My dual ecomony...what am I doing wrong?

[Grand_Armee]

Despite the fact that certain commodities in certain nations were state-owned monopolies, I do believe the entrepeneur existed long before Napoleon drew his first breath.

What chafes me is this: I can produce luxuries, spice, wine, and textiles enough to trade with other countries, but I can't give them to my own people. Consequently, my people are always looking for me to give them their "fix" while bottles of wine and rolls of linens gather dust rolling across my warehouse floors.

By 1815, despite my best efforts, nobody seems to like my little country...though I'd only fought one war. I never turn down a trade, and never ask for more than what my advisor says is fair. Heck, maybe I am a jerk...I don't want their dirty boots tramping through my countryside. You know what soldiers are like.

So, their morale goes down the crapper while I can't get a bottle of wine from France, and mine sits there waiting for export...alongside tons of spice and hundreds of terra cotta pots.

Is there something I'm missing, here? I've looked at other countries details and see that some are in the same boat...but their morale doesn't seem to have gone so low as mine. This makes me think it's a feature to make the game last longer.

Anyway, please...tell me what I'm missing. ...what was that line?...Water, water everywhere...and not a drop to drink.

[Ralegh]

While poetic, your message isn't very clear - see if this info helps:

1) In COG 1.0, trade is done at a province level, while waste is applied at the national level, so I think you are seeing more goods available for trade than you end up with simply because waste hasn't been applied yet. (Remember, waste includes the governor's commission as well as shipping costs to get the stuff back to the capital, etc etc - all of which was significant in a feudal society.) As I understand it, waste is applied after trade, so that waste impacts the goods you import just like the ones you make (which doesn't make any sense to me, since you would think the relevent waste level was that of the producing nation, not of the trade partner receiving the goods, but there you have it). So 10 textiles from trade might be 2 or 3 availble to increase your stockpile.

2) If you are accumulating stockpiles of wine, spice and luxeries, then the people would take what they want to improve morale that month - they will draw down your stockpile, rather than only using stuff raised that turn (which is why Sweden can get morale boosts every second turn). However, you need to have all three of them. (Textiles is different and irrelevent AFAIK to national morale.) If that isn't happening, send in a save game (sve and rep files) for me to look at - ralegh at rosesolutions dot com.

3) National morale can be helped by a number of other things:
- lowering your tax rate (10% is break even for morale - at less, morale goes up each month)
- increasing welfare
- fight someone - for example, you get +75 NML for occupying an enemy town, as well as for winning battles, accepting surrenders etc
- become an empire
- hire napoleon (yes, you get the +20 NML per month if you have him in a unit on loan)

4) You mention that other countries don't like you. I recommend that you try to have treaties with them all the time - access, or small loans are the ones the AI uses. (I will often give them a loan not for the money but for the improved relations). I often give away a treay - me promising for 12 months not to trade with a mutual enemy, or me promising to honour the neutrality of some little place I don't care about.
- Always have a trade route going with each country - it seems to help.
- You can also use diplomats.
- BTW, warfare helps here too - people like you more if you are at war with their enemies...

[Grand_Armee]

Thanks for your insights, Ralegh. My point though was why should I need to import when I have the stuff at hand. Like, why pay the neighbor's kid to mow your lawn when you can do it yourself.

I find my relationships fade no matter what I do. If I let the French, Spaniards and Russians through my land, britain hates me. Russia just starts to hate me for no reason at all, and Turkey and Austria start out liking me then change their minds.

My few diplomats are too busy currying favor of the central and northern German community to try to sit out their lives in some enemy capital. And my poor little country can barely afford self-defence, much less the cost of spewing out diplomats.

I'll give the no-trade-with-your-enemy rout a try...I hadn't considered that one! But the loans the other countries want are huge. I have to offer in excess of 500$ (so my advisor says)...but I may quit listening to him.