The Complete TRADE NODE Tier List in Eu4

Today we are doing Trade Nodes in Eu4. Who knew there where 80 of them!
I have consumed 3 liters of water during recording.
My personal Discord Link:
/ discord
Catch me on Twitch where I play Eu4 MP:
/ lemoncake101
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See you next Video!

[@LemonCake101]

The motivation to do an all province tier list is now negative. 80 entries took 2 hours, so all 3272 provinces would take 82 hours.

[@CKyIe]

What about a state tier list? Only around 1000 of them. easy.

[@Bryce-yw8hf]

what about region tier list?

[@LemonCake101]

@@CKyIe that only takes it down to 25 hours...

[@LemonCake101]

@@Bryce-yw8hf please no

[@JohnDough-pi5ug]

do a region tier list

[@FilAnd01]

It feels so crazy that there are 80 trade nodes it feels like there’s way fewer

[@LemonCake101]

I had the same feeling, then I started routing the video... a lot of regrets.

[@safs3098]

What?!?! I thought there were like 30-40

[@hoi-polloi1863]

That's bcos a lot of them are in Germany and contribute very little to anything... Except Lubeck. We'll always have Lubeck.

[@maxpont8989]

​​​I feel like a lot of that has to do with the dubious amount of nodes in isolated regions... Like just speaking about Central Asia there's Astrakhan, Sibir, Samarkand, Persia, Ormuz, Bassora, Yumen, Lhasa, Kazan, Xian and Lahore as separate nodes while they are generally poor and having half of them would change next to nothing to most games, as aside from farming merchants through TCs they're nearly all useless​@@LemonCake101

[@LemonCake101]

@@safs3098 Yeah, same, hence the attempt to make the list

[@craigstephenson7676]

Custom nation ideas tier list. Every custom nation idea you can choose

[@LemonCake101]

I feel like you wouldn't watch that, you are only saying that to make me suffer even more...

[@cosmosyn2514]

@@LemonCake101 i wouldnt watch a tierlist video but i would read a written guide or similar of the best ones (only B+ tier)

[@LemonCake101]

@inutamer365 that would genuinely take me until the end of my life and I won't make a dent

[@ItsjustmeDW]

I rarely comment on videos, but i just want you to know your research and effort is appreciated. I love breaking down the game and stacking modifiers, and your content on EU4 is some of the best out there. Keep it up!

[@LemonCake101]

Appreciate the support, thank you!

[@Elvenpath1337]

Two hours? We sleepin' five hours with this one.

[@LemonCake101]

I know right!

[@alexandersen1987]

Anytime i see "the complete" from lemon cake I know I am in for a great couple hours

[@LemonCake101]

Glad you enjoy these!

[@teamfossil6312]

57:21 I’ve never seen that flag outside of EU4. There was a proposed flag with the 3 leaf symbol, but it had blue sidings like the current flag.

[@olanordmann2743]

It's still in use on the royal standards.

[@LemonCake101]

Oh fair, I am just repeating to be honest what I read in other comments, I didn't exactly research the flag :)

[@Zackary1005]

Babe wake up! New Lemon Cake tier list just dropped

[@LemonCake101]

The upload hour is certainly not helpful for Europeans...

[@FullMetalZergling]

If you have multiple "burgher" equivalent estates set up concurrently, do their trade-node buffs stack? How many of these estates can you have at once anyways.

[@LemonCake101]

You really want the how many estates video don't you? Tell you what honestly I ruled it out but the persistence is commendable, I will add it to my current 'to work on list' and if there's a video out of it, sure.

[@BobbiusRossius]

@@LemonCake101 i believe max is 7, burghers,nobility,clergy, dhimmi/cossacks (can only have one or the either i think) eunuchs,ghilman and qhizilbash you might be able to get janissaries and rajputs but i'd have to look at that ingame

[@LemonCake101]

@@BobbiusRossius yeah I would need to sit down group all of them and see what I can do

[@danielutriabrooks477]

What's the deal with that pfp?

