Anyone else think trade routes are a bit too good?

[Cymsdale]

I hope I don't need to wait for an expansion for them to balance this.

 

[VirtuallyJesse]

I very much would like to see 1 per city, with no upgrades except for Polystralia UA. Change the +1 from autoplant to something else. (small +% modifier on trade yield?)

 

[SonofHades]

i made a mod that tries to balance the trade a bit better:

Only 1 trade route from trade depot.
Yield of internal and international trade is reduced by ~33%.
Station trade unchanged.

No extra trade route from autoplant quest.
No alien immunity for trade route via ultrasonic fence.

Link:http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=13520363#post13520363

 

[TLHeart]

After two games, I still have NO problem with the 3 trade routes per city, and I use every one of them.

This is a different game, with a different approach, valuing trade between cities, over each city having to produce everything for themselves. Food and production have been cut form the tiles, and from the buildings... trade routes are the important part....

Why do so many want this NEW game to be just like civ5? boring, with one optimal tech path, and 4 cities.

 

[Matthew.]

I don't mind the trade-routes in that they help boost up later cities so they are caught up. But I think the heart of the problem is the same thing people have been saying since before BNW was released: They are creating resources out of thin air. I don't think they would be that bad if they were one way and pulled resources from the originating city. You know, like giving 12 production and 6 food, but it is -12/6 on the city sending the route.

And yeah, that quest reward is quite silly. Using an external route is guaranteed to give several times more energy than 1 per turn.

Turns out the AI doesn't follow the obvious strategy of maxing out internal routes ASAP and is a pushover as a result.

How the f...lip did you get the summary? I was looking everywhere for that damn thing.

Is there a demographics window as well? Looking everywhere, not seeing one.

 

[Karmah]

Still not convinced they are OP.
I think they are powerfull and menat to be ,the central gameplay element of your expansion for sure. I 'll labeled them OP later maybe but in my short experience , they are just fine as they are.

 

[Acken]

After two games, I still have NO problem with the 3 trade routes per city, and I use every one of them.

This is a different game, with a different approach, valuing trade between cities, over each city having to produce everything for themselves. Food and production have been cut form the tiles, and from the buildings... trade routes are the important part....

Why do so many want this NEW game to be just like civ5? boring, with one optimal tech path, and 4 cities.

Because having to reallocate 2 routes every turn isn't fun. And you have absolutely no other competitive choice when trade routes represent 50% of you production, science and gold.

These being so big in comparison to the small yield of these buildings make it so you don,t care about buildings anymore, you just spam them when you cannot make any more settlers or trade routes.

People complaining here don't want a system just like Civ5. They want something fun first and then something that makes some actual sense in the numbers used. Right now you don't build new cities to grab new lands because that place has 1 or 2 more production than that place, no, you make new cities to multiply your trade routes numbers.

 

[VirtuallyJesse]

Because having to reallocate 2 routes every turn isn't fun.

Exactly. The problem isn't that it's different, the problem is its tedious, monotonous, repetitive non-engaging gameplay. It's just clicking through the same menus every couple of turns. Not fun.

 

[Stalker0]

Exactly. The problem isn't that it's different, the problem is its tedious, monotonous, repetitive non-engaging gameplay.

I think the problem is deeper than that...though I certainly agree with the exceptional tedium.

The problem is...civ has always been a game of developing your empire. A slow buildup to generate your super cities and super empire.

But in this game, trade gives you such a powerful, and immediate bonus...that I can get 70% of the power of a city out of its first few turns in operation...and then work my butt off for the other 30%. In previous civ games, you started with just 10% of a city, and eventually earned the other 90%.


I liked the BNW trade system myself, but in this case they have simply taken it too far.

 

[TLHeart]

Because having to reallocate 2 routes every turn isn't fun. And you have absolutely no other competitive choice when trade routes represent 50% of you production, science and gold.

These being so big in comparison to the small yield of these buildings make it so you don,t care about buildings anymore, you just spam them when you cannot make any more settlers or trade routes.

People complaining here don't want a system just like Civ5. They want something fun first and then something that makes some actual sense in the numbers used. Right now you don't build new cities to grab new lands because that place has 1 or 2 more production than that place, no, you make new cities to multiply your trade routes numbers.

now I see where the complaints are coming from, from those who are all about the numbers...

Nobody is forcing you to build cities in bad locations just to get the trade routes... That is your choice to do that, and if it is not fun for you, then don't settle cities in bad locations...

