[EU4] Trade FAQ

[@fuchsiafreud]

it's nice to see a eu4 content creator with this level of editing and concise writing. I've watched videos about this topic twice this length that covered less.

[@TheTank1900]

I must admit, you are singularly unique in my subscription tab because you are the only one that focuses solely on explaining interesting strats and basic yet complex mechanics. You're new, already very successful for how many videos you have up, and good at them, as well as the fact that I love every last one you've put up. Your explanation of trade helps me after over 300 hours into the game, and your Caddo video inspired my newest game. Thank you for what you do, keep it up as long as it interests you, and I'll be here soaking in the knowledge!

[@thomasmauviel7993]

Tank 1900 Here Here!

[@masako8980]

isn't it hear hear?

[@meph5291]

I love the fact you divide and conquer everything. Not EU4 but the topics itself and present them in understandable chunks. Great job man. Salute.

[@ruben1151]

"Trade system is most complex of any strategy game" Vicky 2: "U wot m8?"

[@thegr8tergold407]

I just recently found your channel and it is already amongst my favorite EU4 channels. I would love to see more content like guides and let's plays.

[@dearjude1106]

I have 800 hours played in EU4 but never really fully understood the trade system, your guides helped me a lot. Thanks

[@dylanzawila6722]

Honestly, as a player who has played thousands of hours, you do a superb job in breaking down the complexity of EU4 and building it back up for newer players, keep it up.

[@DepressedHandsomeSpaceCop]

These are university-quality lectures. Concise, well-edited, well-thought out. Keep up the good work

[@supermikeikev]

I really like how complex it is, it gives me more to come back to. And I thank you for both explaining and posting this faq. Subbed

[@pablobaesler3447]

Are you a human, a demi-god or a god?

[@durrrhurrrderpderpderp9932]

Him being a god is the understatement of the year.

[@telecorpse1957]

What a time to say that!

[@durrrhurrrderpderpderp9932]

I know right! I was thinking like: "If it was 2 minutes before New Year and I responded a minute later it would of been the best reply in the year." .

[@dragonofdesire]

You are a glorious, talented and amazing guidemaker, plus you just now started making guides too. I went to your channel to listen to more guides before playing my next game, and imagine my surprise when you don't have any others! The ones you have are AMAZING, and I seriously hope you do some for every aspect of this game. Your voice is perfect, soothing, and concise, your editing is amazing, and your skill is undeniable. As for suggestions for other videos, I do have some suggestions on things I personally have had some trouble with. In order, here is what I would love to see from you: 1. Religions and Reformations. Benefits and reasons to stay Catholic or go Protestant, or anything else religion related. 2. Idea Groups. What are your favorite idea groups and why? What are the best strategies for them? 3. Army Makeup, Ratios, and Winning Battles. I know the basics right now, but hearing from you what ratio is best for our land armies would be great. 4. General Tips and Tricks, ESPECIALLY for playing single-territory nations. Just seeing your advice for something like this would be amazing.

[@00binator]

2.3k subscribers with only 4 videos. Thats some sweet quality content right there

[@adrianatgaming8640]

i swear he only had 200 2 days ago

[@durrrhurrrderpderpderp9932]

If I watch your videos I'm like a sponge, soaking in all the knowledge.

[@MichaelMorrison1989]

Steam says I have 350 hours in EU4, but I've learned more about how to improve my strategies in just an hour watching some of your videos. Thanks a bunch!

[@509megsy]

Wow, I always thought things like workshops, which raise production efficiency, raised my trade value. I would spam those all the time and get manufacturies later. Even a player with a couple thousand hours can learn new things from you. Thanks for the awesome video :D

[@Barrowsbro86]

Wow already at 2k I swear you were at just 300 subs yesterday

[@oFalKs]

lel, almost 7k today(15th january in my timezone)

[@seiban8455]

He has some insane expansion going. Call the coalition.

[@sedraczek]

70k. :)

[@Powerofriend]

Thank you for the excellent and detailed content. Subscribed.

[@adrianatgaming8640]

you are going to overtake major eu4 youtubers.your quality of content is better than much of others.

[@workoutbanger955]

Amazing videos. Thanks a lot for making them! Can't wait for more, specially production related tutorial.

[@konradkruk9468]

Wow that was fast ! I just thought about some of this questions and ... BOOM new video ! Thank you so much , hope someday you will create a video about army composition and battles in general (I still fully don't understand this mechanic ).

