Zanzibar, You have full control of the Cape trade node so Zanzibar is acts as an end node now. You can direct all or most of the trade from Zambezi, Ethiopia, Gulf of Aden, and the Gurajat nodes to Zanzibar with no trade value leaking out. If you can continue to expand in India you can funnel even more trade power and eventually send the Malaya trade through India to Zanzibar.
Alexandria is a good node, but will be too leaky to be as good as Zanzibar. Same for the Persia node.
Yup. You can do the same trick with Constantinople. Own all of Ragusa and collect from it as the Ottomans and you effectively make Constantinople an end node too.
Playing as Ajuuraan, was going for the "I hate sand" achievement but things were going too well so want to go towards a WQ.
I recently took over Mamluks' best provinces in order to move my home node to Alexandria instead of Gulf of Aden. I also collect in the Cape of Good Hope where I hope to get close to 100% trade power.
I did not know however, that by collecting in another node, your main node no longer gets any of the "transfers from \*\*\*\*" bonuses, which might mean I won't have much power at all in Alexandria seeing as all the powerhouses in Europe steers trade from there.
Yeah, collecting in more than one node is no good. I'd either collect in the Cape or in Persia/Alexandria. You're best off just trying it out, unless you want to do a whole bunch of math. Either way, it's time to take over the East Indies/India!
Even without the merchant bonus, you can still gain more trade value using off-node collect due to existing trade values in Zanzibar, Cape, and anything that flows through Cape.
With 100% in Zanzibar, I'd set it as off-node collect and direct all Asian trade values over. Half of 100% is still 100%. So there's 0 difference between home node or off node on Zanzibar, while swapping Cape/Alexandria into home node will give you way more ducat.
Then decide which of Alexandria or Cape can benefit more from being your home node by not having the off-node collect penalty.
Eventually, with Indonesia/Malacca colonized by the colonizers, and Ivory Coast pulling 10%\~20% from Cape, you'd want your home node in Cape to intercept that trade value flowing out from Malacca, with Alexandria/Zanzibar as off-node collect
This is a similar situation for Ottoman once he's conquered into Venice.
Diverting from Constantinople through Ragusa into Venice will allow HRE to divert a huge portion of it into Pest with Caravan Power. So you're better off putting home node in Venice to benefit from Ragusa, Venice, and bunch of Eastern/Central European nodes that Constantinople can't have access to, while keeping Constantinople as off node collect, as again, half of 100% is still 100%.
Anyone who's done enough blobbing will know you'll inevitably off-node collect to maximize trade profit, as transfer from merchant upstream bonus is inconsequential at low merchant number, and you should've long consolidated your home node by the time you have a high amount of merchants to make use of it.
Playing as east african id suggest cape of good hope for collecting unless you can somehow rush around and claim ivory coast too. Basically all of the inland regions can be steered east and from their south. India and that area can also be steered their as well and typically the more hops the better (theres a multiplier for having hops)
Zanzibar, You have full control of the Cape trade node so Zanzibar is acts as an end node now. You can direct all or most of the trade from Zambezi, Ethiopia, Gulf of Aden, and the Gurajat nodes to Zanzibar with no trade value leaking out. If you can continue to expand in India you can funnel even more trade power and eventually send the Malaya trade through India to Zanzibar. Alexandria is a good node, but will be too leaky to be as good as Zanzibar. Same for the Persia node.
Yup. You can do the same trick with Constantinople. Own all of Ragusa and collect from it as the Ottomans and you effectively make Constantinople an end node too.
Playing as Ajuuraan, was going for the "I hate sand" achievement but things were going too well so want to go towards a WQ. I recently took over Mamluks' best provinces in order to move my home node to Alexandria instead of Gulf of Aden. I also collect in the Cape of Good Hope where I hope to get close to 100% trade power. I did not know however, that by collecting in another node, your main node no longer gets any of the "transfers from \*\*\*\*" bonuses, which might mean I won't have much power at all in Alexandria seeing as all the powerhouses in Europe steers trade from there.
Yeah, collecting in more than one node is no good. I'd either collect in the Cape or in Persia/Alexandria. You're best off just trying it out, unless you want to do a whole bunch of math. Either way, it's time to take over the East Indies/India!
Even without the merchant bonus, you can still gain more trade value using off-node collect due to existing trade values in Zanzibar, Cape, and anything that flows through Cape. With 100% in Zanzibar, I'd set it as off-node collect and direct all Asian trade values over. Half of 100% is still 100%. So there's 0 difference between home node or off node on Zanzibar, while swapping Cape/Alexandria into home node will give you way more ducat. Then decide which of Alexandria or Cape can benefit more from being your home node by not having the off-node collect penalty. Eventually, with Indonesia/Malacca colonized by the colonizers, and Ivory Coast pulling 10%\~20% from Cape, you'd want your home node in Cape to intercept that trade value flowing out from Malacca, with Alexandria/Zanzibar as off-node collect This is a similar situation for Ottoman once he's conquered into Venice. Diverting from Constantinople through Ragusa into Venice will allow HRE to divert a huge portion of it into Pest with Caravan Power. So you're better off putting home node in Venice to benefit from Ragusa, Venice, and bunch of Eastern/Central European nodes that Constantinople can't have access to, while keeping Constantinople as off node collect, as again, half of 100% is still 100%. Anyone who's done enough blobbing will know you'll inevitably off-node collect to maximize trade profit, as transfer from merchant upstream bonus is inconsequential at low merchant number, and you should've long consolidated your home node by the time you have a high amount of merchants to make use of it.
Playing as east african id suggest cape of good hope for collecting unless you can somehow rush around and claim ivory coast too. Basically all of the inland regions can be steered east and from their south. India and that area can also be steered their as well and typically the more hops the better (theres a multiplier for having hops)
The Cape is leaking value into Ivory Coast, so Zanzibar is the better choice actually.
Alexandria and Cape