Suggestion for a patch regarding trade?

While playing BNW, and reading different threads on the forum, an idea came to me about something that could (possibly) be included in a patch with regards to trade routes and protecting them.

I was thinking to have an extra command for army and naval units that would allow them to follow the caravan or cargo ship and act as sort of military escorts, protecting them from barbarians and enemy units.

I think it would add a sense of security for trade within a game, especially if the settings include raging barbarians or if you're at war with multiple enemies and would like to keep trade going with any allies you may have.

What are your opinions on this?

Yes, that would be a good thing to have. As would being able to attach a defender to a settler. And (as used to be the case) being able to attach a great general or great admiral to a military unit.

Yes, trade route escorts have been suggested in earlier threads.

Good idea, however trade units can pass through other civs units or share a tile with them. Military units cannot so this would cause a mess with pathfinding.

Then in that case have an entirely new unit: military escort, which would be able to share a tile with a foreign unit without causing a mess. The unit would be a defensive unit only, not being able to attack unless attacked.

Or perhaps by escorting a trade unit, the military unit temporarily merges with the trade unit to form a fortified trade unit. It brings in a bit less gold, but to pillage it you need to kill it as you would the unit that merged with it.

Aside: The way that "one unit per tile" interacts with foreign units that you are at piece with is super annoying and stupid, especially when it comes to noncombat units like Workers and Great Generals not even being allowed to move through foreign units on a road or whatever. I guess they'll never fix it in Civ V, but if Civ VI keeps One Unit Per Tile I hope they come up with a less frustrating implementation.

I think the real problem with trade route defense is in the early game, when:
1) building a trade unit is tremendously expensive (75 or 100 hammers for a caravan/cargo ship on normal speed)
2) defending a trade unit is tremendously expensive (since you only have the production and gold for a couple of units, while you need to be scouting and fighting barbarians)
3) defending a trade unit is very difficult (most of the world is out of view of any civ's units, so barbs are everywhere)

Compared to the early game, when one or more of my trade routes get pillaged in a mid-game or late-game war, I don't mind it at all. My economy has more sources of income so I'm less devastated, and it only takes a few turns to reproduce the trade unit.

And on top of this, manually escorting trade routes (especially naval trade routes) in the early game is tremendously tedious. Every turn, you have to be paranoid and think about every hex that might contain a barbarian that's going to ambush your caravan or cargo ship. As I've written before, it's just not fun gameplay.

There needs to be an escort option for all civilian units, so you don't have to move a settler and its guard separately.

rexman07 said:

Compared to the early game, when one or more of my trade routes get pillaged in a mid-game or late-game war, I don't mind it at all. My economy has more sources of income so I'm less devastated, and it only takes a few turns to reproduce the trade unit.

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I 100% agree and actually think that the cost of building a trade route should scale with each era, along with its rewards. Maybe make Ancient Era trade routes a little cheaper (say, 50 hammers), and have it cost 350 hammers by the Information Era. Not sure what the scaling would be in between, it seems unfair for example to have a Classical Era trade route cost double that of an Ancient Era one, but something that scales with time would be appropriate.