Only settle them in strategic locations, and stop spamming cities, to break the game, and then complain it is over powered..

I find the current 3 routes very fun in both of my games. But I also don't just settle cities 4 hexs away from each other to spam as many cities as possible...

No I don't play for fastest win times. I know some of you enjoy that, and try to find every exploit their is to accomplish that, and with that in mind, you want the programmers to stop you from using those techniques...

the numbers do make sense in a real world setting... large cities have more goods and services shipped in than they produce, and those goods and services do not reduce the food and production available to the cities shipping the goods. If those other cities where not shipping the goods, they would just go to waste.

Small cities also grow via trade, and shipping of goods in. Florida's population would die if it were not for trade. NOrth Dakota would not be growing if it were not for trade.

I know I will loose this fight with all you number crunchers, and it will be nerfed, so that people can finish a game in just a couple of hours, but I will continue to say for me, I like the trade system, as is.

 

[Tibbz]

Trade routes are very broken and tedious imo.

Late gaming having to constantly refresh routes is annoying.

Early game they give you such an insane advantage that even the highest difficulty is like face-roll easy.

 

[AgentDib]

I agree that trade routes as currently implemented are super tedious. It's not so bad on your first game or two if you are still trying tall, but eventually you figure out that wide is better and end up with 3 caravans per city in 10 cities. Managing the caravans takes more time than everything else combined and there is zero strategy to it.

Why can't trade routes be set initially and then automatically renewed? Maybe we need a mod that adds a toggle button somewhere (auto-renew On|Off).

For the next expansion Firaxis badly needs to steal a page from the Anno series and how they handle repeating interior trade routes with a very slick UI. They can call the expansion Civiliation: Beyond Earth Trade and Industry and add a bunch of better mechanics on the economic side of things which is really the underpinning of a game like this.

 

[Kordanor]

Having played the game now, it's actually far worse than it felt like in the videos I saw.

The most important thing at all times is: How are your traderoutes doing?
The Order in the very beginning with creating your second city is dominated by the question "how do I set it up so that it gets a trade route as soon as possible" because on it's own it's basically worthless while a trade route immediately boosts it through the roof. It also gimps you completely in comparison if you are unlucky, cant expand to a couple of cities right in the beginning (due to map position) and therefore don't get a good internal trade route system running.
And then when actually everything is working, it becomes just annoying. The game itself almost fades to the background and it becomes a traderoute management game.
I am still working on my "trade route efficiency skills" at the moment as I know I wait too long to get the "right" trade routes instead of using them right away, which is a bad habit of "doing things right the first time". But they are just too powerful to be ignored. Even if you can't do the traderoute yet you have planned, you need to immediately start a different one to not waste the potential.
The dominant techs therefore are always Pioneering for routes, Ecology for Alien immunity and Robotics for the additional route. You never want to miss out of those for too long.

Maybe this all is also the reason the AI is so weak, also on Apollo. The AI will never be able to use traderoutes as efficient as a human player. By this feature alone I guess that the player gets a huge advantage over the AI. I don't know any numbers though to back that.

 

[Stalker0]

I thought I would bring some numbers to the discussion.

My most recent game from Turn 196. I did a check to see just how much trade was actually contributing to my Civ.

A few caveats:

1) I am focusing mostly on internal trade routes
2) Obviously I'm still new, so I'm sure this isn't optimized play. This is just to give you a sample.
3) This is 5 cities.

Food
112 from base
32 from Trade Routes
22% food from Trade

Prod
104 base
61 from TR
37% Prod from Trade

Science
101 base
4 TR
4% from Trade

Energy
67 base
9 Trade
12% from Trade

Culture
33 base
15 Trade
31% from Trade

 

[TheHanzou]

Even if they werent overpowered they are problematic.

As a gameplay element they are very questionable. Aside from the whole managing 20+ traderoutes nightmare, relying on them as a core element for everything is bad design cause they themselves are a bad design element.

And dont even get me started on multiplayer. 20+ traderoutes for each player in multiplayer? Good luck with that, it will become 'whack a mole' where everyone is just trying to destroy the other players traderoutes every single turn.

Traderoutes in civ5 were ok (not great) because they were sparely used, and you had to put some thought into them (not enough but it was ok).

why they would choose this exact element as the main driving force in the whole game makes no sense to me, it trivializes tile yield, city position, buildings and wonder yields. Basically it trivializes 90% of the other gameplay elements....

