Wow, on-map ocean trade routes will be in BtS! Cool! I've been wanting this for so long... wasn't this how Call to Power had them?

I saw them in Rome: Total War. It might be interesting.

Call to Power had them, it wasn't all that great. But now, if they make ocean trade route a lot more profitable than land trade route, than it might be important to some civ.

wasn't this how Call to Power had them?
Yes, it's probably similar. In CtP, it gave you a reason to build a navy, because just like Civ4, there was no other reason to do so.

About navies being unimportant. I've seen many multiplayer games were the outcome of the game was decided by a single naval battle.

I think vast majority of civ players do not play multiplayer. Civ is inherently a single player game.

I'm uncertain on this.

On the one hand it was an inevitable change if trade routes are to be made more important (and if they're including privateers). On the other hand, if trade routes can still follow any path without altering it's benefits - e.g. a naval blockade of a city just forces trade routes along a land path to another coastal city - then many trade routes will just be treated as being not worth the cost of protection.

In short, I'd like more information on this aspect of the game.

I believe trade routes are already blockaded when your ships are within an enemy city radius (but only for that city). So for me, the only "change" that I can see is that they are now visible on the map.

No. It will mean that navies are far more important than they were - they will have a use throughout the entire game that goes beyond your coastal cities and the occasional invasion - but it could have failed to make trade routes any more important than they already are in which case the added naval importance isn't as much as it could (or should) have been.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=5320787&postcount=5

Oh, and it's highly likely that visible trade routes have to be switched on like the map grid, tile output, or bonus labels.

I wonder if this is demonstrating individual city trade routes or only the trade routes carrying resources traded in diplomacy between two civilizations across the sea? If you have a lot of foreign city trades then it's going to become an absolute nightmare to stop pillaging, as it was in Call to Power (i.e. not very fun, a great deal of hassle).

I saw them in Rome: Total War. It might be interesting.

R:TW did them very well (i wasted alot of time playing that game :P) hopefully bts does them simular. I loved the way caravans & boats would be displayed traveling along thier trade routs in R:TW.

I hope you can block the suplies of resources to other cities. It would be also good if you can block trade routes, maybe make a profit from it?

I can't picture what this might look like in my mind.
Are there any screenshots from Call to Power?

All I can picture are a bunch of lines running through the ocean...boo.

Basicaly, that was it. It was a bunch of blue lines crossing the ocean with small ships going allong it. You could pillage the trade route anywhere along its length with a ship. You would gain a small amount of gold and the trade route would be 'cancelled' for one turn. Simple, but very interesting.

in CTP trade routes over both land and sea are visible and can be pillaged at any point along the line. There were also water tile improvements, such as "fish farm", "deep sea mine" etc. These can also be pillaged by warships. I think there was "undersea cities" as well, which was a little wacky.
Despite the visible trade routes and water tile improvement, it did not make navy important in CTP, but navy was no doubt more important than it is right now in civ4.

Just wonder why Firaxis hadn't published this feature on their site, because this is a massive feature.If trade routes become more important like assigning a resource which you are importing to a trade route, now building a fleet will become no more marginal.About people worried about micromanaging it can be easily done by making an icon representing merchant ships which move around oceans and assigning to it escort ships, so it will become harder for attacking ships to ambush trade routes (instead of a fixed objective), and you don't have everytime to move ships to defend trade routes.If sea trade routes become destroyable, land trade routes should be destroyable also IMO, or sea trade routes should become a lot more profitable to balance it.


My questions are if a trade routes is destroyed, will it be automatically replaced?Can you reopen a trade route previously destroyed after some turns?

In CTP it automaticaly regenerated next turn. If a trade route represents a whole string of ships moving between two cities, with the ships evenly spaced out accross the route, than pillaging it represents a pirate attacking an individual ship, and not the entire armada.

This would be great to implement over land too! You can make some of your units into 'highwaymen" during war, and pillage their trade routes to further cripple their economy. Though, this would have to anger their trading partner too.

