Advanced Economy & Trade Routes

Spirictum said:
You do have to agree that many many strategies will get completely different with TRs going away. You think it's easy/fast to change all buildings that give TRs or TR modifiers? I think this may take a good time. I say hard not for the concept, but for the time it'll take (so many buildings and other stuff that affect TRs directly).
Click to expand...

Deleting content is fairly easy. After that phase, it would take maybe a few games of playtesting for the early pass of balancing. After that, I'd listen to player feedback. Probably a few days worth of code, plus two weeks of feedback.

Spirictum said:
But about espionage, are you really sure? There is this guide of espionage here with this part:


Is this the connectedness you said or is it indeed related to TRs?

To be honest I would be a lot happier with a faster game without TRs, but I think the changes to get rid of all stuff will take much time.

EDIT: Here is the code part of the detektyw post that explains this:

Code: 
// Trade Route
if (pCity->isTradeRoute(getID()))
{
iModifier *= 100 + GC.getDefineINT("ESPIONAGE_CITY_TRADE_ROUTE_MOD");
iModifier /= 100;
}
Click to expand...

You may be right, but in that case its a dumb feature (because trade routes are not chosen by players) and so the espionage modifier is effectively random. Modifiers that players have zero control over are not good design. I'd just tweak it to test connectedness to our capital.
 
Afforess said:
Deleting content is fairly easy. After that phase, it would take maybe a few games of playtesting for the early pass of balancing. After that, I'd listen to player feedback. Probably a few days worth of code, plus two weeks of feedback.



You may be right, but in that case its a dumb feature (because trade routes are not chosen by players) and so the espionage modifier is effectively random. Modifiers that players have zero control over are not good design. I'd just tweak it to test connectedness to our capital.
Click to expand...

I do agree with all that. If it's for the best of the game, then do it. I think Vokarya will have a brainshock to rethink all effects that were related to TRs, but I would like to make myself useful and help in this quest, if it's agreed on.

Also there is another problem related to Permanent Alliances that will be fixed by this as well. When you make a Permanent Alliance I guess both players become of the same team (we may see each others spies and :espionage: against both of us is added), but TRs between both become an anomaly, because:

1- They are still considered Foreign Trade Routes, as we are different Players, and thus give the +100% foreign modifier;
2- But the other's cities can be used unlimitedly as a TR for our cities, because we are on the same team.

Having a max of 16 TRs I presume in the late game it's a lot common to have a huge number of domestic Routes because there aren't enough cities out there to fill this number. If you make a Perm Alliance then your income will get huge, because all those domestic trades become foreign trades.

I've seen this on LoR long ago, and it indeed broke the game

Oh BTW, Perm Alliances are severely game-breaking the harder the difficulty, because as you can ask almost anything from your perm, if he is strong you may get several bonuses that improve you a lot, and don't weaken him enough. As you are a human you may manage these bonuses a lot better then the AI. It's like reducing the difficulty once you get a Perm. And with this TR glitch, it becomes even better.

EDIT: Taking a quick look on the code it seems this perm glitch has been fixed, as in here:

Code: 
if (getTeam() != pOtherCity->getTeam())
                {
                        iModifier += getForeignTradeRouteModifier();
(...)

Or it doesn't work properly (I don't have LoR source files to make a comparison), but it seems to be ok
 
Ok, let's make a long story short:

- Trade routes have somehow to be reworked/removed
- This will of course cause some severe unbalance until we get it fixed with playtesting
- Some buildings/wonders will also need to be reworked as a consequence
- Early buildings also probably need adjustment; just a warning here: AFAIK they were introduced to give the player something to do in a tedious ancient era. So best way for me is making them mandatory but reworking them if needed. I don't feel most of them unbalanced, but I'm open to suggestions. Also, they should be made part of the core mod and not just an option. I would say the same for Castles but maybe that's just me.
- If Afforess can rework or remove Trade Routes and/or Inflation, it's ok to me; IIRC inflation was there also because with so much gold created in later eras, it was a way to compensate. If we could make it work with civics and events, I'd prefer it, but it's ok to change it in other ways or remove it as Afforess is able to.

- Most important of all anyway: I'd prefer to delay any of the above changes until Vokarya has released his next update or he agrees on these changes before he uploads his next revision. Just to make sure we don't disrupt his work.
Is it ok for you Afforess? Vokarya, your opinion (especially on early buildings, since this is your playground)?
 