[@GVAstan]

Great video, I just achieved my first real global trade empire with England. I never thought you could make that much money

[@EbraeliVachari]

Your videos are extremely informative and youve earned a sub from a noobish EU4 player. Keep up the videos and the good work!

[@RubenTheCartographer]

@ 5:20 you also receive a merchant if you have the 'Center of Global Trade' spawn in one of your provinces. Or, if you conquer it from someone.

[@WebGremlin]

One thing I feel should be elaborated on, is that every merchant the player has steering trade, adds a +10% bonus to trade power to the their home node, as long they do not have any merchant collecting trade in any node other than their home node. In addition to the other multipliers trade-steering merchants give, I reckon it would almost always be more profitable to steer trade rather than have a merchant collect from your home node, as long you are steering from a downstream node.

[@Dave-rm1mb]

The last question was a dumb question to ask. It's the complexity (e.g. all the modifiers/variables) that allow you to play the game in allot of different ways and it's this that makes the game so re-playable

[@britosimoes4645]

what about mercantilisim?? How it afect to trade?

[@lazarszabo841]

Brito Simoes It gives provincial trade power (not value!!!), so your provinces will fight the competition better.

[@michaelmeier7224]

50 percent mercantilism do de facto increase the trade power of all your provinces by 50 percent. But they do have a negative impact, too, if you are a colonizer.

[@jainabraina]

It adds provincial trade power but also gives you some nasty events if you have colonial nations and increases liberty desire.

[@samirm]

Awesome videos, subbed. Please do a guide on the military aspect of the game (army composition, pips, terrain modifiers, nuances with movement, frontline/backline/flank etc).

[@Mkoivuka]

Merchant Republics can use Trade Cities to gain a larger control over inland node.

[@dracodarastrix4175]

I have a question. It's about chaining versus steering with merchants. Let's take the cape of good hope Node. I Usually don't put a merchant there because it will almost always be 100% out going and steered in one direction. I use the merchants rather to steer more towards the node and use the next node the ivory coast to steer it further. The extra merchant I got from getting full control of the cape of good I actually used to steer the gulf of aden into Zanzibar node from which on it will travel to the cape of good hope node. Thus I have a broken chain because I wanted to steer the flow the direction I want too. So simple put is it wiser to chain your trade with merchants even if the there is only one direction the down stream has or to steer the flow of the trade. Or does it chance per situation? A bit more info about this subject would be help full. ^^

[@cloj63]

It depends how much wealth go through that node. It is true that for the cap of good hope, it can only go one way, and usually 100% of is outgoing, but if you have 100 ducats local+incoming, you can squeeze an extra 5 ducats just by steering (105 ducats out instead of the natural 100 without merchants). The true question is; can you make more than 5 ducats by steering from another node? From early to mid game, usually yes. But I find that during late game, it is beneficial in some of my game to switch a merchant upstream from CoGH since I can squeeze 10-15 ducats just from the +5% instead of steering from a node (say; one in india) that I already mostly fully control (gets naturally steered away), but that has little wealth (the +5% generates less from an upstream node than downstream one).

[@cloj63]

mid to late game, I tend to see that a merchant is more usefull in a node where you have little province trade power, but can have a majority of trade power with trade ships, than a node where you already have near 100% provincial trade power, but could squeeze that 5%

[@StinkySkunk100]

After playing over 800 hours I can't believe I still didn't learn all this stuff, I really could of made so much more money in my games. Thanks a lot for these videos, I showed them to my friend who just got the game and he found it super helpful. Could you make one on military and combat stuff? I remember that being very frustrating and confusing when I started so I think a lot of players would like to have it explained.

[@born2lol]

Thanks for those videos. I've played GSG for years now, EU since 3rd one and still there are things I never dwelled into. After your vids I managed to squeeze few more coins a month. Can you do one about combat mechanics (battle phases, etc.). That's another part of EU i never really dwelled into and I'm just following the rule of "bigger number is better".

[@thespanishinquisiton8306]

Your videos are amazing. You should really keep going with them.

[@WorstTasteEver]

Thanks for the videos. You seem to be having fun with EU4 for now, but if you ever get bored and aren't already familiar with it, you might enjoy becoming a trade baron in EVE Online. Unlike the relatively predictable/static economics of a game like EU4, trade in EVE Online is based entirely on the actions of other players. If you ever give it a try, that game badly needs good explanations and videos on trading for new players and old players alike.

