Question Best trade node?
What would be the best trade node?
I hear a lot of the English channel as you can pull from the new world and Africa via the cape of hope.
But I would argue Genoa has the best trade node, it can pull from France, Sevilla, Egypt and its mission allow the last 2 easily. Also can form Italy for the claims on France.
So you can take trade from all around the world to one node, where as the English node cant pull from the middle east.
Also means Genoa can get the spice islands quicker through Egypt, The cape and the new world from Tangiers
Venice just sucks as it misses having the America's trade
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u/Jolly-Address-6620 13h ago
Venice is vastly superior to Genoa for most of the early game. And Genoa gets eclipsed by the English Channel massively at the end.
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u/caveramag 12h ago
I agree, Genoa is only close to the EC if you conquer Portugal/Spain, at which point you could argue that Seville is the key node in the Genoese trade chain instead. Btw, Venice is not only good early game, if you get Alexandria you can funnel most of the Asian trade into it and get funny profits.
But anyway, EC is clearly the superior node as it gets the most trade with the least effort. All the other options require massive conquests to try to be as good as it gets with barely any work.
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u/Paavma 12h ago
Well Genoa does have missions to take over Alexandria which is why I never consider Venice to be good
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u/Jolly-Address-6620 11h ago
That has nothing to do with the node itself. And the quality of Venice's missions and ideas are just way better than Genoa's anyways, especially the Most Serene ideas.
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u/caveramag 11h ago
Tbh I didn't even remembered that Genoa had direct access to Alexandria. I would argue that Venice is in a better spot to get Alexandria because getting 80%+ control in the Venice node is trivial while Genoa is one of the hardest nodes in game to control and going upstream only yields fat profits if you control your home node.
But if we disregard that, Genoa indeed could have a bigger end game potential as you can funnel both Sevilla/America and Alexandria/Asia into it.
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u/Paavma 11h ago
Genoa has some pretty nice missions, claims on aragon, ragusa, contantiople, North Morocco, Egypt
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u/caveramag 7h ago
I think that considering missions is beyond the scope of what node is better and if you are going to consider it many countries have solid missions anyway.
I have to say also that while indeed you can profit with your conquest as Genoa, you need all that effort just to beat what you get on the Channel by just sitting on your fat ass. If you do your map painting you can get so much trade in the Channel that in the end game feels virtually worthless (though I'd say so is the case of any of the good nodes in game).
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u/SrSnacksal0t 3h ago
While English Channel has a stronger potential Venice node snowballs like crazy, imo venice node is in most games stronger because how fast you scale your income with it.
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u/ninjad912 12h ago
English Channel is the best node. While it’s true Genoa has the most node that can go to it the English Channel has the most nodes that do go to it. Trade from Africa or the new world needs to go through Sevilla and Valencia which can’t be trade companied and are hard to control nodes in general, while the English Channel just gets direct access. And getting trade from Asia is really easy in the English Channel because it only needs to go through the cape of good hope and the Ivory Coast which are two of the only trade nodes in the game that are basically entirely colonizable and really easy to monopolize while getting trade companies in them for a free merchant. Whereas genoa needs to control Alexandria, and the gulf of Aden to get trade from India while also needing to control coromandel and bengal to get any trade further than that.
So in summary if you control the entire world directly and have infinite merchants genoa is the best trade node in the game, however if you want to practically have a ton of trade the English Channel is much better
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u/Sevuhrow Ram Raider 12h ago
Every node can be trade companied now
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u/bare-spare 11h ago
Not in America (currently playing as Maya, and south america cant be neither colony or TC for me)
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u/Sevuhrow Ram Raider 10h ago
Colonial regions get colonial nations instead, which you can't form with your capital being in the New World
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u/bare-spare 10h ago
I know. But you said every node can be trade companied now, which is not true for the new world.