I'm confused how the current trade routes will work over the oceans. Will it be between only coastal cities? I suppose, all trade routes should funnel through individual coastal cities before entering inland cities. But then, wouldn't this make multiple trade route lines overlapping each other?

Yes, I know we don't know much about this subject right now, but it's still fun to speculate.

Also... if you're trade route is pillaged during a turn, by the time the next turn rolls around your trading partner might not be available and may have started trading with someone else during their turn since trade routes work themselves out automatically and choose the best of what's available at the current moment when it's first assigned.... right?

Are there any screenshots from Call to Power?
http://www.twcenter.net/pics/layout/clan/egypt.jpg

Thats a screenshot of what they look like in rome:tw (its a bit too far zoomed out and doesnt look as cool as when animated), the better the trade of a route the more caravans/boats were displayed traveling along it. You could only prevent the trade either by laying seige to the city with units or by laying seige to the docks with either with naval or land units.

edit:

http://pcmedia.gamespy.com/pc/image/article/551/551582/rome-total-war-20040926100855177.jpg

theres a better shot of naval trade.

Making the existing trade route system more relevant to the game and, consequently, increasing the relevance of military vessels in the game is my first choice for new in game features (and there's quite a big gap between it and my second choice).

Does BtS have a new trade route system?

I hope not. There's already a perfectly good trade route system in the game which requires zero micromanagement to generate commerce though micromanagement can boost the commerce generated (as it should).

But this system could do with some tweaks. My preference would be for a change which leads to multiple trade routes congregating along particular routes, e.g. in real life lots of shipping passes through Suez and Panama but to the CivIV trade route system these routes are no better than sailing around Africa or South America or going across land.

Such a change could be to increase the commerce gained from trade routes in proportion to the shortness of the route taken relative to the shortest possible route (where ocean tiles are shorter than land tiles, etc.). This has the added bonus of increasing the importance of making the right friends. Having open borders into Panama would generate lots of extra commere.

Visible merchant units?

Again, I hope not. A simple line is enough. There's no need for further unit clutter to represent an entirely automated system. Or at least so long as it can be turned off in the options screen.

Visible land routes?

Very probably but I hope that routes inside cultural borders can't be pillaged. Consequently these won't play as big a role in most games as ocean trade route lines.

Specific units for pillage routes

No. The privateer is being introduced so that you can pillage a civ without risking war (or at least, reducing the risk of war). But if you're already at war why worry about this? All military units (land units included) should be able to pillage trade routes.

Anything else?

I'm also hoping that, as well as being able to view all trade routes, you can select to view just the trade routes entering single city.

Making the existing trade route system more relevant to the game and, consequently, increasing the relevance of military vessels in the game is my first choice for new in game features (and there's quite a big gap between it and my second choice).

Does BtS have a new trade route system?

I hope not. There's already a perfectly good trade route system in the game which requires zero micromanagement to generate commerce though micromanagement can boost the commerce generated (as it should).

But this system could do with some tweaks. My preference would be for a change which leads to multiple trade routes congregating along particular routes, e.g. in real life lots of shipping passes through Suez and Panama but to the CivIV trade route system these routes are no better than sailing around Africa or South America or going across land.

Such a change could be to increase the commerce gained from trade routes in proportion to the shortness of the route taken relative to the shortest possible route (where ocean tiles are shorter than land tiles, etc.). This has the added bonus of increasing the importance of making the right friends. Having open borders into Panama would generate lots of extra commere.

Visible merchant units?

Again, I hope not. A simple line is enough. There's no need for further unit clutter to represent an entirely automated system. Or at least so long as it can be turned off in the options screen.

Visible land routes?

Very probably but I hope that routes inside cultural borders can't be pillaged. Consequently these won't play as big a role in most games as ocean trade route lines.

Specific units for pillage routes

No. The privateer is being introduced so that you can pillage a civ without risking war (or at least, reducing the risk of war). But if you're already at war why worry about this? All military units (land units included) should be able to pillage trade routes.

