Mysterious Trade Blockade (Not Raid) in India and America

**cherry_hinz** · February 17, 2013, 12:32 PM

I am using United Province with colonies in America and India.
In the middle of the game, I find that my trade has some problems: Supply of trade commodities from these 2 places are blockaded! This leads to reduced trade income!

I have checked everywhere. No port blockade / raid in my home port nor any port in America and India.
Even if there is any raid, supply should be reduced rather than totally terminated.
I have Googled the problem. Some say home port + source ports in America and India should be intact. Yes they are. Still no supply.

Does anyone have any clue about this situation? Any idea / experience sharing is welcomed!

Here are my screens captured:

1) Home port in the Netherlands is fine. No damage. Supply from India and America shows messages of blockade. That's total loss of supply, not just being raided. Supply from other places are fine.

2) I have only 1 port in India - the port of Ceylon. It's intact. If I move the cursor onto the little trade route outside the port of Ceylon, a pop-up shows 0 income. Strangely, city summary of Ceylon shows that some chests of tea are actually being exported, generating some wealth for Ceylon. I get frustrated about this.

3) Similarly, intact port and 0 income for my colonies and little trade routes in America.

**the mysterious F** · February 17, 2013, 03:18 PM

what about the port in Antwerp? Is it intact?

**cherry_hinz** · February 17, 2013, 06:43 PM

Yes Antwerp is intact too.

**RMSN NIKE** · February 17, 2013, 09:08 PM

Check all other European ports, one of them has been damaged, since the three trade routes supported by the home trade port is unaffected, and Antwerp look like newly built, most likely a port in France.

**cherry_hinz** · February 18, 2013, 06:35 AM

Originally Posted by RMSN NIKE

Check all other European ports, one of them has been damaged, since the three trade routes supported by the home trade port is unaffected, and Antwerp look like newly built, most likely a port in France.

Finally solved. The culprit is the port of Marseille in the Mediterranean Sea!!!!!!

I have 2 damaged ports in the Europe Theatre, one is military port in South Spain, another is a trade port in Marseille in the Mediterranean Sea. I repaired the Military one in Spain, no help, supply from India and Americas still blocked. Then I repaired Marseille's trade port . Eureka!

However, I think that supply from India and Americas should go via the Atlantic Sea to North Sea then to the Netherlands. I suspect: will the bad trade port in South France cause all the ports in the entire France lose their functions? I guess there are some bugs in the trade route mechanism. If not, CA should let us know what ports the trade routes go through. Otherwise, we have no way to prevent mysterious blockades like these.

**JaM** · February 18, 2013, 05:16 AM

Or there is a big fleet somewhere in the trade node areas blocking effectively your and your trade partners trade... (but definitely check their ports too - its one of the reason i never accept peace with barbary pirates...they wont attack you, but will blockade ports of your trade partners..)

**JaM** · February 18, 2013, 06:36 AM

Trade lines are establishing to trade ports with free import/export capacity, therefore if your trade ports in North Atlantic are at full capacity, your trade line might get rerouted to Marseilles.

**cherry_hinz** · February 18, 2013, 07:07 AM

Originally Posted by JaM

Trade lines are establishing to trade ports with free import/export capacity, therefore if your trade ports in North Atlantic are at full capacity, your trade line might get rerouted to Marseilles.

This sounds a reasonable way of trade routes establishment, but I never find clear info about this story in the game!! If this is the true trade mechanism in ETW, without enough explanation players will probably never know this, making the gameplay very frustrating.

Trade is the core of this game, and inadequate explanation of trade routing mechanism, from/to place information of trade routes and easy locating of problematic area on the map, the trading gameplay can sometimes be quite crappy.

**Dandelion** · February 18, 2013, 02:34 PM

Originally Posted by cherry_hinz

Trade is the core of this game...

WAR is the core of this game. Trade only gives You the means to go to war

**divilly** · February 18, 2013, 04:54 PM

Originally Posted by Dandelion

WAR is the core of this game. Trade only gives You the means to go to war

War isn't the core of the game.
The game have much cores: Economy,diplomacy,trade,war and peace.
In my opnion the peace is the highlight.
for example: when i play with Sweden,i normally secure peace by 5 years,with all nations,while the times of peace,i build my economy,increasing my trade and diplomatic relations..After some years,when i have a good army,i do war.

**=Prince Nuada=** · February 18, 2013, 06:13 PM

Originally Posted by divilly

War isn't the core of the game.
The game have much cores: Economy,diplomacy,trade,war and peace.
In my opnion the peace is the highlight.
for example: when i play with Sweden,i normally secure peace by 5 years,with all nations,while the times of peace,i build my economy,increasing my trade and diplomatic relations..After some years,when i have a good army,i do war.

I don't know what game you're playing?
I'm playing Empire: Total WAR.

War is the cornerstone of this game. Easily 97% of the game mechanic is given over to the execution of war. Diplomacy, trade and peace are just the out-workings of government which facilitate the ability to effectively wage war.

**RMSN NIKE** · February 18, 2013, 05:13 PM

Your GB, Maratha and Sweden trades went through your level 2 Netherlands trade port, when you made the treaties, with 3 trade slots available. So all your other trade routes will go to your next available trade port that is close to your Capital, as in less provinces to travel, which is in France. And check all your trade ports, maybe they shipped their trade slots to Marseille, like your Flanders trade slots were shipped to Rotterdam, or maybe some trade treaties go through Spain/Portugal/Savoy/Morocco trade ports. And I think trade ship trades do not take up trade slots. Follow the bright or dimmer green trade lines to the trade port your trade treaty will end in. White line for neutral shipping, red for enemy shipping and yellow for both your and enemy trade shipping lines.

And trade treaty does not go through military trade ports.

**JaM** · February 19, 2013, 12:54 AM

Thing is, this approach ruined the ETW.. You cant wage war if you don't have resources for it. and you wont have those if you don't build those. AI in vanilla is focused on war, without having proper economy build first.. which results in monotonous and easy gameplay because they will not last too long...