Europa Universalis IV announced

[crazy canuck]

My Imperial Slave Fleet It's much bigger now. 

Oh man, I am so renaming my fleets.

[Kleves]

The retreating mechanics can be a little weird. I beat a French army in Serbia and it retreated all the way to Paris. 

[Syt]

So when did p'dox change aar forums to aar and fan fiction forums?

I haven't been active in the AARs section in a very long time, but it's traditionally a mix between "normal" AARs and a creative writing workshop, so calling it fan fiction is kind of appropriate. Some AARs have the gameplay only as a loose backdrop for character driven narratives.

[Alcibiades]

Have to wait to see how MP goes in that sphere--players can be both more and less reasonable than the AI...

 

[Viking]

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%

The merchant adds 2 trading power. His presence there was almost completely useless, you are correct. Which is why I set him to collect and why collecting there gave me so much more cash. 

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?

No, if you have no merchants there all your trading power is spend directing your trade "downstream" or "upstream to your home node". If there are no merchants from any nation the home node'ers collect and the non-home noders redirect equally in all directions. So if there is only one out-stream and you don't want to collect there there is no purpose other than adding 2 trading power to yourself in the node. These pipeline nodes are basically middlemen. If you put in a bunch of light ships then you just escort your trade fleets past the middle men homewards to your home node. Provinces have trading power depending on technology and infrastructure. Each light ship has approximately the same amount of trading power. So if Swahili has 10 provinces in the Zanzibar node and you put 10 ships into the node then each of you should have about 50% of the trading power. Everything going into the trade node gets added to what is produced there and then 50% goes out with the light ships down stream.

Ships add power do re-direction and merchants can set the direction for that re-direction. This is important in say aden which recieves from indus but re-distributes to basra, alexandria and zanzibar. If you are the ottoman you want it going to basra which will then go to constantinopel, if you are the mameluk you want it to go to alexandria where you can collect, if you are an atlantic european you want it to go to zanzibar and around africa, if you are a mediterranean european you want it in alexandria which is closes to the med. 

[Syt]

From the locked 17 page thread "Many in-game Errors on Balkans":

EU Drinking Game: For every "you got the Balkans wrong!" thread, take a shot. If it directly contradicts another "you got the Balkans wrong!" thread, take another shot.

[DGuller]

I wonder how many wars in the Balkans will start due to disagreements over EU4?

[garbon]

It's 1550 and Byzantium still exists. They have Rhodes, Naxos and a capital in Cyprus.

[Viking]

BTW, milan with it's mercenary ideas maxed out can recruit 18 5 ducat mercs in 7 days each. With proper funding Milan can spam armies like a late game russian in the 1500s.

[garbon]

Apparently loans are unlimited. I was playing as Ouchi and was conquering most of Japan when the Emperor decided he was going to start integrating me. I'd gotten a lot of cash from the various daimyos (~400) and figured why not take him on. Well money run out and then kept running out. I think I took 20 loans of 17d each. That seems pretty ridiculous.

Also, just saw for the first time that the various rebel types actually fight one another. That's kinda cool.

[Habbaku]

Why does the number of loans seem off to you?  I don't think it's unlimited, but even if it were, you're still paying a cost to take them. An inflation increase, the loss of more money in the future and the specter of bankruptcy are all there to deter people from taking piles of loans even if they do need the short term surge of cash.

[Alcibiades]

How does bankruptcy work?

[garbon]

Why does the number of loans seem off to you?  I don't think it's unlimited, but even if it were, you're still paying a cost to take them. An inflation increase, the loss of more money in the future and the specter of bankruptcy are all there to deter people from taking piles of loans even if they do need the short term surge of cash.

Because they took what would have been completely hopeless situation and caused me to be able to wipe the floor with the Emperor. I didn't need to care about the upkeep that I couldn't afford on the mercs I'd bought as there was always another loan.

Right after I won the war, and the rest of the daimyos became my vassals, I disbanded all my armies and within about the space of two years, all of the countless loans were paid off. Net cost is my inflation is now at 6%.

[Tamas]

So guys, I am not so sure about the "don't need to use a merchant to transfer trade in a one-way node" thing. I mean sure you don't HAVE to, but if you have like no presence there without a merchant, a lot of the stuff will be probably retained by the local powers.

[Viking]

So guys, I am not so sure about the "don't need to use a merchant to transfer trade in a one-way node" thing. I mean sure you don't HAVE to, but if you have like no presence there without a merchant, a lot of the stuff will be probably retained by the local powers.

This is why you put in a fleet of light ships. All their trade power is used to transfer trade along.