Better trading

[Gamling]

First of all I need an Advance civ 5 expantion pack. Civ 5 is simplyfied compared to civ 4 in ways that hasnt improved the single player game. 1 unit per hex was intriging at first but since the computer players can´t handle it well enough I want it removed but that is to ask to much i fear.

But to my topic. Trade has always been the worlds mayor way to get moeny and should be so in Civ 5 as well. I think the current traiding in Civ 5 is realy broken. Only option is to trade resourses which the computer player seldom wants and never ask for. They only as the human player to give away resourses. Sen ding one or two great merchants is not doing it.

At least I would want the trade routes of cive 4 back, which gave gold and other things in mods. They seemed to require acces, based on like tech for river or ocean trading but it was not vicible on the map or possible to blockade other players trading. It was possible to ask other players to breake open borders with a second player wich wasnt too bad when i think of it.

But the game I played which had the most fun trading system so far must be Medival total war 2. I had great moments when I played as the Venitians and spread my fleet over all the mediterians. And it wass quite simple. Trade value of area is dependant on population and which resources that area and the area it was trading with got. It would be a great improvement in Civ if we had to build fleets to defend vicible trade routs on the oceans. Small wagons folowing road or river trade routes would also be great. To send out troops to block those or kill the blockers would be fun.

A few more diverse trade resoures would be needed but that shouldnt be to hard to fix. But when you are at it redo the hole happines system and make happines citybased as before that is more fun.

 

[killmeplease]

i agree something should be done with trade.
i have an idea of giving +5% of opponent's net gold when Open Borders is signed (or a new deal - Trade Agreement). Trade agreement needs a trade route between 2 countries, water or road. Road can be constructed after a great merchants made its way by land. Say it was moved from Bejing to Susa, and completed a trade mission there, then a road created connecting those two cities and a trade route established, so Chinese and Persians can sign a Trade Agreement.

 

[Atwork]

Off the top of my head, I was thinking something like this.

Player gets a "trade bonus" for establishing "trade network" with another civ.

How to establish a trade network? Trade network is established when player has (i) open borders, (ii) available land or sea trade-route, & (iii) an active trade with another civ.

Player gets a "trade bonus" from each trade network.

Trade Bonus = +1 gold for every city that belongs to the other civ, but only if that city is connected to the "trade route" between you and the other civ. Additional +1 gold for every city belonging to other civ that has reached pop. 6. Another +1 gold if pop. 12, etc. etc. By the way, the fact that the amount of trade bonus is dependent on the other civ's expansion of road infrastructure and population growth gives an incentive to cooperate--I personally like that element.

How to establish a trade route? Must have either a "land route" or "sea route."

Land route exists if you have a road that connects to other civ. Land route is blocked if passes through a 3rd-party civ that has not granted open borders. As an aside, the game should distinguish between "open-for-passage" and "open-for-trade." Open for passage would allow you to move troops through another nation. Open for trade would simply allow a trade route to pass through.

Sea-routes become possible once you have a coastal city w/ a lighthouse and harbor built. Until travel on the open seas becomes available, you must have an open coastal path to the target civ in order to establish a sea-route for trade. In other words, a sea-route could be blocked by a 3rd-party coastal civ if you did not have open borders. On the other hand, once you could travel on open seas, you would no longer need an open coastal route.

In this system, naval blockades would need to make a comeback. Also, trade embargos, free trade agreements, and other sorts of diplomatic options should be added.

Note--losing trade-network status does not end your trade deals. It just means you lose the trade bonus. This gives you an incentive to be engaged diplomatically to keep those trade-networks open. This may mean that you have to pay-off neighbors so that they will agree to keep their borders open. But, admittedly, the way the AI is programmed, I don't think a system like this would work.

 

[Cyon]

Some brainstorming suggestions:

If think that the trade route idea is great, maybe should a trade route be required for trading anything at all - you should need a silk road to trade silk!

