Trade routes need to scale.

So, after playing a huge multiplayer map with 3 humans and the rest AIs I have come to the conclusion that the number of trade routes you can establish are very clearly based on a 'small' sized map; in a game with a possible 8 trade partners (after several were wiped off the planet) I've got only 5 possible trade routes going into the Industrial era.

This causes several problems; the most glaring being they appear to provide a static quantity of gold... so if you're on a huge map where the massive swaths of land will support 12ish cities easily, 5 trade routes isn't supporting that number of cities.

I pretty much feel the number of routes being tied to tech unlocks is wonky and doesn't feel right at all - personally I think it should correspond to something more relative to the actual size of your empire. Like the number of cities - make a building that each city has to make to open a route for it and then build the caravan. It's really the only realistic way to scale given the ability to create any size map with scripts.

But isn't it so that with so many cities that a large map can "hold" with so many different AIs and CSs - you have more trade routes to choose from, probably also a chance for better ones. Just guessing since I haven't played so much yet.

[EDIT]: Brain fart. Tired, I don't know what the hell I read your post as saying... anyway, yes - I have a silly number of options for trade routes. And I can use the same cities for multiple routes (which doesn't make much sense to me - you'd just spam the best one) but only 5 routes to use because the number of routes is tied to technology (for example, Animal Husb. unlocks your first, Sailing unlocks the second I think) and the pickings are a bit slim.

DemonMaster said:

But isn't it so that with so many cities that a large map can "hold" with so many different AIs and CSs - you have more trade routes to choose from, probably also a chance for better ones. Just guessing since I haven't played so much yet.

Click to expand...

And this keeps you from an actual chance to use the internal trade routes. I've been forced to use the highest yield routes possible every time because I simply couldn't afford to do otherwise, so I never even got to try this mechanic.

I'm actually sortof confused at how obvious this problem is - it seems like something that the developers should have realized would be an issue.

Played several games on huge maps, and really don't see the problem. By later in the game, there are plenty of other sources of cash, so there's probably something lacking in your economic management if you have to use the 5 highest yielding routes just to keep your head above water.

If you have 12 cities, have you considered building roads between them? City connections can also be a really great way to get gold. I know that by the mid-game, I was making as much from city connections as I was from trade routes.

Also, advice, sea trade routes are far superior to land trade routes if you can keep them.

I usually increase the # of AIs on larger maps anyway. Of course, you can't do this in multiplayer, which I was hoping to see added. Oh well.

SamBC said:

Played several games on huge maps, and really don't see the problem. By later in the game, there are plenty of other sources of cash, so there's probably something lacking in your economic management if you have to use the 5 highest yielding routes just to keep your head above water.

Click to expand...

Let me reiterate; I was fine on gold. I had +150ish most of the game.

But most of that came from the following sources:
- Tithes; I pushed religion early and fast and spread it to my buddy who was playing tall Aztecs.
- Trading Posts and Holy Sites.
- City Connections/Machu Picchu.

The trade routes were generating a measly 67ish gold for me; my understanding is that these trade routes are supposed to be the new primary method of generating cash and all cash was removed from tiles so that we could go to this system; the problem is cash from tiles scaled - more cities on rivers/coast meant more capacity to generate gold. Any system with a 'hard' limit is going to find itself with a 'feast or famine' situation if the map size is varied at all from the standard size the limit was balanced for. It's stupid and obvious.

Spamming TRs on the same receiver city will get you nowhere in terms of shoving religion down their throat, which I believe is disabled for multiple trade routes to and from the same cities.

JFM2796 said:

I usually increase the # of AIs on larger maps anyway. Of course, you can't do this in multiplayer, which I was hoping to see added. Oh well.

Click to expand...

And increasing the number of AIs simply increases the number of possible trade partners.

I don't believe I can add more AIs on a multiplayer game, by the way. There's a hard limit tied to map size.