Do trade route distances even matter?

[blasto]

I noticed when i start a trade route that I immediately got the gold it gave. I thought I would only get the yield when it traveled to the target city and back. So if this is true, does turns to target city even matter except for vulnerablity aspects to the unit?

I have been picking usually the shortest ones figuing the quickest turn around

 

[FurballRocker]

You get the yield each turn so from that perspective it doesn't matter. From my understanding the distance affects how long it will take to complete so with that in mind it does have some impact on things such as do you only want a short boost to a city, then pick a short one so you can move it to another city more quickly, if you are bored of constantly giving orders to trade routes then pick the longest possible etc.

Vulnerability depends on the protection it has so the longer it spends out of safety the more vulnerable it is but a longer one can be as safe or safer than a shorter one.e.g a 30 tile trade route through civilizations territory would generally be safer than a 15 tile route which passes through neutral territory as the 15 tile one is more liable to interception by barbarians.

 

[blasto]

Cool,thanks. I definitely have room for better trade optimization then as I was way off on how this worked.

 

[culdeus]

It doesn't seem like all trade routes stop. I think internal ones don't seem like they reset or else id spend all game setting routes as most are in the 4 to 5 turn distance.

 

[steveg700]

It doesn't seem like all trade routes stop. I think internal ones don't seem like they reset or else id spend all game setting routes as most are in the 4 to 5 turn distance.

Internal trade routes expire.

As for the OP, the trader move 1 tile per turn, building a road if need be. But as you say, you get per-turn the payout immediately, so that isn't terribly relevant. A benefit of picking one further out is that once a trading post is constructed, you will be able to send trade routes even farther out to cities you previously couldn't reach.

 

[FurballRocker]

It's not that some don't end but that the math behind how long they take/last is not actually linear so it can be quite complicated to work out how long a trade route will actually last.

Astog has made a guide to trade routes here with the math and graph for how long trade routes last more specifically here. So for general rule of thumb, the longer the route the more turns but obviously with exceptions so if you need to min max properly rather than be general he also made a mod which shows actual turns here.

 

[Dark_Ownage]

Because you build roads now with traders it is sometimes useful to go to the shortest distances first even if you don't get the best boosts. Also it creates trade posts in cities which in turn allow you to trade even further.

 

[joncnunn]

For internal trade routes; the distance isn't a factor on what you'd receive from the trade route at all; it does however determine how many turns it will be between the time you set it and the time it will expire. If done for the purposes of making a route it may be better to go with routes that expire quickly; there's key points at normal speed (and slower) where one hex further actually drops several turns from when it expires.
Conversely, in later game you may be tempted to go for routes that take the longest time before renewing just to reduce the frequency of the select a traderoute popup.

Note that Rome though gets extra gold by having trade routes pass thru other cities with trading posts within your territory on its way to the destination.

 

[dexters]

For Rome the number of your own trading posts in your own cities your trade route passes through increases gold income IIRC;

But generally it doesn't matter; but it sort of does in that you often need to connect to a closer trade route to hit up a deeper international city, especially a capital city deep in-land that will give you the best yields.

Not always the case, but it's fairly common.

 

[Takfloyd]

All trade routes give one extra gold for every city with a trading post they pass through. That's the main benefit of a long trade route.

 

[Browd]

All trade routes give one extra gold for every city with a trading post they pass through. That's the main benefit of a long trade route.

Unless you are playing as Rome, this is only true for your trading posts in foreign cities. The main benefit of your domestic trading posts (other than for Rome) is to extend the range of your trade routes that pass through those trading posts.