Community Feature: Gold!

[bjbrains]

Really, really, hope there is a limit to the number of trading posts to be built for a city. Or something that makes building many undesirable.

I don't think there will have to be any kind of limit. Remember that farms can be built anywhere now, it's not like Civ 4 where cottages were the only option for certain tile types for much of the game (non-riverside flatland).

 

[stealth_nsk]

Really, really, hope there is a limit to the number of trading posts to be built for a city. Or something that makes building many undesirable.

You still need food and production

 

[formless blob]

Will it be possible to prevent the automated city governor from spending all your gold on rush buying?

 

[Babri]

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.

If you have multiple cities which trade through water or you've many overseas colonies then you should have a huge fleet to maintain & protect the trade.
I am really happy to see that now capital is not a small matter but it is really important to protect it well.

 

[YoHo]

If you have multiple cities which trade through water or you've many overseas colonies then you should have a huge fleet to maintain & protect the trade.
I am really happy to see that now capital is not a small matter but it is really important to protect it well.

Yes exactly. The complaint seems to be that now you have to protect your capital more than you used to. That's not what I would call a problem.

As for trade, I can see the complaint that foreign trade is a bit to abstracted here, it would be nice if you could develop trade routes with key cities, but perhaps the diplomatic aspect is more of a way to set up a trade route rather than just trading gold for resources.
In other words, there are foreign trade routes, you establish them via diplomacy. You need a road or port route to said other country.

 

[Sciguy001]

Really, really, hope there is a limit to the number of trading posts to be built for a city. Or something that makes building many undesirable.

Greg just confirmed that there won't be any limits or requirements, they are just a normal improvement.
Maybe they take away the food and production of the tile in exchange for +gold? In civ IV cottage spamming was so possible because citizens working cottages could support themselves food-wise. Taking away the other outputs of the tile would require an increase in food production, thus making them undesirable. However, doing this would make having a citizen work a trading post be the same as having a citizen become a merchant which would be a pointless redundancy.
Maybe -1 food to the tile in exchange for +gold? This seems like it would work, but trading posts could still be spammed in floodplain areas and in areas with lots of grassland (because farms can be built everywhere now). Maybe I'm thinking too much about how this will work? I certainly hope its a step up from the CivIV system.

 

[Calouste]

Greg just confirmed that there won't be any limits or requirements, they are just a normal improvement.
Maybe they take away the food and production of the tile in exchange for +gold? In civ IV cottage spamming was so possible because citizens working cottages could support themselves food-wise. Taking away the other outputs of the tile would require an increase in food production, thus making them undesirable. However, doing this would make having a citizen work a trading post be the same as having a citizen become a merchant which would be a pointless redundancy.
Maybe -1 food to the tile in exchange for +gold? This seems like it would work, but trading posts could still be spammed in floodplain areas and in areas with lots of grassland (because farms can be built everywhere now). Maybe I'm thinking too much about how this will work? I certainly hope its a step up from the CivIV system.

Civil Service now give +1 to all hexes next to a river or lake, instead of spreading irrigation like in Civ4, so in some way trading posts do take food away from the hex.

 

[Sciguy001]

Civil Service now give +1 to all hexes next to a river or lake, instead of spreading irrigation like in Civ4, so in some way trading posts do take food away from the hex.

How do you know that? And how does that have any relevance to subracting food in exchange for gold?

 

[bjbrains]

Civil Service now give +1 to all hexes next to a river or lake, instead of spreading irrigation like in Civ4, so in some way trading posts do take food away from the hex.

Correction: it's just farms next to fresh water. And we know that from some footage that came out of E3.

 

[AriochIV]

Really, really, hope there is a limit to the number of trading posts to be built for a city. Or something that makes building many undesirable.

In both Greg's strategic view shots and the GameStar video, trading posts are spammed exactly in the same way you'd expect to see cottage spam.

 

[Celevin]

If you have multiple cities which trade through water or you've many overseas colonies then you should have a huge fleet to maintain & protect the trade.
I am really happy to see that now capital is not a small matter but it is really important to protect it well.

Yes exactly. The complaint seems to be that now you have to protect your capital more than you used to. That's not what I would call a problem.

It's more like to knock out trade for your entire empire, all they need is to blockade your capitol, and kill a road or two. Those two cities on the same island half the globe away all of a sudden have 0 trade despite having a road or port connection.