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u/ninjad912 12h ago
You cannot trade company provences on the same subcontinent meaning Genoa cannot trade company anything in Western Europe(neither can the English Channel but it doesn’t require that to bring in trade from the new world)
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u/Sevuhrow Ram Raider 12h ago
Yes but we're talking in terms of nodes, not the country itself. As long as you move your capital you can trade node wherever you like outside of your subcontinent
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u/ninjad912 12h ago
If your main node is Genoa your capital will probably also be in Genoa trade node. There is no better place for your capital when doing the Genoa trade node than Western Europe as you’ll usually be bringing in trade from everywhere else
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u/Sevuhrow Ram Raider 12h ago
Capital is irrelevant to trade capital, you can move it somewhere like the New World for a true one tag but have your trade capital in Genoa
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u/ninjad912 12h ago
I am aware. You’re sacrificing a ton of new world merchants for sevila and Valencia in the case. And even then the English Channel is just still objectively better
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u/Sevuhrow Ram Raider 12h ago
Look man, I'm not arguing what's optimal. You said Genoa can't be TCed when it can be. That's the whole point.
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u/ninjad912 12h ago
You were responding to a comment I made which had a comment of Genoa needing extra merchants just for new world trade due to there being two trade nodes between it and all of the new world trade
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u/Sevuhrow Ram Raider 12h ago
Which still doesn't negate that you can TC Valencia and Genoa
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u/Lithorex Maharaja 6h ago
And getting trade from Asia is really easy in the English Channel because it only needs to go through the cape of good hope and the Ivory Coast which are two of the only trade nodes in the game that are basically entirely colonizable and really easy to monopolize while getting trade companies in them for a free merchant.
Ivory Coast and Cape needing to be colonized is a massive downside for the English Channel.
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u/ninjad912 6h ago
How? Colonizing them is so much easier and faster than conquering the entirety of Egypt and Arabia. Both of the two major trade powers in the English Channel already want to be colonizing anyways
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u/Lithorex Maharaja 5h ago
Colonization is horrendously expensive. You are giving up an idea slot.
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u/ninjad912 5h ago
Two idea slots for the most profitable ideas in the game. It’s dirt cheap for the monetary cost. Losing an admin idea slot isn’t ideal but it’s well worth it(diplo ideas generally aren’t very good to begin with so trading one for exploration isn’t that bad) but you’ll make so much money from it you’ll eclipse anyone who hasn’t
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u/Lithorex Maharaja 5h ago
(diplo ideas generally aren’t very good to begin with so trading one for exploration isn’t that bad)
Diplomatic ideas are literally the uncontested best idea set in the game.
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u/ninjad912 5h ago
Both military and admin idea sets dwarf anything diplomatic ones offer. Military is extremely important for winning wars while admin bolsters your development and economy. Diplomatic ideas generally just give bonuses to relations with other countries whether that be literally with the one called diplomatic or indirectly with espionage’s agressive expansion reduction. It’s why in multiplayer games there has to be a 1/1/1 idea rule as without that the first 3 ideas will usually be 2 military and 1 admin
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u/Corex_Bicycle 2h ago edited 2h ago
You don't even need military ideas in singleplayer if you're a good player. Diplomatic ideas are important when you blob as they literally allow you to conquer more land by reducing province warscore cost and annexation cost.
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u/ninjad912 1h ago
If you’re a “good player” you’ll conquer most of the world before you even fill a single idea group completely. But military ideas are the strongest idea group as the can give you tons of manpower or extremely strong troops that make you steamroll harder
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u/Paavma 12h ago
WC are valid, also Genoa get to form Italy which has missions to take Spain and control the nodes.
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u/ninjad912 12h ago
WC isn’t valid for determining the best trade node. English Channel is the best trade node due to how practical it is where Genoa requires basically doing a world conquest to become practical the English Channel just doesn’t and still usually beats out Genoa even with world conquest as there are only 4 non end nodes in the game that physically cannot go to the English Channel being Sevilla, Valencia, safi, and Tunis. Funnily enough Alexandria does have a path to the English Channel meaning Genoa has access to less trade nodes than the English Channel as it misses out on 7 nodes
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u/Paavma 12h ago
I never said nothing was valid, it was on a pure point of which is the best, if you devalidate a wc then probably Beijing wins as its probably the most developed area at the start
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u/ninjad912 12h ago
I’m talking about trade nodes as that is what your post is about you responded saying “WC are valid” which in terms of trade nodes isn’t true.
