought that you only remained at war with the rebels until you no longer bordered (by land or see) any of their provinces, just as with proper factions?

So if you eliminate all the rebels bordering you by land then move your ships so that you cannot see any rebels as well for a year, it should reset their status back to neutral, as with other factions, right?

**highlanddave** · 09-29-2006, 19:34

zild, you are quite correct.

if you are at war with rebels and manage to have no more borders with them you will be able to trade with them again. if you do not border them by land, move your fleets away from their coast for a turn.