[@FullMetalZergling]

@@danielutriabrooks477 what about it?

[@GwainSagaFanChannel]

You plan to do a colonial region and trade (colonial?) charter region tierlist?

[@LemonCake101]

You know what, sure. I will add it to the list, I've seen a bunch of comments on it already.

[@enzomaitanfavaro8791]

I am one of those guys that watches the video as a "podcast". Showing in game representation would be helpful, as usually we watch the video on a second monitor, so we occasionally glance at the video. just my 2 cents!

[@LemonCake101]

Fair enough, that is good to know! I know a couple people literally have it as audio only though, so I am a touch cautious but if they are a minority I shouldn't purely appeal to them.

[@blutwirbel3180]

​@@LemonCake101 I don't think you should actually refer to the pictures you're showing, but maybe having them as support if you discuss complicated situations could help because if something is weird I look to my second monitor and have to go back a few seconds or more to understand what you mean, and that would be easier if there are pictures

[@LemonCake101]

@@blutwirbel3180 damn, has everyone got a second monitor these days? I still don't...

[@danielutriabrooks477]

​@@LemonCake101Monitors are cheap when compared to the rest of desktop PC components, so it makes sense that those who would have a use for it already have it

[@LemonCake101]

@@danielutriabrooks477 fair enough I guess

[@Speedster___]

We really need a COT province tier list

[@LemonCake101]

Sounds suspiciously like a province tier list...

[@viniciusyugulis7278]

Everybody knows S+ tiers are English Channel, Genoa and Venice in that order Then S tiers Constantinople and Sevilla in that order too

[@LemonCake101]

Interesting choices for sure!

[@jakedavidheilemann1208]

Malacca and Zanzíbar areas are S tier too - they always end up irritatingly rich. Better than Persia if done right.

[@LemonCake101]

@@jakedavidheilemann1208 I mean, you can make everything filthy rich for the most part, but with my experience playing in those areas, well, that's the reason for the ranking.

[@kokoro2426]

Not me, conquering basra and making Hormuz a pseudo-end node to bank on indian trade in every middle eastern playthrough . Very nice video.

[@LemonCake101]

Fair enough, that's one way to play for sure. Thanks for the support!

[@caferustwat]

Modifier tier list? Like trade efficiency, chance of new heir, etc. All kinds of modifiers.

[@LemonCake101]

There aren't thousands, but multiple hundreds of those...

[@Abba_Fan]

Nice, now add the Random New World ones :) (Actually do wonder how many RNW trade notes are out there)

[@LemonCake101]

Considering they are randomly generated each time, no.

[@akshittripathi5403]

The alphabetical order was right - Hangzou/ Hormuz come before the K's and L's and M's :P Great video though!

[@LemonCake101]

Yeah I mentioned that at the end, I mean mid recording and all that talking I got tired and skipped some in my notes as I was talking

[@Doosteroni]

hey mr lemon cake i just want you to know I love your videos

[@LemonCake101]

Aw thanks for the support!

[@justdoitlater9507]

i would put mormuz into A tier. you can steer all the indian trade into it and it only flows into basra, which is easily contested aswell. Great pseudo end node

[@LemonCake101]

That's kinda fair I guess, but I feel like Gujarat fights back a bit too well if you know what I mean.

[@drzombie9485]

I noticed errors in the video, 6:06 the amazon also steer to cuiaba, 20:46 brazil steers from cuiaba, 24:22 california also steers from rio grande... at this point I noticed that you have the same errors as the trade nodes page on the eu4 wiki (although the map there is correct) and sure enough, 42:01 you put cuiaba as a starting node even tho it now receives trade from 2 nodes, in 1.35 there were changes to the trade setup in the americas but it has not been updated on the wiki unfortunately. How would the actual current trade setup change your ranking to the rio grande, california, amazonia, brazil, cuiaba and patagonia nodes?