Btw your numbers seem off. 5 cities means 10 traderoutes. A single traderoute for me produced 37energy, 4culture and 8 science. In between my cities, i got like 15 production and 8 food, from a single one. It was more like 50% of everything i had was from traderoutes.

 

[fils]

Actually, I think they'll work way better in multiplayer, as they will have an element of high risk/high reward. Unfortunately now it is too easy to play peaceful and get all of the reward with very little risk.

Against a smarter human opponent you won't be able to rely on your trade routes and thus the other things that you mentioned won't be trivialized.

 

[TheHanzou]

Actually, I think they'll work way better in multiplayer, as they will have an element of high risk/high reward. Unfortunately now it is too easy to play peaceful and get all of the reward with very little risk.

Against a smarter human opponent you won't be able to rely on your trade routes and thus the other things that you mentioned won't be trivialized.

But thats not what would happen in multiplayer. the weaker defending player would lose all his traderoutes and the attacker would lose none, making the defender lose the game immidiately.

And thats not counting the one player who started on an island away from everybody who would just end up with 5x the ressources of everyone else.

even if they cut the ressources you get in half, you would still be forced to build every single traderoute anyway, because they are just free stats. Its a dumb gameplay element in general if used without consideration.

In Civ5 you only had a very limited number of traderoutes, you had to carefully think and plan how to use them to your advantage, and what to do with them. It wasnt perfect there, but its a lot worse here. I mean, in Civ5 you were still forced to build every single one cause they are just completely OP (free stats), but the fact that you only had a very small number of them and couldnt reassign them on a wim made it somewhat interesting sometimes.

 

[Cymsdale]

Eh, I don't think trade routes should be overpowered just because "multiplayer".

 

[Kordanor]

Ok, so this is my current game, just with 3 cities and no autoplant traderoute yet:

City 1:_____Normal:_Traderoutes:_Percentage:
Production_____17__________14_______45,16%
Food__________28___________8_______22,22%
Energy________24___________11______31,43%
Science_______15___________10______40,00%

City 2:
Production______6___________15______71,43%
Food__________14____________3______17,65%
Energy_________6____________12_____66,67%
Science________9____________16_____64,00%

City 3:
Production______15___________10_____40,00%
Food____________9____________7_____43,75%
Energy__________1____________10____90,91%
Science_________7____________11_____61,11%


Total yield:_____151___________127____45,68%

So 45,68% of all the yield I generate is done by traderoutes.

This focus on traderoutes also brings another problem with it. It's a huge factor when you actually get the building quests. Whether you get your ultrasonic fence quest after 3 or (as in my recent case) after 50 turns or so can make the difference between victory or lose. Same goes for the Autoplant quest, though this one isnt as critical.

 

[fils]

But thats not what would happen in multiplayer. the weaker defending player would lose all his traderoutes and the attacker would lose none, making the defender lose the game immidiately.

And thats not counting the one player who started on an island away from everybody who would just end up with 5x the ressources of everyone else.

even if they cut the ressources you get in half, you would still be forced to build every single traderoute anyway, because they are just free stats. Its a dumb gameplay element in general if used without consideration.

In Civ5 you only had a very limited number of traderoutes, you had to carefully think and plan how to use them to your advantage, and what to do with them. It wasnt perfect there, but its a lot worse here. I mean, in Civ5 you were still forced to build every single one cause they are just completely OP (free stats), but the fact that you only had a very small number of them and couldnt reassign them on a wim made it somewhat interesting sometimes.

Disagree. In MP, one player might be able to get more trade routes/outposts up at the opportunity cost of building more units. So their economy will be stronger, but their defenses/military will be weaker. This is the classic civ paradigm. It's certainly not as black and white as you say. The way I see it here is that you will have to expand more carefully and slowly otherwise a couple well placed units can cripple your trade empire in a couple turns. Even in Civ5 MP trading is a gamble. Here I expect that to be even more the case as outposts are weak while growing and will be easy targets in MP.

The problem is that against the AI there is little risk and all of the reward. I'm not saying that the routes are not unbalanced, I'm just responding to the guy who said they would be worse in MP. The balance is far worse in single player.

Of course if you spawn on an island to yourself that's a different story, but that has always been a problem in Civ MP and that's why you set the map settings properly.