(EU4) The Basics of Trade

How to trade, and how you can increase your income by doing so.

[@LordAcario]

What is a leppo?

[@LordDucarius]

Didnt get the joke boi

[@hulkhogan4203]

RumGorilla isn't it slang for a short Irish person?

[@StudiosDiego]

RumGorilla is that from gary johnston? xD

[@manooxi327]

yes captain obvious

[@MultiNacnud]

the 6th marx brother

[@AwoudeX]

light ships have 3 things you can do with them -protect trade: increase the amount of trade power in a node -privateer: attack other nation's light ships or at least hinder the trade protection they provide -hunt pirates: shield your nodes from raids The 2n'd and 3rd one on this very short list i've used little, and deserve a guide of their own. I've noticed alot of raids on Castille by marocco+tunis and by the knights on otto (sometimes tunis too, those assholes ;p) Usually as either one of them, i just bash the relevant nation once or twice out of being annoyed with the endless torrent of raid reports, never did raid myself...

[@basistof]

Nice vid! One little mistake: Trade power you have in a node where you don't have any land but you do have a merchant comes from nodes DOWNSTREAM (following the arrows), meaning that when you totally control the node downstream you will control the nodes UPSTREAM (against the arrows) more.

[@sciuresci1403]

basistof this explains why freaking england has %30 trade power in white sea without owning any regions.

[@LordVelari]

sciure sci Yep. I think this trade region system is a rather Western-centric depiction of world trade in real life (a bit offensive but painfully accurate) - if you are in the more downstream nodes (I.e. Western Europe, you get to not only transfer trade value from the upstream nodes to you node, but also have some of your trade power leading to the upstream to transfer trade to your node with - a hugely unfair advantage. This explains why India while being rich historically gradually fell behind in early modern days, because the West was more downstream and had the trade power (capital) to take wealth from India.

[@manooxi327]

I really liked your income without war video, but honestly this one is kinda unprepared and messy :P

[@Funky_Dumpling]

Thank you very much for releasing so many of these, you deserve more views :)

[@kotzpenner]

Hell mate thanks for the video, recently got back into the EU4 business (nearly no DLC though) and still didn't understand trading, had red several pages on the wiki without understanding anything and then I see, my fav EU4 KZbinr put out a vid exactly about this.

[@darkfireslide]

kotzpenner :D

[@thatrandomguy7338]

the basics are already 20 minutes long

[@oilbucket]

ThatRandomGuy! eu4 trading ladies and gentlemen

[@LightningForce4427]

Oil bucket EU4 in general.

[@malnutritionboy]

how to learn eu4 is just play as ottomans most forgiving nation to play as and you will think that you are a pro

[@jameskaram8338]

Might have missed it, but I think you forgot to mention that collecting trade directly instead of transferring trade power also halves your trade power in that node.

[@mrgoldsberry5716]

Thanks for the video! I am getting better as i watch your videos. Almost 800hrs in game and still learning.

[@kotzpenner]

BTW, Privateering is in fact only available in Wealth of Nations, which is kinda weird because you get a "list" of stuff to do with light ships in the base game but the only thing in there is protecting trade.

[@gabrielkelly2202]

Thank you! Very well done.

[@harley3514]

Thanks for the great laugh at "There are these arrows pointing and moving: that's terrifying!" I love your videos, man!

[@yurizhivago4848]

Good and very helpful video. I play a lot of Civ 5 and 6 and it takes a LONG time for newbies to learn a complex game and I am new to this franchise. Your videos are very helpful. Thanks

[@hulkhogan4203]

keep up the good work.

[@almightyful1]

Thanks for video!

[@xenonhhd8383]

Honestly, I fuckin love u. Thx for the great content!

[@Beachdudeca]

In an ideal game u plan ur expansion based on having trade flow to ur home node , its also important to note that often it can make sense to move your capital further down the trade stream . For example as Russia I tend to like to Dominate and move my Capital to the Baltic or Lubeck Trade Zones depending on how strong the HRE might be. , Also if u expand to places you can not profit on Trade then Create a March in that area so it can be denied to other Nations

[@lostinnepal7897]

Great job, keep it up :D

[@kieran4003]

So in general it is always recommended to steer trade towards your main node, instead of collecting from the other ones aswell?