[@chrisbergonzi7977]

You are so polished.....well done and thnx man

[@SamFreelancePolice]

would you consider making a guide to colonisation? that would be really helpful!

[@Taurevanime]

The thing I liked about EU3 trade was that you could set up your own centers of trade, and the flow of trade wasn't predetermined by the devs. I would love to see them bring this into EU4 or a future title. But the sheer complexity of the already existing trade system makes me fear of the complexity over making trade regions something players have influence over.

[@robertlahaderne7401]

Wow! Great further explanation! So helpful, thanks.

[@emmanlagunay7260]

I collect from both the Genoa and Venice trade nodes when I form Italy

[@WhyName]

can you make a video on actually setting up a long trade chain? What kind of factors you take into account and stuff.

[@ShadowDragon1848]

A video about production would be really interesting :D

[@Frosmad]

Great video dude ! btw whats the track at 0:20 ?

[@fish7598]

I think it's the Guns, drums, and steel remix of The Stone Masons!

[@spikeruth1674]

What's the song playing @0:20? I can't seem to find anywhere. Anyway, great video.

[@doc.rankin577]

Hey Reman (and anyone who might know), in your previous video you mentioned where to build your markets as opposed to your manufactories. Building markets along tributaries and other key trading locations makes sense, but does this mean I want to build them at my nodes where im collecting and have my manufactories everywhere else? What are inportant insights in regards to building and trade?

[@hurroyes3953]

say you owned the whole Indian subcontinent, what would be the best course of action in those provinces . I would assume collecting in goa and have kashmir->doab->bengal->ceylon->goa but there's also Indus after that but it sends of to many places and gives lack of security

[@andrenobrega9705]

Great video really helped! Could you do a tutorial on wich type of unit should I choose? I always end up chosing one at random, never understood the pip system.

[@Muck006]

One word: AWESOME!

[@Fairman25]

if you go espionage, and offensive/inluence you can boost tariffs to 100% in colonial nations and make about 5-10 doucats per colonial nation.

[@Yougottacryforthis]

doesn't sound worth tbh lol

[@Fairman25]

it goes up to 35 ducats per colonial nation when you have finished colonizing them... that is just the amount from a 5 province colonial nation...

[@jelleslagter6924]

it still feels a waste of a idea slot and monarch points. sure you make 35 ducats / colonial nation. but who needs this much money realistically. in that point of the game you already make so much money.

[@Fairman25]

it allows you to go way over force limits using mercs without taking out loans. With this i was able to over-run france by replacing all of my infantry with mercs and going about 100 regiments over force limit.

[@raspberrypie1706]

Fairman it's really not needed, trade company india and indonesia with your trade capital in zanzibar can easily make you 500+ ducats every month by 1700, my current ideas guy run (started in Madagascar) hit the 500 Ducat/month mark by 1600, it's 1730 now im im at well over 1000 ducats of profit even with over 400 mercs (my forcelimit is actually 900+ from all the trade companies but I don't have the patience to micromanage anymore).

[@wFredsch]

How do you stop trade going out of a node if it isn't a endnode?

[@jcv6786]

Nice videos! In your Venice game how were you able to acquire so much trade power in Asia, Indonesia all the way through Gulf of Eden to Venice? Did you own a lot of provinces in these regions?

[@durrrhurrrderpderpderp9932]

Go for Centers of Trade, Venices's national ideas and certain idea groups. Also having loads of light ships protecting trade and merchants.

[@GVAstan]

He actually owns most of those cores if you look at the 5'10''

[@vydrakk]

great video

[@DerGreifGraf]

@Reman's Paradox you showed us that you always collect in your home node. From my first trade tutorial I remembered that collecting with a single merchant makes you lose the boni in your home node from merchants transferring (a different bonus than the one were trade value is increased from node to node) ever since I usually don't collect in my home node once the value goes higher. Since you like to calculate a bit; at what point do you think it is more beneficial to not collect at all to stack transferring boni?

[@adrianatgaming8640]

the like dislike ratio is even better than gangnam style

[@2218gostrider]

Love the videos great work

[@DarioHuzjak]

When should I take trade Ideas? How many nodes must be under my control or how many should I have power in for trade Ideas to be worth while etc.?

