How does trade actually work in eu4 under the hood?

I dont think anything happens, you just get money based on your trade strength in the provinces touching the lines

Upstream blows, downstream succs. Where you collect gives you a proportion of the value that is the total blow minus the amount succ'd.

>>2069830 (OP)
Make number bigger makes other number bigger.

>>2069830 (OP)
nobody knows, not even the devs
for quite a while there was a persistent bug causing a negative underflow which wrapped back around into obscene trade profits leading to the formation of economic hegemons about 200 years before it was supposed to be possible

>>2069830 (OP)
>provinces produce goods
>these goods have a value (for example let's say 1 fish costs 2 ducats)
>the trade value is calculated (1.2 fish = 1.2*2=2.4)
>this value*production efficiency/12 = production income independent of trade
>this value is added to the node that province is assigned to (for example hamburg is lubeck)
>provinces, ships, merchants, and modifiers generate trade power
>a nation's proportion of trade power = the amount of trade value they can control
>trade can be collected and then the trade value taken is multiplied by trade efficiency into income
>or steered where it is moved downstream to defined nodes and the value is multiplied by the trade value steering bonus (a little arcane but generally 4-12% and based on the number of merchants): this bonus is not the trade power steering bonus
>unused trade power automatically steers trade split between other steering merchants; if no merchants are steering then it is split equally between all downstream nodes but with no steering value bonus
>you automatically propagate some trade power upstream and can send a merchant to do this but it is pointless
>your home node automatically collects trade less a few bonuses if no merchant is present
it's simple

>>2070126
it's simple and for the most part it works well but the fact that it's static is really bad
no matter what the world looks like some trade nodes are always shit and some always good

>>2070160
kinda
i agree that how rigid the flows are is bad but end nodes aren't always good
often venice is pretty mid by 1600 with mostly domestic value

>>2070160
>no matter what the world looks like some trade nodes are always shit and some always good
almost like they have some sort of inherent advantage due to physical and social geography

>>2070203
It doesn't make sense that France has to conquer England and Netherlands to trade efficiently if they are the main naval, military and colonial power in Europe.

>>2070203
The trade nodes don't reflect this though. Otherwise France, Italy, and Japan would have good nodes instead of bad ones, and the Russian nodes would suck instead of being the best in a non-WC game.

>>2070352
>irl history is ahistorical

>>2070358
my man please open an atlas

>>2070360

>>2069830 (OP)
Is EU4 a good game to play for the economy stuff?

>>2070393
No. It's the definition of "number go up".

>>2070352
you picked a dreadful example and moreover an outdated even wrong one because the existence of the burgundy node means bordeaux is a pseudo end node for groBfranciums
prior to burgundy this was true and bordeaux sucked but not anymore: now it is a fantastic node which gives france a far easier albeit slightly less potent home node than england
i actually think france has a significantly better trade position
if anything the opposite is true where england must blob the continent in order to trade effectively
>>2070203
there is no good reason why indonesian trade must flow into india or africa but never china - it is very easy to imagine a world where the opposite is true and doubtless the opposite was true for a very long time
similarly, why can english trade never flow to lubeck? why can baltic trade never flow to russia?
it's the worst most unreasonably eurocentric aspect of eu4 but is necessary because of the trade steering bonus which i would rather see removed and have some dynamism breathed into trade
>>2070358
wtf are you smoking retard

>>2070393
No. It's a map painting game.

>>2070393
No. Trade is simple. I hesitant to call it trade because there is no dynamic economy or goods.

>>2070358
The only possible argument for Italy's nodes being bad is that they are split between two end nodes

>>2070393
lmao

>>2070625
I understand why they did it, but I can't help but think Italy should be split into a Northern Italy and a Southern Italy trade node.

>>2069830 (OP)
Trade is broken up into regions, you can see them on the trade map. Each region has a Center of Trade.

Every province in the region contributes its goods value * production to the Center of Trade. So basically just the default value of goods + .2 per diplomatic development + 5 if you have a manufactury. So for instance, Grain at 2 Ducats value in a province with 10 development gets you 6 ducats of value going to the Center of Trade.

Every nation that has Trade Value in a center of trade gets a share of the profit from it. So if England, Scotland, and Ireland are the only three nations in a Center of Trade and have 60, 30, and 10 Trade Value in the node, then each country gets 60%, 30%, and 10% of the profit proportionally. It could be that the node is worth 20 ducats and so England gets 12, Scotland gets 6, and Ireland gets 2, or it could be 200 and the values are 120, 60, and 20. The point is more trade value gets you a bigger share, but you can't completely shut someone out from the node, just make their percentage trade very, very small.

