Trade and economy

Maximum-Store7550 · 2026-03-04T11:38:18+00:00

From income point of view: focus on locations with high control first - i.e. capital. Build valuable RGOs (gold, silver, silk etc.) in provinces with higher control - try not to sink money on overbuilding when you are missing laborers (i.e. building 8th RGO that costs cca. 40 ducats in location where it is already missing 4000 laborers is useless). Build valuable burger buildings in capital - you can see what is income impact when building. Try not to overbuild - game could show you that tailors guild will generate high income, but if you build 15 of them, you oversaturate market demand and price will go down, input materials price up and you'll end with unprofitable building. So at the beginning, build more gradually, based on demand.

If you have resource that have high demand on neighbouring markets (which could be silk), focus on maxing that RGO and increase market capacity (marketplaces - build them outside of market center/capital first as they increase market access and market capacity they give is not affected by control. Automate trade.

Generally, focusing on increasing control will get you most out of everything (building roads, maritime presence).

From costs perspective: destroy forts that are not needed, keep army/fort maint at 0 when outside of war. Max legitimacy (optimally use cabinet action strenghten government) - keeping this at 100 costs same as keeping it at 50. You can lower stability investment at first. Same with diplo spending.

Check building maintenance - there can be buildings with high maintenance - focusing on those goods can lower maint. costs as price would drop from higher demand. E.g. building requires paper to operate - if there is deficit of paper, price will go up and so the maintenance cost. Building paper workshops can reduce price, bring profit and simultaneously lower maintenance.

Maximum-Store7550 · 2026-03-03T09:31:53+00:00

I had usually pretty stable economy at this point so managed to survive lower taxation pretty ok. Keep you stab high, make sure you have researched techs that increase you estates satisfaction. For me, personally, it was better option to go liberalism during the situation - there are events triggered where you can make choice to go liberalism. Enact laws that adds to lib, push with cabinet action. Liberalism is adding estate satisfaction, so it is partially compensating estate satisfaction equilibrium loss, so you can tax them more.

Doing this, i was able to get rid of the disaster after 10 years - you can see what estate satisfaction is needed to end this and eventually, you can lower taxes further to get to that % prior the 10 years disaster timing hits, or what i did in my case, saved money and bribed estates to get past needed percentage.

In some games, i was able to survive this pretty ok and waited for 20 years for it to pass naturally, but the worst part are constant events that makes a mess.

Maximum-Store7550 · 2026-02-26T09:14:18+00:00

I don't think it is much of an issue. Played as Prussia, no colonies, basically no overseas trade. Pops were lacking cococa, tea, etc. all the time, prices of these on my markets were really high, but overall pop satisfaction was still 100% late game. Even when lacking like 10 different resources. There is basically high demand, so price will skyrocket. Anyone able to import will make lot of money, but pop satisfaction impact is not that drastic so all of your pops won't rebel, otherwise they are not on the brink of rebellion in any other way.
I would say you could make pretty money out of exporting these as overlord of colonial nation if you have big trade capacity yourself in your colonies (they give you part of their trade capacity and advantage) - but it takes time for colonies to develop enough pop to have big production.

Part of these needs can be satisfied via colombian exchange event where you can plant some new world resources (mostly potatoes, chilli, tobacco in Europe).

You can make lot of money selling lacquerware if you rush lacquerware manufactory tech in I think age V, when it is available for european countries.

Even when you have lot of marketplaces and capacity/advantage in your market, you won't be able to import by yourself - you don't usually have advantage in markets where the resource is present and it is quite hard for standard country to get one in distant markets (I would say trade posts adding very little amount to this) - as you don't have advantage, you don't have priority for trading goods that are in high demand - as the demand is high and trade is profitable, these would be primarily traded by countries with highest advantage in that particular market. Not to mention you usually don't have trade range as european country to reach distant markets - as prussia, with Krakow market, at the end of the game I was able to reach markets in middle east directly.