[@The-Seeker]

Really 2 main things if you have an provincial trade modifier (estuary, Center of trade) Or an extremely wealthy node (Genoa, Venice) and not landlocked

[@txibiam6117]

I would liked to see more about trade companies, like what provinces should i add to the company (all of them?, leave out gold provinces in Cape to lower autonomy?, the islands in the indian ocean and south atlantic?, how much more goods the non-western nations in the area extra-produce because of your company? It matters only if you have a company there as an entity or does the number of provinces in your TC matter in that regard?, the non-western nations will get institutions faster if you have TC provinces next to them?) For example in my Portugal grand-multiplayer game i made a deal with a human played african nation that i get all the CoT and Estuaries in the west and east african coast and he gets all the rest, which is good for what i want to do, but i wonder if because i will only have few actual controled provinces the extra-goods produced by the african nations will not be too great. Thanks for your videos! (any other reader that knows the anwsers can answer too haha).

[@raspberrypie1706]

Txibia M Trade company literally everything you can, it all has zero autonomy.

[@wolfhunter98]

Love the videos and learned a ton, but how can you not least cover the mercantilism stat at all. q.q Maybe toss a pop up text somewhere on this video or the main one.

[@juandiegosapotec]

Thank you so much, great videos!

[@Egap548]

I’ve always wondered how the trade ship profit is calculated. Like if I add more trade ships to a node, does the profit go up or down? It’s hard to tell if it’s total amount with the ships that are there or increasing. And it’s hard to know if I actually receive the value it states or that’s just the $ increase in trade power

[@AirikrStrife]

One thing I didn't catch on in the original video. Then you place merchants to collect in nodes that aren't your home node, does that mean you loose trade power in your home node aswell?

[@Lazris59]

I watched both videos, but I don't think you mention mercantilism, I want to know how good it is? I take it a lot when I am playing in Europe as Catholic fo5 50 papal influence and I also take the -relation with a random neighbor but better mercantilism. I am mainly wondering if I should be going all out for it, or can I use the 50 influence for other bonuses/save for 1 stability?

[@MyOrangeString]

Around 00:35 I think you mean "furthest downstream node" and not "furthest upstream node".

[@exterminasation]

Not really related to your (great btw) video, but what I would really like to see in a potential future expansion is the ability to interact with the distribution of the nodes. I tihnk it would be really cool if you could somehow change the ways the arrows in the trade nodes go, this could be through national decisions/events or maybe through controlling very high percentages of trade power in the nodes you want to change. I would like to see these mechanics introduced because it sometimes feels frustrating as a nation that is not in Europe to see no End Nodes near you. While the end nodes are cool and close to history it would be cool if you could change it up a bit.

[@rafasilva8666]

why only start now? you could've started this beautiful thing u got goin years ago

[@josephstalin2829]

2:47 why it's everything colonisable? When I create a custom nation all other countries are there. How do I do for all the world to be colonisable? Sorry for bad English

[@tobiashmm2322]

Joseph Stalin its somewhere in the options at the time where you build your custom nation

[@riekopo7638]

I'm going to post my thoughts on trade which I had in March last year (2016). The three options for ships relating to trade are a mess in my opinion. I've always thought trade in EU4 was a confusing and hard to manage mess and this is another example in my view.Light ships have three options related to trade nodes when you select them. Protect Trade and Hunt Pirates logically sound like they would do the same thing, but they don't. Protect Trade raises your trade power in the node you select. It has to be a node where you have a merchant. The Protect Trade button is actually missing a tooltip explanation of what it does.The Privateer tooltip says it will steal trade power from the nations in a trade node. When you click it, it shows you the exact same trade nodes as the Protect Trade option. They're your own trade nodes where you have merchants. This is completely unintuitive to me. Why you would want to send privateers to your own trade nodes is beyond me. It doesn't make sense. To add to the confusion, the tooltip on the node says sending your ships there will increase your trade power. So which is it? Is it one or the other or both? Privateers should be a way to attack the trade power of nations in nodes where you don't have a presence not attack your own nodes.The third option Hunt Pirates is also confusing. It says it will reduce the efficiency of privateers in a trade node. When you select this option it shows the exact same nodes as the other options. That is, all of your nodes. Even if there aren't any pirates there. This makes no sense and just adds to the confusion.

[@DrPastah]

How do you get a lot of trade power as Poland? Just develop your provinces? Also, how would I gain power in an upstream node that's inland?

[@blakerobinson8]

Should I invest in trade steering bonuses in the Ivory Coast if it is my home mode(MP)?

[@R3GARnator]

My question is how do you know how to disperse trade ships as a bigger nation? The amount it says you gain in the assigning menu doesn't seem to be accurate; when I have a few hundred trade ships it seems like they cost more in maintenance than they give no matter how I disperse them.

