Bring back the Caravan!

[menwia]

HOw about this approach.

When you make a trade agreement with a civ- instead of each caravan giving differnt amount of gold for each different city - what if it was a civ to civ thing, Eg, no matter where you caraven is from and no matter which city you send it to of your tading partner you will get a fixed amount for each commodity.

Ex,

Rome trades with Babylon. Tehre is a set list of prices for each commodity. Also trade does not happen automatcally.

When you build a caravan, you send it to a trading parnter city, and when it reaches you get said amount of gold.

to be honest - i've just deciede I don't like the idea - but i'll post it just incase any one can make some kind of improvement or might lead us to a better one. But me personally - i don't like my own idea . . . ironic ha?

 

[plastiqe]

HOw about this approach.

When you make a trade agreement with a civ- instead of each caravan giving differnt amount of gold for each different city - what if it was a civ to civ thing, Eg, no matter where you caraven is from and no matter which city you send it to of your tading partner you will get a fixed amount for each commodity.

Ex,

Rome trades with Babylon. Tehre is a set list of prices for each commodity. Also trade does not happen automatcally.

When you build a caravan, you send it to a trading parnter city, and when it reaches you get said amount of gold.

to be honest - i've just deciede I don't like the idea - but i'll post it just incase any one can make some kind of improvement or might lead us to a better one. But me personally - i don't like my own idea . . . ironic ha?

This was what I started out with menwia, but I think we've now reached a better idea outlined in the first post.

Dwarven Zerker, what do you mean by pillaged? I think most would agree that there has to be some gain from destroying/capturing a caravan, be it either getting the resources that the caravan was carrying, or getting a sum of gold directly from the civ who's caravan you distroyed, as well as the obvious denial of resources.

I don't think there would be an escort generated for your caravan, you would have to do that yourself, the same way you have to protect a transport ship with a stronger ship so you don't lose all the units you've put on board. However during peacetime you could probably risk a small escort on ocean trade routes, and if you have a land route with an adjacent ally you wouldn't need any escort at all. Having to go through other civs that aren't part of the trade is where it gets tricky, but whole risk/reward is part of the fun.

I can think of tons of reasons as to how our version, even in a rough draft, is better than trading as it exists today, so keep those ideas and constructive critcism coming and hopefully we can improve it even more.

 

[Dwarven Zerker]

HOw about this approach.

When you make a trade agreement with a civ- instead of each caravan giving differnt amount of gold for each different city - what if it was a civ to civ thing, Eg, no matter where you caraven is from and no matter which city you send it to of your tading partner you will get a fixed amount for each commodity.

Ex,

Rome trades with Babylon. Tehre is a set list of prices for each commodity. Also trade does not happen automatcally.

When you build a caravan, you send it to a trading parnter city, and when it reaches you get said amount of gold.

to be honest - i've just deciede I don't like the idea - but i'll post it just incase any one can make some kind of improvement or might lead us to a better one. But me personally - i don't like my own idea . . . ironic ha?

Sometimes ideas work themselves out of a job. It's happened to me plenty of times. Sometimes as I explain it to the first person I meet.

To me this idea comes down to one of two things - eyecandy that adds units running around the map doing something that is currently taken care of "invisibly" or an exploit for the player to increase the treasury that requires more management (building and ordering more units.)

 

[plastiqe]

lol your so right we need one thread. And if this idea does die off, I'll bury it with all the ancient rites, but two active threads is enough proof that it has some merit.

I just see the current system as overly simple and unrealistic, trade is a very important aspect of the game, it shouldn't be invisible.

Is there anything that a human player can't exploit. I'd like to think we're smarter than the AI (although know a few exceptions ) so we will always be able to "exploit" features in the game.

 

[Teabeard]

If it is absolutely necessary the AI can be allowed to cheat by getting a free escort with all caravans, or something like that. Yes, I know having the AI cheat sucks, but it already cheats in other ways so what can you do? Either that or make the AI smart enough to be able to handle Caravans properly...

 

[dh_epic]

I think that when you design the trade route, you should be able to pair up the caravan with escort units. Again, if it were done from the diplomacy screen, you can set up the route and everything associated with it.