Anything else?

I'm also hoping that, as well as being able to view all trade routes, you can select to view just the trade routes entering single city.

Trade Route system in CIV4 i would say is functional not certainly optimal.It is just basic but i agree that the fact that doesn't need micromanagement is a good thing.There are IMO a lot of ways to make trade routes a strategic feature without adding too much micromanagement and making it a balanced feature.
1.Assigning Escort instead of making always checks if your trade routes are threatened should be functional to reduce micromanagement at a minimum.
2.Trade routes should have some icon which moves because the attacker is too much advantaged if trade routes can be attacked always at the same place.
3.Trade routes should be visible only if you have an espionage knowledge of 1 (or both) of the 2 civs which use trade routes
4.If trade routes are destroyable while land routes aren't there is some balance needed or sea routes become weakened.

This may be a very negative post.

1.Assigning Escort instead of making always checks if your trade routes are threatened should be functional to reduce micromanagement at a minimum.

It depends on what you mean by 'assigning escort'. If you mean that the player should choose to station military vessels in specific locations then I agree. If you mean that players should assign units to move back and forth along the map then I disagree. As I said above, we don't need more unit clutter. A stationary unit if far better than a constantly moving one.

2.Trade routes should have some icon which moves because the attacker is too much advantaged if trade routes can be attacked always at the same place.

No. If a trade route is attacked it should dissapear for a turn. It's up the defending civ to find the offensive unit and destroy it. If there is only one or two weak links in a trade route then navies aren't a great deal more important than they are now and it will be too difficult to pillage trade since the defending unit can easily assign escorts to defend the small number of weak links in important trade routes.

3.Trade routes should be visible only if you have an espionage knowledge of 1 (or both) of the 2 civs which use trade routes

No. You should be able to see trade routes based on what city they provide commerce to. You should be able to see every trade route providing your cities with commerce. It should be enough to place a spy in a single city to know all of its trade routes.

4.If trade routes are destroyable while land routes aren't there is some balance needed or sea routes become weakened.

The most profitable trade routes (and presumably the routes that provide the most pillage) very rarely go onto land and are usually entirely ocean based (due to both the natural trade route bonus given to coastal cities and the effect of harbours). So ocean routes will already be the ones that are at most risk regardless of what restrictions are placed on land routes.

I didn't say that land routes shouldn't be pillagable - only that cultural borders should provide protection. But I'll partially take that back. A hostile unit should be able to pillage inside cultural borders. I will say that I don't see a reason for a 'privateer' land unit since most land will eventually find it's way inside cultural borders and these units probably won't be allowed inside territory hostile to them.

I'm uncertain on this.

On the one hand it was an inevitable change if trade routes are to be made more important (and if they're including privateers). On the other hand, if trade routes can still follow any path without altering it's benefits - e.g. a naval blockade of a city just forces trade routes along a land path to another coastal city - then many trade routes will just be treated as being not worth the cost of protection.

In short, I'd like more information on this aspect of the game.

You summed my thoughts about this up perfectly :goodjob:

I'd like more info myself. I'm not adverse to "more unit clutter", especially on the seas where nothing happens now anyhow, but I want it to be easy to assign the units, and if I turn OFF "see trade routes" the escorts should vanish too. So I only have to see them if I'm looking for a boat to pillage.

It should be something that happens below the surface of the game, with the OPTION of bringing it to the surface when/if I want to attack a trade route, and then putting it back where it belongs when I'm done and want to look at other things.

All we need now is the occasinal AI invasion force coming from sea and finally then the waves will be the reason for leasing longer days with this game.

This is a promisin bit of business.

Call to Power trade routes were a HUGE bother. You had to manually set up each resource trading with each partner, had these blue lines all over the map that anbody (sea OR LAND units) could pirate, every turn, forcing you to regenerate the trade route manually (no, they didn't regenerate autoamtically. It might only seem so cause the AI did it during their turn, manually, so to speak).

