How do you open trade routes with foreign civs?

To generate gold?

You don't.

You cant

Wait, seriously? Wow...i can't believe the trade mechanics have been reduced to this.

Trade route = connecting road/railroad/harbor.

I assume you are referring to an older civ game mechanic?

I once saw that i was receiving gold from "Foreign civilizations" so i assumed it was trade...but it was probably just tribute.

It's really sad that civ 5 is missing a lot of "must have" mechanics from older games...

"Gold from other civilizations" is gold acquired from trade, for example:1 iron for 30gpt.

Why exactly is this a must have?

I do miss this feature a bit, because I felt it helped diplomacy. Declaring war caused reduced funds because you no longer had trade routes with that civ.

Question said:

I once saw that i was receiving gold from "Foreign civilizations" so i assumed it was trade...but it was probably just tribute.

It's really sad that civ 5 is missing a lot of "must have" mechanics from older games...

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No. They replaced a lot of bad, outdated or inferior mechanics with better ones, in many cases.

stii said:

Why exactly is this a must have?

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Good relations with other civs should result in benefits, not just trading luxuries or research agreements.

If you look at the diplomacy options in alpha centauri and compare it to civ 5, civ 5 feels really lackluster.

Buccaneer said:

No. They replaced a lot of bad, outdated or inferior mechanics with better ones, in many cases.

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Agreed... trading stuff for gold or other trade goods is very strong in Civ V. Reading this forum, I'm under the impression that many don't take full advantage of this.

question said:

If you look at the diplomacy options in alpha centauri and compare it to civ 5, civ 5 feels really lackluster.

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I still play some SMAC, from time to time, but I can't agree with this. SMAC was ahead of it's time, but could do with a facelift. Would still like to see some of it's options available in Civ V though.

Civ V should fix the problem where you can get all of a civ's gold by trading away everything, then DoW DVD get it all back. Right now it's advantageous to start wars.

Buccaneer said:

No. They replaced a lot of bad, outdated or inferior mechanics with better ones, in many cases.

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Go on then, explain why civ 4's trade mechanic was rubbish, and, do please let me know how this has been improved in civ5...

Trade & commerce has always been underplayed in ALL civ versions, but atleast civ4 made a go of it (Astronomy opened up international trade routes, Custom House increased Trade yield, Privateers could blockade non-hostile Civs, Diplomancy affected trade/revenue and vice versa....etc). Far from perfect but it was a serious Game Feature to go along with Warfare, Conquest, Diplo, Religion, Espoinage, Health and so on.

Question said:

I once saw that i was receiving gold from "Foreign civilizations" so i assumed it was trade...but it was probably just tribute.

It's really sad that civ 5 is missing a lot of "must have" mechanics from older games...

Click to expand...

Well, this is pretty much the only one, to be fair. It misses a few minor Civ IV introductions (health, corporations, vassals/colonies, UN resolutions, random events), but in terms of general mechanics from the older games there's foreign trade, map trading, and that's essentially it.

Trade & commerce has always been underplayed in ALL civ versions, but atleast civ4 made a go of it (Astronomy opened up international trade routes, Custom House increased Trade yield, Privateers could blockade non-hostile Civs, Diplomancy affected trade/revenue and vice versa....etc). Far from perfect but it was a serious Game Feature to go along with Warfare, Conquest, Diplo, Religion, Espoinage, Health and so on.

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I wouldn't say there was anything particularly wrong with Civ IV's foreign trade mechanic, however thinking on it I can see reasons why foreign trade would have been removed in Civ V:

Civ V is permeated by one design philosophy: Tall vs. wide. Trade is part of that trade-off - wide civs benefit more from trade routes. Allowing international trade would give tall empires the same advantages, blurring the distinction Civ V is founded on (although they could obviate this by doing what Civ IV did, and set a cap on the number of trade routes a single city can maintain).

Gold is much more important in Civ V than in prior Civ games; greater numbers of trade routes = easier access to gold = easier game.

