How to Set Up a Trading Hub That Other Civ's Can't Resist?

I've grown curious as to why in a lot of games, civ's aren't coming to my carefully-chosen East India Company city. In terms of economic attraction, there aren't too many variables. The simple one is making sure I have all the appropirate buildings (market, caravanassary, harbor if applicable). The next thing to do is try to account for luxury resources I(have that few if any civ's have (often there's at least one). Strategic resources help, but it's likely that other major trade cities have one or both as well (and the East India city should be online before any other resources are revealed).

The next factor is accessibility. Obviously, coastal cities have an edge on many maps, although a landlocked city can be a hub if it has a strong central location next to a river. No point in dwelling on this, as it's common sense stuff. Don't box yourself in.

Then there's the other stuff that gets spread: religion, faith, and tourism. I guess this is wehre my troubles begin. I'm not sure what value places on these. For instance, if I have massive tourism, how badly will that deter them making connections with me? If I have massive science, how strongly does that encourage connections? In a game of King or lower, a player will likely have both (well, I do and I'm pretty casual compared to many here). And do civ's with a religion prefer to direct trade routes to those without one, as they're easy marks for conversion?

One thing that doesn't seem to matter to much is how much civ's like you. Civ's that hate me will send their ships to me, while I can't seem to get that favored-trade-partner status from my closest chum.

Hase anyone figured out a good formula for getting civ's to beat a path to your door that builds on or contradicts anything stated above?

You work under the assumption that AIs "care/value" potential trade route targets by how much gold they would bring (while I don't have bullet proof evidence I believe this assumption to be wrong) ..

Now I've had games with AIs sending me over say 15 traderoutes combined a few times .. The "secret" - have them all DOW each other, luck out in being in a somewhat central position on the map and the cherry on top - luck out again with a CS trade route ban .. And of course be at peace with every one ... Most of their traderoutes will then target your cities (randomly spread (?) with little regard for optimum/max gold .. ). Yes some of the friendly trade routes will occasionally get pillaged due to so many wars but AIs can rebuild tens of traderoutes in a turn without breaking a sweat if need be ...

peddroelm said:

.. The "secret" - have them all DOW each other,...

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Heh. Good idea.
I have noticed this seems to work in general.
Try to keep trading with as many different AI as you can, as this helps keep them peaceful towards you, and perhaps more war-like towards each other in turn.

Using the WC to embargo trade against others makes your civ more appealing as well.

peddroelm said:

You work under the assumption that AIs "care/value" potential trade route targets by how much gold they would bring (while I don't have bullet proof evidence I believe this assumption to be wrong) ..

Now I've had games with AIs sending me over say 15 traderoutes combined a few times .. The "secret" - have them all DOW each other, luck out in being in a somewhat central position on the map and the cherry on top - luck out again with a CS trade route ban .. And of course be at peace with every one ... Most of their traderoutes will then target your cities (randomly spread (?) with little regard for optimum/max gold .. ). Yes some of the friendly trade routes will occasionally get pillaged due to so many wars but AIs can rebuild tens of traderoutes in a turn without breaking a sweat if need be ...

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Playing civ's like Morocco and Portugal, the empirical evidence certainly does seem to suggest that the AI does factor in how much gold it receives from a trade route. I think other factors may outweigh it (as have been mentioned above) but it would certainly be poor design for the AI to not factor in GPT.

Certainly limiting the available pool of cities a civ can trade with is a reliable, ham-fisted way of boosting trade. In addition to war bribes, embargos are an effective way of limiting trade options, and are somewhat less of a cheeseball exploit.

But to be clear, I was steering the discussion in terms of ways to outcompete them without slipping anything into their coffee.

JeSuisNapoleon said:

Heh. Good idea.
I have noticed this seems to work in general.

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Indeed, it's one of the base-walking tactics exploited by many in the "I-only-play-on-Diety" crowd.

Maybe the AI do not rebase their caravans so once they have already sent a trade route to your optimal city, they will send other caravans built in the same city to other places.

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The Colossus and Machu Picchu increase the yield for incoming trade routes. A city which has one of them usually becomes a very attractive trading target.

Gigaz said:

The Colossus and Machu Picchu increase the yield for incoming trade routes. A city which has one of them usually becomes a very attractive trading target.

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I believe that's Colossus and Petra. Machu Picchu boosts city connection profits (formerly known as trade routes prior to BNW). But, citing those wonders is nonetheless worthy of mention. Good on ya.

steveg700 said:

Indeed, it's one of the base-walking tactics exploited by many in the "I-only-play-on-Diety" crowd.

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Well, I want to say a few things about those of us who only play Deity:

1. We don't win all the time, but getting to compete with the AI is more fun at this level.

2. The AI at deity isn't smarter, it just gets a lot more advantages.

3. Playing deity makes you better at the game, it forces you to look at guides/threads/tips to get you through a game. You don't need a guide if you play on Settler/Prince/etc.

