So, it’s time for the third dev diary on the Wealth of Nations expansion for EU4. This week I will talk a little about two brand new concepts, Trade Companies and Canals. This week all the stuff I will be talking about will be in the expansion and not in the free 1.6 patch.In Conquest of Paradise we looked at colonisation in the western hemisphere when we added Colonial Nations. With that feature you got independant colonial states that had their own goals and live their own lives but they could also expand your empire on their own and if you weren’t careful they could break free. Now when we add Trade Companies to Africa and Asia in Wealth of Nations we wanted to give them a very different feel. While colonisation in the west is about sprawling empires with a lack of control, trade empires in the east is a bit more specialised affair.So, again we have divided parts of the world into a new type of regions but thats where the similarities ends. When you add provinces (something that you choose to do, and you can revoke it again) to a Trade Company you will still retain control of it but the way you gain benefits from it change. First of the province will produce radically less tax and manpower, but on the other hand it will provide a massive boost in Trade Power (we are still toying with the numbers here) and its also going to add 0.5 Naval Force Limit per province.This makes the Trade Companies first and foremost a tool for Trade Empires, if you are the Mughal Empire and you are conquering India you are probably looking to increase your tax base and the amount of troops you can raise. On the other hand if you are Portugal you already have overseas penalties to manpower and you are instead looking to improve and extend your trading empire.Now there are other little effects of Trade Companies. Most importantly, if your Trade Company is dominating the region (currently holds 51% of the modified province trade power) you are getting an extra merchant. This means that if you come into a region as a Trade Power you will start looking for the really good trade provinces (with the 1.6 patch we are also adding new icons to the trade map mode so you can better find the river estuaries etc) and with your superior Trade technology you have a good chance to dominate trade in the area. What we are looking to do is create layers of conflicts where Trade empires have each other as their main adversaries and have local alliances with the more primitive powers. To help that area we are also making it so that you can no longer westernize if you are only neighbour to a trade company (normally one of the requirements is that you have a high tech neighbour) on the other hand you can westernize if you own a core of an advanced nation.Finally on the subject of Trade Companies, they are not going to be the powerful independent actors that Colonial Nations are but there will be frictions through a number of events where you can choose how to manage the friction created between yourself and your companies.Now, on to one of the more controversial subjects.Yes we are adding Canals to the game. In Wealth of Nations there are three buildable canals, Suez, Kiel and Panama. The latter is probably the least realistic but we wanted to add these three to give players that manage to build global empires something extra to strive for. Canals are basically massive building projects that when finished will be visible on the map. During these expensive projects you will also get events that allows you to face up to the historical difficulties of such projects. Canals will allow ships to sail through them, can be blocked by fleets and will also grant a substantial province Trade Power bonus to the owner so that you can use the canal to redirect the flow of trade (and no, it doesn't alter the trade routes but on the other had you already have trade routes across the canal routes). An interesting side effect of this is for future expansions and mods is that the canals are basically construction projects with events that can trigger during building and with on map objects when you are done so there is the possibility to add more interesting province specific works in the future.That was it for this week, next week I will talk a bit about the new Religion Mechanics that are coming with Wealth of Nations.