First caravan?

reddishrecue said:

Why not just call the whole thread first cargo ship since cargo ships give more food.

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That assumes we have 2 coastal cities and they are within 20 ocean tiles. Sometimes i have 2 coastal cities but they are on different sides of the continent then oh well i'll have to wait a while on that. ;/

You guys are so funny. It's threads like this one that makes me so happy that I play on Emperor and with a whole slew of mods that mean that I can play the game differently each time and still have fun at it without being kicked because I didn't get to build NC before turn 100 or didn't use my first caravan for food.

It's pretty contextual. Sometimes after your first worker/settler. Sometimes I don't get a caravan until I have 4 cities, 5 workers, and NC. You just need to ask yourself if there's anything that's more immediate, ie, contested expands, military for barbs/neighbors, workers for resource rich cities, libraries for NC timing, etc.

In Diety/Immortal, you can actually benefit more from sending your caravans to neighbors over internal trade routes. This makes it slightly less possible that they'll attack you, slightly more possible that they'll send you one of their own, and the science you get from the caravans is very significant early game, given how far ahead in tech they are.

kaspergm said:

You guys are so funny. It's threads like this one that makes me so happy that I play on Emperor and with a whole slew of mods that mean that I can play the game differently each time and still have fun at it without being kicked because I didn't get to build NC before turn 100 or didn't use my first caravan for food.

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Some people like to play one way and some people like to play another way. Doing random stuff without any real strategy involved on a difficulty that doesn't manage to give me any challenge would be super-boring for me.

krickets said:

That assumes we have 2 coastal cities and they are within 20 ocean tiles. Sometimes i have 2 coastal cities but they are on different sides of the continent then oh well i'll have to wait a while on that. ;/

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It is often worth to have a second city at a poor place on the coast, 4 hexes apart just for the purpose of cargo ships to the capital!

So here you are, Aztecs, in the middle of a huge map, and the coast is 30+ tiles away in nearest direction, near neighbor at 20+ tiles; and you need to grow, FAST . Caravans are the only way to go; yeah, land routes suck, but if it is the ONLY 'hook' you have, and nobody to 'crook'; you do what has to be done.

Her Wisdom, RYIKA, has put out a necessary mod; "Caravansary Trade Routes", which IMHO, helps in lousy starts where you have nothing in sight for 20+ turns before FINDING the allegedly "next" Lux's, or even horses !!

Yeah well mods aren't really relevant when talking strategies. By the same logic people should use Piety because there is a mod that boosts it.

Though yes caravans are used when not coastal.

Ryika said:

Some people like to play one way and some people like to play another way. Doing random stuff without any real strategy involved on a difficulty that doesn't manage to give me any challenge would be super-boring for me.

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Oh but see, there you are jumping to conclusions. Just because I don't do the same number of cities, with the same policies, and the same build order, every single game I play, doesn't mean I don't have a strategy for what I do.

There should be a strategy that allows good results in varying areas. Most maps easily vary in random.

kaspergm said:

Oh but see, there you are jumping to conclusions. Just because I don't do the same number of cities, with the same policies, and the same build order, every single game I play, doesn't mean I don't have a strategy for what I do.

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Some things are just stronger than other things, if you "play different each time", then that does not sound like a strategy for me. ^^ But yeah, if you meant that you don't have to stick 100% to what is the most efficient stuff and instead have more freedom to also do some inefficient stuff (or to just make mistakes), then sure, that's a different story.

However, in that case I don't really see what exactly is so "funny" about this thread. Obviously, nobody is suggesting that there's only one way how this game should ever be played and I think most people like to vary things up in their games, too. But when a person tries to actually improve and asks for tips to get good victory times, then of course people will explain what is generally considered to be the most efficient way of doing things.

Although of course there is "variation" and there is "doing something inefficient for no reason other than not knowing how to do it properly". For example using the first trade route as an external trade route without having an exact and direct goal in mind and instead just doing it because "Hey, that's a huge yield!" is just playing inefficient. For a decision to be meaningful it has to be fueled by information - either those from experience that one has gathered by playing, or information that one has gotten from other people. Otherwise it is indeed not much different from just doing random stuff.

Ryika said:

Some things are just stronger than other things, if you "play different each time", then that does not sound like a strategy for me. ^^ But yeah, if you meant that you don't have to stick 100% to what is the most efficient stuff and instead have more freedom to also do some inefficient stuff (or to just make mistakes), then sure, that's a different story.

However, in that case I don't really see what exactly is so "funny" about this thread. Obviously, nobody is suggesting that there's only one way how this game should ever be played and I think most people like to vary things up in their games, too. But when a person tries to actually improve and asks for tips to get good victory times, then of course people will explain what is generally considered to be the most efficient way of doing things.

Although of course there is "variation" and there is "doing something inefficient for no reason other than not knowing how to do it properly". For example using the first trade route as an external trade route without having an exact and direct goal in mind and instead just doing it because "Hey, that's a huge yield!" is just playing inefficient. For a decision to be meaningful it has to be fueled by information - either those one made himself, or information that one has gotten from other people. Otherwise it is indeed not much different from just doing random stuff.

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I agree with some things here. Im also thankful that people often reply here.

My tech order is usually pottery -> animal husbandry. When I decide to utilize the caravan can vary greatly. Sometimes I wait until my 2nd city has a granary so I can send food to my cap. Sometimes I send food to my 2nd city straight away so it can grow faster and get it's library up faster which gets me to my NC faster.

Sometimes I'll plant 3 cities for a total of 4 and not make caravans for a while because I'm busy building settlers/libraries.

Generally it is a good idea to get caravans to your cap and/or important cities as soon as possible and never waste them on city states or other players.