Highest Great Merchant Trade Route?!?!

Okay, without world builder nonsense or other artificial setup, what's your highest payoff?

I just sent my merchant across the planet to the farthest / biggest city I could find (Saladin's capital, size 11). Huge, archipelago, snaky islands. Gave me 7,000 gold! This is about 1200 AD, on Monarch.

Anyone beat that?

Wodan

No, not by far. My best one so far was 2900, it was in the Modern Era. My GM headed to a size 19 city (Rheims I guess). It was a huge continents map. Still, this was a lot of money I then used for upgrades...

About 5000-6000 i think for me (on huge map,later on in the game).

The largest I have seen is just over 5000. Large balanced map...

Aboult 4300 would be my highest. I dont tend to get many Great Merchants as it dont aim for them (maybe 1 every 2nd game).

5400 gold coins

It was something like 4000 gold.

I got more than 9000 when I was playing as Izzy in World map 1000AD. I got a great merchant from Santiago and sent it to Heian-kyo, Japan. Size about 17, the year was about 1600, and I had caravels. Money money money money

I got 9500 gold in my current game. Noble, standard size continents map, marathon speed. Sent the merchant to the German capital on another continent, size 17, I think. Year was something like early 1900's.

I've had 7500 a few times.

I'm guessing game speed effects what they produce... I was playing on marathon where everything is tripled, so I guess 7500 equates to 2500 on normal.

I can't envision getting so much coinage. Could the route to a city on another continent generate that much more on a standart size map? Seems like just one such caravan is a gamebreaker. Is that how the AI sometimes has so much cash it can instantly upgrade 30 units? If this be true, it certainly will skew the game strategy into the fanciful realm (whatever that means).

5000 from a city right next door. On a small sized map.

Highest i ever got was 6500 gold

Older than Dirt said:

I can't envision getting so much coinage. Could the route to a city on another continent generate that much more on a standart size map? Seems like just one such caravan is a gamebreaker. Is that how the AI sometimes has so much cash it can instantly upgrade 30 units? If this be true, it certainly will skew the game strategy into the fanciful realm (whatever that means).

Click to expand...

Its not that huge a number. My big ones are in the mid-late games on marathon-huge maps, and I've sent them to a size 20+ city thats on the other side of the globe.

At that time of the game with research on 0% I'll get about 500gold a turn... so I'd have to turn my research off for about 15 turns to get this amount. 15 turns on marathon is about the time it takes to research a tech... so... even with my crappy maths... a big trade mission like that only holds the value of about 1 tech.... certainly not a gamebreaker.

The AI gets lowered upgrade costs on all difficulties, because in previous games the players complained about civs using archers in the 1900's. The AI isn't smart enough to manage their money like a human can.... so they're just given cheaper unit upgrades to compensate.

jimbob27 said:

Its not that huge a number. My big ones are in the mid-late games on marathon-huge maps, and I've sent them to a size 20+ city thats on the other side of the globe.

At that time of the game with research on 0% I'll get about 500gold a turn... so I'd have to turn my research off for about 15 turns to get this amount. 15 turns on marathon is about the time it takes to research a tech... so... even with my crappy maths... a big trade mission like that only holds the value of about 1 tech.... certainly not a gamebreaker.

Click to expand...

I just lowered my tech level to 0% to see, and I would be getting 2598 gold/turn. So, it would take me 3 turns to match my great merchant.

Thanks for pointing that out, Jimbob.

Wodan

Yeah.. I was being conservative with my figures because I was going just from generally memory... but your real-life figures show just how weak the trade missions are later on in the game.

Just out of interest.... in those 3 turns how many beakers would you have generated? and more importantly.... is it higher or lower than the amount the GM gives, if you were to use him to discover a tech?

jimbob27 said:

I've had 7500 a few times.

I'm guessing game speed effects what they produce... I was playing on marathon where everything is tripled, so I guess 7500 equates to 2500 on normal.

Click to expand...

Yes, you'll get more money on marathon, 9800 is my best score. But, what bothers me is a fact that not only city size is what matters, besides distance. Usually, when I send GM to a particular city, I also visit several nearby cities to se which one would net me top money. Sometimes, smaller cities with high culture and wonders would mean more gain than a twice as big "normal" city. In one game, I sent a GM to romans, Rome had a size of 21 and could net me 7500, while Antium (one of the Top 5 cities), size 13, full of wonders, got me 9100. Anyone knows how trade route output is determined?

About 7000 on Marathon, mid-game, around 5500 on Epic, mid-game. I hardly ever get GM after about 1500AD, must be my game style.

jimbob27 said:

Yeah.. I was being conservative with my figures because I was going just from generally memory... but your real-life figures show just how weak the trade missions are later on in the game.

Just out of interest.... in those 3 turns how many beakers would you have generated? and more importantly.... is it higher or lower than the amount the GM gives, if you were to use him to discover a tech?