One aspect of it could be the establishment of corporations/merchants in other civilizations city's earning money based on the amount of trade with that civ, the size of the city and the income the city have therefore would you gain from your neighbors economic progress. It could also double as a spy letting you lnow which buildings a city have and what they are building.

Maybe should a trade agreement benefit the player that have sent the great merchant and built the road more, making a difference between trading with the merchant that have traveled across the world with exotic luxury items with his ship to your harbor and being that merchant.

Another aspect of trade routes that would require new graphics would be robbers and pirates disturbing your routes. At sea would a blue line mark the shortest route between to coastal cities, if a barbarian galley or a ship from a civ that you are at war with disturbes that path could the route change on ore to tiles and the income decrease and if another ship disturbes it should it halt completely, thous forcing you to have ships patroling your traderoutes defending them. Also enabling you to pirate enemy civs traderoutes or disturbing them with sub like the germany did with the wolfpacks during WWII.

This should also be appliable with roads, barbarian robbers and sending troops to defend them.

To be "open for trade" as Atwork suggested should bring some benefits like science, gold, culture or growth bonuses. To find strategic placements of cities between civilizations and build a major network of roads would should boost your civ.

Another thing that is missing is the possibility to construct consumer goods, early ones such as chinaware and pottery (which maybe requires you to have a reach a certain level of culture first of all like the wonder in the ancient wonder dlc) and textiles in the industrial era, cars in the early modern and consumer electronics in the later. Isn't cars and electronics more imortant todau then Ivory and Incense? Those could work as luxury resources that is made in buildings and the have very specific conditions that need to be filled like specified policy's, rescourses (oil for cars, cotton and dye for clothes...) or techs and a limitation of how many players that can make them.

All of this and the earlier post in this thread would give initiatives for civ's to not declare war all the time on their neighbors.

sorry for a messy and long post but I find the subjekt intresting.

 

[killmeplease]

Having trade agreements may provide faster tech diffusion

 

[CYZ]

I like your ideas, this is waht I would do:

You may only trade with civs if your trade networks are connected. So you cannot trade any resources (luxury or strategic) unless the networks are linked via sea or land. This will obviously have very little effect later in the game (when everyone may trade over the ocean). But early on it will mean more trade with close neighbours and less with far away civs (still, the distant trade is most likely more lucrative).

I also agree that once your trade network is linked, and you have open borders, you gat a gold bonus. I'd just expand the current trade network mechanism though.

So right now it is:

Capital size * city size = x amount of gold, for every city

Just add:

Capital size * city (belonging to other civ) size = x amount of gold, minus 50%

 

[filli_noctus]

I outlined an in depth trading system in this thread. Prior warning, it's a little complicated and a bit of a wall of text.

To distill the essence of it, it uses specialists to work trade routes, replaces population with gold/resources as the calculation basis for trade income and makes trade an active and competitive mechanic instead of the passive routes we have currently.

 

[Atwork]

killmeplease:

Having trade agreements may provide faster tech diffusion

Giving a small boost to research for each trade network would be a good idea, especially as an alternative to the RA system, which IMO is quite lame.

CYZ:

You may only trade with civs if your trade networks are connected. So you cannot trade any resources (luxury or strategic) unless the networks are linked via sea or land.

I might agree, except that the way the AI is programmed, I think this would be too restrictive on the ability to trade for things you need. IMO requiring an open trade route to trade for luxury/strategic goods would be enough of a challenge, especially for the first 1/3 of the game.

But, I definitely think that the idea of trade networks, and network building is a component that should be explored as an incentive and reward for good diplomatic relations and cooperation.

filli nocuts:

I outlined an in depth trading system in this thread. Prior warning, it's a little complicated

Agreed, it is complicated. One thing I would caution against is moving too far in the direction of creating game systems that require a lot of micro-managing. While I don't like passive systems or overly simplistic mechanics, I also would not want a system governed by complicated rules requiring constant attention and micro-managing.