My Offer: 4 Gold, 2 Silk
Their Offer: 1 Oil

Starting City: Naples
Ending City: Morocco (Sea Route)
Duration: 20 Turns
Traders: 2 Freight-Ships
Escorts: 2 Dreadnaughts

Total Cost: 80 gold each, 2 gold maintainance

The escorts are self sufficient, and the deals would be automatically optimized (decent levels of security, most efficient trade route) with room to adjust them if you'd like to take a riskier/faster route or a safer/slower route.

 

[plastiqe]

K we really have to pick one thread. I vote for my thread. Teabeard voted for his thread, third vote goes to dh.

Buying your escort at the trade screen is an idea, even though I have no problem myself with just using already created navy units. I could see a problem where you get to rush a bunch of "escorts" but then you use them for a quick navy to go attack someone. Locking them to the escort wouldn't work because it takes control out of the players hands. I still want to be able to stop my caravan if I think it would be too dangerous to complete the route.

This leads to a whole slew of diplomatic options during a trade route. First off, an active trade route would be a real peace treaty, unlike the I don't kill you you don't kill me regular peace treaty. So long as both civs can benefit each other they should be friends right?

Once the trade route is going, at each stop there should be an option to re-negotiate the deal for extra items, but not to just demand more money (they are your allies). You should also be given the option to cancel the deal if it isn't profitable for you. If a war has broken out, or there are a lot of privateers or subs or something, you could be allowed to ask for a "time out" where you both hold back your caravans for a certain amount of time but still are consider allied through a trade.

Breaking the trade route (not getting your caravan to their city) should come with penalties. If you just stop your unit and don't send it, you'd take a reputation hit, maybe the same thing if you wimp out and don't risk sending the unit when you could. If someone attacks your caravan, there shouldn't be any penalty to you beyond the loss of the units and gold/resources from them. Your ally should however get mad at the third civ for breaking the trade route and you could even both sign a military alliace agaisnt that team and pummel them together.

I dunno just some ideas off the top of my head really, but I think they are pretty good. Any additions/suggestions/ones that you totally hate?

 

[Teabeard]

I remember in Colonization Privateers could commit piracy without a declaration of war on behalf of their mother nation. I think the same should be done with privateers in Civ 4. This would simulate piracy on the high seas pretty well and you'd have a reason to do it because you'd profit from it.

 

[menwia]

Plastique - agreed on the principle of all you say, about how thiings might effect reputation and diplomatic consequences as well as maybe declaring an alliance against the aggressor civ. all of these idea are great - and i'm with you on this - but i'm still not sure on the mechanics of the units. The mechanisms of how one would accomplist the trade route itself.

It just doesn't sound, or feel right to me at the moment - almost as if something is missing or we're overlooking something. It doesn't in my opionin fit in perfectly.

Teabeard - Agreed. I think there should be units in Civ4 which you can use for piracy. However, there should be a risk that if you lose a battle you identy gets discovered - or this might fit into the Intel sceen, where you can send you spies out and discover if a civ is using piracy against you. If so you can uncover their actions to the world where they would lose reputation and also give you the opportunity to declare war - as if they attacked you so you wouldn't suffer too much WW or reputation.

But the exact mechanics of it still don't feel right to me. There's a niggling suspicion at the back of my mind telling me we ain't got it yet. We're close, but not there yet.

 

[rhialto]

Modified approach based on ctp:

You build caravans in your city. Rather than represent these as a unit, they go into a resource pool. Wihin your trade advisor screen, you can then draw trade routes to other cities. Your trade advisor will tell you the potential value of each route, and warn if a route would approach a hostile civ.

On the map, the trade routes appear as a red line, which can be pillaged by any hostile unit with the pillager flag set. Thus, you need to guard the entire route. Pillaged routes yield some gold for the pillager, and have a 1/2 chance of destroying the caravan or returning it to the pool. If it escapes, you have a 1/2 chance to id the attacking civ. At any time you can remove the trade route and restore teh caravan to the pool.

In teh diplomacy screen, there is a diplomatic option to allow international trading. However, you still need to build the caravans. Note that your caravans only benefit your empire, so a civ which is low on caravans may choose not to freely allow trade with everyone.

 

[dh_epic]

I vote for this thread -- bring back the caravan sums it up, even if we end up with a model that looks totally different. The idea being that we need a mechanism to establish tangible trade routes, instead of making it automatically determined using some AI pathfinding mechanisms. (Speaking of which, cutting off trade leads to a serious slowdown in a mechanism where the trade route keeps getting squished around the 30 boats that you use to block all the harbors. Tangible, definable trade routes would eliminate this problem.)

