Traders and Merchants

[Shoobs]

They may have been nerfed, I agree. I would not know, I am only playing the base v36. They may be pricey to use ( Tribal warfare once you go past the 40 unit limit is quite painful and neither banditry or militia really "help" that situation ), but once you hit metals and have access to a way to get mounted units, their overall price penalties are largely mitigated, for the same production costs.

So for some actual game statistics on a recent game..
Before I hit sedimentary lifestyle ( which is specifically in relation to having people stay around a certain area instead of being nomadic mind you, as it is refering to the way sediment sits at the bottom of rivers and no longer easily 'moves' where the water goes. )
~17 hunters active + random amounts of subdued animals with setup for new cities, and so on...
Getting a new city within 5 tiles of my capital and slightly positive cash gains goes from, positive to easily 30-40ish negative cash flow, if not more.
Going further away brings that to over a hundred.
Hitting metals made me go from barely scraping by to easily 40ish positive cashflow.
Then lastly...
Each trade caravan costs the same in hammers as 3 early merchants of either variety, cutting the overall cost of this strategy by a third in terms of gold. And you can get more cities in on it.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

Wrong definition of power. They come too early, too soon, and with proper support, can turn a new city in the prehistoric era into a near new capital city in terms of power even before the sedimentary lifestyle is researched, ignoring culture of course. I think it takes ~15-20 turns worth of production on snail speed.

The return is proportional to the cost. We can reduce the return by reducing their cost but then you just build more and get the same result.

 

[Thunderbrd]

sedimentary lifestyle ( which is specifically in relation to having people stay around a certain area instead of being nomadic mind you, as it is refering to the way sediment sits at the bottom of rivers and no longer easily 'moves' where the water goes. )

Sorry bro. The term is 'Sedentary'. There is, as you point out, a latin root share between the term sedentary and sedimentary and as a result they do have similar meanings. But they are not the same word.

 

[Shoobs]

No bubble burst, but thank you for correcting. I could not remember sedentary at the time.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

They may have been nerfed, I agree. I would not know, I am only playing the base v36. They may be pricey to use ( Tribal warfare once you go past the 40 unit limit is quite painful and neither banditry or militia really "help" that situation ), but once you hit metals and have access to a way to get mounted units, their overall price penalties are largely mitigated, for the same production costs.

So for some actual game statistics on a recent game..
Before I hit sedimentary lifestyle ( which is specifically in relation to having people stay around a certain area instead of being nomadic mind you, as it is refering to the way sediment sits at the bottom of rivers and no longer easily 'moves' where the water goes. )
~17 hunters active + random amounts of subdued animals with setup for new cities, and so on...
Getting a new city within 5 tiles of my capital and slightly positive cash gains goes from, positive to easily 30-40ish negative cash flow, if not more.
Going further away brings that to over a hundred.
Hitting metals made me go from barely scraping by to easily 40ish positive cashflow.
Then lastly...
Each trade caravan costs the same in hammers as 3 early merchants of either variety, cutting the overall cost of this strategy by a third in terms of gold. And you can get more cities in on it.

Ah, you play with the Unlimited Units option. Merchants are indeed OP under that option. That is why you are limited to 5 in normal games. The limit is what makes then not OP.

 

[Thunderbrd]

The limit makes it so you cannot just set a city to build them and forget about it. Very frustrating. If you just reduce how much they can deliver then it would be unnecessary to make them limited.

 

[Shoobs]

Or forcing them to go a circular route, or something similar, to keep loading resources onto them and then bringing them to a new city instead of having full payloads ( and thus no longer need to expend the unit themself ).

 

[Shoobs]

I am not going to deny the unlimitted national unit thing. I did not think it'd affect merchants so.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Or forcing them to go a circular route, or something similar, to keep loading resources onto them and then bringing them to a new city instead of having full payloads ( and thus no longer need to expend the unit themself ).

Yep. That's my plan eventually. At that point they will be needed for more than just delivering food and production too so limits will be even more impossible to assign and work with effectively.

 

[Shoobs]

Yeah. But can the AI deal with it?

 

[Thunderbrd]

Yeah. But can the AI deal with it?

Not currently. With programming they will be able to. It's not a simple task of course. But it's going to be a necessary development to support equipment.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

The limit makes it so you cannot just set a city to build them and forget about it. Very frustrating.

The limit is good because it makes it necessary to plan your expansion giving you some real strategic building choices.

If you just reduce how much they can deliver then it would be unnecessary to make them limited.

I can't! For the nth time. There is no XML for that. The amount they give in is based solely on their cost in . The only adjustment I can make other than cost is the amount of money you get when you do a trade mission.

Edit anyway I would not want to as they are currently balanced for the main game ie withe out the "Unlimited National Units" option selected.

 

[Shoobs]

I still question whether or not they are truly "balanced" in that sense. After trade you need some sort of mount to make the best of them, but they are still rather powerful, particularly if you are careful of how you expand yourself.
Certainly you can't be doing what I'm doing and building 6 early merchants per turn and throwing them at a city 20 tiles away.... but proper set up and development of each new city and you can just use the new cities to throw out MOAR merchants at the new new cities ad infinitum before you'd build all of their necessary items. Sure more micromanagement, but logistically possible.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

I find one early merchant is enough to build a producing building. Then later when I can make a charcoal building one early merchant and a merchant are enough to get a town well on its way. No need for more merchants to that city.

I do need a food merchant these days because of starvation with no plots to work and two population to feed.

 

[JosEPh_II]

I find one early merchant is enough to build a producing building. Then later when I can make a charcoal building one early merchant and a merchant are enough to get a town well on its way. No need for more merchants to that city.

I do need a food merchant these days because of starvation with no plots to work and two population to feed.

Once you have Story Tellers that should not be a problem. Couple STs and a couple of non herd animals sent with Tribe/settler will pop the 8 tiles in 1 to 2 turns. Long before starvation deletes the 2nd pop.

JosEPh

 

[Thunderbrd]

I can't! For the nth time. There is no XML for that. The amount they give in is based solely on their cost in . The only adjustment I can make other than cost is the amount of money you get when you do a trade mission.

hmm... this is setup in the dll somewhere is it? Not saying I'll mess with it. I just assumed the transaction was controlled by python.

I'm fine with all that. You can even force them to ignore the no unlimited units factor. I just really don't like having them limited because it makes managing the city producing them a real pita.

 

[Shoobs]

What thunderbird said regarding merchants in general. Its a PITA to keep going back to the city, over and over again, to requeue the merchants in their current state.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

Once you have Story Tellers that should not be a problem. Couple STs and a couple of non herd animals sent with Tribe/settler will pop the 8 tiles in 1 to 2 turns. Long before starvation deletes the 2nd pop.

JosEPh

They starve at end of turn 1 unless you put food in with the caravan. The city expands at the start of turn 2 at which point they can feed themselves..

What thunderbird said regarding merchants in general. Its a PITA to keep going back to the city, over and over again, to requeue the merchants in their current state.

Exactly my thoughts on combat.

 

[Shoobs]

Combat can be -really- painful. C2C has a major stack of doom issue.

 

[tmv]

They starve at end of turn 1 unless you put food in with the caravan.

Not if you put in enough culture via Storytellers to "pop" the first ring immediately.