45°38'N-13°47'E;13315862 said:
Ok, let's make a long story short:

- Trade routes have somehow to be reworked/removed
- This will of course cause some severe unbalance until we get it fixed with playtesting
- Some buildings/wonders will also need to be reworked as a consequence
- Early buildings also probably need adjustment; just a warning here: AFAIK they were introduced to give the player something to do in a tedious ancient era. So best way for me is making them mandatory but reworking them if needed. I don't feel most of them unbalanced, but I'm open to suggestions. Also, they should be made part of the core mod and not just an option. I would say the same for Castles but maybe that's just me.
- If Afforess can rework or remove Trade Routes and/or Inflation, it's ok to me; IIRC inflation was there also because with so much gold created in later eras, it was a way to compensate. If we could make it work with civics and events, I'd prefer it, but it's ok to change it in other ways or remove it as Afforess is able to.

- Most important of all anyway: I'd prefer to delay any of the above changes until Vokarya has released his next update or he agrees on these changes before he uploads his next revision. Just to make sure we don't disrupt his work.
Is it ok for you Afforess? Vokarya, your opinion (especially on early buildings, since this is your playground)?
Click to expand...

Great words 45°, I can't disagree with anything you said :goodjob:

With Tech Diffusion On, and being stronger now with the Score Modifier, I think the balance between players won't get much deteriorated, and the game needs to be slowed down anyway. In my game with Spain on Deity, Babylon with 23 cities in 500 BC was already with Longbows, which need Feudalism, a tech that should be common in Medieval Era, not in 500 BC. If I continued this game all of us would research medieval techs soon (The Tech Diffusion on me was making 7x my tech production, and mind I didn't update to a rev with the Score Modifier). My score was 100 and Babylon's 500, so this mean it would increase to 12x? Whoa!
 
Spirictum said:
In my game with Spain on Deity, Babylon with 23 cities in 500 BC was already with Longbows, which need Feudalism, a tech that should be common in Medieval Era, not in 500 BC.
Click to expand...

That doesn't depend on factors like trade routes or else. I've spent a hell of a time to balance things in comparison to the real timeline, but I haven't tested it for games slower than epic and maps different than large (and handicaps different than Noble). Your problem is definetely caused by Handicap because on Deity AI is researching way faster than Noble. I should correct that but I've not yet come to balance handicap levels. I've tested E_Pluribus_Unum settings and even on a large map (he was using Huge), he was in moder Era around 1300AD-1400AD on Marathon speed, Prince level. I'm determined to correct that but it will be delayed further if we're going to change things as proposed in this thread. Right now, if you play up to Epic gamespeed, tech timeline matches (more ore less) the real world timeline (provided you don't play on a level higher than Prince anyway).
 
FYI, tediousness of early game? Easy solution now. How? Set the option for End Turns auto, the one in BUG Options not regular stinky one, then when city has nothing to do, hit Idle then lean back and whatever. This is why I like current version better than older 2010 version. Because of that Auto End a turn and Minimum AI Turns options.
 
All this analysis from Spirictum is great, (and Thanks) but has a flaw or in other words is skewed. 45* has pointed it out already, playing on Marathon. AND should not (impo) be balanced on Marathon game speed. To do so actually makes Marathon the New Normal game speed for AND. C2C has went thru this process already to the point the faster game speeds are worthless and Normal for C2C is if fact it's new Blitz speed. Remember not everyone wants a 2400 turn game. (And in C2C's case a 14,000 turn game).

For AND right now in it's current state Normal and Epic are good for a middle of the road game length. And Blitz, Fast(?)are still very much playable for a quick game. Will they stay that way?

As for tediousness in the early game, that's because AND has been extremely sparse in the build area for the early game. Hundreds of game years to build a mine, for example, that's is what is tedious. To the point for awhile, before some adjustments were made a year or 2 ago, that the 1st 2000 game years for AND were basically dead time. But the re-introduction of JC's and revamping some of the production builds helped make this a more bearable time ans still allowed players to make it into the Ren and Modern Eras while still having a viable game at hand. Early Buildings Option also helped mitigate this early tedium. I don't feel they are unbalancing the early game at all. And their removal would be counter productive to the early game flow. I use them all the time for this very factor. If the concensus becomes to remove them then I propose AND goes back to a 4000BC game start and not it's current 6000BC.

Just my concern over some of this.

JosEPh
 
JosEPh_II said:
All this analysis from Spirictum is great, (and Thanks) but has a flaw or in other words is skewed. 45* has pointed it out already, playing on Marathon. AND should not (impo) be balanced on Marathon game speed. To do so actually makes Marathon the New Normal game speed for AND. C2C has went thru this process already to the point the faster game speeds are worthless and Normal for C2C is if fact it's new Blitz speed. Remember not everyone wants a 2400 turn game. (And in C2C's case a 14,000 turn game).

