Europa Universalis IV announced

[garbon]

Also, I'm loving having a personal union with both Aragon and Portugal while our collective monarch is Enrique IV (0/0/0)...

[Viking]

Viking, if the Norwegians are giving you trouble, have you tried embargoing them?

Not worth it, I wouldn't be doing anything sensible with the merchant. I know that embargos are powerful and the english ideas make them even more so, I haven't done the math but my gut tells me that I might be a zero sum choice, due to the drop in trade efficiency iirc.

There's no drop in trade efficiency for embargoing a rival...

Neat... but I need my rival tags to fight my wars.. or ... ehh.. to make them more lucrative in prestige and warscore. While on the topic. I did rival the dutch and embargo them now I'm earning 50+ , but that might have something to do with me putting 50 light ships into antwerp. It's not like the dutch aren't joining every single war I have to fight.... It is now 165 and the shit is really hitting he fan. The germans and italians are doing their level best to kill each other.. this drags in me and spain and the netherlands we bust our manpower and then france and netherlands get jumped for just being weak. This leads to multiple opms getting warmonger status. Starting a new round of violence and a new round of manpoweremptyness prompting a new round of violence... At this point I would have just been better off not doing diplomacy since none of these wars leead anywhere and if they do they winner just gets dogpiled next war.

[Viking]

As the Portuguese steering trade from India and the Far East is ridiculously powerful. I have 100% Trade Power in the Cape of Good Hope trade node so I just collect all the filthy lucre I steer from Ceylon to Aden down through Zanzibar. I'm making much more than anything I had made in Seville or Ivory Coast.

I have colonies now in the Malacca and Canton trade nodes so I'll be deploying Early Frigates there soon. All the ducats will be mine. 

All those trade nodes are one way, no, or little steering needed. Just get a merchant into gulf of aden along with truckloads of ships and send everything down to zanzibar and you can collect at capetown. Or, if you are more ambitious, steer aden to zanzibar and the west african one towards sevilla and dominate your home node for filthy lucre.

Edit: I suspect that many a MP war will start over how many light ships you put in a node.

[Fireblade]

I found an event I'm going to mod..

[FunkMonk]

As the Portuguese steering trade from India and the Far East is ridiculously powerful. I have 100% Trade Power in the Cape of Good Hope trade node so I just collect all the filthy lucre I steer from Ceylon to Aden down through Zanzibar. I'm making much more than anything I had made in Seville or Ivory Coast.

I have colonies now in the Malacca and Canton trade nodes so I'll be deploying Early Frigates there soon. All the ducats will be mine. 

All those trade nodes are one way, no, or little steering needed. Just get a merchant into gulf of aden along with truckloads of ships and send everything down to zanzibar and you can collect at capetown. Or, if you are more ambitious, steer aden to zanzibar and the west african one towards sevilla and dominate your home node for filthy lucre.

Edit: I suspect that many a MP war will start over how many light ships you put in a node.

Yeah, I know, that's why it's so easy. Stack ships and a merchant in Aden, collect in South Africa --where I have absolutely ZERO competition-- and then win the game. It helps that I also have like a gajillion trade power in Ceylon and that I'm steering all its trade to Aden, too.

I have a few colonies in Zanzibar and it's one-way only anyway so a merchant isn't needed there, just some ships and provincial trade power. You don't have to war on Swahilli. War is such a pain in the ass anyway. Just plop a merchant in Aden and one in Ceylon, build a hundred or so light ships, and watch your trade income become 75% of your total. If you have more merchants and light ships, you can steer more trade to Ceylon (and therefore more to your collection point in South Africa) by increasing your power in the Bengal and Malacca trade nodes. Malacca seems especially important because all the Chinese, Japanese, and Southeast Asian trade flows into it.

After I realized this, I removed my merchant from Sevilla. There was just too much competition from everyone in Europe. The British were especially annoying because they would stack 30 or 40 light ships in Sevilla along with a merchant and steer a shit ton of trade northward, out of Sevilla. I even sent my light ship squadron there to the East to help hoover up more Asian trade. Right now I have a merchant in South Africa collecting all the gold forever. The trade power reduction by collecting outside your capital doesn't do shit if there's no one competing with you.

[Anatron]

Am i the only one who has lagg by endtimes (since  ~1750) or its a bug?

