Caravans

This is a simple suggestion to bring into DoC a quirky unit that has been seen on and off within the Civilization series.



Caravans.

The basic premise of a Caravan is basically a unit that you send into foreign cities to generate Gold (think, a build-able but severely watered down Great Merchant) or establish trade routes.
I understand that with Wealth, and a high enough Hammer base, it could render the prospective unit meaningless.
But before the infrastructure is high enough to meet that threshold, this feature could potentially see some use, especially amongst builder-oriented players.

On a financial screen, we can see a list of all the Civilizations and specifically, what kind of resources they citizens desire.
Your goal would be to build a Caravan carrying that Resource and send it to their cities.
When you build a Caravan, you can select a Resource within that city's BFC, and then proceed to send it out to the target civilization.
Mind you, this doesn't use up the Resource, it only dictates which cities can be used to produce specific Caravans carrying specific goods.
Once your Caravan arrives at the target, you can expend them like you would a Great Merchant and gain the following effects (still a work in progress, you guys can help me out here):

-Generates a small lump sum of Gold for the sender and a small amount of Gold for the receiver, based on relative distance. (a la Civilization Revolution)
The ratio for this; (Hammers to Turns) should be competitive with building Wealth, to some degree.
-Allows you to switch an existing trade route with one linking to the destination city.
-Able to spread corporations manually. (a la vanilla BtS Executives)
-Low chance to spread your religion if you are running a state religion.
-A diplomatic bonus or penalty, based on trade balance.
"Your markets provide us with much wealth"
"We have a trade deficit with you!"

Take effects out or improve on them as you see fit.
A sea-based equivalent would be great too, but it's probably better represented
by loading a couple Caravans onto a few Galleons.

Anyways, I'd love to hear some thoughts.

I think we should change/improve existing mechanisms instead of introducing new ones, as long as both lead to similar results. Namely:

(A) Diplomacy can always be improved, for example:

- More options on Open Borders agreements. Options to specify (1) allowing the passage of non-combat units; (2) allowing the passage of combat units; (3) allowing the establishment of Trade Routes.

- Ocean tiles should not be affected by Open Borders agreements, at least until the discovery of a certain tech (Banking, Optics, Astronomy).

- Resource/Gold trades should affect Diplomacy more dynamically and in greater scale. Specifically, (1) Trade deals should affect Attitude between civs immediately after they are signed, instead of after many turns ("We appreciate the years you've supplied us with resources"); (2) This attitude change should be larger than a measly +1 or +2; (3) Trade deals should be able to be canceled within 3 turns, instead of 10 turns - 10 turns can last for several centuries on Normal speed.

(B) Corporations can become more sophisticated and interesting. Specifically:

- Corporations can enable a number of special buildings. This is well-developed in SoI and RFCA, whereas in DoC the only such building is the Trading Company Wonder. Silk Route for example can enable a building which further boosts Trade Route Yield and/or , and Oil Industry can enable an Oil Refinery building which boosts and/or .

- Build-able Corporation executives. These units can require specific Corporation buildings (e.g. Silk Route Trading Post) and have limits (in RFCE the limit number is 1) to prevent them from being spammed a la vanilla BTS.

Trade Routes are optimized by the game engine to provide maximum Yields, so if you manually reroute any Trade Route you will get less overall Yields.

Any kind of build-able mini-Great Merchant unit will be either:

(1) Only useful for a short period of time under some special circumstances, which means most players will ignore it completely;

or

(2) Completely overpowered in late game so that this unit is all that a Human player will build in most of their cities.

iOnlySignIn said:

I think we should change/improve existing mechanisms instead of introducing new ones, as long as both lead to similar results. Namely:

(A) Diplomacy can always be improved, for example:

- More options on Open Borders agreements. Options to specify (1) allowing the passage of non-combat units; (2) allowing the passage of combat units; (3) allowing the establishment of Trade Routes.

Click to expand...

Caravans, mostly appeal to the nostalgia factor, but do fill a niche I think is lacking.
Now I'm not advocating for shenanigans like Civ2 Spies (who could detonate nukes in a city belonging to a civ you aren't even at war with),
just an alternative to building Wealth, with a few additional benefits of its own.