For AND right now in it's current state Normal and Epic are good for a middle of the road game length. And Blitz, Fast(?)are still very much playable for a quick game. Will they stay that way?

As for tediousness in the early game, that's because AND has been extremely sparse in the build area for the early game. Hundreds of game years to build a mine, for example, that's is what is tedious. To the point for awhile, before some adjustments were made a year or 2 ago, that the 1st 2000 game years for AND were basically dead time. But the re-introduction of JC's and revamping some of the production builds helped make this a more bearable time ans still allowed players to make it into the Ren and Modern Eras while still having a viable game at hand. Early Buildings Option also helped mitigate this early tedium. I don't feel they are unbalancing the early game at all. And their removal would be counter productive to the early game flow. I use them all the time for this very factor. If the concensus becomes to remove them then I propose AND goes back to a 4000BC game start and not it's current 6000BC.

Just my concern over some of this.

JosEPh
Click to expand...

Actually that game is going on Epic, so the problem is surely it being on Deity. Even though I have to agree with you guys about handicap, I feel somewhat confused because of my experience on LoR. Back there it was common for a superpower AI to develop early on on Deity, and without a good tech diffusion like AND's most countries stayed far behind in tech related to the year, but the superpower was always only slightly ahead of time, not so much like in AND. Revolution Penalties on LoR were a lot more serious then in AND, and that surely kept the superpower from going even further, that's my opinion. AND can't stop AI superpowers, so Deity seems to me unbeatable by now.

And this handicap thing really bothers me, because it leaves me to play not so hard games with poor starting civs (trait combos that I don't know how to handle exactly, or that are bad anyways and poor starting situation). The best example is being my Iroquois game, it's on Emperor and I started it with 0 knowledge on AND.

Because when I know what to do with my leader/civ and have a good starting situation, then I face two unbalanced situations:

1- If I play on Deity, the AI gets so much developed it crushes me;
or
2- If I play on an easier setting I'll make most wonders (if not all) and get way ahead of time myself (Noyyau's games on S&T seem like that for example).

I think balance may be achieved for each handicap, LoR seemed to be successful on this.

A good illustration in comparison is my last game on LoR MP. Deity, 1500 turns (Marathon) and Huge. I met the Old World Superpower more or less at the same time I met Babylon on that AND Spanish game.

On the AND game Babylon has Civil Service, Feudalism and Guilds and ~20 cities

On the LoR game Japan had a SoD of 40 Axemen plus other units (Swordsmen, Archers, Spearmen) having a SoD of 50-60 units walking freely against enemies and ~20 cities

Both super strong, but one super developed, and the other not
 
I am really a noob on the issue of economics (game amd real life both), so I don't consider my oppinion very important, but...

It would feel very strange to play the game with trade routes removed. It would feel like removing the leader traits.
I understand every reason behind removing it, but if possible, please, pleeease do not remove it, just rework it.


Early buildings deffinetily should stay.
 
I think Afforess is on something here.
Reason: trade routes that is based on roads, etc is fine because it connect things. But trade routes that are added in abstract and giving bonuses? I never understood them in the larger logic of historical simulation this game presents itself to be.

Now if the roads are connecting cities, give them the slight economic boost: logical. Give roads connection between civilization, give those two civs economical boost if they are friendly enough. Those make sense. But if no roads are present, then there is this "huh?" moment unless there is maybe turns based delay mechanics.

Then for foreign trade routes bonuses, modify them to based on if we are connected physically to other civs unless it is by sea. That one we need to make sure we have clear and neutral vacancy between us and other civs we are trading. Suppose there is a hostile civ between us and friendly civ, both on land and on sea, then there should be no trading going on, unless it is by turns based mechanics simulating elaborate workarounds (spies, smuggling, etc)

Those are my suggestions based on logical fact that this game is supposed to be historical simulation.
 
os79 said:
I think Afforess is on something here.
Reason: trade routes that is based on roads, etc is fine because it connect things. But trade routes that are added in abstract and giving bonuses? I never understood them in the larger logic of historical simulation this game presents itself to be.

Now if the roads are connecting cities, give them the slight economic boost: logical. Give roads connection between civilization, give those two civs economical boost if they are friendly enough. Those make sense. But if no roads are present, then there is this "huh?" moment unless there is maybe turns based delay mechanics.

Then for foreign trade routes bonuses, modify them to based on if we are connected physically to other civs unless it is by sea. That one we need to make sure we have clear and neutral vacancy between us and other civs we are trading. Suppose there is a hostile civ between us and friendly civ, both on land and on sea, then there should be no trading going on, unless it is by turns based mechanics simulating elaborate workarounds (spies, smuggling, etc)

Those are my suggestions based on logical fact that this game is supposed to be historical simulation.
Click to expand...