Then you'd ask a completely 100% friendly nation to stop pirating your trade routes, and they'd do so again the next turn (bad AI programming here).

I sure hope firaxis improves on it, juhst like they improved the whole religion/missionary thing that was also sortof present in CtP, and other concepts :)

Call to Power trade routes were a HUGE bother. You had to manually set up each resource trading with each partner, had these blue lines all over the map that anbody (sea OR LAND units) could pirate, every turn, forcing you to regenerate the trade route manually (no, they didn't regenerate autoamtically. It might only seem so cause the AI did it during their turn, manually, so to speak).

Then you'd ask a completely 100% friendly nation to stop pirating your trade routes, and they'd do so again the next turn (bad AI programming here).

I sure hope firaxis improves on it, juhst like they improved the whole religion/missionary thing that was also sortof present in CtP, and other concepts

The trade route system is almost entirely automated.

Most of my thoughts in this thread are reacting to what others have said in a haphazard manner so I'm going to summarise three issues as briefly as possible:
1) Why making trade routes visible isn't enough of a change to increase the importance of military vessels?
2) What least other changes are required?
3) Why visible merchant vessels shouldn't have an affect on the game (why there shouldn't be an assign excort option for merchants)?

Why aren't visible trade routes aren't enough?

This is regardless of how trade routes are defended.

Imagine a trade route takes the shortest journey from one city to another. Even if some tiles are treated as being more quickly navigated - even if a merchant may prefer to sail around a desert peninsula than travel across it - the result will be lines randomly drawn all over the map. The cost of defending all of your trade routes - the maintenance you spend on naval units - will reduce the commerce gained from these routes to insignificance. A civ may wish to spend money protecting a handful of the most profitable routes but the rest will go unguarded. The trade game will degenerate into who can pillage the most unguarded routes.

What least other changes are required?

Again, this is regardless of how trade routes are defended. It doesn't go into how to implement the changes (though I have two developed ideas).

Trade route funnelling. A system whereby trade routes recieved by one civ only use a handful of oceanic crossing points instead of many. What good is this? It means that the cost of defending the routes - the amount spent on maintaining and supplying naval units - is drastically reduced. It also means that if an enemy succeeds in finding a vulnerable spot they could potentially pillage lots of trade in one turn.

In short, trade defence is more likely to be economically feasible and trade pillaging will be both more difficult while - when succesful - more profitable.

Why visible merchant vessels shouldn't have an affect on the game?

This isn't about merchant vessels being visible. This is about being able to interact with visible merchant ships. It also assumes the 'assign escort' option, as described above, is used as a means of protecting merchants - it's probably the method of protecting visible merchant vessels that has the least micromanagement. Note that I'm assuming a form of trade route funneling in this. If I did not, there would be a number of other difficulties. But I've also not made any arguements about problems brought up by trying to amalgamate trade route funnelling with assigning escorts. If BtS does end up asking us to assign escorts to trading merchants it will need to come up with another system to make protecting trade feasible.

I'm a big fan of CivIV's trade route system; it's automated and it's benefit isn't entirely dependent on micromanagement like in CivII. I'd like to see the BtS enhancement of trade routes build on top of this system.

CivIV trade routes are not two way. Just because Rome recieves trade route commerce every turn from London doesn't mean that London recieves trade route commerce every turn from Rome. When the escorting unit arrives from London at Rome it is not guaranteed that it will immeadiately find a merchant about to head to London. Does the escort automatically reappear at London to begin escorting a new unit? What happens when the eventual destination is not a coastal city - if the trade route arrives at the port of Rome but continues inland to Madrid. Will the naval unit follow it on land?

What happens if a merchant vessel is succesfully pillaged by a privateer? Will the destination city lose x turns of trade route commerce or just one?

x = (distance between cities)/((number of merchant vessels)*(speed of merchant vessels))

My view is that being able to assign escorts to visible merchant units - where merchant units are the sole points of weakness of trade routes - produces a system that is inconsistent with the current trade route model.

