Trade, Trade Partners and Trade Lanes
In E:TW, the trade system has evolved to an entirely new level with the inclusion of three major theaters, four trading theaters, trade lanes that can be raided and commercial ports that get blockaded.
The first step in trade is establishing trade partners. You can basically trade with any nation that you share a border with, and if you have a commercial port you can also trade with any nation that has commercial ports even if they are on the other side of the world. You can know what type of trade lane you have or will get by hovering your mouse over the icon in the diplomacy screen.
Let's cover the basics of trade lanes. When you have a trade treaty with an AI nation, a trade lane will join your capitals together. If there is a direct land route from your capital to your trade partner's capital and all the regions in between are controlled by either one of you, then trade will be conducted overland.
Consider the case of Spain and France. Spain and France share a border, and a direct rout exists between their capitals (Paris and Madrid). Therefore all trade will be conducted overland.
Since land trade lanes will only help you getting trade agreements with neighboring nations only, you will immediately notice that this is a very limited option. Most of your trade lanes will be through naval trade lanes. To be able to have a naval trade lane with another nation, both of you must have free trade lanes available.
The number of naval trade lanes that a nation has depends on two factors: How many ports you have in your capital region or in the regions that are connected to your capital, and the level of each port.
Only commercial ports will count towards the maximum number of trade lanes you can have. Tier one of commercial port will offer you 2 lanes and each consequent level will give you an extra lane.
For example, in Paris, you have multiple ports from the get-go at year 1700. Having two tier-1 commercial ports in Paris will give you a total of 4 trade lanes. If you expand to the west and invade Amsterdam, you will notice that the number of trade routes available to you has not changed. The simple reason for this is that there is not direct land lane between Amsterdam and Paris. If you add Flanders to your possessions you will see that you get 3 extra sea trade lanes. That's because now you have a direct land route between Paris and Amsterdam, and the trade port in that region is a tier-2 port which offers 3 extra sea trade lanes.
The longer you trade with nation, the more money you will be making out of that trade lane for the same amount of resources. In E:TW, prolonged trade agreements are encouraged and given a bonus in diplomacy and in the amount you get out of a trade lane.
Importing Resources
As you might have noticed, trade lanes to other nations originate from your capital, not from the source of the resources directly. That means that to be able to sell resources that are produced in your colonies or trade theaters you'll have to import the goods to your capital first.
Again, let's assume you are playing as France. You control French Guyana which produces spices for you. Spices stored in French Guyana will not help your economy if you cannot deliver it to your trade partners' markets to sell. So our goal is to get this resource, like any other resource, to destination markets.
Since all trade lanes originate from your capital, only goods available in your capital will be used in global trade. So your first step in getting these spices to your trade partners is to send it all the way to Paris. In case of French Guyana, you already have a trade port, so your spices will be transported to Paris.
However, if the region that produces resources for you doesn't have a commercial port or isn't adjacent to a region of yours that has a commercial port then all the resources produced will not get transported to Paris, and thus won't be used in global trade. So always make sure that you build commercial ports in your colonies.
Another aspect of importing resources to your capital that should be checked on is the capacity of your commercial ports. There are 4 tiers of commercial ports, and each tier will offer more capacity for transport. So if you have two or three regions producing resources and they share a single first tier commercial port, in most probability most of your resources are not being delivered to you capital. To check if a region's resources are being imported, open the region's panel and check the total income row. If a resource is not being transported entirely, its icon will be shadowed.
A very simple example that you can see as early as 1700 is Spain-controlled Cuba. Cuba is an extremely rich colony with many plantations, and since you start with a single first tier port, if you build up the plantations faster than your port, then you won't be benefiting from your resources. So always keep the number and level of commercial ports consistent with the number and level of your plantations. This is not an issue in your capital for global trade with your trade partners, only at source of the goods.
Securing Trade
Controlling and producing resources alone is not sufficient in E:TW. You have to worry about the logistics of securing your trade resources and ensuring that all of your resources are being delivered and sold to your trade partners. That means not only you have to control and secure the point of origin to protect your trade, you also have to maintain your trade lanes free from piracy and raiding by enemy fleets. Finally you have to protect your own commercial ports and those of your trade partners from blockades by hostile fleets.
