Trade units don't really count against Unit Supply limit. (For Venice, at least, I'd

Barking Iguana

Chieftain
Joined
Jan 2, 2002
Messages
81
Location
Highland Park, NJ
I just played a true one city game as Venice (meaning no puppets). I thought the major challenge would be hitting the supply limit with all those Cargo Boats. I figured I'd make do with fewer routes until late in the game, and then I'd just buy everything and stop building wonders, because I'd be at the maximum -70% production modifier for outstripping my supply.

And if believe the buggy interface, you'd think it would be a problem. But here's what really happened. When I checked the Military Summary page and I had, say, 11 Cargo Boats, a 14 other units, and a supply limit of 20, it would tell me I was 5 units over. But underneath that, there was no line telling me there was a 50% penalty. And indeed, there wasn't, when I checked the details throughout the game. Going to 15 units, and the number over would get bigger. Get all the way to 20 (and 11 Cargo Boats) I'd be at 11 over.

And then, when I'd go from 20 and 11 to 21 and 11, all of a sudden, the amount it says I'm over is back down to 1 unit and now it does say I'm getting the 10% penalty.

It made the game ridiculously easy. Maybe I just shouldn't be playing on Prince anymore, but I think Venice is a lot easier using the Merchants all for double- (and then quadruple-) strength Trade Missions and keeping the Social Policy and Tech costs down. Ally a Militaristic City-State early, forget most of the usual must-have buildings (after the Monument and Shrine) until much later (like well into Industrial Age) and spend almost all your hammers on Wonders. Even Trade Routes, you don't need many until later when they're worth more.

It took me until Turn 390 for the Diplo win, but I probably could have changed plans and won Domination earlier.

Anyway, does the interface could as a bug? Should I make a more condensed version of this as a bug report? And does it apply to civs that aren't Venice?
 
I have noticed the same thing using other civs, for what it's worth. Cargo ships and caravans seem to be 100% free. They should be, philosophically. They represent independent merchants being taxed, which doesn't require state-run units at all.
 
This isn't the first, and won't be the last, tooltip/documentation error found in the game (some were in the game from day 1, others date from the first patch to vanilla and others cropped up just with G&K and BNW).

Also, no need to worry about the per-city social policy-cost increase with puppets -- only the per-city science penalty applies to puppets and annexed cities alike.
 
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