Also consider that roads already give bonuses to most improvements they are built on. Mines get extra production, towns extra commerce, last I checked.
 
Afforess said:
Also consider that roads already give bonuses to most improvements they are built on. Mines get extra production, towns extra commerce, last I checked.
Click to expand...

That.
So how about requiring actual physical and unimpeded connections between cities for inner economies and actual and unimpeded by hostile civilization between civs, that is until ocean sailing is available, but basically clear access between civs before Custom Houses or any foreign trade dependent buildings work?
 
os79 said:
That.
So how about requiring actual physical and unimpeded connections between cities for inner economies and actual and unimpeded by hostile civilization between civs, that is until ocean sailing is available, but basically clear access between civs before Custom Houses or any foreign trade dependent buildings work?
Click to expand...

Instead of trade routes, we could add new modifiers based on "connectedness".

I think there could be three classes of new modifiers:

  • Yield & Commerce modifiers for buildings in cities connected to capital
  • Yield & Commerce modifiers per connected city (up to a max)
  • Yield & Commerce modifiers per connected foreign city (up to a max)

So Commercial Port might give:

+1% :gold: per connected city (max: 15% :gold: )

Customs Office:

+1% :gold: per connected foreign city (max: 10% :gold: )

And maybe paved roads would be:

+5% :commerce: when connected to capital city

Or something of the like.

To ensure players don't have to do lots of math, the "actual effects" BUG feature would be updated to include these calculations.
 
Afforess said:
Instead of trade routes, we could add new modifiers based on "connectedness".

I think there could be three classes of new modifiers:

  • Yield & Commerce modifiers for buildings in cities connected to capital
  • Yield & Commerce modifiers per connected city (up to a max)
  • Yield & Commerce modifiers per connected foreign city (up to a max)

So Commercial Port might give:

+1% :gold: per connected city (max: 15% :gold: )

Customs Office:

+1% :gold: per connected foreign city (max: 10% :gold: )

And maybe paved roads would be:

+5% :commerce: when connected to capital city

Or something of the like.

To ensure players don't have to do lots of math, the "actual effects" BUG feature would be updated to include these calculations.
Click to expand...

Yes, what I want :). Simple is good. I already know coding that in is fairly easy for you so I guess wait on others' input.
 
Plus, it'll help AI because they're road-crazy :lol:.
 
Afforess said:
Instead of trade routes, we could add new modifiers based on "connectedness".

I think there could be three classes of new modifiers:

  • Yield & Commerce modifiers for buildings in cities connected to capital
  • Yield & Commerce modifiers per connected city (up to a max)
  • Yield & Commerce modifiers per connected foreign city (up to a max)

So Commercial Port might give:

+1% :gold: per connected city (max: 15% :gold: )

Customs Office:

+1% :gold: per connected foreign city (max: 10% :gold: )

And maybe paved roads would be:

+5% :commerce: when connected to capital city

Or something of the like.

To ensure players don't have to do lots of math, the "actual effects" BUG feature would be updated to include these calculations.
Click to expand...

Bonuses based on number of connnected (and eventually foreign) cities are a good idea! Though I'd prefer them being :commerce: rather than straight :gold:, since we're replacing trade routes that gave :commerce:.
 
Noyyau said:
Bonuses based on number of connnected (and eventually foreign) cities are a good idea! Though I'd prefer them being :commerce: rather than straight gold, since we're replacing trade routes that gave :commerce:.
Click to expand...

I have to agree with noyyau on this


And I would like to make a last stand for TRs, because even if we proceed on this path to exterminate them, I don't think it's the best solution, and I would like to make a significant change on its procedure of calculation to make the game faster, instead of just getting rid of them. But as I'm no modder (yet, hopefully ;)), I have no idea how to do this, so I don't want to stop the ideas from the real modders and fathers of this mod.

But I'm an addicted player, who tried to understand the game as fullest as possible to play the most realistic of games. So here it begins: A guide to TRs.

Macromanagement

First of all let's take a look at a marvelous advisor: The Financial Advisor. But actually its INFO tab. On INFO you may check several informations, including how much :commerce: all your TRs added together yield with each nation separately (including yourself).

E.G.: You are Rome, in a massive continent and then you check your yield in routes:

Rome: 1100:commerce:
Arabia: 200:commerce:
Khmer: 500:commerce:
Ottoman: 120:commerce:
Some others: 10 - 50 :commerce:
Many others: 0 :commerce:
Total: 2500:commerce:

This way you know 2 truly important informations: Who is(are) your best trade partner(s) and What's the difference between internal route :commerce: and foreign route :commerce:.