Plastiqe, I think you're touching on some interesting concepts.

You should be able to freeze a trade route or renegotiate the logistics of a trade route. If suddenly something changes, and war breaks out on the mediterranean, Rome goes to Egypt and says "look, the carthagenians are at it again. Mind if we try to negotiate a trade route through Persia?" Work out the costs and the escorts, and away we go.

Or "The carthagenians are at it again. Would you care to help us secure the sea and declare a military alliance against Carthage?"

Or Rome just decides to ride it out, and next thing you know the trade routes are getting pillaged by Carthage. Egypt has a choice here, too. They could call up Rome, chew them out and ask them to pay for damages. Or they could call up Carthage, chew THEM out and ask THEM to pay for damages. OR -- particularly in the modern era -- they could call up Rome and Carthage and say "yo, let's squash this beef, cuz this ain't good for nobody. Where my silks at?"

I think that's the point, though. If you open up tangible trade routes -- ones that aren't invisible and abstract -- it really improves the diplomatic game.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

OK, Plastiq, I'd like to answer some of your earlier questions in regards to the model I proposed!

1) OK, caravans would cost shields to build and gold to maintain. If unused, a caravan will have a minimal maintainance cost, but a higher cost if they are used to generate a 'Trade Route' (btw, I would not envisage seeing the caravan move on the screen-instead it would be a physical line joining the trading cities, a la CTP! This line would only be visible to those directly involved in the trade. Third party nations would only see the part of the trade route that passes through their nation, and 'enemies' would only see the trade route if they get close enough to it!)

2) The caravan is 'sent out' from the central 'caravan pool', however the trade route will connect the city that built the caravan (and, therefore, has the resource in their city radius), and a target city decided in negotiations (a la DH_Epics idea). In addition, though, it should be possible for the 'private sector' to build their own caravans and use them to form trade deals with other civs-outside of your control! They can only do this, though, if they 'own' the resources needed to build a caravan.

3) As I mentioned earlier, I would see most trade routes forming immediately, with a 1-2 turn delay only for trade routes which go over VERY long distances. The 'speed' of your trade route (as dictated by tech level and terrain factors), and the distance involved will determine how much money you earn from the trade per turn.

4) If your trade route is delayed by either terrain changes and or 'interferance' from 'enemy' units, then the value of that trade route drops until the problem is solved.

5) If a trade route is destroyed, then its benefits are lost to both sides, with no major diplomatic penalty for either side! However, if the trade route was destroyed within one of the parties borders, then their might be some amount of 'recrimination' for not doing enough to 'protect' the trade route. The attacker, if successful, will gain a one time gold benefit, as well as access to the resource during their next turn ONLY! Depending on what unit attacked the trade route, how strong the trade route is and where the trade route was attacked will determine if either party ever finds out who was responsible for the attack on the trade route!

I should point out that attacking a trade route is not a guaranteed way of breaking it! A trade route will have an inherent 'strength' based on the current tech level, which determines the chance of a successful attack! By investing more money into 'trade', trading players can enhance both the speed and the 'strength' of trade routes, thus enhancing both their value AND their safety! Much of this will be abstract, though!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[menwia]

If you're gonna attack a trade route - or caraven, then I think you should actually attack a unit, just because theirs a trade route in existance - doesn't mean just by being there you can attack the commodites. A caravan isn't going to be at the same place and at the same time thoughtout the lenght and breath of the trade route.

So, everything else as standard as you said before, one should actually have a caravan unit going up and down that trade route, from both civs, it will follow that route automatically - unless you decied to manual override its function. If you do, I think that the trade route - altough not destroyed will ceae functioning until you auto activate your caraven to continue on its trade route.

There should also be a format for breaking a trade route completly. Taking over a certain city would do that defiatnly, but there should also be other ways. What it could be I don't know . .. but I know there should be a way of doing it. Therefore - if you could bring a nation's trading to a stop, you could give a heavy blow if not cripple it entierly.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

OK, the reason that I support 'trade routes' over 'trade units' is that, when you consider the average length of a turn, then a 'trade route' becomes a neccessary abstraction! After all, over the space of 25 years, there is a very good chance that the caravan will have been on ALL PLACES on that trade route, and back again! Remember, though, that an enemy won't see a trade route unless it is within the 'visual range' of one of their units and, even then, they will only see a small portion of it! The only way for an enemy to see an 'entire' trade route would be via espionage! To help explain things better, here is an 'in-game' example of how I see it working.

