Community Feature: Gold!

[AriochIV]

I know you have been quite helpful around here, spending time carefully on what will be the features of this game piece by piece, but doesn't this worry you?

This particular "missing feature" doesn't worry me much, no. Trade routes as implemented in Civ IV seemed really random and hard to quantify; the player had no control over which routes were chosen. When it came time to decide whether it was a good idea to switch to Mercantilism (which eliminated foreign routes), the player had no in-game metric to determine whether this was a good idea or not, other than actually doing it. This is one case where I'd prefer a simpler mechanic if that means actually getting player control over it.

 

[PinkHammurabi]

As a concept, Foreign trade routes should absolutely be involved imo. However, as far as the mechanic as it stands in Civ4, we're not missing anything.

 

[Tregon]

Hmm...

So all trade goes through the capitol.

Add this to principle (just my hunch based on all I have read) that there should be fewer cities with bigger distances sounds like invitation for some creative road demolishment and sea blockades.

I think various movement bonuses for units might have become more valuable, if you can use lonely commando unit to run between cities destroying roads and vanishing into the bushes.

I like... Guerilla war has always been interesting.

 

[Stalker0]

Hmm...

So all trade goes through the capitol.

Add this to principle (just my hunch based on all I have read) that there should be fewer cities with bigger distances sounds like invitation for some creative road demolishment and sea blockades.

Yep this is something I'm pretty interested in. If trade is a bigger part of your commerce than it was in Civ IV (which in many cases really wasn't that much) than blocking that trade might be a much more viable tactic.

Still, I would love to see some trade route stealing...I miss my privateers!

 

[Calouste]

Yep this is something I'm pretty interested in. If trade is a bigger part of your commerce than it was in Civ IV (which in many cases really wasn't that much) than blocking that trade might be a much more viable tactic.

Still, I would love to see some trade route stealing...I miss my privateers!

The Ottomans have the "Barbary Corsairs" special ability, so some form of privateering is in the game.

 

[V. Soma]

It is kind of sad we can't physically destroy connections between civs

 

[DalekDavros]

This particular "missing feature" doesn't worry me much, no. Trade routes as implemented in Civ IV seemed really random and hard to quantify; the player had no control over which routes were chosen. When it came time to decide whether it was a good idea to switch to Mercantilism (which eliminated foreign routes), the player had no in-game metric to determine whether this was a good idea or not, other than actually doing it. This is one case where I'd prefer a simpler mechanic if that means actually getting player control over it.

I'm not sure this is so. The system was designed so that each city would connect to the most profitable trade routes (as late game lag demonstrates, this is a really hard problem computationally, so the engine probably doesn't return an optimal solution), so looking at what percentage of your trade routes were to foreign cities ought to give you a decent idea as to whether Mercantilism was worthwhile (although, not being insane, I haven't actually tried gathering all of that information one city at a time to test this). Of course, this assumes that "good idea" means attaining maximum benefit for your civilization. If you're including "making bad things happen to other civs" in the definition of good idea, then the calculation becomes easier: if you're the largest civ and if we assume that a given amount of trade is valued equally by each player, then cutting off the foreign trade routes will almost always hurt the other civs more than it hurts you, making it a good idea in a positional sense.

Re Civ V: From a realism standpoint, I'll miss the international routes. From a game performance standpoint, I'm glad they're gone: it was a lot of lag for not much benefit.

 

[PieceOfMind]

The removal of what was functionally a small commerce boost for having connections/open borders doesn't concern me at all. It's not like there was much interaction or interesting gameplay in Civ 4's random-calculation (and amazing performance taxing) trade routes. I'm much more interested in the new trade route system.

I'm not sure this is so. The system was designed so that each city would connect to the most profitable trade routes (as late game lag demonstrates, this is a really hard problem computationally <snip>

Indeed.
Someone made a mod for civ4 that, among other things, removed trade routes entirely from the game. That alone dramatically improved the turnspeed, especially in the lategame.

I liked trade routes but for how computationally demanding they didn't do enough for the game.

 

[Thyrwyn]

International trade is now handled through the diplomacy screen - the player has complete control

 

[Senethro]

So in this case the removal of a feature is not just neutral, but good and so we can safely ignore any clamour that this is an example of dumbing down/consolitis/simplification? Good to know.

 

[dagriggstar]

No foreign routes includes city-states ? Because it's going to seem abit weird for say Venice to have no trade routes...

No doubt someone will mod more "freed up" trade routes at some point (or atleast I hope they do). It does seem an improvement but it also appears to be so frustratingly close to actually being a "real" feature of the game. To me, you should be able to play either as a builder civ, militaristic civ or a trading civ. It still seems to me that civs are either builder or military styles...

 

[Lillefix]

So in this case the removal of a feature is not just neutral, but good and so we can safely ignore any clamour that this is an example of dumbing down/consolitis/simplification? Good to know.

Definitely. I don't think trade routes in Civ4 added much. Civ5 seems much better, but I really long for a call to power inspired mechanics, with an entire screen where you can direct your trade independent of diplomacy. I also miss caravans, although great merchant is close.

 

[Schuesseled]

I actually wrote "Utopia or Manhattan Projects," the plural because it's referring to two different projects

Although is that grammatically correct? It would be if it were an "and" statement. Argh now I need to go look it up ;P

Yes you are gramatically correct, i was never confused.

Furthermore, I have a question.

Greg, Are trade routes considered an "internal" source of gold for your cities?, and by that I mean are they affected by markets and banks and so forth?, or are they external and are therefore not affected by markets and banks?

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Personally i am all for foreign trade routes being gone guys, too much benefits came from foreign sources in civ 4, so that if you were isolated you literally had no chance.

 

[Churchdown Yank]

Trade routes were an important part of the Civ4 economy. ...

I agree, the Civ4 way of doing it was too far away from the players control to be fun, but removing it seems like the easy way out. ....

I agree with both these statements. No international trade routes doesn't seem like a good change to me. The revamping of the domestic trade route system sounds ok so far, but removing the international part seems to me like it's doing away with a part of the game that was both realistic and fun. I would have preferred to see it enhanced for better control rather than deleted.

 

[TM Moot]

I'm slightly confused (its not that hard to be fair!!)

its been mentioned that it is possible for a navy to blockade a trade route, and its also been mentioned that there are only trade routes between a capital and other cities of the same empire

so apart from on archipelgio (or similar watery) maps, naval blockade is next to useless..!!

 

[Schuesseled]

harbour offers an alterantive to a road route, so if youve built a harbour in a city you dont have to build a road to it, in fact it would be waste of precious gold. its also possible that rivers and airports will have a similar effect but of course that hasn't been confirmed, yet

 

[Celevin]

I don't like the idea of naval blockading the capitol and killing all off-shore trade. That sounds like it might kill your whole empire's economy.

After currency / Great Lighthouse / cothons, I find in Civ4 my economy varies quite a bit just by offshore trade, and making sure I have enough open foreign trade routes that my cities never trade with myself. I've had games decided by a The Great Lighthouse build, city spam, and a DoW later sinking my entire economy because I've lost all foreign trade.

 

[toft]

Can you pillage/destroy roads in your own territory to cut down costs? You couldn't in civ4 and that was super annoying, but for other reasons than cutting down costs (obviously).

 

[Schuesseled]

hopefully there will be a way of removing no longer needed roads.

 

[Me,myself,and,I]

Worst case... PILLAGE!