An introduction to trade automation.

[Cueball252]

Hi Team,

Just following up with another how to video after seeing some questions in the forum. I had a look at Nightingale's comprehensive post (https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/trade-routes.631219/) and just did a quick video to try and demonstrate how it works. As he says once you've got the hang of it its really easy to use. Hopefully the video is helpful!

 

[Vorpal+5]

I watched the video, interesting one. I don't use auto-export myself, I don't trust the fuzzy logic behind ;-) As the Youtubers says, the vanilla code is not handling well large transports like trek. I prefer to have a more directed approaches which is more focused and deterministic.

Meaning that I'll dedicate a transport to a pair of city, and exactly a pair. The transport will only work between these two, and I'll even rename it so I know what it is ferrying between each cities. You only have to set one transport per pair and you can think of your colonies as a chain of cities, with hubs.

As for the actual 'ticking of boxes', you can indeed start with import all, there is no adverse effect in having all import boxes checked, because you'll anyway specify which good is exported and imported.

What I found a bit confusing at first is that the import checkbox is to the left of the export box, but the value to set is in the 2nd edit box, not the first, so basically, the 2 pair of controls are crossed.


Here is my capital city.
Food example .... Set to import food up to 600 and export it while retaining a minimum of 100. Import Feeder is also checked because in 99.5% of the cases, it improves things.
As you can see, there is no adverse effect in having your town both importing and exporting, because as you specify what your wagon is doing, then you don't mix up things. You can thus chain merchandises, with city A accepting food from wagon 1, but also capable of sending if further away to city B thanks to wagon 2.
Import feeder alters (among others features, but I don't use them) the import value, in that starting at 75% of the import value, the import box is deactivated. it allows only importing a good where there is a decent amount to import. Here, it will only import food if I'm at 75 or below, but not if I'm between 76 and 99. Without it, import will happen if I'm between 1 and 99 food. This allows not using up a transport slot in your wagon for a non-significant amount of good.

And now is the one and only wagon that transport good between my capital city (45 population) and my 2nd city (30 or so). Indeed, as I don't use auto-export, I have to tick boxes. But I prefer it this way, I like to know what is going on exactly.

You basically click the EXPORT box in this window, specifying the first city. Do the same for the IMPORT box, specifying the 2nd city. Tick ALL boxes. Then you reverse, you click again EXPORT, select the 2nd city, then IMPORT, select the first city. Then click again all boxes. And this is how you have the transport "ALL Jms-Ply 1-1", meaning it transports all goods (some time I have a 2nd wagon that send a particular good to a third town), between Jamestown and Plymouth and 1-1 means this is the first of one wagon doing that, so 1-1.

As I'm a control freak, I use profusely the excellent ALT-S shortcut, existing in Civ IV (and abandoned in Civ V it seems). i.e you strike ALT-S, then click on a tile, and you get a dialog box, where you can imput a label.

Here you see there are 3 labels around Salem.
Rum > PLY indicates Rum production going to Plymouth.
Ox:Beer > JMS (stone) indicates an ox (an unusual transport for me) export Beer to Jamestown and in return import Stone.
V is my way of saying the garrison has 5 units, as I'm filling up cities before a big Indian war (I have modded the game so that an Indian only costs 15 food and not 50, meaning a typical Indian tribes fields around 150 Indians units .... you better be prepared!)

And that's it. Hopes it helps a little. Clearly my way of doing is not as easy or rapid as what the person in the video does, but I like to get a complete understanding of what is going on.

 

[Cueball252]

Really interesting post - did not realize a Pin system existed in Civ 4. I use the one in Civ 6 a lot. Have a look at this post from Nightingale asking for feedback on how trade should work: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/discussion-how-should-trade-routes-work.648488/

I tend to use a note app on a second screen to keep track of cities and what they are doing.

 

[Nightinggale]

I watched the entire video. I did not find any factual errors. I did however find one thing, which you left out. There are two spinbuttons to set thresholds.

Say you import ore and you have the left to 100 and the right to 150. Import will start when you have less than 100 in the warehouse and transports will fill up to 150. You will not know for sure if they fill to 150 because if they fill to 101, then it's more than 100 and import will stop.

The reason you want to set the second value is that if you have 48 tools and want to import to 50, a trek full of tools can unload all 500, meaning the colony will have 548 instead of the wanted 50. Depending on how you use the transport system, this may or may not be a major source of overflowing warehouses.

