Another trade route question...

[scarlethue]

I noticed that some of my cities were generating only +1 commerce from every trade route they had (4 routes in this case), while others were ~+6 for all 4. Any idea what causes this? It seems a bit too regular to be chance, am I missing a city improvement?

Or is it just a quirk of the way the route calculator works. i.e. make all the commerce poor cities trade together and it simply ran out of good cities?

Thanks

 

[Bushface]

See manual, p141. Quote "Trade routes in Civ4 are generated automatically, with each city forming the most profitable trade routes possible."
What else is there to say ?

 

[scarlethue]

Thanks Bushface but I know that, and to be fair the Civ manuals have always contained surprisingly little useful information in relation to their size IMO. And I have read all 4 of them.

I just thought that it was odd that 2 well developed cities differed in trade so much. Just seems a bit random. One with 4 trade routes of +1 and the other with 4 trade routes of +6.

BTW there is a lot more to say e.g. Harbor increases trade commerce by 50%, cannot trade with foreign civs unless open borders etc...

 

[Aegis]

See manual, p141. Quote "Trade routes in Civ4 are generated automatically, with each city forming the most profitable trade routes possible."
What else is there to say ?

That may be the case, but how is it determined which cities get preference for the premier trade routes over others?

Or are there unlimited outgoing trade routes?

 

[Stalker0]

Alpha Centauri gives detailed formulas in the game on how the automated trade routes are calculated. I wonder if CIV IV uses a similar formula.

 

[Olleus]

i think that out going trade routes are paired with in going trade roots. Ie. if city A has a route with city B, city B also has a route with city A.
btw foriegn trade roots give a LOT more money then domestic trade roots which are capped at 1 gold.

 

[georgedv]

Are the +1 trade routes domestic and the +6 trade routes foreign?

 

[Bushface]

@Lord Olleus - It has been said elsewhere in this forum that trade is one-way: your city A has a trade route to city X and the gold appears from nowhere in your treasury, but it does NOT follow that city X is getting gold from trade with A. A curious mechanism, but apparently that's how it is.

 

[shadow2k]

i think that out going trade routes are paired with in going trade roots. Ie. if city A has a route with city B, city B also has a route with city A.

No, they aren't one for one. One civ might have more profitable routes with someone else, due to open borders or whatever.

 

[absurdly]

I believe city cize is considered also. Your size 15 city will make a lot more in trade than your size 2 city, even if they are trading with the same foreign cities.

 

[shackleton]

I'm guessing... but I would think that it's domestic vs foreign trade routes, or foreign trade routes with poorly developed cities. This should be fixed by getting some more open borders with AIs I think? Open borders I'm pretty sure are economic agreements allowing trade as well as being able to walk through territory

 

[zx1111]

I have question..
I knows that each trade route generates some commerce gold..
But does trade routes affects a city's Culture rate or Research rate directely ( not by spending the commerce gold to researchl?
Or does it can yield anything other than commerce gold? i.e. production or food?

 

[MrCynical]

Trade routes do not produce anything other than commerce. This commerce will almost always affect the research and culture rates by being spent on research or culture, but trade routes do not affect them 'directly'. They can never produce food or production. There are some mods out there which alter this

Be careful to distinguish between commerce and gold. They're not the same thing and a lot of people seem to confuse them.

 

[Brighteye]

the Civ manuals have always contained surprisingly little useful information in relation to their size IMO. And I have read all 4 of them.

me too, but I find that a great many manuals are like that. And then they wonder why no-one bothers to read them! I don't want vague instructions like 'don't forget to guard you cities!', I want detail like 'your citizens will become unhappy at level 4 on noble if the city is left unguarded' that actually helps me make my decisions.

I haven't looked carefully, but I think that each city calculates trade routes independently of any other city and without regard to how many incoming trade routes any other city already has. I find that by the end when I have 4 trade routes per city almost every city has two of those four going to my capital and second city.