I'm not happy with the West European trade node.



It's a total trade war central. Before, France could skip Sevilla and the Caribbean nodes if other powers were dominant there, and concentrate on colonizing North American and steering Chesapeake to Bordeaux.



Meanwhile Spain, Portugal and Morocco could just concentrate on dominating the nodes that lead to Sevilla and could ignore the Chesapeake if they wanted, thus they didn't have to fight Britain's fleet.



Different powers could be dominant in different areas and everybody could optimize for their own areas.



In short, there could be multiple winners. Lots of countries could get at least a slice of the pie.



Now everybody has to fight a desperate war over the West European node, endlessly spamming more and more light ships. And it's a zero-sum game. Unless you have THE dominant trade fleet you're not going to be able to get any trade steering, or only minimal.



Meanwhile France had a bunch of colonies in the Northern Chesapeake node. But, now Portugal just steals all their trade and directs it to Sevilla, which is now a dead-end node, so they can't steer Sevilla --> Bordeaux.



Worse, Mauritania no longer steers to Sevilla, FORCING all the world's trade to channel directly into the Western European node, which means all the merchant bonuses to trade will pile up in that node.



He who controls it will get just a gigantic income. And everybody else will suffer.



EX: of how screwed this is. As Portual in 1725, I had 1500 trade income per month. With this new system, I'd just build about 1000 heavy frigates and put them all in the Western European node with a +5 maneuver Explorer. Let's see anybody get a slice of the pie then!



There will be ONE winner and a lot of losers.



You might argue that this is historical (Britain) for at least the 18th and 19th centuries, but is it desirable from a game-play perspective?



I seriously doubt it.



I anticipate lots of complaints about this new system. Lots and lots.