Trade Theater Income

[Ed TW]

I'm still playing my first campaign so I don't know about this. I sent some ships to the trade zones, and all of the anchor icons already had a ship parked on them. Is there anyway to get in on the trade without destroying the ships already there then move in on the spot?

[Sir Beane]

I'm still playing my first campaign so I don't know about this. I sent some ships to the trade zones, and all of the anchor icons already had a ship parked on them. Is there anyway to get in on the trade without destroying the ships already there then move in on the spot?

No, you'll have to engage in a bit of economic warfare and sink them if you want to claim a spot for yourself.

[A Very Super Market]

Does it matter how many indiamen you have on a trade spot?

[vonsch]

Does it matter how many indiamen you have on a trade spot?

Yes.

I just did a bit of testing (damn them pirates!) Experimenting with the initial United Provinces East Indian trade fleet:

One Indiaman on a single node = 3 icons (20 lbs) of spices.
Two Indiamen on that same node = 6 icons (40 lbs) of spices.
Three Indiamen on that node = 8 icons (didn't catch the actual pounds).

So there may be diminishing returns kicking in.

When pirates near Madagascar parked on the trade line the yield for one dropped to 17 lbs.

I split and sent one Indiaman each to two nodes (darned pirates arrived and sank my third) and got the same effect as having two on one node.

Also noted that the pirates (this is not yet data, it's anecdote!) sailed right past a single unescorted Indiaman sitting on a node to attack one not on a node, then again to hit the 3-ship escort fleet. Based on that MAYBE ships on the nodes are effectively "in port" and a lower target priority. Need more data.

I'm tentative thinking a single trade fleet with escorts might be the way to go, one for each node of a different trade good. So far it appears all nodes in the same trade zone supply the same goods. That suggests sending fleets only for goods you aren't producing in good quantity yourself. The big Carribean powers might be wasting fleets sent to Brasil if they don't have a source of spices, for example.

No idea how supply and demand play out though. Guessing it's good to have SOME of all goods to trade. Might be good to have a monopoly on one good, but no data so far.

[Grapeshot]

I get the same bug as Obadiah et al so I guess I'll have to abandon my Swedish campaign until there's a patch. Can anyone who's played as United Provinces tell me if they've experienced any economic bugs?

PS Another annoying thing about trade when you play as Sweden is that you can't trade by land with for instance Prussia even if you've got a land border at Courland. You must have continuous road links between your home provinces and the crossing between Finland and Ingria doesn't count as road.

A man could turn isolationist for less. DS