Overall I will say it's a good video and hopefully it will teach more people how to use transports fully automated.

As I'm a control freak, I use profusely the excellent ALT-S shortcut, existing in Civ IV (and abandoned in Civ V it seems). i.e you strike ALT-S, then click on a tile, and you get a dialog box, where you can imput a label.

It's actually called a sign, not a label, hence why it's ALT-S.

 

[ConjurerDragon]

...
V is my way of saying the garrison has 5 units, as I'm filling up cities before a big Indian war (I have modded the game so that an Indian only costs 15 food and not 50, meaning a typical Indian tribes fields around 150 Indians units .... you better be prepared!)

Wouldn´t it make more sense to modify the indian units and giving them better values in closecombat or a hefty bonus in the Wilderness for their ability to move and ambush at will there instead of raising the number of weaker units?

After all historically the indian bows could shoot faster than the early arquebuses and a Tomahawk or Warlance had made them formidable opponents - that were severely outnumbered in the long run.

 

[Vorpal+5]

I prefer not, because for centuries the settlers were outnumbered but still prevailed. The "climax example" might be the number of Conquistadors vs the number of natives. You don't want a war of attrition where you lose systematically 1 militiaman vs 4 Indians, you'll lose at this rate because you know as me as early game, even 50 muskets is serious investment.

Believe me, they are fearful this way. I routinely see stacks of 20-30 Natives in villages nearby me. You have to offer them gifts or you have to budget a large part of your income into buying muskets. Also, you have to gamble and only put one militia in some settlements so that -- in case they attack you -- the main settlement(s) have enough garrison.

There is also clearly a "breakpoint effect" by having them weak, at strength 5. i.e. if they attack massively, then either you have enough militia to fend them off, or you don't. And if you don't, all your wounded militiamen will start dying. If you have strong enough, you'll have almost no loss. So you have to guess estimate where you should defend and where you take the risk of not defending. I have lost several settlements already in previous games ...

Beside, I have raised the stats of the armed or mounted native, they are worth 7, almost like a militiaman. The mounted armed brave is worth 8.

 

[ConjurerDragon]

I prefer not, because for centuries the settlers were outnumbered but still prevailed. The "climax example" might be the number of Conquistadors vs the number of natives. You don't want a war of attrition where you lose systematically 1 militiaman vs 4 Indians, you'll lose at this rate because you know as me as early game, even 50 muskets is serious investment.

Believe me, they are fearful this way. I routinely see stacks of 20-30 Natives in villages nearby me. You have to offer them gifts or you have to budget a large part of your income into buying muskets. Also, you have to gamble and only put one militia in some settlements so that -- in case they attack you -- the main settlement(s) have enough garrison.

There is also clearly a "breakpoint effect" by having them weak, at strength 5. i.e. if they attack massively, then either you have enough militia to fend them off, or you don't. And if you don't, all your wounded militiamen will start dying. If you have strong enough, you'll have almost no loss. So you have to guess estimate where you should defend and where you take the risk of not defending. I have lost several settlements already in previous games ...

Beside, I have raised the stats of the armed or mounted native, they are worth 7, almost like a militiaman. The mounted armed brave is worth 8.

You can´t compare the spanish conquistadores with say english colonists.
The Conquistadors went there prepared for war, wearing metal armour impenetrable to the obsidian edges of the wooden clubs of the Aztecs and fielding Rapiers that outreached most hand-to-hand weaponry of the Natives and could cut through any of their armour and had the shock value of having horses that were seen at first as demons being half men half horse when they mounted.
In addition the conquistadors would have achieved nothing alone - they always were devious enough and had interpreters that would broker some alliance. If I remember correctly the Tlaxcalans were spanish allies when they fought the Aztecs.

The english settlers would have perished if simply been left alone as they first settled areas ("Croatoan") in which european rules for plants and planting would not apply and were only saved by cooperating with the natives in Jamestown, hence Thanksgiving. If you are outnumbered and clueless as an english settler colony - play peaceful and avoid being invaded because you ought to be crushed in the first years of the game if you fight alone without allies against a major tribe.

However - 20 - 30 native units in villages nearby you at the start of the game? When I first settle down on a spot I like there are usually 3 native villages in the closer vicinity and perhaps another 6 farther away and I play a gigantic Americas map on Marathon speed.And those usually field 1 unit as long as there is peace.