Europa Universalis IV announced

[sbr]

What's teh deal with retreating from a battle?  DO you always go straight back to your capital, and is that intended?

[garbon]

Isn't always the capital. Also, yes it is intended as that stops you from a retreating army always been quickly destroyed when by the force that originally defeated it.

[The Minsky Moment]

BTW, as to how important it is to know what you are doing with trade. With two merchants and "owning" the chesapeak, bordeaux, london and antwerp nodes (y'know physically by owning all the land at their centers). I maxed out my income by redirecting from chesapeak to london and collecting at antwerp. Re-directing at antwerp reduced my trade income from 32 to 17. There was no point in re-directing from bordeaux since both downstream nodes were controlled by me. Redirecting in chesapeak really helped since norway was redirecting to the north sea from there (which was heavily re-directed to lubeck) and the indians still owned most of the land.

I'm confused. 
1)  I thought you can't use a merchant to redirect from a downstream node -- only that whatever trade power in that node redirects automatically with a big penalty if you don't collect.
2) Since London is still presumably your home node wouldn't you still benefit by forwarding from Bordeaux since that maxmizes the amount of trade reaching the home node?

[garbon]

I'm confused. 
1)  I thought you can't use a merchant to redirect from a downstream node -- only that whatever trade power in that node redirects automatically with a big penalty if you don't collect.

Yeah as far as I know, you would never re-direct at Antwerp as all trade leads into it.

[Viking]

In this case I PU'ed Burgundy and integrated it. I only have two merchants, but I do have about 30 light ships.

I have half of the chesapeak trade region, all of london, half of bordeaux, half of antwerp and about 1/3 of north sea.

The AI re-direction activity which isn't minor is the norwegian re-direction of trade from chesapeak to the north sea.

I don't bother with having a guy in london since it is my home node I'm collecting there anyways. The merchant only gives me +10%. Those norwegians in the atlantic mean that I'm losing out on quite a bit of trade. I tested out placing a merchant in the north sea with 15 light ships and the same with 15 ships in the chesapeake and the chesapeak delivers more trade to london, I am merely competing with norway's ships in the chesapeak, while in the north sea I'm competing with norway's ports.

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. Putting the merchant to collect in antwerp long with 15 light ships meant that my trade power was twice that of the dutch.

Basically the merchant in the chesapeake guaranteed that the north american trade goods went through london rather than lubeck and the merchant in antwerp collected stuff that wasn't going to london in any large amounts. I 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. As for collecting in antwerp vs redirecting from bordeaux, again, the collecting in antwerp was worth much more than the 6 ducats redirected (as opposed to 3 ducats with no merchant) to london.

Again, the default setting for home nodes is collect, for downstream nodes is transfer upstream and for downstream nodes it is transfer downstream evenly. By setting the network up correctly I was getting 22 more ducats than default and 18 ducats more than collect london transfer bordeaux. Owning Belgium and the 13 colonies made all the difference here.

Edit; remember I was collecting in antwerp, which I owned, not transferring upstream.

Edit2; the dutch, with their trade ideas are doing their level best to steer trade into antwerp where I have a 60% strength. I think they really might be worth keeping around...

[Habbaku]

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

[dps]

A more strictly historical design would have all countries start with garrisons only, an ability to call out a small temporary muster, and otherwise relying on soldiers for hire, with only those countries with a Standing Army idea (France only at the begginning) having the ability to keep in being a small permanent army of say 5-10K men.   That would probably cause a revolt in the customer base.  The alternative of using stricter manpower limits to force greater reliance on mercenaries (or to cut down ambitious campaigns) is a decent second best solution.

I agree. That the armies are too big doesn't make a huge difference (that effects everyone), but the fact your army is equally deployable for long international campaigns and for domestic defense is a major problem.

That goes back to the whole peace system, though.  It may be better now, but in EUIII up through NA at least, you can't get the AI to give you a couple of provinces both worth, say, 5% (so therefor a 10% peace) if your warscore is anything less than 50 or so unless they have massive WE.  When you have to almost completely conquer a country to get a reasonable peace, well, players are going to want to be able to do it.