Imagine that trade is anywhere near the level of your economy as Civ4. Open up a Civ game on Emperor+ difficulty with a large empire, and see how much gold all your trade routes give you. If all that gold went away, in some cases you'd have 0% science. I'm willing to go as far as to say that if I wanted to kill a com with 10+ cities on a map, and I had a chance to take his capitol, I wouldn't. I'd simply blockade it and kill the roads and watch him die. And if they don't just fall over in a few tens of turns with no trade, then I'm arguing that trade isn't valuable enough.

It's so... binary. It's stupid. I get that capitols are supposed to be a big deal, but this is too much. What if we made a rule that said "You lose the game if your capitol is blockaded"? Both of the arguments I quoted would still apply. I hope I'm proven wrong.

 

[Calouste]

How do you know that? And how does that have any relevance to subracting food in exchange for gold?

Because a fresh water farm would now give 4 after Civil Service, where a Trading Post would presumably give 2 and a bunch of gold. In Civ4 a fresh water farm would only give 3 until Biology, so by building Trading Posts on fresh water hexes you miss out on one extra food per hex after Civil Service compared to farms.

 

[Calouste]

Correction: it's just farms next to fresh water. And we know that from some footage that came out of E3.

Yes, that was fairly inaccurately written At least I knew what I meant

 

[bjbrains]

There's also been no word on whether they can 'grow' in terms of income- basically, I doubt they'll be cottage-level (aka, the dominant tile improvement for grassland). I think it'll be pretty open as to what improvement each tile should have (besides resources and perhaps rivers/lakes?).

 

[YoHo]

It's more like to knock out trade for your entire empire, all they need is to blockade your capitol, and kill a road or two. Those two cities on the same island half the globe away all of a sudden have 0 trade despite having a road or port connection.

Imagine that trade is anywhere near the level of your economy as Civ4. Open up a Civ game on Emperor+ difficulty with a large empire, and see how much gold all your trade routes give you. If all that gold went away, in some cases you'd have 0% science. I'm willing to go as far as to say that if I wanted to kill a com with 10+ cities on a map, and I had a chance to take his capitol, I wouldn't. I'd simply blockade it and kill the roads and watch him die. And if they don't just fall over in a few tens of turns with no trade, then I'm arguing that trade isn't valuable enough.

It's so... binary. It's stupid. I get that capitols are supposed to be a big deal, but this is too much. What if we made a rule that said "You lose the game if your capitol is blockaded"? Both of the arguments I quoted would still apply.

But 2 isolated cities trading amongst themselves while the imperial capital is under blockade is not going to fill the imperial coffers. Further, such a blockade would restrict the ability to maintain control of the empire which would reduce revenues.

I think it's a perfectly valid way to abstract the importance of the imperial capital.

 

[Calouste]

I doubt people will be working that many non-resource, non-fresh water tiles until fairly late in the game anyway. There seem to be more resources than in Civ4, and of course a city has almost double the tiles within its potential city radius. It'll probably make more sense to spend gold to buy an extra resource tile for your city and work that rather than work a non-fresh water flatland. It also seems a bit of waste to work ordinary hexes in your capital if you could found a new city and work juicy hexes there instead. Although in the end it depends on what yield trading posts have and how much they get boosted by specific techs or social policies.

 

[Sciguy001]

In both Greg's strategic view shots and the GameStar video, trading posts are spammed exactly in the same way you'd expect to see cottage spam.

Drat. Well that's not a step forward.

 

[JonoLith]

Drat. Well that's not a step forward.

I don't really mind it if trading posts get "spammed". My concern will be if trading posts will need time to grow by being worked like cottages did. I don't much care for the mechanic, and I'd like to see it go away.

 

[bjbrains]

I don't really mind it if trading posts get "spammed". My concern will be if trading posts will need time to grow by being worked like cottages did. I don't much care for the mechanic, and I'd like to see it go away.

I doubt that they do. We've never seen any indication that there's any 'improved' Trading Post, and we definitely can tell that are not multiple icons.

 

[Zechnophobe]

I don't really mind it if trading posts get "spammed". My concern will be if trading posts will need time to grow by being worked like cottages did. I don't much care for the mechanic, and I'd like to see it go away.

I thought that was one of the best mechanics in Civ4. That and the very abundant and numerous resources. It really added intrigue to the time/investment options for worker buildings.