Also, I think Open Borders is generally fine as is.

iOnlySignIn said:

- Resource/Gold trades should affect Diplomacy more dynamically and in greater scale. Specifically, (1) Trade deals should affect Attitude between civs immediately after they are signed, instead of after many turns ("We appreciate the years you've supplied us with resources"); (2) This attitude change should be larger than a measly +1 or +2; (3) Trade deals should be able to be canceled within 3 turns, instead of 10 turns - 10 turns can last for several centuries on Normal speed.

Click to expand...

I agree.

iOnlySignIn said:

(B) Corporations can become more sophisticated and interesting. Specifically:

- Corporations can enable a number of special buildings. This is well-developed in SoI and RFCA, whereas in DoC the only such building is the Trading Company Wonder. Silk Route for example can enable a building which further boosts Trade Route Yield and/or , and Oil Industry can enable an Oil Refinery building which boosts and/or .

Click to expand...

It's probably best for the current metagame if no more bonus yields/multiplier buildings are introduced.

iOnlySignIn said:

- Build-able Corporation executives. These units can require specific Corporation buildings (e.g. Silk Route Trading Post) and have limits (in RFCE the limit number is 1) to prevent them from being spammed a la vanilla BTS.

Click to expand...

Corporation Executives always struck out to me for being way too era-specific.
Caravans can adopt the same niches but apply throughout history.
Let's say Caravans become available at Currency.
Early Corporation spreading by way of Silk Road to cities outside Silk Road's pre-defined range would be great.

Tomorrow's Dawn said:

It's probably best for the current metagame if no more bonus yields/multiplier buildings are introduced.

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Says the person who puts his AAR of Phoenicia in his signature, while Phoenicia is all about an UB which provides an absurd amount of extra multipliers.

Corporation Executives always struck out to me for being way too era-specific.
Caravans can adopt the same niches but apply throughout history.

Click to expand...

Would the Mayans build Caravans? Would the Prussians? The Americans?

I'm assuming that this is the Caravan you're referring to:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caravan_(travellers)

instead of this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_Caravan

If that is the case, units which require Silk Route/Trading Corporation to build (such as their executives) will be much more fitting than a unit that applies throughout history and across all civs.

iOnlySignIn said:

Says the person who puts his AAR of Phoenicia in his signature, while Phoenicia is all about an UB which provides an absurd amount of extra multipliers.

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To be fair, despite Phoenicia's buffs, they are still a volatile civ to work with, in terms of stability.
Suffering an upward of two to three guaranteed spawns on your territory is not terribly easy to work with.

iOnlySignIn said:

Would the Mayans build Caravans? Would the Prussians? The Americans?

I'm assuming that this is the Caravan you're referring to:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caravan_(travellers)

instead of this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_Caravan

If that is the case, units which require Silk Route/Trading Corporation to build (such as their executives) will be much more fitting than a unit that applies throughout history and across all civs.

Click to expand...

In Civ2, Caravans become Freights (trucks) upon reaching the (Modern?) era.
We could treat it similarly to how Workers change in appearance upon hitting Industrial Era.
A Caravan in my mind, would be a unit representative of any group of people, or individuals representing trade interests who journey to deliver/receive/trade for goods.
It could be anything from the Red Seal Ships of Japan, the salt traders in Sub-Saharan Africa to the trucker who drives across Arkansas to deliver a shipment of frozen beef.

Also yeah, America has had caravans. Haven't you ever played Oregon Trail?
Fur trading caravans were ubiquitous on the routes to Oregon and California.

Tomorrow's Dawn said:

A Caravan in my mind, would be a unit representative of any group of people, or individuals representing trade interests who journey to deliver/receive/trade for goods.
It could be anything from the Red Seal Ships of Japan, the salt traders in Sub-Saharan Africa to the trucker who drives across Arkansas to deliver a shipment of frozen beef.

Also yeah, America has had caravans. Haven't you ever played Oregon Trail?
Fur trading caravans were ubiquitous on the routes to Oregon and California.

Click to expand...

OK.

You think a Caravan unit, as presented in this thread's OP, could represent all of those? Should it?

iOnlySignIn said:

OK.

You think a Caravan unit, as presented in this thread's OP, could represent all of that?

Or should it?

Click to expand...

Absolutely.

They've existed in such a form in Civilization I, II and Civilization Revolution.
I do not know if you've played those titles or not.

(Of course, in such cases as the Red Seal Ship, it's represented as you loading the Caravan onto a ship such as a Galley, Galleon or Transport).

Tomorrow's Dawn said:

Absolutely.