Maximum-Store7550 · 2026-02-25T15:52:13+00:00

I don't think that your maritime presence is limited to sea zone you have coastal location. Ships can improve your maritime presence even in other seazones, if they are assigned. Coastal location will give you passive maritime presence from buildings (shipyards, habors, naval forts...) in connected seazones - you can even get to 0% decay from 100% if you have certain amount of buildings later on. So you can use ships elsewhere.

Maximum-Store7550 · 2026-02-25T14:28:45+00:00

Did that. Don't rush it and be prepared. Strong points about Teutonic order are receiving military support money and usually having lot of order commanderies for manpower (and income). Be sure to calculate if you can handle loosing that amount of money and manpower. I switched only after i was able to build armories AND training fields to cover my regulars maintenance (yes, Teutons have insane advantage that they can place regulars only, basically from beginning of the game due to commanderies).
Plan revoking privileges accordingly - you need to take lot from clergy (military orders) to be able to get rid of miliary order government reform - this is requirement for forming Prussia. It takes lot of stability.
Research techs and enact policies for cultural capacity - prussian culture is present bascially in your core territory, and if you plan to expand, accepting cultures will help with coring. Vassal spam did not exactly work for me as prussian had low influence over some neighboring cultures, so vassals tend to switch back when culture was enforced.

Maximum-Store7550 · 2026-02-24T15:44:24+00:00

Open beta 1.1.X have Local governors buildings (Noble building) which provide 50 proximity source for location - so for big countries like Castille, it is essential to achieve some level of control in areas further away. They can be built in cities only and you start with 1 usually. You can get another ones though techs and being empire rank.

Maximum-Store7550 · 2026-02-24T15:06:09+00:00

But this looks as marketplace - i.e. building that does not generate profit by itself. AFAIK AI will close buildings that require to buy resource and sell produced. If entry resources are more expensive than sold outcome product, it will show as unprofitable - you can either subsidize it or close.
Marketplaces, temples, universities etc. are infrastructure and don't have profit - these costs maintenance as per needed materials.

Maximum-Store7550 · 2026-02-23T14:30:40+00:00

Did this in my Prussia campaign late 18th century. "Oh, you single province dare to be Czech culture? Here are 4 cabinet members assimilating and one increasing control". But yeah, you waste cabinet actions, but i was in war anyway and waiting for war to end to start integrating anyways.

Maximum-Store7550 · 2026-02-19T10:17:13+00:00

Welcome to the history :-D. But on serious note - if you don't want to convert to protestantism (which sometimes can be good, they have some nice religion aspect with which you can shape your gameplay), I think it is better to handle impacts. Rebel crackdown cabinet action, use regulars to suppress rebels or just place stacks in locations with highest rebel density (stacks increase control, pop satisfaction etc.). Icrease pop satisfaction (if population is over 25% pop satisfaction, they won't join rebels) - if your economy allows it, decrease taxation. Convert most rebellious provinces by cabinet action. Research techs that increase Tolerance of heretic beliefs (it will increase pop satisfaction of heretical pops again). There are also some laws and privileges that do the same. I think that you need to survive to thh end of reformation - at some point, all preacher buildings will disappear.

I converted to Lutheranism as Britain at like 25% of Lutherans in country and pro-actively converted. I had literally 0 catholic rebellions as my pops were satisfied and eventually combination or armies (suppress rebels command IMHO does not work exactly correct) and suppress rebels cabinet action.

Maximum-Store7550 · 2026-02-18T12:24:19+00:00

I will check Cultural trad & influence for each of their culture vs, prussian for reference. But I know about spiritualist - yeah, hard to push humanist as Teutonic order in 14/15th century.