The first info is good to put an extra weight to make a decision of DoW. In this example declaring war on Khmer will take a serious economic repercussion on our Empire, while the Ottomans probably won't.

Have in mind declaring war don't just remove that :commerce: you have with someone, but rather change all TRs to new ones that may give the same or lower profit then before (never higher). Normally the best partners are the hardest to replace, and the losses will be bigger. Mediocre partners usually can be substituted easily. Usually the number of possible Trade Partners that are unused being bigger, and the number of internal routes :commerce: yield being bigger mean your losses on DoW will have less impact. The less unused possible Trade Partners and the less internal :commerce: yield, the stronger impact a DoW will have.

The second info is great not only for what has already been explained above, but also to see your reliance on foreign nations. The bigger the ratio between Internal and Foreign :commerce: the bigger your economic independence from the foreign (a good situation to change to a No Foreign Trade Routes civic). The less this ratio the more you economically depend on other nations.

This :commerce: represents taxes from private established trade routes, something the state can't directly control. And the game was truly nice in this mechanic by making it give always the best Trade Routes there are as if our private entrepreneurs were incredibly smart and always striked the best deals (but in terms of memory usage they have been terrible).

Micromanagement

TRs always have a base of 1+ :commerce: and it's a fractional number (maybe there is the option to have it as an integer? I don't know, I always play with it as a fraction). Over it several modifiers are applied and may make this number quite big. The idea is that for every TR you get a :commerce: bonus as it was an extra tile. It's value ranges more or less like a normal tile, but TRs only give :commerce: and it's never 0. In micromanagement, :commerce: is the least of our problems because it doesn't affect the city itself, but the whole empire, differently from :food: and :hammers:. In late game these values can reach unthinkable caps, but I never played AND after the Renaissance, so I would guess, as in LoR I've already seen 15:commerce: routes, AND possibly can reach up to 30:commerce: routes. Of course on average it would be a lot less, but that is a good peak I think. If on LoR the average could reach 8-9 :commerce: AND may get to 15:commerce: average I would guess. And as AND may have double the max TRs then LoR, in total yield we can actually double it too. So it keeps with tile advancement in :commerce:, but reach higher peaks if managed well.

Basics

TRs are established if:

- You have the other city on your possible trade map chart (this includes all possible tradable tile connected by adjacency to another possible tradable tile). This means starting from your capital, every tile connected by a road is on your trade map chart, rivers (with a certain technology) serve as roads, coast tiles (with a certain technology) also count as roads and ocean tiles (with a certain technology) are the last to be added (maybe AND futurism has something that enables trade in all tiles? I didn't explore the game as much) to your trade map chart. Black tiles are not tradable tiles, and so if you didn't explore the map you can't trade with those cities on the black. Enemies (barbs too) cut tiles from possible trade tiles and consequently may cut your connection with other players.

- You may actually make TRs (in AND you start with 0, Wheelwright Building and Trade Tech open the first possible TRs). For Foreign ones you must stop using the starting civic that cuts foreign TRs.

- One of the diplomatic options of open borders starts the possibility of actually make TRs with someone that is on your trade map chart (not sure which one in AND). So logically there is no TRs between enemies at war.

- And finally it's one of the X best TRs available for you, X being the total number of TRs you can make globally. So if you have 30 TRs available, and wonder why you have TRs only with the AI superpower it's because they are the best available from all that you can have (including national and foreign).

Modifiers

And what do you have to know to see who can be a good TR partner without having to try and reload with everyone? So here are the Important Modifiers:

- If the guy is majorly overseas to the majority of your cities;
- If his cities are big (10+ pop) or he is far away*;
- If you are at peace for a long time (max 50 turns, above 50 everyone has the same bonus on this field);
- There are other bonuses related to Advanced Economy that I didn't discover yet, but the above 3 are probably the most important anyway

*This is an exclusive or, foreign city pop and distance don't stack, they are separated values, and the highest is chosen. I'm not sure the relation between both, so to see how each yield (I just know the pop to be considered must be above 10) is still a mystery to me. But if you happen to see a truly distant partner with lots of big cities, you know from one way or the other he is a good trade partner :thumbsup: (and you may always check and reload).
 
And I would like to make a last stand for TRs, because even if we proceed on this path to exterminate them, I don't think it's the best solution, and I would like to make a significant change on its procedure of calculation to make the game faster, instead of just getting rid of them. But as I'm no modder (yet, hopefully ), I have no idea how to do this, so I don't want to stop the ideas from the real modders and fathers of this mod.
Click to expand...

I don't think fixing the performance costs is possible.
 
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