Trade route overhaul proposal brainstorming

[Slyceth]

When you finish making a cargo ship you get a prompt where to deploy it like you would an archeology prompt first step is picking a source city, in this screen you can see which cities are in range of which and maybe even sort by gold output of potential source cities to each possible nearby target city. Second screen you choose between food, production, gold or science or religion.
Choosing food or production brings you to another screen to pick the target city to boost, and shows the list of the current build project and the amount of turns it would have left to grow/finish building once you send it that way. Picking gold prioritizes gold output city states, avoiding any routes with barbarians, same with science and religion. There is also a button or toggle to prioritize a city state trade route quest.

 

[azum4roll]

But why? Sometimes you just don't want to send it right away.

 

[Bryan317]

Well the current version isn't horrible. I guess I just don't look for these types of things when choosing trade routes. But I definitely prefer internal routes unless you are a civilization that benefits from historic events.

Food and production routes are easy to choose. And if I'm choosing an external route I just choose the safest path that has the highest gold output. I don't even consider the other perks on the route. They're just a nice bonus that happen to be there because this route produces the most gold already lol

 

[Diomedes_]

What problems would this solve?

 

[Tekamthi]

Sounds interesting, but I generally lean away from ideas that "overhaul" long-standing features. Smaller tweaks are acceptable, on the other hand.

While the proposal might be easily grasped by human player, I think this would require that we turn AI on its head to accommodate. This is the prime issue I see here.

re: specifics of OP suggestion, wouldn't a religion TR kinda overlap with function of missionaries/inquisitors? I'd be more inclined to have the missionaries behave as a TR for this purpose, if somehow the lump amount of faith were deemed problematic.

On the tweak side, I think it might be fun to allow units to cross rival territory along TR paths. Blockable by denouncement.

 

[Boombar]

I feel like late game trade routes are too spammy. Every few turns i get prompt to choose new destination, it gets somewhat tedious especially if you play trade civ like Venice or Carthage. Choices dont feel meaningful in lategame as they are in early game. This problem can be solved by replacing some trade slots we get from techs with % bonuses to existing trade routes to reduce the spam and to make decision making more impactful.

There should be more diplomatic bonuses or penalties for trade partners like it is in real world. I care very little if i declare war on my neighbour because i can just shift my trades with him to internals quickly and there is little consequences. Maybe there should be more diplomacy involved with how we choose where we send our trade routes.

Something like trade agreements or economic unions should be a thing in civ.

Also, UI for trade routes is terrible.