[@AwoudeX]

I played an Otto game and had colonies in Australia, Canada and all the spice islands. I Also had recently taken Zanzibar's main trade province and decided to collect there and the income that was pushed in by 3 merchants. After seeing this, i'm not sure it was the best way to go :D

[@AlwaysRM_]

Uhh, If i send an licht ship to an other node than my home node will it give my that money or will it add it to my power in the node?

[@maleficar259]

could you explain the difference between privateers and protect trade? i just can't get it :/ both of them gain you a trade power right?

[@starbucks2101]

thank you

[@Bill_Garthright]

Thanks for this. I keep thinking I understand it, but after 240 hours in EU IV, I struggle to put it into practice. Currently, I'm playing Korea, and I've been just as lost when it comes to trade as I always was. LOL PS. Note that privateering your rivals will earn you power projection. That's mainly why I do it in my Korea game, since both Ming and Japan are my rivals. And when they privateer me, I send out my galleys on pirate-hunting missions (which doesn't end up with combat, but only lessens the success of privateering).

[@sventibaldo]

Prussia game. Saxony (trade capital) trade value 12 collect 18.82 (no merchant) 44% power Lubeck trade value 37 collect around 20 (with merchant) around 30% power Is it time to change capital to Lubeck or is it better to get more land (and thus more trade power in that node), before giving up on the free collecting in Saxony and send my Lubeck merchant to Saxony for steering?

[@af824]

privateering against your rival increases your power projection - the main (maybe even only) benefit of it

[@Robi2009]

Off topic question - what is that icon under the country's crest, on the right, besides production (the one that looks like small blue banner). I have most DLCs active on my EU IV but don't have this...

[@Herobrine1103]

Robi_CK it lists the great powers (Rights of Man DLC)

[@Robi2009]

Herobrine1103 Thanks. RoM is one of those DLCs I don't have... yet:)

[@13faujus]

playing as Netherlands, holding most of African coast and at least 40% of power in every node from Europe to Japan. should I only protect trade in english channel or send a few ships to each upstream node? i'm never sure where to put light ships when I have so many choices... love your videos, very helpful!

[@jakalordarkblood4331]

What's more important than Light Ships is that you have Merchants in all those nodes that feed into Europe. Light Ships just give more Trade Power wherever you need it. A general rule is that if you have more than 60-70% control of a node, you don't need the Light Ships. Instead send them to the biggest node with the least Trade Power in it that feeds into your home node (in this case English Channel, so go to say Bordeaux Lübeck, if you have the same there, go to Sevilla or Genoao, from there it depends which way your money is going, around the Cape of Good Hope or through the Middle East)

[@Bsliggs]

If I remember correctly, privateering shows up in spoils of war income. I don't know if this is what confused you in that part.

[@RocketHarry865]

Protecting trade brings in trade nodes other than your trade capital adds more trade power and extra income

[@jamoecw]

sending your ship out doesn't cost more, but you do get money back while they are protecting trade. this makes your ships cheaper to maintain, and thus having light ships can net you more than you pay in maintenance. they add trade power, which gets you a larger share of a node, so using them on a node that has a lot of money and little trade power means that you can get more money per point of trade power, and thus the ships (and merchants, or anything that nets you trade power in that node) will net more.

[@JoViljarHaugstulen]

Also the more light ships you have protecting trade the more navy tradition you gain which improve trade steering (+0-100% from 0-100 navy tradition) making the trade power the light ships give more effective

[@TheGrouch91]

