Commercial Hub/Internal Trade Route 'nerf' suggestions

teakbois

Prince
Joined
Jun 27, 2012
Messages
305
So most people agree that the commercial hub and industrial zones are 'must builds' in every city.
The main reason for the commercial hubs is the trade route, because internal trade routes are powerful.

I have some suggestions to fix this:

Firstly, rename the commercial hub "Financial District", and take away the trade route. The buildings are plenty powerful (not to mention great merchants are often quite useful) so that the district would still get use.

At the start, every city can send and receive one trade route only. You can build a 'Peddler' unit or something, which allows limited trade between cities. Small food and gold, mainly for setting up early roads.

Also a new type of district: Agricultural. Can not be built in same city as an industrial district.

Then implement a trade district. This allows that city to send and attract traders (unlocked with the tech that unlocks trade district). International trade also unlocked for that city. First building allows a 2nd route to and from city (not an additional trader though). It adds food if there is an agricultural, hammers if industrial. Second building adds another food (or hammer) plus some gold, increased if financial district present.. Third building allows a third route (again, not an additional trader) to/from and adds culture/science from a campus/theater

Harbors allow sea trade routes only, and they must connect to another Harbor. Increased benefits if city center is on coast.

There would need to be some tweaks and balancing to this of course, but thought it would work as a general idea. New city catch up mechanic would need to be implemented, maybe just improved settlers are being able to send additional settlers to the same city to give it an early pop boost and have cities founded in later areas have increased borders (but not as much as Russia)

It would:
Make both commercial hubs and industrial districts not a near automatic build in every city
Agricultural district could provide for taller cities (keeping in mind amenities and housing will still be limiters)

Thoughts?
 
I like it the way it is. If you want to nerf trade routes, maybe in order to get a trade route from a commercial hub, you also need a trading post in the city. Trading posts are only established in the destination city when a trade route completes. Obviously, the capital city would have to automatically get a trading post with its commercial hub. So, the first trade route sent to a new city would be worth 1 food and 1 hammer, but would be necessary to establish the trading post. The way it is now, you drop a city down and send a trade route from the new city to the capital and the new city gets huge food and production right away. Is that the kind of nerf you are looking for?
 
I like it the way it is. If you want to nerf trade routes, maybe in order to get a trade route from a commercial hub, you also need a trading post in the city. Trading posts are only established in the destination city when a trade route completes. Obviously, the capital city would have to automatically get a trading post with its commercial hub. So, the first trade route sent to a new city would be worth 1 food and 1 hammer, but would be necessary to establish the trading post. The way it is now, you drop a city down and send a trade route from the new city to the capital and the new city gets huge food and production right away. Is that the kind of nerf you are looking for?

I actually like the new city catch up, although I think there are other ways it can be done.
I don't like that internal trade routes make commercial hubs pretty much a must build in all cities. Trade routes are something that IMO should be more international focused. It kind of adds to the isolationist feeling after the initial rush dies down and everyone just goes around hating each other but not doing anything about it.
 
Maybe it would be simpler to just remove the trader spot from the commercial district (and harbor?), but simply have an empire-wide modifier where every 2 (or 3 or 4 or whatever) trading posts of yours, that creates a new trader spot?
So basically, the more different places that you end up sending traders to, the more trader spots that you can open up and use. Then that would also force you to do more international trade, since if you kept just doing internal trade routes, you would never open up new trader spots.
 
I think you should be able to gain one additional trade route slot for any X amount of international trade routes completed. That would give more incentive to trade outwards rather than confining your caravans within your own territory. Then you don't actually have to modify the yields. You just need to remember that external trade routes ultimately feed into your own domestic growth as it allows for more trade routes to be sent between your own cities.
 
My preferred fix is to replace Production from Trade Routes with Food. That way Internal Trade Routes still have their role as a way to get new cities up and running without becoming the primary production boost that they currently are.

Then make districts increase in cost for every district of the same type you already have (that's good to fix a ton of other issues, too, including the "Tech as slowly as you can"-mentality that comes with districts being cheaper when you're behind and being able to overly focus on a single yield) and Trade Districts will no longer be spammed.
 
I think the current internal trade routes are actually a good reflection on real world. When you establish a new settlement, you would always be sending resources over because in the ancient times, farm land takes years to become productive, and in the modern day, you'd be seeing construction crews building apartments, crews paving roads, sewerage and all that even before people start to move in.

I do, however, agree that it is perhaps too powerful as a gameplay mechanism. I disagree that the solution is to nerf the yields. What about making internal trade routes transfers of yields? NewCity sends a Trader to Capital. NewCity gets 2f2p, Capital loses 2f2p.

Then, let policies provide a reduction on the yields taken off. A -25% on yields taken off in the classical era, a -50% on yields taken in the renaissance era, -75% in the modern era, and perhaps a -100% in the information era bringing internal trade routes to its current power.

But it takes up one Economic policy slot.
 
I think you should have to pick between food and production for the internal trade route. Getting both at once is too much.

Also, I would prefer a game where external trade routes were generally more powerful than internal ones. I think that would be truer to life, and it would make diplomacy and friendly relations more meaningful. Having a trading partner would then be a really valuable thing. Right now, a nearby friendly AI is not actually worth much.
 
I think the current internal trade routes are actually a good reflection on real world. When you establish a new settlement, you would always be sending resources over because in the ancient times, farm land takes years to become productive, and in the modern day, you'd be seeing construction crews building apartments, crews paving roads, sewerage and all that even before people start to move in.

I like it for the new settlement actually. But once the cities are up internal trade routes are still the way to go.
Part of this may be that banks and markets make a pretty huge income when you have a bunch of cities going so that the gold from external isnt as valuable, and culture/science is devlaued currently. So the hammer/food is king. That was also part of my reason for splitting trade and financial into two districts.
 
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