Click to expand...

Excellent questions.

I'm a few turns beyond the previous report, but looks to me as though it's about equal. About 2500 gold/turn if I run at 0/0/100. The max I can run is 80% without going negative, and at that rate I get about 2500 beakers/turn.

Meanwhile, the GP will give me about 6000 beakers if I use to research a tech.

So... conclusions:
-- A GP:M trade mission will give you about what you would get if you stop research and run at 100% gold for 3 turns.
-- A GP:M discover tech will save you only about 2.5 turns of research

Assumption:
-- I'm running a max-infrastructure civ. (Lizzy, build my economics to the max so that when I get Cavs and Redcoats I can support an all-out bid for domination victory.)

Problem is that there are so many ramifications of the assumption that I don't think my conclusions are a good benchmark. For example, if you're running an aggressive civ with minimal economy, then a GP:M on trade mission will almost certainly get you much more of a benefit than it would to me in my sample game as Lizzy.

Wodan

This thread got me thinking about the rules for the Great Merchant Trade Mission so I delved into the SDK and found the following...

The formula for the amount of gold received is...complicated...

Total Gold = iBaseTrade + ( iTradeMultiplier * iUnitTradePercent/100 * Profit )

Where
iBaseTrade is 500 (from Civ4UnitInfos.xml)
iTradeMultiplier is 200 (from Civ4UnitInfos.xml)
iUnitTradePercent is a speed scaling factor (from Civ4GameSpeedInfo.xml)
- 300% for Marathon
- 150% for Epic
- 100% for Normal
- 67% for Quick

and Profit is calculated as follows...

First get the base profit, which is the lesser of two values

Method1

BaseProfit = CapitalPop * THEIR_POPULATION_TRADE_PERCENT/100

Where
CapitalPop is the populaition of your capital as shown on the map (not the one in the demographics screens)
THEIR_POPULATION_TRADE_PERCENT is 50

So, by default method1 yields BaseProfit = CapitalPop/2

Method2

BaseProfit = CapitalDist * iTradeProfitPercent/100

Where
CapitalDist is the distance to your capital measured in tiles with diagonals counting 1.5
iTradeProfitPercent is a mapsize scaling factor (from CIV4WorldInfo.xml)
80% for Duel
70% for Tiny
60% for Small
50% for Standard
40% for Large
30% for Huge

So on a standard map, method2 yields BaseProfit = CapitalDist/2


OK, we take the lesser of the values from method1 and method2 as BaseProfit. So now,

Profit = BaseProfit * (100 + FOREIGN_TRADE_MODIFIER)/100 * TotalTradeModifier/100 * TRADE_PROFIT_PERCENT/100

[Note: if Profit is 0 at this point it is set to a minimal 1 for a domestic route and 2 for a foreign route]

Where
FOREIGN_TRADE_MODIFIER is 150 (from GlobalDefines.xml) but is only used if the city does not belong to our team
TRADE_PROFIT_PERCENT is 20 (from GlobalDefines.xml)
is calculated as follows...

TotalTradeModifier = 100 + iTradeRouteModifier + ( CityPop + OUR_POPULATION_TRADE_MODIFIER_OFFSET ) * OUR_POPULATION_TRADE_MODIFIER ) + CAPITAL_TRADE_MODIFIER

[Note: If TotalTradeModifier is less than 0 then 0 is used]

Where

iTradeRouteModifier is the sum of iTradeRouteModifier (from CIV4BuildingInfos.xml) for all buildings in the city (Note: Currently only Harbor (=50) has this value set)
CityPop is the populaition of this city as shown on the map (not the one in the demographics screens)
OUR_POPULATION_TRADE_MODIFIER_OFFSET is -10 (from GlobalDefines.xml)
OUR_POPULATION_TRADE_MODIFIER is 5 (from GlobalDefines.xml)
CAPITAL_TRADE_MODIFIER is 25 (from GlobalDefines.xml) but is only added if this city is connected to its capital

So, by default for a foreign city that has a harbor and is connected to its capital...
Profit = min(CapitalPop/2, CapitalDist/2) * 250 / 100 * ( ( 100 + 50 + (CityPop-10)*5 +25) / 100 ) * 20 / 100
and the total gold received (assuming normal speed) is...
Total Gold = 500 + 200 * (min(CapitalPop/2, CapitalDist/2) * 250 / 100 * ( ( 100 + 50 + (CityPop-10)*5 +25) / 100 ) * 20 / 100 )

So, to summarize,

You always get a base amount of 500

The variable part is 200 times a value that is proportional to game speed and related to

• the city size
• whether the city has a harbor
• whether the city is connected to its capital,
• whether the city is foreign (means 'not on our team', rather than just 'not ours'),
• a number of modifiers defined in XML files
• and the lesser of:
  - the population of your capital
  - the distance to your capital scaled based on map size.

Whew, I hope someone other than me finds that useful.