Could it be that you rushed this video a little bit? There are tons of smaller mistakes and it seems very unstructured. Workshops do not increase the trade value. They increase production efficiency and not the amount of goods that is produced in contrast to manufactories. So workshops do absolutely nothing for your trade. The "transfers from traders downstream" is a number that is related to the total trade power in the node you're pushing the trade to. So even with 0 provinces or ships you can have quite a big trade power in a node as long as the following node is under your full control. Privateering does not increase your own trade power in a node. Means that you won't transfer more through it. It is more like you're collecting there without actually having a merchant collecting. In fact you could very well transfer what little trade power you have and privateer at the same time. The benefit of privateering over protecting is a) it is more effective than protecting, especially vs big trade powers in a node (you get a huge % modifier depending on the size of the biggest trade power) and b) it gives you a bunch of power projection when you're privateering a rivals trade node. The downside is that you actually don't boost your own trade thus you may miss out on some bonusses from trade goods and there are also some nasty events that only fire when you're privateering. E: Also because privateers are so much more effective than normal trade ships they simply flood a trade node thus inflating its total trade power which reduces the %share of every other nation reducing their income that way. Say there is a total of 1000 trade power in a node and one of your rivals has 800 of that. So he controls 80% of the node. Now you send your privateers there which will massively inflate the total trade power. Let's say they add another 200. Now there is a total of 1200 trade power in the node but your rival still only has 800 so he now only controls 67%.

[@johannsigursson5319]

Production efficiency does actually have a % effect on goods produced, if you mouse over the goods produced value in a province it is listed as a modifier.

[@TheGrouch91]

No it does not. Production efficiency only increases your income from production not the trade value or how many goods are produced. The only way to increase the trade value is through manufactories and increasing its production developement. I even double checked it after your comment even though I was 100% sure. And there definetely isn't any such modifier. Maybe you're looking at the production income of the province right under its tax income?

[@Sinured34]

How many barks should I use?

[@lostcause78]

I'm guessing the privateering wasn't showing because there were too many ships protecting trade in the node. The game weighs # of guns protecting trade vs # of guns privateering to see how effective it is in said node (you can see this on the trade popup screen for a node like in 17:30).

[@lostcause78]

You are correct, I totally forgot Pirate Hunting is a thing.

[@Lightwich]

I'm not sure but i believe that privateer also allow you to steal from fleets bringing back gold from colonies

[@krandomk]

Personal Union guide maybe? It's pretty tough to wrap my head around.

[@smithjohn4679]

>Ottomans Immediately dropped

[@ScottyJ8705]

you had a couple flaws in there, sometimes the light ships will take an extra month or so for the effect to take place. you also didn't go into moving power upstream either

[@ahahuehafook4207]

dark how do i get a grill to perform sexual acts upon me thanks i love your channel only eu4 one i really watch now a days

[@darkfireslide]

It's quite similar to EU4. First you must improve relations. It helps if you are a big, powerful, rich nation, since that will make her more likely to have a friendly attitude towards you. If not, you will need more diplomatic reputation. This can be acquired by a Statesman friend or by taking Diplomatic Ideas. Legitimacy helps as well. Then you need to build trust with the girl. Once you have earned enough favors by answering her calls to arms and paying off some of her debts, you may finally call on those favors.

[@ahahuehafook4207]

i have run into a new foe. she is trying to perform the acts on me as i type this but i cannot resurrect an erection. what do i do please reply asap thanks

[@darkfireslide]

it helps to raise army maintenance

[@ahahuehafook4207]

my income is not sufficient to maintain my erection how do i get money? i need to fix my predicament fast because my partners erection will fail in time please reply asap thanks

[@darkfireslide]

you must take clay from the surrounding nations

[@ViridianVictoria]

You said that you get extra trade power from each merchant transferring trade power if you're not collecting but you can actually collect in your home node and still 10% trade power per transfer, you just can't collect anywhere else. Collecting in your main trade node can be worth it as it gives you a 10% extra trade income so that's for if you have a ton of money in the node. Privateers steal trade from the whole node and put it into a pool that you get a cut from as raw income, you also get Power Projection (I saw someone else mention this in the comments) if you're privateering a rival.

[@athenasowls9553]

your home note is collecting automatically so i think that he thought that that would be only normal to not say that extra

[@athenasowls9553]

sry if my english is bad but it's not my mother tongue

[@ViridianVictoria]

***** No worries I think I understood you, and yeah that's possible.

[@wtf_is_a_handle_]

Do you stream?

