Trade Routes Income performance impact

Afforess said:

IMO, the problem with trade routes is that all of the food, commerce, and hammers come from "nowhere". If you want to optimize it, just remove the code, roll some dice, and give each player random yields each turn. There ya go, trade routes, with no performance hit.

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BlueGenie said:

I do not agree with this sentiment. The food, hammers, and commerce do indeed come from somewhere, the combination of city A's and city B's uniquenesses.

Hammers for instance would increase when efficeincy increased, or if new optimized ways of doing things were introduced. Trade routes are a perfect example of this, where the total is greater than the sum of the parts and each city brings something to the table.

The same goes with commerce. Sharing ideas leads to greater insights and leaps in understanding of things (science). Mixing metals and jewels, or different fragrances, or any potential variation for products made by the craftsmen, leads to more valuable products. Again trade routes give something that is greater than the sum of the parts.

Food might be the one where even I could have been sceptical and wondered where it came from but food is more a measurement of how good a city can grow in population and not actual "food". When considering that aspect of it increased growth in population from having good trade routes is a given, any high trade centre brings in new population and leads to somewhat better prosperity and growth.
Even if looking at it as "actual food" I can still see how trade routes and thus new variations in food makes for healthier consumption and thus higher population growth even if each city only trades x amount the result can be x+y in terms of better eating habits.
It's like a person only eating pasta does not reach his or her potential, but having a new kind of dish every day of the week makes a very healthy person.

Please, very much please, do not take Trade Routes away, or even look at them like some kind of "roll of the dice" effect.
The whole game is more or less randomized anyway, what resources you land near in the start can make or break a game a LOT more than any trade routes, especially in C2C where all resources are equal except for the good ones (no Stone for instance = loss in research because a lot of early research buildings require stone, no early flour even if you have a grain resource, and a reduced production rate from inaccessible buildings. No Copper or Iron is another one when war breaks out during late Ancient, early Classic Era).

Cheers

Click to expand...

BlueGenie said:

I do not agree with this sentiment. The food, hammers, and commerce do indeed come from somewhere, the combination of city A's and city B's uniquenesses.

Hammers for instance would increase when efficeincy increased, or if new optimized ways of doing things were introduced. Trade routes are a perfect example of this, where the total is greater than the sum of the parts and each city brings something to the table.

The same goes with commerce. Sharing ideas leads to greater insights and leaps in understanding of things (science). Mixing metals and jewels, or different fragrances, or any potential variation for products made by the craftsmen, leads to more valuable products. Again trade routes give something that is greater than the sum of the parts.

Food might be the one where even I could have been sceptical and wondered where it came from but food is more a measurement of how good a city can grow in population and not actual "food". When considering that aspect of it increased growth in population from having good trade routes is a given, any high trade centre brings in new population and leads to somewhat better prosperity and growth.
Even if looking at it as "actual food" I can still see how trade routes and thus new variations in food makes for healthier consumption and thus higher population growth even if each city only trades x amount the result can be x+y in terms of better eating habits.
It's like a person only eating pasta does not reach his or her potential, but having a new kind of dish every day of the week makes a very healthy person.

Please, very much please, do not take Trade Routes away, or even look at them like some kind of "roll of the dice" effect.
The whole game is more or less randomized anyway, what resources you land near in the start can make or break a game a LOT more than any trade routes, especially in C2C where all resources are equal except for the good ones (no Stone for instance = loss in research because a lot of early research buildings require stone, no early flour even if you have a grain resource, and a reduced production rate from inaccessible buildings. No Copper or Iron is another one when war breaks out during late Ancient, early Classic Era).

Cheers

Click to expand...