The Germans are aware that their hated enemy, the English, are trading Oil to the French! Through the combined use of espionage and scouting units, the Germans finally locate a land-based portion of the trade route they are interested in-running quite close to their shared border with England. So, this now leaves the Germans with several means of disrupting the trade route and hurting their enemy. They can:

a) Pillage the road/RR the trade route is travelling on-this lowers the value of that trade route (as it is now 'travelling' slower) and forces England to use resources to repair the road/rail.

b) They can 'sullie' the reputation of the English using their spies in France. This could cause France to end the oil trade with England.

c) They can capture a city through which the trade route goes and/or capture the city from which the trade route originates. Though this would, of course, be an act of war-and might also upset the French!

d) They can attempt to destroy, via espionage or bombardment, a critical trade improvement in a city that the trade route passes through-again, this can be considered an act of war!

e) They can send a unit out to attack the 'trade route' directly.

If (e) is chosen, then there are several possible outcomes. Firstly, if the speed of the trade route is greater than the movement rate of the attacking unit(s), then there is a very good chance that the attack will simply FAIL (and both sides will probably quickly learn of the attempt)! If speed and movement are fairly even, then the attack strength of the unit is compared to the 'strength' of the trade route-in much the same way as a standard attack! If the unit loses the round, then they suffer damage AND there is a chance that the caravan 'escapes' (again, based on speed!) The unit can continue to attack the trade route as many times as its movement rate allows. However, each unsuccessful attack increases the chance of England and/or France finding out about it! If the attack is a success, then the trade route is 'broken' and, if piracy was the goal, Germany recieves a one off gold bonus AND access to oil for the rest of that turn! When a unit attacks a trade route, the choice will be given to either 'break' it or 'pirate' it. Breaking a trade route is much easier than pirating it!
Anyway, I hope this has helped to clarify my position a little better!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[plastiqe]

Step by step through the trade process. Yes it looks like a lot of steps and there are probably a bunch that can be cut and and bunch that can be added, but this is only a rough draft.

1) Agree on a deal with a friendly civ. The deal determines:
- your departure city (if applicable)
- their departure city (if applicable, they choose)
- items to be traded*
- maximum time till delivery*
- land or sea trade, you can either pick "any"(fastest), "sea" or "land" but both civs must agree

2) Caravan(s) leave from departure cities:*
- you get a pop up, your caravan has left
- the caravan is "loaded" with the resources and luxuries you are trading (automatic)
- a route is determined by the computer with the "goto" function (automatic)
- an unit may be assigned to escort the caravan (units already assigned do not need to be reassigned)

3) During the caravans trip:
- it may be attacked by a rival civ**
- a "time out" deal may be called to temporarily halt the trade route
- you may control the caravan group to guide it through safer territory
- an unit may be assigned to escort the caravan (units already assigned do not need to be reassigned)

4) Arriving at the destination city (location determined by other team)
- you get a pop up, your/their caravan has arrived
- you get a pop up, your/their caravan is running late.
- you get a pop up, your/their caravan has missed its delivery time
- all luxuries and resources are deposited with the target civ* (automatic)
- ideally if each civ is sending a caravan both arrive at once (automatic)
- repeat steps 2-4, the same unit will stay assigned with the caravan. (automatic)

*I think we might be better off with a resource stockpiling system instead of the current one where as soon as you run out of a resource or luxury you don't have any left. It doesn't make much sense that a civ wouldn't store up some barrels of oil in case a shipment didn't get there on time. This is an idea for another thread though. I have a good idea that would work with the caravan system so I'll post it after this.

**We haven't really decided anything about the combat part of trade, which is the meat and potatoes of this whole system.

My preference would be for a military unit that counts to your unit total on the military advisor screen (that way you could check how many caravans of each type you have, and where each one is). When you attack a caravan you need to kill the caravan unit and you would get all resources and luxuries being carried by that caravan, and a sum of gold depending on the "worth" of the route.