[@WateringCan]

Put simply higher percents = more $£$£ therefore higher percents = more betterer.

[@rhaigezaglyrite]

Genoa and Venice are good trade nodes for privateering hehe

[@thesudaneseprince9675]

basics of trade... 20 min long vid lol anyways good vid man I am really enjoying these tutorial vids keep up the good work ;)

[@cuddlybear4524]

Dear God am I ever going to find a helpful tutorial?

[@markhenley3097]

I actually have a few good books on history from the Early Modern Period, and from what I can tell, the trade mechanic is oversimplified compared to real life.

[@Beastboi2525]

What about mercantilism tho

[@StudiosDiego]

thank you sooo much! i started playing EU4 yesterday and i couldn't understand why i was losing money as the ottomans xD....now i see where i fucked up

[@windig1991]

Thx for the video. Some mechanics are still hard to understand tho

[@panterasux22]

if you look in your economy tab under spoils of war while privateering you can see the ducats you make

[@Colmcille_]

Eyyy dark, when ya gonna do a world conquest guide buddy???1??? My Albanian cannons aren't sniping the Chinese any time soon.

[@lysaai]

When you Privateer, you directly siphon ducats out of the trade node. Look at your spoils of war under your budget to see what your making from Privateering.

[@NikiK57]

Privateering steals money - you get spoils of war income when you select the mission.

[@chmatacek]

Collecting trade is useless unless you have some power in rich nodes upstream. If possible, always steer steer and steer. And keep the highest possible share % in your home node, otherwise all your steers will go away. Also protecting trade with light ship is pretty useless, the ships are weak in combat and they don´t really generate any serious money. Better support trade power with markets, embargoes and conquering everyone who cripples your trade

[@Melodeath00]

Light Ships give waaaaaaaaaaay more bang for your buck than Markets. The vast majority of your Naval FL should be Light Ships protecting trade. If you don't intent to do a lot of oversea wars or colonization, might aswell go 100% Light ships.

[@chmatacek]

Light ships cost maintenance and their overall effecienty is very low. Also they are absolutely useless in combat, in inland sea one galley takes 3 light ships and is cheaper than one of light ship. Totally senseless making light ships

[@Melodeath00]

No, that's also a giant waste of money. You should have enough transports to Transport your troops, and you should have enough Heavies to win naval battles. Achieving that, will never require your full FL, even if you're fighting England or Spain. After doing so, the best choice is obviously going to be to stack Light ships. And again, if you're not doing any oversea wars or colonization, you don't need either Heavies or Transports, so just go 100% Lights.

[@thomasvrielink299]

I used to protect trade from nodes I was transferring from since the tooltip said that would generate more money. However, you (and every other EU4-youtuber I've seen) seem to always protect trade in your home node, so I've started to copy this. I still don't get why that seems to work better though. Why is that?

[@TheSeventhChild]

Thomas Vrielink I may be wrong, but I'm fairly sure the money value displayed is the effect on the node, not your income. So if you protect in a node upstream the displayed value will travel downstream. You won't collect all of it unless you somehow had 100% trade power in the downstream node. Assuming you're steering trade of course. Otherwise that money will split all over the place. Basically it displays the ducat value of your trade power increase in that node from the fleet.

[@MrSnertje]

If you send your fleet to a nearby node to help transfer, you'll send more money to your node, but you won't collect as much there as you could, because you won't have as much tradepower in the node you're collecting in as you would with your fleet protecting there. It's usually more profitable to increase the piece of the pie you're getting, than to increase the whole pie. When you're already dominating your own tradenode, through provinces and buildings for example, you can send your fleet out and usually gain more money by steering it towards the node you're dominating. (Another factor you should consider are your enemies. For example, if you're in the Genoa node and your main enemy is too, you want to increase your tradepower in that node to decrease his share, but if your rival is in the Sevilla node, you'll want to transfer from there to decrease their income. )

[@Melodeath00]