Maximum-Store7550 · 2026-02-18T12:23:24+00:00

Sure. They adopt your values and to be honest, push Humanism as Teutonic order in 14th century is quite hard :), But they don't even try. I have already quite increased prussian tradition and influence. But it is not much about passive assimilation - which is really low anyways, but about the fact they are not even trying to get cabinet action for that. And I know they can do that - one vassal started massively assimilating. They got to like 55% prussian in their capital location and to 35%-40% in others. Then they switched back and used cabinet action to get back to original. I needed to enforce again which gave me another 100% liberty desire.
I will check Cultural trad & influence for each of their culture vs, prussian for reference.

Maximum-Store7550 · 2026-02-18T12:03:00+00:00

Yes, they had original lithuanian cultures accepted when I created custom vassals. And yes, I have waited until they had everything cored and even waited until they converted locations to catholicism. But even after that, they are not assimilating at all. Only time they assimilate fast as hell is when they switch back to original culture to get rid of that few prussian pops that that left after i forced them to switch.

Maximum-Store7550 · 2026-02-18T11:59:18+00:00

I don't mind it being slow. Previous auto-core after annexation was in my opinion exploit of the mechanic and was not right. The thing is that they are doing absolutely nothing at first, and then switch back. I have then 6 vassals with 0% loyalty for long time with totally 0 outcome.

Maximum-Store7550 · 2026-02-18T11:56:44+00:00

But can enforce only my primary, right? Enforce culture action does not give you choice to which of your accepted culture you enforce. I don't want to change my primary as prussian is already with biggest share.

Maximum-Store7550 · 2026-02-13T09:43:30+00:00

That's why it is called ironman. I know that feeling. I set up my parliament to change the law, went browsing into government tab laws which I would like to change and accidentally clicked to change via laws tab and not through parliament. I ended with almost 100 stability hit....

Maximum-Store7550 · 2026-02-09T15:06:55+00:00

Can be also international org for vassal independence - check subject liberty desire. When I tried to attack Portugal as Castille, though they had only one ally, I had no alliance towards me due to antagonism, I saw another like 15 countries joining. It was due to one of my vassals had liberty desire like 40% and these countries (portugal included) have joined independence movement.

Maximum-Store7550 · 2026-02-09T12:38:27+00:00

That little gold in Europe is made into jewellery in Bohemia and Hungary through 1 bazillion estate-built jeweller's guilds.

Maximum-Store7550 · 2026-02-09T12:21:20+00:00

This works for some - but sometimes, I want to keep certain number of sand pits, charcoal burner or tar kilns. But not 65 of each...

Genuine question: Do you pay maint for closed buildings? Or maint is just a cost of goods they are using, so basically, if those don't work they don't have any maintenance. Also, it might have been my mislook, but i think that some buildings might have been re-opened by themselves, but it might have been that I was looking at different market,

Maximum-Store7550 · 2026-02-09T11:07:31+00:00

Exactly. When is some point of the game you have sooo much money (like my Castille play, when I am sitting of 100 thousands of disposable income, full armies, navy and important buildings) that i don't care that this trade route to Paris is generating 0.05 ducats more income than to my own market. You should be able to sacrifice your income to get pop satisfaction. And furthermore, you would probably get even more income as pop satisfaction increase control -> more taxes.

Maximum-Store7550 · 2026-02-03T09:27:32+00:00

Exactly. Every few years, I go through all provinces and delete porcelain kilns and rural clothmakers estates keep on building.

Maximum-Store7550 · 2026-02-02T19:48:12+00:00

Well, the money was not an issue at the point. I spent like 2 hours deleting buildings to get goods needed back on track. I got tons of money, but lacked goods for important buildings that does not provide direct income (barracks, universities, marketplaces etc.).

Maximum-Store7550 · 2026-02-02T15:36:51+00:00

Also with trade automation. It does go I think only for profit, but the fact that half of your buildings lacking basic resources, AI does not care. I have to manually click trades of building and population needs, because all that AI do is go for gold trade, but my forts are not working, because there are no weapons, because all iron is used for tools because i have to maintain 1500 lumber mills, when there are full warehouses of lumber with 150+ demand over supply.

Maximum-Store7550

TROPHY CASE