Although that is a well thought out plan Aussie, it is also lot more complicated that a little unit that runs back and forth between your cities. I think the majority agree that actual units moving back and forth is the way to go.

Economic deals like this should all be on the trade advisor screen (F2) and be independant of the foriegn minister (F4) who would just tell you who you could/couldn't trade with. Yes/no?

Not sure if the pop ups are all neccisary, maybe some/all are in and there is a toggle to turn them on of in F2 advisor.

However this is just a rough draft and is wide open to suggestions or addtions. Ideally this whole trading system would be as simple as possible so that most of the thinking goes into protecting your trade routes and attacking your opponents. Any Steps that need to go/be changed please bring them up.

[size=-1]Also, on a side note (I'm on a roll here ). As you complete more and more trade missions, you would get a better and better reputation in the international community as being a good trader. This could add small things such as teams seeking to trade with you because of your good record. And it could lead all the way to a civ asking you to handle their trading for them because of your expertise in the area, which gives you added commerce. Talk about a trading empire! Ooh and each successful deal cound increase your chance of getting an Economic Leader.[/size]

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

OK, I will now counter with MY trade model in full!

1a) Your city builds a 'caravan', in much the same way it builds any unit-and might even require a specific improvement as a prerequisite.

1b) Once built, a pop-up will appear to ask what 'kind' of caravan you want it to be. You can assign it any resource available to the building city via the internal trade network!

1c) Though caravans cannot be 'moved', they can be vectored to any other city on the trade network.

2a) When you trade with another civ, you will see in your trade screen all of the caravans at your disposal, and where they are currently located. You can theoretically assign any number of 'caravans' to a single trade deal.

2b) As you select each caravan you want, you will also be asked to assign the number of 'units' of the resource in that caravan. You will then be asked to pick a destination city, from the list provided, for that route.

2c) When you have negotiated the trade deal, a graphic will come up showing the trade routes path, going by the shortest possible path-you can adjust this graphic if you wish, to get a trade route more to your 'liking'.

2d) Once the trade is totally finalised, the trade route will appear on the map in your trade advisor screen, and the details of the trade route will appear in the 'trade route' list. It will tell you the cost, value, duration, content, 'strength' and speed of the trade route you formed.

3) In options, you can select to show all trade routes that currently involve your civ, or that your civ knows about, and these will show up as different coloured lines, connecting the trading cities, on your main map.

4) In your trade advisor screen there will also be a slider bar indicating the % of your budget allocated to trade. By adjusting this up or down, you can increase/decrease the strength and speed of all active trade routes.

5) Disrupting trade routes has been discussed, in some detail, in my previous post. This is not very complicated, IMHO, as many of the actions detailed already come under existing military or espionage actions. Directly attacking a trade route would work no differently from attacking a unit!

6) As your trade and military technologies improve over time, so will the base strength and speed of your trade routes (new and old). My model assumes that you have some kind of basic escort, which is reflected in the 'strength' stat. You can assign additional units to perform 'sentry' duty on that route, though, if you feel it needs extra protection!

Oh, and another reason for preferring trade route 'lines' over a physically moving caravans is the practical issue of computer speed! A line does NOT require nearly as much animation as a moving unit would require, thus keeping processor requirements low and freeing it up for more important game features! Just so you know !

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Oh and, heres an 'in-game' example for you.

The English Coastal city of Dover has just finished building a caravan. The pop-up appears (a la civ2) giving a choice of luxury and strategic resources that can be 'assigned' to that caravan. The player selects 'Oil' for this caravan.
They call on their friends across the sea, the French, in order to set up a trade route-and the Civ3 trade window pops up-with the trade table and a list of all the cities in each civs trade network (or a map of the known world-whichever is easier on the eye). The English player clicks on the oil and incense caravans and, in each case, a pop up appears with a slider bar asking 'how many units of this resource?'-which you can adjust from 1 to the maximum units your civ currently has (though the latter would be foolish). Once they have haggled a reasonable price and destination city for the two caravans, a map will pop-up showing the length and direction of the line which will form the trade route (as dictated by availability of prerequisite trade buildings and infrastructure, and RofP agreements). The English player can move any element of the line he wishes, until he has something (s)he is happy with! Once happy, the player clicks on the 'yes' button, and the minimap disappears and you can establish a seperate trade deal, or simply exit the trade screen if you want. The trade will take effect from either that turn or, at the very latest, the following turn.
When the English or French players enter their respective trade advisor screens, they will see a mini-map at the bottom of the screen, with all current trade routes they have negotiated marked on it. In the upper screen, they will see a numbered list of current trade routes and their details. Now they might see something like
#12 w/French: 2 Caravans (3 oil, 2 incence), Maintainance 3gpt, Value 20gpt, Speed: 5, Strength: 8, Duration: 16 turns (Renegotiate Y/N). In the options drop box, under map options, you can click on 'show all known trade routes'-this will make the trade routes visible on your main map, and you can pass the mouse icon over to get the details of the trade route in a 'floating box'.
Well, sorry for the long-winded explaination, but hope it clarifies things !