Let me put forward an alternative. Assuming trade route funnelling, there will be only a few oceanic highways that require protection. A handful of stationary ships should be able to defend a large number of trade routes. This does leave the problem that a privateer can appear, pillage, and disappear in one turn. Solution: zones of control. If between turns an enemy comes in sight of one of your military vessels your naval unit will do nothing unless the enemy attempts to pillage a trade route at a point visible to your naval unit. Then your vessel will automatically attack the enemy. If your unit dies the enemy will pillage the route and possibly have taken on damage. Other wise the enemy is destroyed and the trade route remains unharmed. This has the added benefit over 'assigning escorts' that you know where your naval units are at all times (assuming good memory).

My view is that being able to assign escorts to visible merchant units - where merchant units are the sole points of weakness of trade routes - produces a system that is inconsistent with the current trade route model.

Let me put forward an alternative. Assuming trade route funnelling, there will be only a few oceanic highways that require protection. A handful of stationary ships should be able to defend a large number of trade routes. This does leave the problem that a privateer can appear, pillage, and disappear in one turn. Solution: zones of control. If between turns an enemy comes in sight of one of your military vessels your naval unit will do nothing unless the enemy attempts to pillage a trade route at a point visible to your naval unit. Then your vessel will automatically attack the enemy. If your unit dies the enemy will pillage the route and possibly have taken on damage. Other wise the enemy is destroyed and the trade route remains unharmed. This has the added benefit over 'assigning escorts' that you know where your naval units are at all times (assuming good memory).

Personally i don't think the trade route system really needs a great overhaul, it needs just some tweaks on how to protect trade routes.
I have no doubt that Submarines will have a greater role in the expansion now which is also more similar to its historic one.
Considering that they are invisible to all units except for other submarines and Destroyers which can detect them, i just think that there is no other solution than assigning escorts; being able to detect them with these units doesn't mean you can efficiently protect your trade routes and efficiently hunt them, it will be too easy to send a submarine and destroy the trade route avoiding other ships.
Zone of Control assumes that trade routes can be attacked always at the same place (otherwise you have to move ships every turn which is a lot of micromanagement) and it is yet to be seen whether AI can manage efficiently that.ZoC would be really similar to an escort system with the difference that it would require micromanagement and we are not sure whether AI is able to really protect well trade routes.
With an Escort system you can automatically assign ships to escort some sort of vessel ship which is visible on map without caring anymore, and at the same time giving AI better chances to defend them by prioritizing "Assign Ship to Trade Route".

IMO the biggest problem is the balance between land and sea routes, because it's true that land routes usually give less income but making them unpillageable is also a great advantage.Some tweaks should be done to make land routes pillageable or make sea trade routes more profitable.
Second point is should you be able to see other civ trade routes or they should be seen only if you have some espionage info abbout them?

Mario Flag:
I have no doubt that Submarines will have a greater role in the expansion now which is also more similar to its historic one.
Considering that they are invisible to all units except for other submarines and Destroyers which can detect them, i just think that there is no other solution than assigning escorts; being able to detect them with these units doesn't mean you can efficiently protect your trade routes and efficiently hunt them, it will be too easy to send a submarine and destroy the trade route avoiding other ships.

It's true that submarines will be more useful but their special abilities don't invalidate my alternative suggestion to protecting trade routes. It simply means that battleships shouldn't be used in this role. Destroyers and submarines should be used since they can defend against this situation.

Zone of Control assumes that trade routes can be attacked always at the same place (otherwise you have to move ships every turn which is a lot of micromanagement) and it is yet to be seen whether AI can manage efficiently that.ZoC would be really similar to an escort system with the difference that it would require micromanagement and we are not sure whether AI is able to really protect well trade routes.

I'm not entirely sure if you've enterpreted my suggestion entirely accurately. I'm not at all sure what you're saying in the first few lines or how it relates to my suggestion - specifically; I don't understand where you got the idea that my suggestion leads to having to move military vessels around during each turn. You don't.

