Patrolling and other new orders

I don't know if this is possible in a mod, but if so, it would be a very popular mod I imagine - a new order for military ships called "patrol trade route" which would send them up and down a particular sea trade route keeping an eye out for pirates (barbarians) and enemies. It wouldn't stop plundering but it might help control it.

not that I've had major problems with plundering nor are cargo ships that hard to rebuild (I've had like 3 plunders against me so far), and of course I can patrol manually, but I still think it would be neat to automate.

To make this in to a discussion item, what else do people would think would be good as new military orders?

-GB

I also think this would be a good idea for a mod, as well as one that auto upgrades your units if possible.

Hruberen said:

as well as one that auto upgrades your units if possible.

Click to expand...

So you want to hit machinery, and have the game automatically try to upgrade your 8 composite bows into crossbows, and deplete your 900 gold bank that you were saving for a city-state? No thank you.

The problem with patrolling trade routes is that units get in the way, and hence stop you from actually keeping up with the unit, especially when in single player as the AI will spam so many units within their shores that it would be impractical to try to follow your cargo ship through.

Well it'd be a mod and therefore optional.

As for the trade routes, if the computer could just try to send the unit as far along the route as possible each turn, completely ignoring the actual trade unit, when it can't go any farther in one direction, then it would switch and go back.

That would repeat until it sees an enemy unit, where it would wake up like when you use the alert function.

I'd like a patrol option anyway. I often like to see what is going on at civ borders early in the game so I can claim land in time. I also like to patrol borders later to see who is building forces on my borders - a sure sign of impending DoW.

To patrol trade routes would be a great benefit too.