Civ7 live stream - Merchants and trade routes

[The_J]

Trade routes are established by merchants.
These are units on the map, and need to be moved to their destination. They could be caught/intercepted by other civs.
A city can only trade with cities in range (whatever that means) of the source city.
You can trade with both foreign civs and independent people, but not your own cities.
You can pillage trade routes.

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• The_J
• Sep 12, 2024

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• Nikolai II
• Sep 12, 2024

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• Laurana Kanan
• Sep 12, 2024

In the video at 1h8 min:

 

[Disgustipated]

And merchants can build roads. I'm not entirely clear how that works. Do they have a certain number of charges, or infinite? The only penalty might be lost opportunity cost of not getting your trade route set up faster.

 

[greenOak]

I have a number of concerns with the resource system.

It looks like you can have duplicates of resources (in fact it looks like the duplicate doesn't even take up a resource slot???) like in cities and get stacking bonuses. I'm not sure how I feel about that tbh - seems like a recipe for OP and unbalanced bs. Salt apparently gives +20% to unit production, so there's nothing stopping you from putting all the salt in one high production city and getting absurd bonuses to unit production. In MP, it's basically gg if your opponent can stack bonuses like this and you can't.

They made all terrains roughly as good in an effort to reduce the effect of spawn rng on your game, but now you're at the mercy of which resources you get. Maybe they think they make every resource balanced, but it's just not going to happen. Some resources will end up better than others, so instead of getting the short end of the stick because you spawned next to desert, you'll get the short end of the stick because you spawned next to bad resources.

Furthermore, can you move the resources around at will? If so, I envision resource micro replacing policy card micro. Starting a war? Make sure to slot in all your +% to unit production to resources. You made peace? Swap in the +% to culture resources. Building a wonder? Move all the +% to wonder production resources to one city.

 

[Thormodr]

I thought the way to build a road between your non Capital cities was to use a merchant? Does that mean it has a special ability to do so independent of its trade route function?

Also, a bit disappointed to hear of no internal trade routes. I quite enjoyed that with the Inca in Civ VI. Maybe certain Civs will be allowed to as a special ability?

 

[The Economy]

Also, a bit disappointed to hear of no internal trade routes. I quite enjoyed that with the Inca in Civ VI. Maybe certain Civs will be allowed to as a special ability?

Internal trade routes have been made obsolete by Towns.

 

[Disgustipated]

And I don't know all the icons yet, but it looked like the merchant unit had a strength of 10 (for defense I'm sure). Does anyone know what that 100/100 means?

 

[Calcifer]

And I don't know all the icons yet, but it looked like the merchant unit had a strength of 10 (for defense I'm sure). Does anyone know what that 100/100 means?

I'm quite sure 100/100 is the HP

 

[Thormodr]

And I don't know all the icons yet, but it looked like the merchant unit had a strength of 10 (for defense I'm sure). Does anyone know what that 100/100 means?

Probably hit points? Settlers now can defend themselves, perhaps traders can too?

 

[Hellenism Salesman]

Probably hit points? Settlers now can defend themselves, perhaps traders can too?

I believe that's the new direction they're going in with Civilian Units. They're capable of defending themselves, but bad at it.

Gives you more leeway against hostile units, which is nice.

 

[Nikolai II]

I believe that's the new direction they're going in with Civilian Units. They're capable of defending themselves, but bad at it.

Gives you more leeway against hostile units, which is nice.

Yeah, and this is a welcome change I'd say.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Yeah, and this is a welcome change I'd say.

Another little step in reducing Micro - you don't have to arrange escorts/guards for your civilians any and everywhere any more - only in situations where there is an obvious and immediate danger to them.

 

[pokiehl]

Furthermore, can you move the resources around at will? If so, I envision resource micro replacing policy card micro. Starting a war? Make sure to slot in all your +% to unit production to resources. You made peace? Swap in the +% to culture resources. Building a wonder? Move all the +% to wonder production resources to one city.

You made many great points but this is the most salient. I really hope that there’s some sort of consideration for this and we don’t get a tedious resource-moving micro. It’d be the worst aspects of policy cards and governors combined.

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

Another little step in reducing Micro - you don't have to arrange escorts/guards for your civilians any and everywhere any more - only in situations where there is an obvious and immediate danger to them.