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[plastiqe]

So the way I see your system, is that you would have a bunch of immobile caravans stationed in your cities, which you then attach to resources(and a whole new resource system?), which you then trade to another civ? The whole point of this thread was to bring back a new form of the original unit, not to have lines on the map representing where that unit was going.

Your plan has way to much micromanagement, it is like 4-5 steps per trade. Build>Assign>Negotiate>Slider>Escort?

Also caravans have to be simple. If you can't explain it in a few sentinces then many players (including me) are going to have a hard time understanding it.

 

[menwia]

Aussie, I just think that its un-civ like. There's nothing wrong wtih your idea, and model, but i"m just not sure it fits in with the Civ thing - if you know what I mean.

Tehre are parts of your idea which are good, example is - you could set up some kind of trade route, once your unit gets to a specific city then that is a trade route - i don't think maybe you should have a caravan constantly going back and forth - its just not worth it, the first caraven thtat travels will be considered the one that establies a trade route.

The only time you build anohter caravan unit is when you want to establish another trade route. So one caraven per trade route.

Once a route has been established - then maybe you can have little red lines showing the routes and stuff, and then the enemy can dsirupte the route. Once a route has been disrupted, you have t osend out another caraven to restablish it again.

Everyone kinda got part of the answer - this way I think maybe it might work, you have to find the right balance, you don't want to controlling hundreds of units sending them to one city and then another, but then again you don't want to be just having little red lines on a mini map - nothing wrong with it, but it just doesn't feel right - not very Civ'ish - more fun to have a unit, doesn't have to be contantly units going up and down, but at the beginning you need a unit to establish a trade route. If it gets disrupted you'll need another one to create another one.

I don't think trade route should so complicated about having strengths and speeds and stuff. It should be as simple as 'This is YOur Trade Route," "Your enemy comes along and Disrupts It." YOu have to build anothe caraven unit to get a trade route going again, but watch out -there's enemy units afoot, better make sure the path is clear - and you gotta keep the path clear or you'll lose your trade route again.

Simple, easy, not to tedious, but you still got the unist aspect of things

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

@Menwia: PLEASE do not give me the 'its just not civ' argument-more than anything that argument gets RIGHT up my nose !! To people who played Ci1 and 2 constantly, Civ3 concepts like borders, culture, no spies and no caravans would be considered un-civ like-yet some of the more 'forward thinking' amongst us recognised that at its heart the game is still CIV, and that these new concepts enhanced the game rather than harmed it!!!

@Plastiq: I can't believe you can accuse my model of containing too much micromanagement when yours contains even MORE! I'm still trying to nut out what you're getting at! The underlying basis of trade is no different from that of civ 3, with the sole exception that you can only trade resources that have an associated caravan. You can place as many caravans into a single trade deal as you want. Then simply assign the 'amount' of each resource you want to trade, select a city and-'wholah'-you will be shown your new trade route. If you like it, say yes, if not change it-as easy as that!
As for my resource model, its simply that resources can consist of different sizes, from 1 unit to 10 units. This size factor effects the likelihood of the resource disappearing when used (for units, improvements, happiness, trade etc). In trade, you can select the total 'size' of the resource you want to trade using a slide bar! Which, I might add, does not sound much different from what you have suggested. Mine is simply because the 'escort' doesn't need to be assigned to the caravan(s), it is simply assumed in the 'strength' stat. You CAN assign an additional escort, but don't HAVE to in order to protect it! So my model has around 1-2 fewer steps to go through than yours, and is also a much closer fusion of the better elements of civ2, civ3 and CTPI and II trade models!!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.