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[vanilla] How do trade routes/roads/railroads/harbours work? (vanilla)

Question, I connected my capital to a city. When I open the capital screen and mouse over the production line item it says, "25 for railroad" However, it does not say that for the city that it connected to the capital. does only one city get the bonus?
 
The railroad bonus doesn't kick in until the turn after you completed the railroad connection. Also, the capital does not get the railroad bonus.
 
Great article. It's nice to know about the details of trade route mechanism.

One thing needs to add though. Like meritocracy that you've mentioned, the trade union policy in Commerce branch also enhances the value of trade routs. It decreases maintenance cost on roads and railroads by 33% and provides +1 gold for each harbor and seaport. This makes trade route more profitable. It'll be better if the article includes the effect of trade union on the trade routes.
 
I believe the game keeps track of the builder of the road and that this is only overridden if the road is in a different territory. That's my understanding of it. So to answer your question, yes you'll be changed the maintenance.

From what I understand, the costs for road/railroad maintenance are charged to the MOST recent owner of the tile since the road/rail was built.

If said tile wasn't claimed when the road/rail was built, the civilization that built said road/rail is charged for maintenance.

So, that means that I think that IF I raze the city of an enemy Civilization, I'm the one that still gets charged for the roads/rails left behind after the city has been completely razed, because my Civilization was the most recent owner of the tiles in which the roads/rails resided in.

Which means that IF I start razing a crappy city and IF it doesn't have roads/rails that lead to more lucrative conquests, I start deleting the unwanted roads/rails while the city is still being razed.

Why can't I wait until after the city has been completely razed to start deleting unwanted roads?

Well, it seems that Workers can only delete roads that THEIR civilization built OR are within the cultural borders of their own civilization. That means I can't delete those roads AFTER I completely raze the city, because I no longer own the tiles they belong in, nor did I build those roads to begin with.

It's a bit annoying. :p
 
Well, it seems that Workers can only delete roads that THEIR civilization built OR are within the cultural borders of their own civilization. That means I can't delete those roads AFTER I completely raze the city, because I no longer own the tiles they belong in, nor did I build those roads to begin with.

More specifically, workers can only delete roads that you are paying maintenance on. ;)
 
More specifically, workers can only delete roads that you are paying maintenance on. ;)

Unfortunately that's not the case, the previous poster has it right, though the distinction is tiny. If you build a road in enemy territory, then raze the city and it becomes neutral territory, I am pretty sure you are still paying maintenance on it. (If not, there is a potential way to bleed AIs dry here...) But you cannot raze that road until you take the territory back over.
 
Hmm tried to made an Excel but it is not accurate (G&K).

I am interested in a proper formula because I placed my cities perfectly (which means 6 hexes between them so they never overlap) thus requiring 6 maintenance per turn for 1 connection (x2 cities@ start).

I started with a small loss of 2 gold per turn. Eventually my cities grew and my income increased to 27 gold per turn (-12 roads). After that I conquered two additional cities that had a road connection between them, and founded another city to link them. Added a road to this (11x+3x from captured). Now my trade income rocketed to 47 gold per turn (!).

Situation now:
5 connected cities
capitol 15
cities: 12,10,5,8,6
income: 50
expenses: 26

Any tips?

edit: Almost there.

I did not understand from your post that the 0.15 x population of capitol is added for EACH city and the -1 is also per traderoute.

Thus: =Size*1,1+SizeCapi*0,15-1=14,45.

This matches the game perfectly.

Issue:
12,25
14,45
10,05
6,75
7,85

This adds to 51.35 (all match game)
Game adds them as 50.25

How is that difference explained?

ps Proper formula=
=B1*1,1+(C1*0,15)*D1-(D1*1)
=PopluationCities*1,1+(Capitol*0,15)*cities-(cities*1)
Note that populationcities=total population of all cities connected to the capitol and cities is the number of cities connected TO the capitol.
 
Wow! Veneke what a wonderful article. The economics of trade routes was very informative (tall vs. wide). I also appreciate your synopsis conclusion. While the economics of trade routes was covered extensively, there are other aspects of your conclusions that were not touched upon that I would like to bare to light.

Your conclusions seem to indicate that harbors are the way to go, in particular when cities are widely spaced (more than 3 tiles). While I agree that this appears to be appropriate economically, harbors still require those crucial 180 production each. A worker on the other hand requires only 70 shield. This means that for the cost of each harbor we could build 2.5 workers instead. As at least two harbors are required, this is equivalent to 5 workers for just one city connection (or 10 workers for only 3 cities connected by harbor). These workers could also be used to improve tiles etc, extending their versatility beyond mere connection of trade routes.

I understand that workers also require unit maintenance. If, however, you are lucky enough to reach a point in your empire that you have enough workers, these can be then be disbanded for 17 gold each, again recouping some of the extra money that might be required for the road maintenance. Moreover, let's say you have enough workers already and your existing workers can construct the trade routes (which is most likely the case), then your coastal cities could be used to construct the market or mint, which each cost 60 shields less than a harbor (only 120 shields) or a bank (200 shields) or stock exhange (500 shields) - or anything else your empire needs for that matter. If I can produce a market 10 turns earlier because I am not building the harbor, this itself could outweigh any additional maintenance cost while also spending the precious shields on any additional building I may need.

I rarely build harbors for these reasons - unless of course there are 3+ resources in a coastal city. I think omitting the construction of harbors, while perhaps costing more for tile maintenance, allows each city to build more crucial buildings or units that I need at any given time...

Just a thought, and would love to hear what all of you think!
 

Keep in mind this thread is a bit outdated, since it is for vanilla. Now harbors no longer improve production and instead improve sea trade range and increase gold from the trade routes by 2. So in bnw there are only a few reasons to build them:

1. For your cities with sea trade routes
2. For island cities or coastal cities where building a road isnt feasible
3. For cities you will need a seaport for.

Other than for those reasons, there are definitely better uses of your production.
 
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