Trade involved strategic ports to extend merchant range (as historical), and since it required cored land and cores weren't the retarded EU3 system we have, building up a trade network to get trade from Europe took centuries. Owning CoT was actually immensely valuable and worth fighting another nation to take, since you kept bigger trade bonuses and everyone else trading in the node paid you to be there. Trade leagues existed to determine who you kept as trade allies and who you shoved out of your CoTs. CoTs themselves were dynamic and you could fuck up other CoTs and make them disappear over time. Trade bonuses were more meaningful, 5% trade chance being potentially what let you go from 0 merchants to 5 merchants in nodes. Non-trade nations could establish regional dominance in their own trade nodes due to the very powerful province effects, and monopolies existed if your trade chance was high enough.
And yet, in essence, it all reduced to higher or lower chances for successful merchant spamming.
Yes, and? You might as well as say that in the end it all reduced down to getting more money or not. A lot more money or none at all. As opposed to EUderp4 where the gameplay is "build as many lightships until marginal cost of trade ship > marginal trade gain". There, I literally summed up all the depth of EU4 in a single sentence.
If you play MP then the whole thing ends up being a retarded zero-sum game where both sides spam light ships until the profit from trade = the maintenance from light ships, meaning trade is useless, and there is literally no other way to play the game.
You could, I don't know, invest in trade related NIs+idea groups...
Useless. I mean, wow, I can make a few more ducats a year vs. having armies ~25% stronger or being able to expand 50% faster.
Maybe you are too dumb to understand monthly/yearly income? Economy was much better in EU3 as you received essentially 0 natural income from anything other then cores, and cores were actually not retarded things that happen in 5 years like in EU4.
Please enlighten me. How is that either realistic or leads to better gameplay? Or is it maybe just complexity for complexity's sake?
Realistic - It's obviously more realistic. Yearly taxes. Duh.
Better Gameplay - Managing finances is a skill.
Complexity for complexity's sake - I'd say that EU4 is dumbing down for dumbing down's sake.
Holy shit you are retarded. Sliders were incredibly important, and were the EU3 equivalent to EU4's country-specific idea line, which is stupid railroading bullshit that just buffs GPs and nerfs smaller powers for no reason at all.
Like the quantity-quality slider which buffs GPs and nerfs smaller nations? Or the centralization-decentralization slider where centralization is always better? Or do you mean the fact that going narrowminded+serfdom fucks you over in the long run compared to innovative+free subjects? Does this really sound better than NI + idea group which at least give nations some specific flavor?
Quantity/Quality didn't favour large nations over small nations. Centralization was obviously better, but there was an opportunity cost to do it vs. other sliders and government types often had restrictions that limited your sliders, forcing you to choose between centralization or less revolt risk. Narrowminded/Innovative, Free subjects/Serfdom, Mercantilism/Free trade, Offensive/Defensive, Aristocracy/Plutocracy all were good either way. Even if you do prefer one side over the other, the massive opportunity cost of getting less/no bonuses at all for around 100 years was enough incentive not to switch.
Fuck you and your retarded EU4 "flavor". Giving babby-mode buffs to already strong nations to make them stronger isn't flavor. There is no logical justification for when I manage to conquer France as Provence and yet still am ~20% weaker in the same position than a France who did nothing at all. You know what was actual flavor? The hundreds of missions and decisions designed to guide nations along historical paths by giving incentives to replicate history, removed or nerfed into useless +prestige or +claims that no one could give a damn about.
Btw, you seem incredibly hung up about cores and coring.
I'm sorry that the EU4 series has the worst core implementation ever conceived. We're supposed to be playing a fucking historical simulator here. Cores in 1-3 years my fucking ass.
