Concept: CiV's 2nd expansion - Thrive And Prosperity - 1. Trade

1. Trade

1.1 Rivers

- Rivers connect cities with trade routes.
- There is no technology needed.
- Each river connection grants 2 gpt. City size has no influence on this.
- River connections are visualized by blue connection symbols.


Picture: A river connects two cities. This is indicated by a blue connection symbol.


1.2 National trade

- All cities connected to the capital (by rivers, roads or ports) are part of a “National Trade Network”.
- If connected, surplus bonus resources can be shared between cities (see: 4. Health)


1.3 International trade

1.3.1 Preconditions to establish international trade routes

- In order to allow international trade routes, both capitals have to be connected by roads or harbours.
- A diplomatic status of “neutral” or better is necessary.
- Each civilization has a limited amount of “special merchandise” (SM)
- The SM is randomly calculated at game start.
- The SM may feature all available bonuses: food, science, culture, faith, production or gold.
- Each SM may randomly feature up to three bonuses in any combination.

Examples:

• England may offer “English idols”: +3 faith
• Germany may offer “German tools”: +1 production, +1 gold
• France may offer “French art”: +2 culture, +1 science
• Celts may offer ”Celtic venison”: +1 food

- The names are chosen randomly out of a list with the main bonus as guidance.
- The amount of available SM increases by eras: Ancient: 0, Classical: 1, Medieval: 2, Renaissance: 4
- There are not more than 4 “naturaly” available SM. It is possible though, to gain additional SM by National and World Wonders:

• National Stock Exchange (National Wonder):
  Available with “Electricity”;
  Precondition: a stock exchange in every controlled city;
  Effect: +1 SM and a Great Merchant appears; No culture bonus, +1 Great Merchant point
• World trade Centre (World Wonder):
  Available with “Plastics”;
  Effect: +1 SM; +10% gold income via international trading agreements; +1 culture and +2 Great Merchant points

- It is not possible to establish more international trade routes than SM available. Each potential trading partner has to have at least one free SM available.



1.3.2 The benefits of international trade

- If an international trading agreement is forged, the bonuses of the trading partner's SM are added to the own capital.
- Additionally, a certain amount of gold/turn is added.
- This amount is based on (and a multiplication product of):
- As trade routes are more beneficial when lasting longer, international trading agreements will generate the “we traded recently” diplomatic bonus. The bonus is not cumulative with the same bonus granted by gifts, though.


Picture: Askia suggests to prolong an international trading agreement.


1.3.3 The risks of international trade: easier espionage

- If an international trade agreement is achieved, enemy spies may have an easier game infiltrating foreign cities. If information about G&K is correct, “potential” is a measure for the detecting possibility of spies. Therefore:
- Is an international trade agreement active, “potential” is lowered by 25% regarding the spies of the trading partners. This works in both directions.


1.3.4 Remarks

- The limitation of SM and therefore total numbers of international trading agreements might feel,... well, limiting for some.
My thinking is, that limitations make the game interesting. You have to evaluate, with which nation you want to establish trading relations. As the trading gets more and more beneficial over time, your decision should better be well thought - and diplomatic effort should do anything, to remain in good relations with your trading partners. (The positive modifier will help a little bit, though.)
- With the introduction of SM, a second layer comes into play: “Do I want to trade with the Celts, as their high population count would yield high benefits in gold? Or should I better trade with the English. Their population is smaller, but I want to have this valuable +3 faith bonus (see examples).”
- Another point to consider is balance. With unlimited international trading routes, gpt income could easily break all reasonable boundaries and international trade would be risible overpowered.
To achieve this, trading possibilities are limited especially at the beginning of the game.
-Another feature to balance int. trade is the fact, that smaller nations benefit more when trading with large ones - as long, as anybody wants to trade with them, at all (see point above).



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Hmmm... special merchandise? It seems kindof strange to have it right from the start.

I'd opt for only being able to trade resources with another civ if your capitals are connected. That way there's a huge incentive for creating trade networks with other players without anything really getting more complicated.

Also, I totally agree rivers should connect traderoutes. Only, why the +2 gold? Being able to establish a trade route right from the start with no costs is already very powerfull imo.

The +2 gold seemed out of place until I realized that, assuming I understood you correctly that a civ doesn't give a vanilla trade route yield based upon population and distance but a 'across the board' bonus of +2 gold, national trade's importance needed to be reduced with the addition of your international trade idea. I think you throw in some really nice ideas for balance and I agree that national trade shouldn't be as lucrative as international trade routes. I like that international trade will become more important as time goes by. Warmongering civs will have to focus on national trade (Mercantalism comes to mind) while peacful civs (generally smaller civs) can still keep up through lucrative international trade.

Not sure about the special merchandise. Why include merchandise when there are luxury resources? I guess I don't understand the importance of their inclusion.

CYZ said:

Hmmm... special merchandise? It seems kindof strange to have it right from the start.

Click to expand...

Yes, probably. Therefore, they are not!
My design is like this:
"- The amount of available SM increases by eras: Ancient: 0, Classical: 1, Medieval: 2, Renaissance: 4"
I think, 1 of these "goods" (an easier name, proposed by SuperWaffle247) at Classical era is reasonable, though.

CYZ said:

I'd opt for only being able to trade resources with another civ if your capitals are connected. That way there's a huge incentive for creating trade networks with other players without anything really getting more complicated.

Click to expand...

Definitely!
Therefore: "- In order to allow international trade routes, both capitals have to be connected by roads or harbours." (1.3.1)
I know, these concepts are such a massive wall of text and information! I got used to it, but it took me weeks to do so...

CYZ said:

Also, I totally agree rivers should connect traderoutes. Only, why the +2 gold? Being able to establish a trade route right from the start with no costs is already very powerfull imo.

Click to expand...

As Kurtbob mentions correctly:
The +2 gold is meant to be the only yield.
I thought this necessary, because a "real" trade connection but without the upkeep of connecting roads would be overpowered. So, the 2 gold will give you a nice bonus at game start, but they don't scale with city size. Therefore, a road connection is still desirable after some time.

Kurtbob said:

...Not sure about the special merchandise. Why include merchandise when there are luxury resources? I guess I don't understand the importance of their inclusion.

Click to expand...

You are right, the special merchandise are not really necessary!

My thoughts were:
- I wanted to limit the numbers of available international trading routes (as CYZ remarked, too). While I could have set a plain limit, a more natural "reason" (like the SM) felt more like the CiV way. (I couldn't do this with luxuries, as their available numbers can not be controlled.)
- After I decided to introduce SM, I was thinking: "Well, how are they different to luxuries? I don't want to have a simple copy of them!" (So, you are totally reasonable with your concern!).
Therefore I had the idea of making them randomly unique at game start. With this, all of a sudden I generated an "interesting decision" (as Cid M. would call it - and I agree totally!): Should I trade with the small empire, as it owns a desirable SM, or do I want to trade with the big one for higher gold rewards?