Trade, Tradepartners and Traderoutes

[mmk]

Hmm, in my experience, all New World South American provinces are worth a lot even if they produce 0 in taxes (when I exempt them from taxes) just by increasing my trade. Most of the New World provinces in South America export goods that can be sold to your trade partners. In early game, early-mid game, the trade income definitely outweighs the tax income.

Also, note that fur good tax revenue you need high town wealth. Most likely, when you took those provinces from Mexico, town wealth was nil... You can build it up by 1) investing a lot in enlightenment techs (especially the right side of them) 2) by developing your roads 3) by developing your trade harbors 4) by developing your towns and farms; better even, by doing all 4 of the listed at the same time.

In mid/late game, town wealth is the biggest contributor to my tax income.

Thanks again Slaists!
I got the New World Provinces AFTER investing a lot of time in researching all techs available. Mailed roads (sp??) in place. Trade harbours teched up to trade basins. Still the boost in income was nil.

In general I am surprised about the little boost in income the game offers. E.g when playing Sweden, holding 5 provinces and having 4 trade partners I was making around 5000 per turn. After adding Lithuania to the Swedish empire + 3 more trade partners + all farms at max. mailed roads + trade ports up to second level, industries developed and a lot of tech researched I was down to 3500 per turn.

Well, I cannot prove my point on a scientific basis, since I don´t really know how the game works (lack of in depth documentation), but my gut feeling tells me that there is sth wrong in the way the game machine does its maths.