Let's cover blockades first. Any hostile navy can blockade a port, which results in a total loss of transport of goods that you might have had coming in or out of that port. That means a total loss of trade resources if it is a colony, and total loss of global trade with trade partners if it is the port connected to your capital. Blockades must be dealt with immediately because you will be losing a lot of money that you cannot afford. In the trade panel, you'll see the whole trade lane in red with an "x" sign over the icon.
Another kind of blockades that you have to keep eye on is your trade partners' main commercial ports. For example, let's assume as France you have a trade partnership with Austria. At one point or another, an enemy of Austria will block its commercial port in its capital region which results in Austria's loss of trade with its partners, including France. So if you were making 5000 out of Austria each turn, and Austria gets blockaded while your ports are free, you will be losing these 5000 entirely.
Raiding on the other hand is performed on trade lanes. This can be either land trade lanes or naval trade lanes. Raiding is even more dangerous than blockades because not only you are losing money, your enemy is benefiting from those lost resources and adding it to its treasury. Raided resources will be marked in bright red in your trade panel, with a Skull over the icon of the trade lane.
On the other hand, raiding is also a great resource of income if performed by you, and any amounts that you will be making out of raiding will be shown under the misc/other income section. Find the main port of your enemy and park your fleet on the trade lane coming out of it so that you can add your enemy's trade to your treasury!
As for land trade lane raiding, again as France, you have trade partnership with Spain. You can see horse carriages moving between Paris and Madrid . If you put your mouse over that strip of the road, you'll see the trade amounts each nation is making. If any hostile armies park on this road, it will raid part of the resources being transported between both nations.
Trade Resources, Plantations and Trade Nodes
In empire, you have 8 trade goods: Fur, Ivory, spices, Cotton, Sugar, Tea, Coffee and Tobacco. All of these can be acquired by either controlling regions that produce them or by having trade fleets occupy trade nodes that generate them for you.
The price of these commodities is not constant. It depends on the supply and demand paradigm in the game. In mid-game, I have seen ivory prices shoot to over 50 when the pirates cleaned all AI fleets from the Straights of Madagascar and only my 5 fleets in the Ivory Coast were left importing Ivory for me. So usually the scarcer a resource is, the higher its price. On the other hand, I have seen the price of Coffee drop to 6 although I was the only one producing coffee in the game, and using only 2 plantations to do so. So try to have a balance of all of those resources so that you will have a stable economy that won't be affected if a price of a commodity plummets.
You cannot build plantations anywhere you wish, you can only build them on resource plots. Most resource plots will give you an option to build one of two resources. Make sure you diversify your resources so that you won't flood the market with a single commodity the price of which will drop.
Plantations affect your economy in two forms. In the regions where you have plantations, you will notice that the amount of resources you are exporting to your capital is actually added to the region taxable income, meaning that you make some taxes out of the resources. The second effect is the trade resource itself which will enter into your global trade income.
Each tier of plantation will offer you greater amounts of the same resource which should increase your total trade income. But always keep an eye on commodity prices to make sure that no market over saturation may occur. Another thing to keep an eye on is the commercial ports' capacity and that all of your resources are being transported to your capital as discussed earlier.
Plantations also have a certain yield. Some plantations will have low yield, average yield or abundant yield. The higher the yield of a plantation, the higher the amounts that plantation produces.
In Empire, we saw the inclusion of four trade theaters: Coast of Brazil, Ivory Coast, Straights of Madagascar and East Indies. Each one of those trade theaters contain trade nodes, a yellowish circle with the sign of an anchor, that you can place your trade ships on to get a trade lane that transport goods back to your capital.
The more trade ships you have placed on a lane, the higher your income will be from this resource. But the law of diminishing returns is applicable in this case. That means the second ship will not give you double of what a single ship does, but rather two ships will give you more than what a single ship would give you, but less than double of what a single ship would give. As the number increases, so does the return per ship decreases.
Coast of Brazil produces Sugar, and the East Indies produces spices, and both resources can be produced through certain plantations in South American, Caribbean Islands and India. On the other hand, Ivory is only available through the Ivory Coast and the Straights of Madagascar.
Economic and Trade Commodites Submod {{{FYI ONLY}}}
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