Pandemia and trade routes.

Short of destroying all roads connecting cities whenever a pandemic strikes one. Is there any other way of re-allocating trade routes manually to prevent pandemics from spreading?

On a side note, while i love the realistic aspect of the pandemic system, it feels rather harsh to not be able to combat the negatives effects of one while it's in effect. And feels rather arbitrary.

As has been said in a thread from 2007 after doing a google search. Pandemics should be more linked to the health system IMHO and should a pandemic strike a city the mod could, instead of simply dropping the population by one per turn, simply increase the unhealthiness in the city drastically.
You could then decide to focus all your efforts on gathering food (and medicinal herbs?) to counteract the ill effects of pandemics.

Do mind that this is my first time playing with RI so i might be ill informed and late game might not be such a big issue.
Coupled with the mistake of founding my second city next to 4 jungles...

But another possibility from such a feature (badly affecting healthiness) would be providing aid by means of food and medicine from other cities. Sacrifice your food storage in neighboring cities and send it to the affected city as well as your medicine supply (healthiness) of said city to help combat the ill effects of a pandemic in the other.
Of course, doing this would cost coins. Thus you as the leader would have to ask yourself, is it worth the hit now to ensure the city remains prosperous for the next X turns instead of letting it fall in ruin and rebuild itself over the course of same amount of turns.

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Finally, another little feature i thought up. If a city is struck by a pandemic then any unit inside the city (or even close to the city) has a chance of being affected. It wouldn't be immediately evident that these units are infected (1-2 turns?) and moving them between cities and then having the pandemic burst out would cause whatever other city these units are stationed at to suffer a huge increase of pandemic probability.
Also, any unit affected would suffer a health hit per turn and if not "treated" could even suffer death.

This would also enable a new strategic option of ensuring a city is struck by a pandemic and having units inside that city do suicide missions on other cities. spreading a pandemic on the enemy.

...

Anyways, the first question was. Is there any way to stop an epidemic from happening by choosing trade routes?

Cadde said:

Short of destroying all roads connecting cities whenever a pandemic strikes one. Is there any other way of re-allocating trade routes manually to prevent pandemics from spreading?

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No, not really. Anyway, most of the time it's not your problem, since all trade routes are foreign where possible. We could introduce the quarantine option, but if it becomes available when it historically was, it won't be of much use then.

On a side note, while i love the realistic aspect of the pandemic system, it feels rather harsh to not be able to combat the negatives effects of one while it's in effect. And feels rather arbitrary.

As has been said in a thread from 2007 after doing a google search. Pandemics should be more linked to the health system IMHO and should a pandemic strike a city the mod could, instead of simply dropping the population by one per turn, simply increase the unhealthiness in the city drastically.
You could then decide to focus all your efforts on gathering food (and medicinal herbs?) to counteract the ill effects of pandemics.

Do mind that this is my first time playing with RI so i might be ill informed and late game might not be such a big issue.
Coupled with the mistake of founding my second city next to 4 jungles...

But another possibility from such a feature (badly affecting healthiness) would be providing aid by means of food and medicine from other cities. Sacrifice your food storage in neighboring cities and send it to the affected city as well as your medicine supply (healthiness) of said city to help combat the ill effects of a pandemic in the other.
Of course, doing this would cost coins. Thus you as the leader would have to ask yourself, is it worth the hit now to ensure the city remains prosperous for the next X turns instead of letting it fall in ruin and rebuild itself over the course of same amount of turns.

Click to expand...

Not really stuff that happened IRL. Most of the time, when pandemics occurred, little to no useful measures were taken. Especially aid from other cities. Anyway, pandemics in RI are both less harsh and less arbitrary than IRL - you clearly see the chance, and it isn't going to wipe out half your civ's population.

Finally, another little feature i thought up. If a city is struck by a pandemic then any unit inside the city (or even close to the city) has a chance of being affected. It wouldn't be immediately evident that these units are infected (1-2 turns?) and moving them between cities and then having the pandemic burst out would cause whatever other city these units are stationed at to suffer a huge increase of pandemic probability.
Also, any unit affected would suffer a health hit per turn and if not "treated" could even suffer death.

This would also enable a new strategic option of ensuring a city is struck by a pandemic and having units inside that city do suicide missions on other cities. spreading a pandemic on the enemy.

Click to expand...

Yet again, no precedent of this exists IRL. Especially since a person affected by a deadly disease that will soon kill him is a very, very poor soldier.

Yeah, reading up on what a pandemic actually is having gotten the wrong idea from playing the game of how they work.
Epidemic is the more historically accurate term for it and it's only when i spreads to other locales (cities and nations) that it is a pandemic.
Now with that said, why not introduce both? While still allowing you (the glorious leader) to combat it by shutting down all contact with infected regions?

As for soldiers fighting while suffering from deadly disease history has countless records of armies suffering greater losses from illness than at the hands of other armies.
And obviously, units garrisoned at a city would suffer from the epidemic right? Or at least run a very high risk of being infected.
A unit isn't just three soldiers in Civ either, each unit is considered to be in the thousands. And while half the unit is infected and suffering from disease the other half is still in fighting condition.

In 1346, the bodies of Mongol warriors who had died of plague were thrown over the walls of the besieged Crimean city of Kaffa (now Theodosia). After a protracted siege, during which the Mongol army under Jani Beg was suffering the disease, they catapulted the infected corpses over the city walls to infect the inhabitants. It has been speculated that this operation may have been responsible for the arrival of the Black Death in Europe.

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Also notable is the throwing of dead animal corpses or parts of the same over city walls in hopes of spreading disease or illness. Inhabitants would eat of the dead carcasses because the besieged city was unable to gather food during a siege.

And i am fine with not being able to see the chance of an epidemic striking the city, that only gives way to a new leader trait. Namely paranoia!
Throughout history, many villages, cities and even nations have isolated people of their kind in fear of them being infected by a deadly disease. Such actions led to unnecessary death and the increased paranoia also led to unrest and unhappiness.

Oh well, just a few ideas that's all.

Cadde said:

Yeah, reading up on what a pandemic actually is having gotten the wrong idea from playing the game of how they work.
Epidemic is the more historically accurate term for it and it's only when i spreads to other locales (cities and nations) that it is a pandemic.
Now with that said, why not introduce both? While still allowing you (the glorious leader) to combat it by shutting down all contact with infected regions?

Click to expand...

I'm not sure if it would be easy to teach the AI to use that properly.

As for soldiers fighting while suffering from deadly disease history has countless records of armies suffering greater losses from illness than at the hands of other armies.
And obviously, units garrisoned at a city would suffer from the epidemic right? Or at least run a very high risk of being infected.
A unit isn't just three soldiers in Civ either, each unit is considered to be in the thousands. And while half the unit is infected and suffering from disease the other half is still in fighting condition.

Click to expand...

Pandemic damaging units is actually a good idea and will be looked into. I'll see how easy it is to implement.

Throughout history, many villages, cities and even nations have isolated people of their kind in fear of them being infected by a deadly disease. Such actions led to unnecessary death and the increased paranoia also led to unrest and unhappiness.

Oh well, just a few ideas that's all.

Click to expand...

Already have that one - pandemic colony.