Trade routes not in my revenue ? Whyyyyy ?

Hi,

OK, I'm a newbie (less than 60 hours of play at civ4), so I must be missing something, but I have no idea why. It's driving me crazy, so please help... ;-)

Here is my problem :

I have open borders and trade routes with the all the civs I've met. My cities have trade routes with foreign cities, but they do not appear in my overall budget. My commerce generates 60 gold, and I should have a total of 20 additional gold from trade routes with foreign cities (I gathered that figure by going through all the city screens and looking at the existing trade routes), but when I look at my overall budget, I only have a revenue of 60. That's the only line that appears there.

Why on earth does that happen ?

Needless to say, with not a single dime coming from foreign trades, I have some difficulties crushing the AI at the Prince level.

Now, to eliminate the obvious candidates :

- All my cities are connected by route
- I have multiple coastal cities
- I have alphabet and sailing (or whatever techs needed to trade, I don't remember)
- The trade icons appear near all the civs I've met (open borders + sea trade)
- For instance, when I open the city screen of Tokyo (I'm Japanese), it shows a trade route with Paris for 3 gold
- Mercantilism is not part of my civics (it would cut all foreign trade routes, right? But then if it did, I wouldn't see Paris in Tokyo's city screen)

A friend of mine looked at it, he has been playing civ4 for 10 years now, and he has no idea what's going on. That's a true mystery. But it can't be a bug, I've looked everywhere, nothing like that seems to have been reported.

Any clue ???

(PS: I purchased the software a week ago and installed it from Steam. Vanilla, no mod.)

post a save

(note: commerce is not gold)

also, what are you using to determine "revenue of 60"?

OK, so the trade routes generate COMMERCE, not GOLD, and they were already part of it. Thanks a lot.

So, my conclusions :

1. I'm a noob
2. I need to stop complaining and learn to get my revenue up.

Thanks.

Ha..we were all noobs once.

Writing (Open Borders) and a sea or road connection provides foreign trade routes. You have domestic trade routes as soon as your cities are connected in some way. (coastal cities with overlapped culture provide insta-trade routes)

I recommend playing BTS

By "revenue" I assume you mean "commerce." If you want more insight into the difference between Commerce and Gold you can consult the chart in my sig.

Yes.
Don't mix up commerce and gold.

And yes. Get Beyond the Sword.

adebruyn said:

1. I'm a noob

Click to expand...

lymond said:

I recommend playing BTS

Click to expand...

I might be repeat myself - but as long as you still have to learn the difference between commerce and gold, I recommend playing Vanilla.
Btw.: welcome to the forums!