Should they just have called it Civilization 5: Caravans?

I mean ... building caravans is so pivotal now as it effectively replaces earning gold on tiles ... the focus of the game has shifted to madly pumping out trade routes asap before going bankrupt?

Yes, but the WC's embargoes kill off your economy instantly, and you also need routes to save your cities by food, etc. Honestly though, I can barely keep my economy. It jumps up and down all the time.

More like Civ V: Meals on Wheels.

Or you could just go around dow everybody, raid their caravans, and profit.

Horizons said:

I mean ... building caravans is so pivotal now as it effectively replaces earning gold on tiles ... the focus of the game has shifted to madly pumping out trade routes asap before going bankrupt?

Click to expand...

No, trade route profit varies a lot with map type and particular context (none of my routes in my current game produces even half what an average route in my second did), and there remain the same ways of making money as before for the most part - trading posts, barbarian camps, creating Wealth, bullying city-states, trading luxes with other civs (particularly for gpt), and above all city connections, Tithe and the almighty Mausoleum of Helicarnassus (the Colossus isn't bad either).

I never even got that much gold from rivers in vanilla/G&K. Trade was a minor part of my income in my first two BNW games, and while I now need it to make a profit in the late game in the third, it's not my biggest source of income.

There's also the flipside: spend less. You need fewer units with the non-aggressive AI, and can benefit from specialising cities to limit building production (always a good strategy, but money limits in the early game help encourage it).

Horizons said:

I mean ... building caravans is so pivotal now as it effectively replaces earning gold on tiles ... the focus of the game has shifted to madly pumping out trade routes asap before going bankrupt?

Click to expand...

Caravans were part of the original Sid Meier's Civilization, but the game I remember where trading units was the key to winning was Sid Meier's Colinzation. I would export so much of some commodities their value would decrease back in Europe to the point where it wasn't worth shipping it over anymore.

No one seems to have played Colinzation much.