Need help troubleshooting resource trade issue

Good morning fellow CIV-ers!

I have just started up a game after not playing for a while and am having trouble connecting resources to my capital from a separated landmass. I am playing BUG BTS (not sure of specific versions). Big/Small map, default settings otherwise with an extra 2 AI. I searched previous threads and didn't see this come up anywhere else.

Question #1: What is required to trade resources pre-astronomy between landmasses that are connected by coastal tiles? In the sc

Question #2: In the following screenshot, why aren't resources shared between Ergili and my other cities?

Details: In the screenshot below, you can see my city ("Ergili") connected to Iron and Furs resources and roads leading to the coast in both directions (NW and NE). My capital and other cities are located on the land mass to the West. I am at war with Saladin, which I suspect is blocking the most direct trade route between Ergili and my other cities.

However, the longer road connects my city to the NE coast. From the coastal tile that is adjacent to the end of that longer road, there is a clear coastal path back to my other cities. By "clear coastal path" I mean that it is either tiles with no cultural influence (i.e., unowned), or tiles controlled by civs that I have open borders with.

Are roads not enough to connect a city to the coastal trade network? Do I need to have a city built directly on the coast? Will a fort built on the coast connect the resources? Help!?

Update! sorry for the additional posts, but hopefully this helps somebody else expand their knowledge. I built a fort at the end of the NE road and now have full connectivity!

So, my takeaway is that a fort can be used to establish resource trade between landmasses even if it is outside of your cultural borders.

Yep, fort and a road serve as a port. All you had to do was build one next to the city. (Forts can also serve as channels inside your borders,i.e., you can send ship through it if adjacent to water)

THe other thing you could have done is finish the road connection to Arabia, if you have OB with them. Not sure which is faster, but assume a fort 1tile W of city would be a bit faster.

By the way, it's the ice that is blocking the trade route initially, even though the city is coastal.

Thanks for the reply, lymond. I didn't have OB with Arabia because I have been in a war trying to conquer them, hence the need to build the long road. Their cultural borders block the coastal route that would have been created if I built a fort 1tile W of my city, as you suggest. In the end, the right move would probably have been to abandon the war, but that just gets into a my strategic deficiencies, not the trade route mechanics.

Another interesting point seems to have come up for me now. See new attached screenshot. I had to extend the road further because Arabia settled near my original fort/port. When I built the road out, it ended near a small river. The road reaching the river seems to have established the resource trade route without the need for an additional fort. So, it seems rivers also default as ports?

BTW... Are there terms that distinguish trade routes in the context of resource connection vs. city-to-city commerce trade routes? I ran into this problem when searching the forums earlier.

Rivers work the same way as roads do (for trade connections) once you have Sailing . This is, what makes Sailing such an important tech. Sometimes, it establishes Traderoutes with several foreign empires and one can save a lot of Workerturns on not having to build a lot of roads to connect ones resources.

I don't understand the last question fully, but yes, Traderoutes and resource-trade-connections follow the same principles. Road-connections pre-Sailing, with Sailing, River + Coastal connections, with Astronomy trade via Oceans.

Hi Seraiel, What I have just seen makes me disagree with your statement "Rivers work the same way as roads do (for trade connections) once you have Sailing".

Specifically, my goal was to connect to the "coastal trade network" (i.e., a coastal tile that had an unobstructed path to my capital city). To do this with a road, I needed to build a Fort adjacent to the coast. However, in the case where there is a river connected to the "coastal trade network", all I had to do was build a road connected to that river, no fort required. This seems tedious, but Forts require a lot of Workerturns, which we can both agree are important!

Sorry for the confusion on my last question. I was asking if there was a clear naming convention for city-to-city "trade routes" versus resource "trade routes". I now understand that they follow the same principles, so it seems that there is no reason for them to have different names.

Rivers work like roads inside your own cultural borders without any tech except they don't appear to hook up international trade routes (they do connect resources to other civs) but you do need Sailing to use rivers outside your borders

mrwendel said:

Hi Seraiel, What I have just seen makes me disagree with your statement "Rivers work the same way as roads do (for trade connections) once you have Sailing".

Specifically, my goal was to connect to the "coastal trade network" (i.e., a coastal tile that had an unobstructed path to my capital city). To do this with a road, I needed to build a Fort adjacent to the coast. However, in the case where there is a river connected to the "coastal trade network", all I had to do was build a road connected to that river, no fort required. This seems tedious, but Forts require a lot of Workerturns, which we can both agree are important!

Sorry for the confusion on my last question. I was asking if there was a clear naming convention for city-to-city "trade routes" versus resource "trade routes". I now understand that they follow the same principles, so it seems that there is no reason for them to have different names.

Click to expand...

The fort creates a port. You needed a port which is either a coastal city or a river city to connect to the sea for trade. The port created by Ergili is blocked to your other continent by the ice, as lymond says. When you built the fort you then had a port which connected to the other continent via the sea.

Although I don't quite sea how that is the case if you don't have open borders with Arabia because I thought you could only have trade connections by coastal tiles with Sailing and looks like Arabia is blocking that but I could be wrong.

Macksideshow said:

The fort creates a port. You needed a port which is either a coastal city or a river city to connect to the sea for trade. .

Click to expand...

Nope, river is enough. This WB-example will give horse in Aksum:

Mack - Hard to tell exactly from the screenshot, but my guess is that fort (port) has created access via a roundabout connection through the islands and coast East and North of Arabia, and through Inca, who I assume he has OB with.

Lymond, that is exactly correct.