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So you think Arkansas, Oregon and California should be separate civilizations. Got it. Then this is kind of an extreme long term project, isn't it?

iOnlySignIn said:

So you think Arkansas, Oregon and California should be separate civilizations. Got it. Then this is kind of an extreme long term project, isn't it?

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If I take you on the Oregon Trail with me, do you promise not to die of dysentery?

Caravans are already in game, you just don't see them. When you get a trade route a caravan is bringing you your extra commerce. When you trade for resources, your setting up an ongoing trade relationship in which caravans bring the traded goods back and forth. I'm not sure taking this out of the background into the active gameplay will add anything to the enjoyment of the game, just more units to move. Ugh, I thought missionaries were bad enough.

However, the trading and diplomacy can definitely use some work and if we're gonna turn this thread into an improved commerce/trade thread, then one thing I have been noticing lately is that the AI does not use or value slaves properly.

Personally, I like this idea. I think it'll add a lot to the early game but also, if caravans can change slightly over time, to the late game too. I think TD's idea about caravans based on resources in a city's range is a good idea and adds a sense of historicity because certain cities will be better suited than others for trade (which was the case in history). Also, I like the religion spread too as caravans have also historically spread religion.

A problem I could see with the resource-specific caravans and markets would be how the AI would deal with it. Would it be a Colonization-esque trade system where each city pays more for a certain resource? Would certain resources be worth more than others? Would you be able to trade the same resource constantly with the same market and get the same profit?

Personally, I would like to see a Colonization style economic system implemented but I have a feeling that is would probably be way to much work to code.

There are Caravan units in SoI but I have played so little that mod that I do not know how well they are working.
But any way interesting ideas and discussion here.
In DoC have kind of one unit which could use as Caravan unit - that is Great Merchant and it´s option to be Caravan unit. I think that has been some kind of tribute to Marco Polo - but honestly I think it is just really silly idea with out any logic or historical background which for some unknown reason end up to be in BTS (or was it already in vanilla CivIV?) and through that even in DoC.

There already is a Caravan unit in DoC. It's the 2nd UU of Mali in the 2nd UU modcomp for DoC.

Have had any feedback how well Caravan has working?

Not much. Only this:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=12023787&postcount=208
I have no idea how well the AI uses them. But for the human player (that goes for the UHV), they are more usefull than building wealth. (more gold for less production)

But I heard that the Caravans in SoI do quite well.

Most SOI players prefer building gold to caravans as there is a small benefit in hammers to gold but this is offset by the time it takes to move the caravan. In the game I played last night caravan cost 72 hammers and would net me 82 gold at any city that I could reliably get to without worrying about barbs too much. If you lose one caravan to mongols then all that gain is gone.

The AI uses them quite a bit. Some civs do a lot of caravan building.

The main problem with the caravan that's being suggested is that this caravan technically fulfills the roles of the Great Merchant. We need to spice it up a bit...

On a financial screen, we can see a list of all the Civilizations and specifically, what kind of resources they citizens desire.
Your goal would be to build a Caravan carrying that Resource and send it to their cities.

Click to expand...

Now this idea is getting somewhere.

Skip this if you don't want my rambling:



There should definitely be a trade unit (For both land and water) that can travel to civilizations you have open borders with. When that trade unit is in a city, it could conduct a market mission for your empire.

Market mission: In essence, when you select this option, a pop-up opens showing the different resources that the city has access to. You can select a resource with the bonuses you desire and, with a small sum given to the civ that owns the city, you get the bonuses of that resource for x number of turns. The civ still owns the resource, but you share in the bonuses.

Something like this would be unique, and at the same time, encourage civs with small amounts of happy/health resources to use other ways to make ends meet. Each resource could have a set cost depending on its usefulness. It would act like, and even simulate an actual market.

Obviously, because of that, we can make some civics (State property and whatever mercantilism is comes into mind) disable the trade unit and prevent other civs from creating market missions in their city.

jammerculture said:

Most SOI players prefer building gold to caravans as there is a small benefit in hammers to gold but this is offset by the time it takes to move the caravan. In the game I played last night caravan cost 72 hammers and would net me 82 gold at any city that I could reliably get to without worrying about barbs too much. If you lose one caravan to mongols then all that gain is gone.

The AI uses them quite a bit. Some civs do a lot of caravan building.

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This is true, I second this view.

blizzrd said:

This is true, I second this view.

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Lol I hope so, your the one that told me