[@LemonCake101]

I did use the wiki for the new world nodes, because I don't really play in the new world, and unlike the other nodes I can't remember them from the top of my head (the fact I could with the others is concerning to be honest). With that said, with a couple exceptions, pretty much most if not all of the new world nodes are still pretty awful in this context. Getting some extra trade in Cuiaba from Amazon isn't exactly enough to bump it up a tier, and while the case can be made for maybe California overall I don't think its enough. The issue with new world nodes overall is they are just so much weaker then the other ones.

[@drzombie9485]

@@LemonCake101 makes sense

[@LemonCake101]

@@drzombie9485 Yeah, the wiki tends to be full of errors so I try to avoid it, but at the end of the day ignoring it as a resource is also a bad idea

[@reggiecarter800]

Lemon, please do special units tier list 🐯

[@LemonCake101]

That might be fun actually!

[@celdur4635]

Lima and Cuiaba have lots of gold, and specially Lima, chocolate, makes a lot of easy money. Problem is, for Paradox the whole of Peru is mountains and jungle, the coastal plain doesn't exist for them so its hard to develop where historically plain/farmland cities are located -.-

[@LemonCake101]

Yeah I am hoping that’s less of an issue in the next game :)

[@joaoprzygocki1865]

the waiting was worth it 🙏

[@LemonCake101]

Glad you enjoyed!

[@zacharyfishman7617]

I know where the cuiaba and ohio trade nodes are but idk where the state of ohio is, what does this mean?

[@LemonCake101]

No one truly knows where Ohio is in fairness, we have just been told to say that we do

[@jacobshull1036]

Colonial/TC regions next?

[@LemonCake101]

Would be a short one!

[@Xcyiterr]

you should totally do a trade node tier list for anbennar (lmao)

[@LemonCake101]

I tried an Anbennar video, and you guys didn't watch it :P

[@relaetsecyr]

Hope that EU5 makes trade less of a zero sum gain. A lot of issues in EU4 trade also boil down to not having an adequate amount of resources to lock down trade nodes besides embargoing and so on which is only useful against consolidated upstream nodes and takes a diploslot unless you rival them. Really annoying when you play as China for instance and try to leave countries as tributes for happy borders since about a quarter of value can get sucked out of Beijing and we'll over 30 percent can be sucked out of Canton if you try to minimize expansion. Would be cool if Seaban was buffed even though it messed up China IRL. Might play around with modding the nodes a bit to add more blocker nodes to make playing in America and Eastern European bit more viable or cutting nodes down to size somewhat and adding new nodes and provencial modifiers to make the trade game a little bit more meaningful.

[@LemonCake101]

I know Gecko in the day nucked upstream trade power to be fair, but yeah its a weird one. We will have to wait and see what happens in Eu5.

[@katelundberg2029]

Surprised that you didn't use Dai Viet's flag for Canton as it's both the main opponent in the node if you're playing as Ming/China and also the best non-China country to take trade from China, at least early game. It doesn't hold Canton but neither does GB with the English Channel since that's based in the Coast of Holland iirc. Minor nitpick though, it's still good and Chinese trade in general is minus missing a decent amount of potential if you can't conquer Nippon

[@LemonCake101]

I will be honest I didn't spend that long thinking about the flags, we are talking around 5 seconds each

[@katelundberg2029]

@@LemonCake101 that's fair, it only matters to precocious nerds like me anyways

[@LemonCake101]

@@katelundberg2029 no fair enough, and it would make more sense!

[@realityisenough]

t=2564 Cuiba isn't a start node, it actually has 2 incoming nodes... both of which are starting nodes so yeah you right it's kinda crap. Also in my Teutonic Horde campaign, all the chinese nodes suck for some reason and I'm not even there yet. Big Shun that isn't Emperor so maybe some warring has ruined the area?

