Help me understand mechanics with Slave Trader in my capital.

[Lucius Tiberius Vorenus]

I see Slave Trader in all the "how to" screen shots and video tutorials on making the most of economic regions but nobody actually explains how to make the Slave Trader mechanic beneficial.

Is a Slave Trader meant to be ran with the Commercial Stimulation edict always in effect?

The -4, -5, or -6 detractors from happiness for Slaves in each region where I have a Slave Trader and allow the slave pop to grow seem to be outweighing the positive benefits for allowing my Slave Population to grow. I feel like I'm wasting a building slot here.

[Jake Armitage]

slave trader lets you produce the slave resource yourself

don't expect that every single part of the mod is perfectly balanced, it's almost impossible
game/mod math is too complex, too many things concurring and interpolating

sometimes it just is a gameplay choice, having more choices and choose one... IS the game at the end
if you have in mind a "I need to exploit everything so to have the best gain" solution there surely are some game features you won't use
but this will make the experience much more drier imo

[Lucius Tiberius Vorenus]

To be clear my question wasn't concerning balance. I'm all about options and love the mod. Rather, I'm just wondering why I see slave trader in a lot of screenshots for tutorials and guides. Especially in the economic region screenies.

To me there are a lot of better options so I was wondering if I missing some hidden mechanics. Perhaps there's some combination I'm not aware of such as a synergestic edicts that make some sort of trader + slave trader + "insert edict here" really strong financially.

If having slave trader is mostly about having the trained slave resource then okay. I'm not missing the point.

Thanks again.

[Ekoten]

The slavetrader's most important feature (afaik) is its increase to slave production. It simply makes slaves in a province more productive. So you should only build the slave trader in a province with lots of slaves and lots of other economics. The best part is that slave production (and taxes) adds to all other income types. Both trade, industry and culture etc. will gain a boost from slaves... for the ENTIRE province! Which means that all other buildings generating coins in the other regions of the province will gain percentages from the bonus of the slave trader.

[Lucius Tiberius Vorenus]

Okay thanks. So a slave trader in a primarily industrial or economic region will boost productivity.

[struckat]

Look at your trade tab and see the value of trained slaves you are trading to you trade partners. My 1.3 are not far enough along yet, but in older versions I would see some good money coming there.

[Marcelo Soares e Silva]

Also, slaves are resources and some buildings need it to construct.

[devu]

To clarify, the slave modifier adds a percentage to provinicial income (like +90%), is immune to maintenance (kind of) and slave trader increases the percentage increase in income.

[Cool_Ranch]

Slave are incredibly profitable. In my current Rome game I'm getting 80k income from taxes and 66k income from slaves. Slave traders in major economic centers is great maximize their value and keeps their population from declining. I run the tax harvesting edict, switching to 'sell slaves' might be more profitable when you're campaigning and can keep your slave population topped off, but I only bother using it to reduce unrest by liquidating slaves in poor provinces.