(1-NS) Resource Trade gated by Active Trade Routes

[Tekamthi]

You can directly amend your proposal or make a counter proposal yourself for different options. I don't have a very strong feeling regarding this issue (as in I would support it/try to suggest ideas that make it balanced and fun to play with, but not really try to push it if others don't find it's interesting) so I'll leave it to you.

okay, can always be put forward on a future round then, if there's any further interest. I'll probably just request a lua hook to get access to the OP proposal functionality and attempt via modmod in some form (unless a dev sponsor angel shows up here at the 11th hour).

For the sake of posterity to this thread for now, pls help me summarize best implementation for pseudo-TR's as representations of resource deals:

• Diplomacy screen resource deal gated by potential for TR's (not active TR's themselves); ie as long as two civs can create a TR between one another, they can trade resources
• Resource trade deal spawns a no-yield TR on the shortest route available between both civs involved in the trade; this pseudo-TR serves only as an on-map representation of the resource deal, it does not count as TR for any other purpose.
• The resource deal pseudo-TR can be pillaged in same manner as normal TR, and terminates the resource deal if pillaged.
• If resource deal pseudo-TR is pillaged prior to completion, trading partners involved are restricted from creating any new resource deal for a 10-turn cooldown
• Peace Treaty resource deals are completed independently, and do not result in pseudo-TR on map.

Am I missing any key points we've discussed so far?

 

[nekokon]

Yea that's pretty much everything. Good luck with your mod mod attempt, I'll definitely try it out when available.

 

[dostillevi]

Seeing as this looks like it's not in the current round of proposals, I have a few thoughts:
1. Trade route length is a significant factor on large and custom extra-large maps.
2. The AI should prioritize the protection of trade routes with a resource trade higher than other trade routes.
3. AI should prioritize the value of resource trades when considering how to interact with other civs.
-Don't go to war with civs that your trade routes go through if there is no alternate route. If there is an alternate route, gauge it's defensibility and defend accordingly before declaring war. Keep in mind exactly where the caravan is when declaring war.
-Consider improving relations with countries that are accessible by trade route, and even further for those accessible and that also have existing resource trade routes.
-AI should prioritize plundering enemy trade routes that carry resources.
4. Should trade routes be gated by opinion?
5. Should the trade screen indicate whether a trade is blocked because of a lack of trade route access? I.e. the civ could trade and is in range, if only a route existed?
6. Should it matter which civ owns the trade route when it comes to trades?
-Should a civ change it's willingness to give a lump sum for a resource if the other civ controls the trade route?
-Should a civ be able to propose a resource trade if only the other civ has a trade route between the countries? Should a proposal only be possible if the trade route originates with the proposing country?
7. Should trade routes carrying resources be marked specially? Light them in a different color so their importance can be noted?
8. Any civs that specially benefit from importing/exporting resources should give extra weight to trade route protection and generation. This includes civs taking that pantheon that cares about traded resource (if I recall correctly), and civs that have an excess of resources that they want to trade.
9. Trading (strategic) resources during war will be much more difficult, which will impact the ability of civs to meaningfully supply their units via resource trading. The likely impact of this would be civs trading for strategics before war, using them all, and then losing those trades and taking the penalty to all their strategic units. I think this would be potentially very bad for the AI, because at best, they'd need to delete some of their strategic resource units, wasting their hammers and impacting their relative power.
10. Pillaging resource carrying trade routes should have a much more significant diplomatic impact.

Overall I really like the idea, but the challenges to successful implementation and the amount of UI work needed seem pretty significant.

 

[nekokon]

A lot of what you said are already covered by the current AI rules related to TR. The only extra AI rule would be to consider TR along with any trade deal it has it mind (so that it won't try to send trade deal with TR going through hostile zone)

 

[Tekamthi]

so that it won't try to send trade deal with TR going through hostile zone

I think the need for this could be mitigated by figuring out some way to allow players to defend trade routes a little more easily. Defensibility maybe should be addressed prior to these other proposals that increase importance of TR's.

 

[nekokon]

As I've said in that thread it's not viable to actually sending an unit to chase after a trade unit to protect it.
If you want to protect it the more likely options would be to pay extra money to give trade unit ability to avoid melee once per turn so they can't get caught easily but can still be stopped with more units.
Also a lot more code for giving the promotion to trade unit (not sure if it's even possible) and to teach AI how to send unit to clear out hostile around the TR. Faster to just teach AI to avoid those zone.

 

[Recursive]

A lot of what you said are already covered by the current AI rules related to TR. The only extra AI rule would be to consider TR along with any trade deal it has it mind (so that it won't try to send trade deal with TR going through hostile zone)

Have you read the AI code for trade route selection or are you speaking from your ingame observations? I ask because I'd consider it important to be certain about such claims.

 

[nekokon]

Sorry it's from observations, and mainly for their behavior when picking TR. When I first read his post most of them are about picking TR or if they should pillage a TR or changing the color or diplomatic impact, etc... (which all aren't too far from current behavior) so I skipped some parts.
And I'm not considering this from perfect executed AI goal, as even the current AI isn't perfect and need some changes here and there, but they don't count as AI requirements for specific changes (non-abusable/breaking AI)

 

[Recursive]

Timestamp post to arrange all the threads in a neat order.