[@LemonCake101]

Cuiba specifically is I believe, or did I get that wrong in my notes? Regardless, getting something like Peru into you isn't exactly going to make you wealthy. But yeah, if China has been burnt and on fire, naturally they are not generating a lot of trade.

[@gryfalis4932]

BRITTANY ENJOYERS MENTIONNED WOOOOOOOOOOOOW

[@LemonCake101]

The fact they exist is concerning, but I have heard a concerning amount from them...

[@jamesstanford4667]

I refused to skip a 30 minute ad to give you max revenue 🫡🫡🫡 (good vid btw)

[@LemonCake101]

We paying my student loans with this one

[@celdur4635]

I never understood why "Cuiaba" which is the Bolivia trade node, is called after Brazilian flavor...

[@LemonCake101]

I think it’s also a town/region in that area to be fair

[@mali647]

Isn't Persia a inland node though?

[@user-zg4bk6rv1q]

Yes, but you get so much trade power inside it that ai taking your trade doesn't hurt nearly as much as in other nodes and you get easy access to making a lot of money because you have high value goods and india steers into you

[@LemonCake101]

Yes, but as I mentioned, by the time people can consolidate the nodes upstream to steal from you, you have time to strike out from Persia into those nodes.

[@torgomaghanyan7633]

I woud place Polis in S tier. But overall fair scaling, although I didn’t know that you could make mony via trade in new world. I always thought the gold income and production income from coffe, sugar and cacao is way to go.

[@LemonCake101]

Depends on your build, tariffs where recently made viable to be fair, they spent most of Eu4 history being a joke.

[@torgomaghanyan7633]

@@LemonCake101 no I mean playing as new world nation

[@LemonCake101]

@@torgomaghanyan7633 oh yeah for sure as a new world tag your trade is going to struggle but ignoring it still leaving a lot of money on the table

[@torgomaghanyan7633]

@@LemonCake101 it seem production and gold is way to go

[@LemonCake101]

@@torgomaghanyan7633 trade and production go hand in hand.

[@dtngjvibritannia8640]

Mission tier list ? Not the mission tree :)

[@LemonCake101]

No please

[@Speedster___]

21:49 I’m sorry there’s no mention of playing in SA being bad? I question people who play in SA outside of larping a Portuguese exodus

[@LemonCake101]

Isn't this whole video basically colonial regions bad?

[@Speedster___]

@@LemonCake101isn’t all tier lists that for that matter

[@hoi-polloi1863]

I made a custom nation in more or less NW Canada. Kept wondering why I was so poor, until I realized I was in the Hudson Bay trade node! And my expansion had been mostly into California node...

[@LemonCake101]

@@hoi-polloi1863 oh dear... but yeah, even expanding into Hudson Bay probably won't be making you too much either!

[@arekzawistowski2609]

Vience TN - Venice Genoa TN - Genoa English TN - Eng... GB :)

[@LemonCake101]

Honestly yeah, but I dunno Union Jack looks cool can you really blame me?

[@arekzawistowski2609]

@@LemonCake101 absolutely not. It looks even better than the current one because of lack of offset diagonal red cross

[@LemonCake101]

@@arekzawistowski2609 something something spoken like a true Irishman?

[@bigguy6748]

It's so over for nativebros

[@LemonCake101]

One could say, it never really begun...

[@mateusaraujo7531]

Where is the classical and polemical one: Idea group tier list?

[@LemonCake101]

Everyone's made one though, that's kind of my issue. Also ideas exist to solve problems, and your problems are very dependent on your campaign, so a tier list makes very little sense tbh.

[@Follower_of_Yeshua]

Was a Little late with this One

[@LemonCake101]

That's understandable, given the 2am upload!

[@filiprohn1643]

The funny thing is, at least in SP, when you play Poland and pacify Germans, Baltic is way better than Lubeck since you have no one to compete with if you go with your mission tree. So even with Lubeck being later and getting some colonial trade you're at a loss compared to baltic

[@LemonCake101]

That's fair, but that seems very Poland and very specific Poland build.