4. Because the AI gets so many advantages, some of us steal workers from city states (capture and declare war in same turn, then declare peace the same turn for a quick early game worker) or do other things like that. Not everyone does though. I also never thought about having all the civs DOW each other for more TRs.

5. Bragging rights! I won on turn 181 playing a deity OCC game (quick speed). Nobody really cares but it's still a plus.


Otherwise, OP, I think you shouldn't worry about it too much. You an play Venice and have crazy amounts of TRs and money from them if you want.

Caravansary and Harbors don't do anything to attract trade routes. The only buildings that help are market, EIC, and anything that gives + gold.

Find the city with the most resources and ocean/river. Get it to a decent pop. Trade post spam everything. Bonus points for planted great merchants / prophets with piety. Bonus points for the +gold rationalism / exploration policies. Extra extra bonus points if you go Tradition and it's your capital.

Be GOOD friends with several civs.

I consider it a failed game if I don't have a dozen routes coming into me by the time ideology hits. Often, I am at
20+. The cost, is that that city basically stops growing. Totally doable in 4 city tradition or 6+ city anything else, while keeping science.

Morocco, and any UA/UB/UI that gives gold on tiles will help. That's it.

I hardly ever build a trading post, but sometimes I see the AI spam them. now I know why.

Sequm said:

Well, I want to say a few things about those of us who only play Deity:

1. We don't win all the time, but getting to compete with the AI is more fun at this level.

2. The AI at deity isn't smarter, it just gets a lot more advantages.

3. Playing deity makes you better at the game, it forces you to look at guides/threads/tips to get you through a game. You don't need a guide if you play on Settler/Prince/etc.

4. Because the AI gets so many advantages, some of us steal workers from city states (capture and declare war in same turn, then declare peace the same turn for a quick early game worker) or do other things like that. Not everyone does though. I also never thought about having all the civs DOW each other for more TRs.

5. Bragging rights! I won on turn 181 playing a deity OCC game (quick speed). Nobody really cares but it's still a plus.

Click to expand...

For many (but not all), playing on Diety generally boils down to avoiding experimentation at all costs and essentially regurgitating a formula of absoluate must-do's and irrefutable gotta-have's. It's following a script that is intolerant of deviation.

And the logic behind playing on diety seems to be something akin to "Forrest Gump is a terrible chess player, so let's give him a shotgun and that will make him a more interesting to play against". And then, to take the logic even a farther step into the bizarre, because he has the advantage of the shotgun, it's now okay to do things you wouldn't do if he didn't have it, like pay him a meager bribe not to use it on you while walking the bases to a win. So what was the point of all that?

Or, you can play deity and win in all styles. You know, for challenge AND fun.

It's useful to regurgitate a formula once or twice, to better understand the game mechanics... But do most deity players really just play 4 city peaceful tradition SV every time? (If so, I'm as confused as you are... But I really don't think that's the case).

It's more of a common baseline to base intelligent discussions off of, and a stepping stone to being a real deity player.

My first Deity victory was 4 city tradition SV. I've since won with all openers besides Honor in all VCs, going wide, tall, peaceful, aggressive....

adwcta said:

Or, you can play deity and win in all styles. You know, for challenge AND fun.

It's useful to regurgitate a formula once or twice, to better understand the game mechanics... But do most deity players really just play 4 city peaceful tradition SV every time? (If so, I'm as confused as you are... But I really don't think that's the case).

It's more of a common baseline to base intelligent discussions off of, and a stepping stone to being a real deity player.

My first Deity victory was 4 city tradition SV. I've since won with all openers besides Honor in all VCs, going wide, tall, peaceful, aggressive....

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To each their own. The only thing that causes the deity-only players to rankle is the occasion when one expresses the disposition that deity should be considered the default. For example, it should be the difficulty against which a civ's UA should be balanced. And even worse, any discussion of play outside of deity should be considered scoffworthy because the game is only meaningful at deity. the discussion.

That seems facile to me as it doesn't account for playstyle. If I'm playing on King or Emperor and I don't steal any workers, I've actually visited a challenge onto myself that a lot of other players don't.

adwcta said:

Caravansary and Harbors don't do anything to attract trade routes. The only buildings that help are market, EIC, and anything that gives + gold.

Find the city with the most resources and ocean/river. Get it to a decent pop. Trade post spam everything. Bonus points for planted great merchants / prophets with piety. Bonus points for the +gold rationalism / exploration policies. Extra extra bonus points if you go Tradition and it's your capital.

Be GOOD friends with several civs.

I consider it a failed game if I don't have a dozen routes coming into me by the time ideology hits. Often, I am at
20+. The cost, is that that city basically stops growing. Totally doable in 4 city tradition or 6+ city anything else, while keeping science.

Morocco, and any UA/UB/UI that gives gold on tiles will help. That's it.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the info.