And trade routes aren't really fix routes, especially when it comes to maritime tradings. freight ships wouldn't standstill or maintain the original course without dodging pirates or privateers.
actually trade route robbing should be done AT ANY POINT in the route and without a trader to move just one hex per turn and any raiding unit has to stand in the same hex as the actual trader to do robbery.
in real life an established trade route always have regular freight traffics annually.

 

[bbbt]

I have a number of concerns with the resource system.

It looks like you can have duplicates of resources (in fact it looks like the duplicate doesn't even take up a resource slot???) like in cities and get stacking bonuses. I'm not sure how I feel about that tbh - seems like a recipe for OP and unbalanced bs. Salt apparently gives +20% to unit production, so there's nothing stopping you from putting all the salt in one high production city and getting absurd bonuses to unit production. In MP, it's basically gg if your opponent can stack bonuses like this and you can't.

They made all terrains roughly as good in an effort to reduce the effect of spawn rng on your game, but now you're at the mercy of which resources you get. Maybe they think they make every resource balanced, but it's just not going to happen. Some resources will end up better than others, so instead of getting the short end of the stick because you spawned next to desert, you'll get the short end of the stick because you spawned next to bad resources.

Furthermore, can you move the resources around at will? If so, I envision resource micro replacing policy card micro. Starting a war? Make sure to slot in all your +% to unit production to resources. You made peace? Swap in the +% to culture resources. Building a wonder? Move all the +% to wonder production resources to one city.

Definitely good concerns!

I don't get any indication from the stream that there are 'stacking bonuses' from duplicate luxes. Having '2' in the city in the UI might just mean they are producing 2 in the city and have one available to trade, but duplicates don't do anything. That's how luxes worked in civ 6. I mean they have 3 iron in the screenshot, I can't imagine that would give a +9 to a swordsman...

They did say you could move resources "at certain times". But context left it unclear if there was a game restriction or he just meant you might move them when you wanted to.

This basically seems like the products in monopolies and corporations were a test run, and iirc those didn't stack but could be moved at will? Or do I misremember and they had the 10 turn freeze out art did.

 

[moysturfurmer]

One thing I’m curious about is the “Bonus” category on the left. Since they no longer differentiate between Bonus/Resource/Strategic resources now, and since the other category is “Cities,” could this imply you can get resources from sources besides tiles in your city? Would that be where Codices/Great Works go? Or maybe Cinnamon from Zanzibar, Blue Jeans from Levi Strauss?

 

[AriochIV]

The Exploration livestream finally showed identifiable examples of trade units. This has been eluding me for a while, partially because the different units share a lot of graphics.

To start, the Merchant is the manually controlled unit that goes out and establishes trade routes. It has the graphic of a merchant and pack animal, but the embarked version uses more or less the same lateen sail graphic that we have been associating with the trade ship. It is unlocked at Code of Laws.

Now, I have been seeing this little canoe unit starting in the Antiquity livestream. It looks very similar to the embarked Scout except with cargo instead of a dog, and a different icon. It turns out this is the "Trade Ship," and it appears to be an automated trade unit that will be the pillage target for raiders. It seems to have a number of different graphical forms, including that first lateen sail ship and an Eastern variant.

There is also a land counterpart that is essentially the same as the Merchant but has a different icon.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

There are indications that Trade Routes have a limited range that might be extended by various civs or geographical features. I hope there will be a map layer or something to help show the range of your trade units.

 

[bbbt]

So if there's no internal trade routes, does that mean resources produced anywhere in your empire are immediately available to any city? That's sort of boring.

If the bonuses from resources stack, I'd guess that gets nerfed quickly.

 

[Krikkit1]

So if there's no internal trade routes, does that mean resources produced anywhere in your empire are immediately available to any city? That's sort of boring.

If the bonuses from resources stack, I'd guess that gets nerfed quickly.

They might have to be connected …don’t see why stacking would be op most are small direct yields to the city they are assigned to.

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

They might have to be connected …don’t see why stacking would be op most are small direct yields to the city they are assigned to.

But aren't settlements automatically connected? A road is built upon placing a new settlement, right? Or am I misremembering?

I think it's fine, personally, the interest with resources will be choosing where to place them for maximum effect.