Let me make the following clear: my suggestion reduces protection of trade routes to stationing units along trade routes and leaving them in place. That's barely more micromanagement than the 'assigning escorts' method and, when you include the trade route funnelling (which I've said is essential), it reduces the micromanagement even further since less ships are actually required - 'assigning escorts' requires at least one ship per trade route, my suggestion can use a couple of ships to protect multiple trade routes.

I don't understand how this could be too complicated a task to provide the AI with adequate programming.

The zone of control element of my suggestion only comes into play to protect from quick in-between-turn attacks. It doesn't actually require any further actions by the defending civ.

With an Escort system you can automatically assign ships to escort some sort of vessel ship which is visible on map without caring anymore, and at the same time giving AI better chances to defend them by prioritizing "Assign Ship to Trade Route".

These beneifts apply to the method I've outlined with the added benefit of knowing where your units are (since they're stationary - unmoving).

IMO the biggest problem is the balance between land and sea routes, because it's true that land routes usually give less income but making them unpillageable is also a great advantage.Some tweaks should be done to make land routes pillageable or make sea trade routes more profitable.

It has been said no where that land routes won't be pillageable. I have no doubt that if reference in interview emphasised ocean routes that's because trade routes work so that the oceans are the location where pillaging is most likely to occur.

However, if you are refering to the lack of a land based privateer: most land ends up under the control of civilizations. All units can pillage but pillaging is an act of war. The reality is that land based military units are so important to the game that creating a land based privateer would serve no function since civs already produce the means to destroy it (like they would be able to destroy a barbarian). The creation of an ocean based privateer is of use because [without a land based privateer] civs don't always create much naval units, or, if they do, they don't have a use for them.

Second point is should you be able to see other civ trade routes or they should be seen only if you have some espionage info abbout them?

I covered this in a much earlier post; you should know where the trade routes providing commerce to your cities come from and the routes taken. When you discover details of a foreign city you should gain knowledge of the trade routes supplying it.

My ideal wish list:

1) Trades routes merge whenever possible. That cuts down on the map clutter and cuts down on support costs to guard it. It also means that a pillaged trade route is that much more damaging.

2) No pillaging of trade routes within one or two tiles of military units, or only at certain (relatively common) points. It'd be too annoying to have a unit stationed on every square.

3) Don't bother making land routes. That's what roads are for.

Call to Power trade routes were a HUGE bother. You had to manually set up each resource trading with each partner, had these blue lines all over the map that anbody (sea OR LAND units) could pirate, every turn, forcing you to regenerate the trade route manually (no, they didn't regenerate autoamtically. It might only seem so cause the AI did it during their turn, manually, so to speak).

Then you'd ask a completely 100% friendly nation to stop pirating your trade routes, and they'd do so again the next turn (bad AI programming here).

I sure hope firaxis improves on it, juhst like they improved the whole religion/missionary thing that was also sortof present in CtP, and other concepts :)

I agree on the bad AI. I disagree with the rest. I *loved* the CTP2 trade route system and I despise the Civ4 system. Open Borders is NOT the same damn thing as military access/trade agreements. Give me trade agreements for trade routes which are pillagable/piratable both overland and over sea. That gives me something that I have to have a navy for!

A difference will be that a strategic blockade can occur with a relatively weak force, and be far away from the opponents navy at port. Strategic blockades (blocking iron shipments to the new world, for example) will be a flavor different than starving the coasts of your enemies.

I believe trade routes are already blockaded when your ships are within an enemy city radius (but only for that city). So for me, the only "change" that I can see is that they are now visible on the map.

So now there can be naval battles in far away places out in the middle of the ocean over trading routes. Battles near the artic over fur and certain minerals and lasty there can be huge battles over strategic straits and if you controll those, you have a hefty advantage.

Random thougt will tech leak,GP, hamers be introduced?.