Protecting in your homenode increases how much of the money in said node you get. Protecting in nodes where you are transferring trade, increases the value of your homenode. There's no point in protecting trade in other nodes, if somebody else is getting most of the money in your homenode. Basically, you should protect in your homenode until you have a large majority of the Trade Power there, think 70%++. Once you are controlling your homenode properly, you can start protecting trade elsewhere, to further increase the value of your homenode. As Ottomans you would Conquer the entire Constantinople node, giving you the vast majority of the trade there, then transfer from Alexandria and Crimea. Last Merchant would probably go to Astrakhan or Samarkand, depending on how far east you have conquered. Your Light Ships would probably be split between Constantinople, Alexandria and Crimea, protecting trade in all 3. If you are already controlling all 3 nodes fully, and nobody is pulling trade from Constantinople to Ragusa, you could use the Ships to Privateer in Genoa.

[@ivarwesterlund874]

Oh god arrows!

[@InkubusGames]

Thanks for this explanation. I really think Paradox made this non intuitive and really hard to learn it from within the game.

[@peterkase9827]

So whats the difference of privateering and protecting

[@reaperzwei845]

privateering is pirates. Basically you privateer nodes you don't control and you protect nodes you do. Privateering a node that your rival controls will also give you power projection.

[@peterkase9827]

Reaper Zwei Ah okay thanks, After 600h eu4 thats one of the Things i never understood.

[@pabi852]

Privateering a node gives you automatically 40 % of mercharnt income. it's extremally useful if you want to either cripple someone that you don't like like france for expample. or you don't have a trade range.

[@Surakemastura]

θεός

[@pylonbuffering8523]

0:11 and something that i myself *persian* ally i knew you were unfit to rule byzantium >:/

[@oilbucket]

i myself didnt learn that much... thanks anyway though!

[@gekkenhuisje]

11:53 even privateering is a DLC feature darkfireslide. I only have the base game, no DLC whatsoever, so I know.

[@gekkenhuisje]

One of the terrible things also about Paradoxes money milking is the AI gets these DLC bonuses even when I don't. As I said earlier, I have no DLC, yet I've seen AI nations improve their development, whereas I am unable to because I don't have the Common Sense DLC.

[@majdavlk649]

if you dont have a dlc,i dont think that ai players can use those features,there are more ways of improving development than just using monarchpoints,sometiems you can get a bi-yearly event to improve development,they are more common if you take the economy ideas

[@gekkenhuisje]

Well, the AI I've seen usually haven't taken economy ideas, as well in my games I didn't really get those events pop up even though I choose economic ideas rather often.

[@LightningForce4427]

John Meyer If you don't have the DLC, then the AI can't use those features either so it is still even.

[@gekkenhuisje]

Well, on Christmas Day I bought some of the more important DLC, following the guidelines of DarkFireSlides video about the best DLC, so I guess it's definitely even now.

[@darthcheesecake3392]

Aleppo? What's that?!

[@rile44]

What version are you playing on?

[@rile44]

In video

[@imperatorodaenathus9329]

1.18; The Prussian Patch

[@rile44]

ok,thanks

[@joeismexyz]

now, can you explain mercantilism?

[@AhegaoFace]

It's trade booster, more mercantilism you have, then you have better trade-related bonuses such as global trade power bonus %, but it also gives liberty desire for colonies. If you're catholic you can get 1 point for 50 papal influence. Rest from events.

[@jakalordarkblood4331]

No, it gives a bonus to Provincial Trade Power, not Global Trade Power. Also, with one of the DLC, Mare Nostrum I think, you can spend 100 Dip power to get Mercantilism.

[@Hallointhehouse]

privateer is a dlc feature

[@potatosweet8953]

Beat Mamluks somehow lol

[@max96779]

does one respond?

[@max96779]

is thy first?

[@TheAutist]

does thy get a cookie?

[@near--zero]

you have ADD dont you? oh wait thats just this game.

[@scottcornford1644]

privateering transfers to spoils of wat

[@holdi2936]

Workshops do not improve the trade value.

[@darkfireslide]

Jannik Holtmann Thank you!

[@ethanwmonster9075]

the ottomans are an insult to my skill level.