Anyone else think trade routes are a bit too good?

[Cyon]

It seems that internal trade routes give to many hammers to early to be balanced but you also have to weight the hammer cost of the trade Depot and two trade units, and later the auto plant and an additional trade unit. Trade until are also vulnerable, to aliens of you don't take the ultra sonic fence trade protection and to other players during war.

If they decreased the hammers gained by internal trade routes by 25-40% and changed the auto plant to polystralias ability vs. a bonus to trade routes, would that be enough?

 

[War_Pig]

Something that I think alot are missing here is: Anyone else think trade routes are a bit too good?

Compared to what? If the AI manages and puts as much power into trade as a player would it would still be balanced. It might just be the way to go about the early game. It is way to soon to be throwing around numbers that need to be changed when both the player and AI can be using the same tools.

 

[Lord Shadow]

Compared to what?

As it's been said a few times by now, compared to the yields of most everything else (i.e. buildings, terrain, improvements). To the point city placement loses importance, if all that matters is getting trade routes up and running.

But it's likely the devs are working on this issue now, and after release if necessary. So I'm not too worried.

 

[GhostSalsa]

*Six pages of posters comparing trade route returns to building and wonder and worker returns in CiV and BE*

Compared to what?

 

[lordrune]

I totally disagree with comparing trade in Civ BE to Civ 5, and saying that because trade was OK in Civ 5, it will be OK in Civ BE. There's one fundamental difference. Trade in Civ 5 had a built-in limitation - you only had so many trade routes, and you had to make the best usage of them in those circumstances. That provides a natural balance in every respect.

I don't necessarily think giving more trade routes for wide empires is a totally bad idea. But it would have been better if there was a base number of trade routes, added to by tech, and maybe add extra routes in for a 'size of empire' factor - one every four cities, or something. Far too late in the design process for a solution like that I fear even if they were listening.

And that autoplant event, not sure if I've said it, but that is absolutely the worst event choice ever. Seriously. It's like whoever was designing the event rushed it after 4 pm on Friday with their brain in weekend mode. There's not even a pretense at an effort. It's only an opportunity to gimp yourself that the AI just might be stupid enough to take.

 

[Casworon]

It's not only a question of balance, its also a question of weather it is a enjoyable game mechanic.

In BNW i get annoyed by assigning all my trade routes as is. If there is going to be a larger amount now that just makes it even more irritating to manage, especially if you get three per city and people end up having around 10 cities. Even if it is totally balanced it just sounds extremely tedious to deal with.

 

[Kutuzov]

It's not only a question of balance, its also a question of weather it is a enjoyable game mechanic.

In BNW i get annoyed by assigning all my trade routes as is. If there is going to be a larger amount now that just makes it even more irritating to manage, especially if you get three per city and people end up having around 10 cities. Even if it is totally balanced it just sounds extremely tedious to deal with.

Well it is a turn-based strategy game which means you have ample time to do your turn. Frankly, these are the sort of details some people enjoy managing.

 

[Casworon]

Yeah, good point . Guess I'm the kind of player that automates as much as possible and tries to play as a macro-manager rather than a micro-manager. I only play single player and on lower difficulties so i don't care that much about min-maxing. So i'm guess im the wrong person or the game mechanic anyway . I can handle 0-10 trade routes ok and its kind of fun working out who to trade with and who to avoid. Might mod it to 1 per city and change the auto-plant quest when/if the mod tools come out.

 

[Miravlix]

Is it needed to have trade routes for your nation? Yes
Does it cripple you to lose them due to war? Yes
Is the UI crap for handling the expanded trade system? Yes.

To me it's a really good thing how important the trade routes is and how much wars cripple them, only problem is that the UI just isn't up for the jump and I'm so glad my mouse wheel doesn't make the awful sound MadDjinn's does when he scrolls and scrolls and then scrolls some more through the list.

 

[Memoryjar]

MadDjinn said in its Kavithan LP, it was its most peaceful game . So be careful about trade route strength, even if trade route vessels go back in them cities after a DoW.
And it's easier to build and manage a commercial network in peace than with some bunch of units around your cities.

Also about aliens, I wonder how it is working when some people are friendly with them. Is your vessels also protect from aliens friendly with an AI ?
Is there any embargo possible ?