[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. Plus embargoing them would mean putting all those ships into the north sea where I'd also have to put the merchant to keep half the lucre from going to lubeck. Ultimately I get the same result with one less naval power in the coalition against me.

I'm actually a bit tempted to move my capital to antwerp, converting it to the home node, then moving the merchant there to lubeck, or potentially letting the norwegians get the stuff to lubeck and just spam the place with 50 light ships and promptly move it all down to my new home node. I suspect the dutch would get in on that and help out. They are already bleeding the bordaux trade node of movable value. I might as well let the dutch and the norwegians do my transporting for me.

Edit: Trade before capital switch 37.24, after the switch 41.42. I spent 200 ADM on gaining 4 ducats per turn.

[Viking]

A more strictly historical design would have all countries start with garrisons only, an ability to call out a small temporary muster, and otherwise relying on soldiers for hire, with only those countries with a Standing Army idea (France only at the begginning) having the ability to keep in being a small permanent army of say 5-10K men.   That would probably cause a revolt in the customer base.  The alternative of using stricter manpower limits to force greater reliance on mercenaries (or to cut down ambitious campaigns) is a decent second best solution.

I agree. That the armies are too big doesn't make a huge difference (that effects everyone), but the fact your army is equally deployable for long international campaigns and for domestic defense is a major problem.

That goes back to the whole peace system, though.  It may be better now, but in EUIII up through NA at least, you can't get the AI to give you a couple of provinces both worth, say, 5% (so therefor a 10% peace) if your warscore is anything less than 50 or so unless they have massive WE.  When you have to almost completely conquer a country to get a reasonable peace, well, players are going to want to be able to do it.

We're just not willing to let the clock timer tick up the war score... or more precisely, we cannot afford it since there is a coalition getting ready to smite us.

[garbon]

Is a reload really necessary when you change tags? I became Spain and then gained an extra diplomat - with a comment saying I was an ai nation. Upon reload, it properly disappeared.

[Habbaku]

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...

[garbon]

A more strictly historical design would have all countries start with garrisons only, an ability to call out a small temporary muster, and otherwise relying on soldiers for hire, with only those countries with a Standing Army idea (France only at the begginning) having the ability to keep in being a small permanent army of say 5-10K men.   That would probably cause a revolt in the customer base.  The alternative of using stricter manpower limits to force greater reliance on mercenaries (or to cut down ambitious campaigns) is a decent second best solution.

I agree. That the armies are too big doesn't make a huge difference (that effects everyone), but the fact your army is equally deployable for long international campaigns and for domestic defense is a major problem.

That goes back to the whole peace system, though.  It may be better now, but in EUIII up through NA at least, you can't get the AI to give you a couple of provinces both worth, say, 5% (so therefor a 10% peace) if your warscore is anything less than 50 or so unless they have massive WE.  When you have to almost completely conquer a country to get a reasonable peace, well, players are going to want to be able to do it.

Completely revamped in EU4. I annexed Granada in two bits and I don't think in either war that I had more than 40% warscore.

[Habbaku]

Is a reload really necessary when you change tags? I became Spain and then gained an extra diplomat - with a comment saying I was an ai nation. Upon reload, it properly disappeared.

That was usually true in EUIII, unfortunately, so I suspect it's the same here.  I didn't notice a problem when I did a tag-switch like that, but I wasn't paying too much attention, I'll admit.

[garbon]

Is a reload really necessary when you change tags? I became Spain and then gained an extra diplomat - with a comment saying I was an ai nation. Upon reload, it properly disappeared.

That was usually true in EUIII, unfortunately, so I suspect it's the same here.  I didn't notice a problem when I did a tag-switch like that, but I wasn't paying too much attention, I'll admit.

Yeah that's why I was hoping it'd disappeared in EU take 4.

[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.