[@filiprohn1643]

​@@LemonCake101 True, but I'd guess that it also apllies to most central european countries who all have similar expansion routes (Bohemia, Hungary etc.) But it nicely shows that what trade note is the best for a country is often sitational

[@hiptoptoe4847]

Burundi!!!!

[@LemonCake101]

Woo Burundi let’s go

[@dreamscape348]

The best trade node in EU4 is the one you can dominate first. But that wouldn't make for a 2h long video.

[@LemonCake101]

I mean I don't disagree, I pretty much say exactly that around 1 min into the video.

[@hiptoptoe4847]

"This is the longest video I've done so far" for about a week

[@LemonCake101]

I didn’t think the next one would be so long…

[@theonetruebobthecob972]

Bongo

[@LemonCake101]

Bongo

[@yaneechin1930]

I wish I knew what eu4 was. I keep getting recommended these videos for some reason

[@LemonCake101]

It's a great game, I recommend it!

[@savelamp7501]

Please do temple tierlist

[@LemonCake101]

Temple?

[@savelamp7501]

@@LemonCake101 mb, I meant monument

[@LemonCake101]

@@savelamp7501 oh I see: it is in the works actually

[@cnutsiggardason2014]

no random new world?

[@LemonCake101]

nope

[@Schwizinberg]

Alright, day one of spawning global trade in Lhasa (beware i placed this comment before watching the video)

[@LemonCake101]

XD I mean... it theoretically doable for sure!

[@jakedavidheilemann1208]

Hangzhou = no Jianzhou = yes

[@LemonCake101]

Pronunciations are optional thank you

[@Noobmaster-of3xk]

End nodes are the best epescially the English channel end of story

[@LemonCake101]

Damn, you out here saving people 2 hours!

[@mustapha_cc8830]

nah in my experience North Sea or Zanzibar are more practical (can be conquered more easily by people outside of the already existing nodes)

[@drzombie9485]

eu4 players will rank every trade node ingame and spend 2 hours doing so but not spend a single minute touching grass (i'm a eu4 player)

[@LemonCake101]

Grass good though :(

[@bluestrategist9aby540]

Grasslands is a nice terrain, gives fine bonuses

[@franzjoseph4218]

colonial regions tier list

[@LemonCake101]

Please no

[@danielutriabrooks477]

​​@@LemonCake101Mexico S tier, EA S tier, caribbean S tier, Peru A tier, Brazil A tier, Louisiana B tier, La Plata B tier, Colombia B tier, Canada C tier, California D tier, Cascadia D tier, Australia F tier.

[@LemonCake101]

@@danielutriabrooks477 well that was quick

[@magnustheidamey4924]

Istanbul was Constantinople Now it's Istanbul, not Constantinople No, you can't go back to Constantinople disliked 38:31

[@LemonCake101]

I mean yes, a 2024 map would have that, but the game files and the ingame map does literally refer to it as Constantinople.

[@magnustheidamey4924]

@@LemonCake101 at that Turks also called the City Konstantiniyye, up until the 1900. So why bother to bring it up the name change?

[@LemonCake101]

@@magnustheidamey4924 Well, because I needed an icon for it, and arguably using the Ottoman icon would have made more sense then the Byzantium one.

[@marcustulliuscicero5443]

Astrakhan is too high. it single handedly ruins Muscovy's starting position.

[@LemonCake101]

I mean if anything that should make it go higher, no? By being good enough as a node to ‘ruin’ a start…

[@viniciusyugulis7278]

Persia better than Constantinople? Lmfao

[@LemonCake101]

Oh yeah, for sure. Constantinople is further away from India.

[@therefep9723]

my guy makes the best eu4 videos on youtube but its such a struggle with the mic...

[@LemonCake101]

You don't even understand it is a battle, I change the mic setting so many times, and I have scrapped like 3 videos because you could literally hear me breathing...