BE seems to be an hybrid of CiV IVand V in space with some new improvement (affinities, victory conditions). But it remind me my old civ and CiV V vanilla were gold was king. So I don't think a +12 food +4 production is overpowered (no advantage to be tall), even a +11 gpt (when he could easily reach + 100 gpt).

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Is it needed to have trade routes for your nation? Yes
Does it cripple you to lose them due to war? Yes
Is the UI crap for handling the expanded trade system? Yes.

To me it's a really good thing how important the trade routes is and how much wars cripple them, only problem is that the UI just isn't up for the jump and I'm so glad my mouse wheel doesn't make the awful sound MadDjinn's does when he scrolls and scrolls and then scrolls some more through the list.

A problem is that internal trade routes are
1. the least likely to get cut during war
2. 2x as beneficial because you get both of the benefits (incoming and outgoing)

If they weakened Those, then The foreign and station trade routes seem Probably balanced.

 

[proftc]

A problem is that internal trade routes are
1. the least likely to get cut during war
2. 2x as beneficial because you get both of the benefits (incoming and outgoing)

If they weakened Those, then The foreign and station trade routes seem Probably balanced.

But if they didn't make the benefits for both sides, then the fact that they took out circular trade would make it that you wouldn't bother running an internal trade route except to get a new city up and running.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

But if they didn't make the benefits for both sides, then the fact that they took out circular trade would make it that you wouldn't bother running an internal trade route except to get a new city up and running.

Well they can simply reduce the total yield.

I'd like to see it be

Receiving city ~10% output (before trade routes) of sending city -X

Sending city gets X

 

[Kordanor]

But if they didn't make the benefits for both sides, then the fact that they took out circular trade would make it that you wouldn't bother running an internal trade route except to get a new city up and running.

I guess they should re-implement A>B B>A trade again then and only give benefits to the receiver or sender.
Trade units also cost maintenance. So having trade routes going into both side would require much more maintance and you might also reach the point where you would pass the supported unit number (and I guess it becomes really expensive after that.
In addition it would not encourage ICS even more. Becauseright now at a certain number of traderoutes it doesn't matter anymore that it's not into both directions (with 7 cities for example each city could send and receive 3 internal traderoutes).

Of course there would also be twice the amount of boring clicking, even though it would be easier to keep an overview and make changes.

But as of now the yield of trade routes compared to the yield a city produces is just insane.

And as Ships also buff the whole thing by 50% it's a big disadvantage to not have coastal cities. It might be more realistic that way, but I personally don't like it and it unbalances the starting positions even more.

 

[Ryika]

Trade units also cost maintenance.

Mhh... in Civ 5 Caravans and cargoships have the NoMaintenance-Tag, are you sure that's different in BE? / Where is this info from?

 

[Kordanor]

Mhh... in Civ 5 Caravans and cargoships have the NoMaintenance-Tag, are you sure that's different in BE? / Where is this info from?

Ah, sorry Ryika, didn’t see the response. The instant notification feature of this forum isn’t working for me.

It was mentioned by Writing Bull who is a German Let’s Player. He mentions it in this video at 10:00 onwards. He then also shows his unit list. He can provide a total of 18 units. 12 of the spots are used. And 7 of these are traderoutes. It currently costs a total of 24 energy, with an average of 2 energy per unit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqvwDdaS-qM#t=600

 

[Ryika]

Mkay, thanks. ^^ That's an interesting change. But I guess it makes sense.

 

[Gort]

Thing is though, if a trade unit costs 2 energy, you can pay for about five internal trade routes with a single good external trade route. The solution is still "have your trade routes maxed out at all times".

 

[Kordanor]

Unless the good routes aren't going to cities you actually want to push, in which case external routes might be better. To be honest, in the latest stream from Maddjinn, most internal trade routes didn't look that great in yield anymore (and that's with +50% for being sea-based).

Writing Bull mentions in his tutorial Video, that the 50% Bonus for sea trade routes is only active for external routes, not for internal ones. Can anyone confirm that?
The video I am refering to is this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyV8Znlqj8s#t=2481 (German)

 

[Cyon]

Kordanor, did writing bull say anything about use for geothermal energy? Someone (you?) said they would ask about that, I know some german but I don't have time to look at the video now.