I'm not convinced either is a particularly good or insurmountable reason, but it may be an explanation for a mechanical change that otherwise seems arbitrary. And with mechanics like Macchu Picchu and Messenger of the Gods, it's unlikely that a future expansion will restore foreign trade - trade routes are simply more powerful in Civ V than in the older games, so require a cap of some kind.

Civ V should fix the problem where you can get all of a civ's gold by trading away everything, then DoW DVD get it all back. Right now it's advantageous to start wars.

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This was always possible in Civ, since the AI doesn't know you plan to declare war on it, it was just less advantageous in earlier games because gold wasn't particularly valuable - it was just there to allow you to maintain more cities/units. The best way to fix it is to improve the AI so that it just doesn't keep enough spare gold to make this a viable approach. However, they should also add a "You declared war on a trade partner" negative modifier that kicks in if you declare war on an AI before the trade deal is up.

Good relations with other civs should result in benefits, not just trading luxuries or research agreements.

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But this has never been the case in Civ. Trade in Civ IV, for instance, was a way of cultivating good relations - practically anyone would trade with you if you weren't at war. The benefits you got from trade weren't from having "good relations", they were just from not being at war. There are plenty of benefits to good relations with other civs in Civ V, but these are diplomatic benefits - greater prospects for allies in war, defensive pacts, forming blocs likely to denounce rival powers. And, yes, sometimes you can ask for free gold or luxes. In that, Civ is leagues ahead of prior Civ games and that's the primary benefit good relations should have. Where you fall along the sliding scale (i.e. how much they like or dislike you) now matters, whereas in the past it was pretty binary - you were either at peace and reaping benefits, or at war.

None of which is to disagree that foreign trade benefits should be better-incorporated into Civ V, but the removal of foreign trade hasn't made diplomatic relations less meaningful.

PhilBowles said:

Gold is much more important in Civ V than in prior Civ games; greater numbers of trade routes = easier access to gold = easier game.

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I agree with this. International trade routes sound great, but considering all the extra gold they would generate, it would definately upset the Tall vs. Wide balance.

And, yes, sometimes you can ask for free gold or luxes. In that, Civ is leagues ahead of prior Civ games and that's the primary benefit good relations should have.

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How do you go about asking for freebies? Demanding stuff just gets a diplo penalty for bullying (and only works in the narrowest of circumstances - so narrow that this feature is basically useless). Do you just go to the trade window and put something of the AI's in the trade and nothing from you and try and make the trade? That never works for me, even with best buds.

Plus, if it's their last item of a lux or resource, they won't trade it away unless you give up your firstborn, but then will come and beg for your last lux (or all your gold) when they hit on hard times. Do they ever return the favor?

Wasnt the series and alpha centauri always about tall vs wide? I mean you had the option to either expand or settle a few cities and concentrate on those. You had AI leaders that would pick one or the other.

IIRC, in alpha centauri there were two levels of trading...one basic level and one when you were allies (i'm not sure about this). It was best to make as many friends as possible so you could roll in the gold from trade routes, instead of just "oh well these guys won't declare war on me now". It's much more annoying to renew trade deals every 25 turns (especially when the AI often fails to renew it automatically, and you have to keep track of it manually and do it yourself).

I also miss the ability to exchange techs and leader contact info. And it might just be me, but the AI was much more useful in older games when it came to wars...ive had multiple AI allies declare war on a single AI to no effect.

How is gold more important in civ 5? It seems less important actually. You can't rush buy wonders anymore, purchasing stuff doesn't have lower cost depending on the progress made, there are very few things you can "buy" with gold from AIs (i'm not even sure if they will agree to sell you excess luxuries for gold), and you can't purchase units if you have a unit in the same city (VERY annoying when you have to remove a garrison to buy reinforcements).

I admit I was a fan of foreign trade routes - I don't really like the concept of trade routes in Civ 5 - but it isn't a breaking point for me.

stii said:

Why exactly is this a must have?

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It's not a must have, but international commerce and trade is a substantial and major part of history. This game is called Civilization and it's left out a major part. That is the same argument people used as to why religion needed to be brought back.