[Viking]

My present heir is the most useful leader I've seen all game, 1.0.0.4. Yes, 1 maneuver and 4 siege. I haven't seen a guy this "special" since Vauban from EU. No march will be safe from this guy, I'm gonna give him a specialized artillery park.

[crazy canuck]

After I realized this, I removed my merchant from Sevilla. There was just too much competition from everyone in Europe. The British were especially annoying because they would stack 30 or 40 light ships in Sevilla along with a merchant and steer a shit ton of trade northward, out of Sevilla. I even sent my light ship squadron there to the East to help hoover up more Asian trade. Right now I have a merchant in South Africa collecting all the gold forever. The trade power reduction by collecting outside your capital doesn't do shit if there's no one competing with you.

Yeah, same realization I am coming to.  After about 100 years of me dominating Sevilla, the British are starting to become a pain there.  But even with passive collection - with about 30 light ships it still brings in the cash.  But  My Brazilian hub plus my South African hub (both of which are 100% me) are where all the money is.  Although with all the trade directing from Asia South Africa is definitely the more lucrative of the two.

MP games are going to be all about the trade hubs and dominating them or distrupting the domination of others. 

One thing that made things easier for me is I had a ruler with a 6 diplomatic skill (didnt think that was possible) and then one with 5.  Both were fairly long lived so I was able to build a bunch of naval tech and trade buildings. 

[The Minsky Moment]

Now the problem with antwerp is as follows. If I send NO merchant to antwerp the default is transferring upstream, that give me a -80% trade power. I have lots of land there but it is 80% wasted. Collecting gives me a smaller malus.

Understood.   
But your post seemed to talk about the change that happened if you switched the merchant from "collect" to "re-direct"  and I thought you couldn't set a merchant to "re-direct" from a downstream node.  Either collect or have no merchant there and take the -80%

didn't bother with bordeaux simply because it was transferring to both london and antwerp and the boost to london from bordeaux was about 6, chesapeak was about 12. So obviously chesapeak was a priority over bordeax.

That's what I didn't get.  Don't there need to be merchants re-directing for any transfers further downstream to occur?

[Tamas]

default is transferring upstream? I think you are mixing upstream and downstream. Downstream is where the arrows are pointing.

[FunkMonk]

If you have any kind of trade power in a node it will automatically transfer money downstream (unless it's a collection point). The problem is that, in nodes with two or more outlets downstream, it splits the money you divert between these outlets. You need a merchant to direct all of the money you're transferring down a single outlet. This is not a problem in nodes that only have one outlet. Merchants there are unnecessary if you're just interested in shifting money downstream.

Also it should be noted that you can only send light ships to a trade node where you have a merchant or where you have a cored province. In my current game, I have a merchant in the Bengal trade node so I can deploy light ships there to increase my trade power and shift a lot more money downstream to Ceylon. Bengal only has one outlet, so this is a case where, because I don't have a cored province in the node, I have to place a merchant there to be able to deploy light ships.

[FunkMonk]

My Imperial Slave Fleet It's much bigger now. 

Europe as of my last save The British inherited Sweden (lol), France got swallowed up by Burgundy, and the Ottomans stagnated for several decades because they became the lesser partner in a union with CRIMEA lol. It's interesting because all the great powers have formed two blocks. Spain, Burgundy, Muscovy, and I are roughly aligned with each other against Britain-Sweden and Austria, which has successfully vassalized the HRE and is super mega powerful now. Oh and the Ottomans are hanging around doing stuff too. Everybody hates them.

My trade empire right now Yeah's it's small but effective. I'm gaining 77 ducats a month just from trade.

[garbon]

So when did p'dox change aar forums to aar and fan fiction forums? Also, what's with all the rules regarding an interactive AAR?

[DGuller]

My first impressions are that the game is very fluid.  Countries rise and fall with some regularity, and they usually fall to conquest rather than rebels, though occasionally they stick together for the long haul.  The HRE mechanic doesn't really work well now, all those microstates tend to clump together into intermediate German states.  I wonder if the quick coring process is undermining the HRE protection mechanisms.

[The Minsky Moment]

If you have any kind of trade power in a node it will automatically transfer money downstream (unless it's a collection point).

Understood, thanks.