How about emerging trade nodes?

[B. W.]

How about emerging trade nodes?

I was thinking that once a port city of a region reaches a certain size then a trade node would appear in front of it. To engage in trade with that city/region you would have to have at least one trade ship on the node and these ships could be guarded by a fleet.

This way a faction who you are not at war with would have to risk going to war to interupt your trade routes by attacking your trade ships. When I was playing Shogun I was constantly irritated by having trades routes of my trading partners raided and it affecting my trade. This would eliminate that and directly tie trade from a region to an individual faction by gaining the trade node.

If you were a weaker faction you could secure your trade from certain regions by gaining a trade agreement with a powerful faction.

One of the micromanagement details of protecting trade routes was having to physically move ships back and forth along trade routes (instead of being able to put them in patrol mode moving up and down the routes) and then risking going to war with a faction raiding your trade when the risk should have been on the other facion.

Any opinions on this?

[maximusdecimusm]

That is an interesting idea, but in my opinion it's unecessary.

Instead, when you raid a trade route everyone whose profits are being affected has the option to declare war on you with no diplomatic penalties, as you are directly stealing the money of their citizens. This would be somehwat similar to when allies are called to help in Shogun 2; they have the option to declare war, but they're not obliged to. I think blockades should remain the same though.

It would be good if you could set navies (and maybe armies too, why not?) to auto-patrol waypoints that you set on the campaign map.

[B. W.]

That is an interesting idea, but in my opinion it's unecessary.

Instead, when you raid a trade route everyone whose profits are being affected has the option to declare war on you with no diplomatic penalties, as you are directly stealing the money of their citizens. This would be somehwat similar to
when allies are called to help in Shogun 2; they have the option to declare war, but they're not obliged to. I think blockades should remain the same though.

It would be good if you could set navies (and maybe armies too, why not?) to auto-patrol waypoints that you set on the campaign map.

First let me say that the idea of patoling waypoints is something I've wished for many times.

As far as the other, let me explain a little more. If an ally raids a trade route and you happen to be on that trade route (like in Shogun2) your trade gets raided too. This is something that wouldn't happen in reality. That's the reason for the emerging trade routes. As a city's port expands it would gain an additional trade node (maybe up to three) so as to be able to trade with more than one faction. If another faction wanted to raid an enemy trade route it could focus on those and leave the others alone.

This also means you could establish trade with different cities in a faction instead of just a faction.

There's something else also. I had uncountable situations where a single trading vessle disrupted trade with a whole faction when I was trading through several different ports and into several different ports on two different trade routes and the single lowly trading ship was able to disrupt all of it. It's rediculus. This would be one way to eliminate that is all I'm saying.

[Ichon]

So you mean that each trade route to every faction had a separate node so the trade lines are traced individually and don't merge? Since basically how its portrayed now is that your allies enemy attacks all ships on the route which in reality would lead to several more wars. I'm not sure the 'emerging' comes from in that idea as it could simply be done like that anyway. Trade needs to change in some ways for sure as the trade node concept that works in ETW does not make nearly as much sense in Roman era. I prefer Huskatten's dynamic trade routes concept more but tracing individual routes or diplomatic consequences to raiding trade route makes some sense.

[HusKatten]

Interesting idea on how to keep the node system for easy implementation. It might be a better and a more funny solution than the current one. I'd like to hear out about what you think about my idea, check my sig

[B. W.]

Interesting idea on how to keep the node system for easy implementation. It might be a better and a more funny solution than the current one. I'd like to hear out about what you think about my idea, check my sig

Yes, I saw that and I think it's a great idea. In fact, my idea builds on that.

I've often seen a single trade ship disrupt an entire trade network with mighty fleets protecting it. This is rediculous. That is the reason I think it would be a good idea to give cities with ports trade nodes so each faction that has a trade agreement with it would have a node to place ships on and that node could be protected by a fleet of warships. This would be instead of the tiring micromanagement task of moving a fleet up and down the trade route to protect it.

If the AI wanted to raid trade of a certain faction they could do it without affecting the trade of others factions by attacking that trade fleet stationed on the node. The trade fleet would respresent ships traveling from that port back to home ports. Every time a port is expanded it would get an additional node up to three and lines from these nodes would converge into a single line representing the trade route. This would allow cities to trade with multiple factions that might happen to be at war with one another. If a port were to be blockaged, a warship would have to be placed alongside each node. This means that it would at least require a small fleet to blockage a port, instead of a single cheap ship.

This wouldn't neccessarily take away any advantage that the AI has because it could build fleets to protect its nodes much cheaper than the player can. It would just stop the stupid suspensions of trade by a single trade ship.