Free trade doesn't really confer many in-game benefits to most players, but it can be useful in forcibly limiting a player's abuse of tariffs, and also confer psychological benefit to those of us that value free trade in reality.
Free trade restricts the maximum tariff to 25%, while allowing full import subsidies. Protectionism is useful to the player, as it allows the player more tariff power while restricting a relatively useless game play mechanism.įree trade is a policy explicitly aimed at allowing a free flow of goods across borders without undue interference by government officials, laws, or taxes.
This policy allows the player to implement tariffs up to 100%, and restricts import subsidies to 25%. Protectionism is a government policy of taxation and discrimination against foreign imports.
Though in reality this is a nuanced debate that has spanned several centuries and takes different forms over time, Victoria 2 simplifies it down to two options, each diametrically opposed to the other. Trade policy is the party position on free trade. Each of these stances has some degree of concrete effect. There are five party issues, each of which has two to four stances available to a party.