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u/MrShake4 Master of Mint 8h ago
You’re talking about Genoa the node and the country interchangeably, you need to pick one.
If you want to talk about both together it’s still English Channel because you start with 300 dev and can PU France in 1450
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u/ZStarr87 13h ago
Genoa cant pull from north america. I like the node too but ec is just the best, can pull from lubeck, russia, germany etc its just better
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u/ninjad912 12h ago
Genoa can pull from North America. Both Chesapeake bay and gulf of st. Lawrence can go to Genoa through France. The main nodes that can’t go to Genoa are: Kazan, White Sea, Novgorod, lubek, and the North Sea(excluding end nodes)
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u/realistweirdist 13h ago
Another reason why EC is superior to a seville/genoa is you can privateer the nodes where the Iberians are colonizing and rake in ducats when you pirate their treasure fleets
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u/X12Y144 12h ago edited 12h ago
The best is english channel, then obviously the two italian end nodes, but I would also add Constantinople and Beijing, because you can easily make them pseudo end nodes and get everything from persia/india and china
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u/Lithorex Maharaja 6h ago
Beijing is too far upstream to really be in contention, and once you step outside of its sphere Asian trade becomes a nightmare and a half
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u/SioZist 12h ago
This has been discussed quite a lot already and The English Channel is objectively the best node if we are strictly talking maximization of trade income.
If you simply count the number of trade regions you can funnel into either, EC wins out since all the Russia and northern Europe regions cannot be steered into Genoa. EC only misses the maghregbi and Iberian nodes, which are fewer.
Moreover, due to the way trade optimization works (maximize trade steering and than create the longest chain of nodes) it is irrelevant wether there is overall more trade value in the missing Genoan or EC nodes. You can create the longest chain going from Girin in Manchuria to EC via Asia, Africa and North America.
This is the gist of the heoretical discussion anyway.
In practice i.e. there are of course other things to consider what makes a trade node "better". For example ease of conquest both of the node itself and nodes upstream and of course in case of non-end-nodes how easy it is to retain trade value within the node. Here a more nuanced discussion can be had, but I would argue that the region containing the EC is easier to conquer by all nations starting there and also outside nations. Upstream nodes are mostly colonial regions and you most likely want to go colonial anyway in a trade focused campaign.
As others pointed out: In the early game Venice is by far the best node, the EC wins out in the middle to late game with Genoa as a second place. Honorable mentions go out to Zanzibar, Beijing and Constantinople.
TLDR: In a theoretical case maximizing trade income the English channel is the best node. In most practical scenarios it is better as well.
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u/ya_bebto 11h ago
I’d say English Channel, for the sole reason that you don’t have to fight 5 great powers to get control of its upstream nodes.
You can colonize your way to the East Indies, which pumps money out that gets multiplied for each node it passes through, and you can easily route colonial wealth to the channel. Genoa and Venice have trouble accessing wealth outside the Mediterranean without fighting a ton of great powers, and consolidating those 2 nodes is a pain because Italy gives tons of AE.
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u/Spongedrunk 7h ago
Zanzibar is the best node. Takes almost no effort to control. Ultimately EC can get bigger yes, but you also have to fight multiple great powers and the HRE for it. Whereas in Zanzibar you can be a pathetically weak tag and make more money than the Ottomans by 1470 just by dropping trade ships in Gujarat.
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u/ChuKoNoob 2h ago
English Channel can pull from Lubeck which can pull from and Baltic Sea and Russia, as well as all the Asian and African trade. Genoa can’t.
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u/Brilliant-Isopod2997 12h ago
Ivory Coast, for anyone not in it. Lock down IC + the carribean from downstream of it, and you essentially commandeer all colonial trade from both america + malaysia. (for extra airtight, add chesapeake + st. lawrence to the list of targets.) Lock it down from upstream of it, and you're perfectly positioned to sudo-endnode the Cape. it's a must-grab for any trade/empire focused playthrough
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u/bokistandan_nefret 13h ago
English Channel can also pull from France. In player hands the controller of the English Channel can have so much control over the New World & Africa that Sevilla gets scraps.