[@AylorAivo]

And now I want to play EU4 again, thanks.

[@DocsDota]

Caddo world conquest please? = D

[@fatcop1768]

I have a pretty good grasp on EU4 but I have allways been wondering what is "kebab" and how do I remove it?

[@IdioticUlt1mara]

How do you trade upstream? For example if you are a native American in Amazon or California?

[@Xazamas]

I'll mention this just in case somebody else got confused by it, if merchant shows collection 0.00 just wait for the end of the month and it will be updated.

[@BlueMatty]

if i have 100% trade power in a down stream node that is naturally transferring where i want it to, is it worth putting a merchant there to transfer anyway?

[@brian101010390139040]

what's the best way to build up power in nodes without conquering the whole thing? just straight light ships?

[@TheShiz9797]

Increase production in the provences you do control

[@ScarletEdge]

Is it worth to maximize mercantilism by dumping diplo and papal influence ?

[@flimpeenflarmpoon1353]

Bird mana isn't as valuable as other mana so it's a good place to put it if it's in excess and is going to overflow. Same with papal influence. All your influence should go into stability but if you're at 3 already and are going to go over the 200 cap then mercantilism is a nice one.

[@flimpeenflarmpoon1353]

But mercantilism increases liberty desire of colonial nations so watch out.

[@youtuberobbedmeofmyname]

Being that you're in Italy as Venice, it's usually not worth it to dump diplo into Merchantilism. You're going to get the majority of institutions to spawn in your provinces or a few provinces away. This means you will usually, almost always have a hard limit of 999 monarch points. If you ever hit the cap for diplo before Tech 23 (where you get your last ships and last useful tech), you're playing wrong. You could try to use that diplo you would normally use for ideas on merchantilism instead, but you will not get anywhere near the point where it is effective at.

[@nickc4063]

You should start a new campaign!

[@hyunsungjung4941]

Welp, I objected in the comments on the last video with russia's example, turns out I was just a noob with a gigantic hole in my trade chain.

[@bronzedisease]

And where’s that other video

[@قمرالدين-ر5ي]

more videos you are the best

[@frankmarckusky5630]

thanks for the update.

I posted detailed math about that on reddit the last time. I feel you should simply say that 99% of nations are better off exclusively collecting, and transferring is basically exception. Downstream nodes have very high competition, in places with very high AE, and getting >50% of their trade requires enormous blobbing, and even then it's only possible if you start in optimal part of the world. That Venice blob in your game is what, 10x larger than next biggest country, and optimized for trade? Why ever bother playing at that point? For almost every other country, unless you're total runaway blob doing WC, you'll just never find yourself in this situation. And the system should be thrown away for EU5: * it is pointlessly complex for something that only makes $$$ * the system is nonintuitive as hell, and nobody understand it. Just look at you - you're in top 1% of players in terms of understanding trade system and you still fail with claims like "99% of nations should be exclusively transferring". If a system is too hard for average player to get decent strategy, it needs drastic simplification. * in spite of this extreme complexity, it railroads the outcomes to one hardcoded flow * it doesn't really lead to any interesting strategies - just conquer CoT provinces (which could get extra development instead - right now you get extra value but don't pay any mana/AE/warscore cost for it) and end nodes. EU3 was far too complex too, but at least it had a lot more options, like messing with supply/demand, starving enemy CoTs etc. EU4 gets complexity without strategic depth which is worst of both worlds. Same for military system - all this complex crap could be replaced by % unit strength bonuses, and average player has no idea how 2% discipline of one compares with extra shock pip or whatever. Civ5 does it, and its combat is far deeper than EU4's. Even HoI4 has probably more transparent military system than EU4.

[@lazarszabo841]

Tomasz Węgrzanowski Can you link your reddit post, please? I like math.

Math is here - www.reddit.com/r/eu4/comments/5k97x4/i_created_an_indepth_guide_to_trade/dbn64b2/

[@gekkenhuisje]

Subbed :)

[@mrpele8557]

hi dad

[@durrrhurrrderpderpderp9932]

hi mom

[@wl8444]

FIRST :D

[@reaperzwei845]

LAST :P

[@durrrhurrrderpderpderp9932]

HAH I BEAT YOU NOW IM LAST!

[@Dammigeo]

most complex trade system....... play patrician 3 my god.

[@ZaynAOmran]

complex equals good.

[@alexandru-adrianpetrovschi9635]

vic2 trading system is better