East India Company- worthless?

[Smokeybear]

It's supposed to give you extra gold when other civs send a trade route to the city it's in. Never works for me. I try to pick the a city I think they would prefer to come to, and build it there- and then proceed to never have any AI civs ever send a trade route there. Doesn't seem to matter what kind of city it is, capital, outlyer, big, small, ugly, cute... it's always one that never gets traded with. Anyone found a surefire way to put it in a city that will be sure to get traded with?

 

[Maniac]

Put it in cities AIs are already trading with.

 

[Smokeybear]

Put it in cities AIs are already trading with.

Well that's pretty obvious, but so far, the AI rarely sends caravans to the same cities very often. Of the 2-5 caravans usually trading with my cities at any given time, it's lucky if even 2 are going to the same one. And where they go changes a lot over the course of the game, depending on what's going on in it. So choosing its placement based on that is a crapshoot.

 

[Callonia]

I don't think about AI's trade routes to the city, I think about my outgoing trade routes and the proximity to AI capitals and if my cargo ships can reach the said capital. Like if my Capital is sending cargoships to like eight cities and giving me well over 300gpt you sure as heck i am going to build east india company there.

if the AI decides to send their trade routes to my EIC city then thats' a bonus.

 

[Strategist83]

This is about the AI not being very good at sending trade ships, not about the EIC, which is very powerful just like all the other national wonders. AI runs into all sorts of problems with routes breaking down because of pirate attacks etc. since the programming for clearing up barbarian camps remains extremely lacking, hence generally having fewer and less valuable routes than it's supposed to.

I don't think about AI's trade routes to the city

... and that's having completely misunderstood the purpose of the EIC; it does absolutely nothing for your own trade routes.

 

[Callonia]

This is about the AI not being very good at sending trade ships, not about the EIC, which is very powerful just like all the other national wonders. AI runs into all sorts of problems with routes breaking down because of pirate attacks etc. since the programming for clearing up barbarian camps remains extremely lacking, hence generally having fewer and less valuable routes than it's supposed to.



... and that's having completely misunderstood the purpose of the EIC; it does absolutely nothing for your own trade routes.

Hahaha i misread EIC XD

Pah, still not gonna worry over it anyways. From what I've seen in my games, AI prefer to send trade routes to your worst cities than the bestest cities.

 

[z284pwr]

I always build it in the capital as it's the hub of my gold income. AI trade routes is just another example of poor ai programming of how they are selected. Send to city state for scraps instead of a capital that would provide tons more gold. more than enough to pay for whatever quest influence it may provide

 

[Chemical Toilet]

It was a pretty lame replacement for the national treasury wonder.

 

[Strategist83]

I guess you could say it's 'worthless' if you also think Japan's Zero is 'worthless', or that the Honor policy tree is. The reality is all are fine, but because the AI remains abysmal is screws up the balancing in many aspects. So, yeah: In a single-player game, you probably won't miss out too much if you don't build the EIC, but the building itself is actually perfectly fine.

It was a pretty lame replacement for the national treasury wonder.

The Treasury just gave you a flat sum of gold. The EIC makes you actually consider things like city placement to set up a trading capital. It's a much smarter national wonder.

 

[troublmaker]

If you have one city that is worth +21 gold a turn and he gets to choose on another city with a +23 gold per turn.... the computer will choose the one with +23 gold per turn regardless of whether or not you have East India Trade Company or not (everyone can get it after all). The fact that it's not working for you just means that your city is not as worthwhile investing in as other cities.

I find it works best with a capitol city along a coast.

 

[Smokeybear]

From what I've seen in my games, AI prefer to send trade routes to your worst cities than the bestest cities.

This is pretty much my experience as well. I think they get a better return on their route if they send it to one of your weaker cities. Seems to work that way for me sometimes too- more gold and less religious pushback from their newer/smaller cities, often. Anyways, EIC is pretty lame for that and other reasons. They need to make EIC a potent *draw* for AI trade routes, not something for it to just ignore or avoid. Should be significantly better benefits for both sides when they choose to send a route to it. Otherwise, no point in even bothering with it.

 

[AgentTBC]

Has anyone tried building only one well-placed coastal city and the rest one square in from the coast if they want to work sea resources? With one coastal city you should be getting a LOT of trade routes coming in to that one city and would make EIC pretty powerful. Unless the civs just ignore trading with you...

 

[dexters]

Easiest fix is to just apply the gold bonus to the routes the AI is sending you so long as wonder is built.

Firaxis still remember how to make empire wide wonders work right?

 

[FrostK]

It also gives 4 gold. Not bad -)

 

[dexters]

It also gives 4 gold. Not bad -)

Yeah, the 4 gold part makes it worthwhile to build near the core rather than chasing AI trade routes as the gold building multipliers matter, so the extra gold you earn, including gold earned from gold multiplier buildings makes it worthwhile to build ASAP and chances are it will be your core cities that have markets/banks/SE up the earliest.

 

[Callonia]

Btw this thread made me think and I think I figured out why.
If the AI don't really like you, they will send a trade route to your weaker cities so that they can profit as much as possible while helping you the least.

Spoiler :

If i send route to antium, Me 5gpt and rome 4gpt gets rich.
If i send route to Cumae, I get rich 4gpt and Rome 1gpt doesn't get rich. XD