This is where the various ways to manipulate trade come into play. Tricks to increase your trade value give you more money in a rich node. Some of it gives you a bigger share in the node; some of it gives you a bonus income on top of the normal trade. If you have a very rich trade node, consider buffing your trade value sky high and if you're strong enough, embargo lesser powers to reduce their trade value in the node (It cuts their value by up to 50%, but then they usually counter embargo and reduce your value as well, by a much smaller percent based on their unmodified trade value).

>>2070926
On top of all this, trade flows from one node to another. So like the Frankfurt node has wealth coming in from Italy but trade leaving through Lubeck. You can have trade power in multiple nodes, but you get a penalty to collecting outside of your home node. However, you can use your trade power "upstream" (that is, nodes that feed into yours) to push trade out of these nodes and into your own, so you can collect it without penalty.

The worst Centers of Trade have only downstream nodes, which means trade only flows out of them. This means that other trade powers in the trade region will pull wealth out of it and into their own more easily and you usually get less from the node, however in practice this is no different than if they collected wealth from there. The best Centers of Trade have only upstream nodes, meaning other nodes feed into them but trade never leaves. Because this node is never upstream, no trade power propagates upwards from it and pulls wealth out, so the countries that have these centers of trade as their primary nodes get a bigger share from it. Again, this isn't super huge because as a player you're likely enriching your home node directly and disproportionately compared to the AI in other nodes, but still.

A good example of when it sucks to have a powerful downstream node is the English Channel as Lubeck. England just yoinks about 10-15% of your trade node's value because trade value propagates upwards to an extent. The best solution is conquer the Netherlands and set your main node to the English channel as well, which has no trade that leaves it. Just pull everything from Lubeck to it.

New world trade nodes suck for this reason, they're upstream from Europe, so a more established Europe sucks all value from them. There's no way to reverse trade flow either. Inland Centers of Trade are safe from this because light ships are the primary way to pull value from nodes you don't have territory in.

>>2070427
>because the existence of the burgundy node means bordeaux is a pseudo end node for groBfranciums
I haven't played in a while what's this new node?

>>2070950
i'm assuming you know where burgundy and bordeaux are
bordeaux (blue) only flows into burgundy (red) so if you monopolise provincial trade power in burgundy, which is very easy as france, then you suffer no propagation into bordeaux
while people can protect trade to force it into burgundy then can equally privateer in end nodes and because you also largely monopolise burgundy, an inland node, they have to then somehow pull it out of there
germans cannot steer into germany so you don't have to worry about hre minors stacking caravan power either
this means you can safely collect in bordeaux with minimal risk of your trade being stolen while also making your home node the english channel or genoa to collect there without penalties
if you ever monopolise either node then you can stop collecting and steer through burgundy to either one (or if the transfer-no-collect bonus outweighs the competition)
bordeaux is the only node besides the north sea with access to canadian, and therefore all american, trade and the north sea is a horrible node which always bleeds into lubeck
bordeaux also receives ivory coast and caribbean trade making it very similar to the english channel just with the caribbean instead of the thirteen colonies which is pretty meaningless because canada is downstream from there

imo france has the best mid and late game trade position now and a better early game position than england
they are starved for merchants early on so spain probably has an easier time but they have so many opportunities ontop of a strong domestic position
heck you can even pull rhenish trade which nobody else besides denmark can do

>>2070963
The addition of the valencia node also helped since aragon isn't sucking trade into genoa anymore

I get the mechanisms of trade but I never understood what sort of underlying reality they were supposed to simulate (inb4 what about manna).
Like, what does a merchant actually DO when steering trade, or collecting it for that matter? Why do I get the money, and not the merchants?

>>2071031
They're not simulating anything, we're talking about EU4 here

>>2070972
yes the valencia node was a huge buff to spain also and for similar reasons but bordeaux is better
spain has the best early game in western europe though in both trade and in general
overall i think the trade changes were positive but england really suffers a lot more now; i guess the idea is that england should be forced to play the continent or else feed it but nobody else besides italians and austria shares their home node to such an extent but nobody else is an island either

>>2070393
>>2069830 (OP)
there is no trade or economics in vanilla eu4 at all

But there is in MEIOU, in that mod trade works by your burgers pops, that run your commerce industry, buying and selling produced goods from your own pops and then exporting/importing goods based on profit opportunities. This results in a world where states like luebeck actually exist, by being powerful trading mediators moving raw goods from scandanavia and the baltics down into europe, or providing colonial powers a real motivation and a lot of wealth if they can bypass all the middle men and trade with the east indies directly.

>>2071738
there used to be supply and demand mechanics....They then removed it. Paradox bring it back to eu4

>>2071752
Supply/demand is still in the game.
I demand clay. My neighbors supply the clay.

>>2071760
uh what I meant to say is dynamic trade pricing. Pls ignore my previous comment

I actually can explain this in some amount of depth. Some answers itt are misleading. I don't have time right now.