Fixing internal trade routes

PurpleMentat

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How can we go about doing this? At the moment, the gold, science, and tourism of international trade routes are so necessary to the game that the 50% boost from the in-testing Tradition finisher isn't enough to make them worth using. I don't have any good ideas on making internal trade routes viable to use with the current state of tourism. To start, they need to be competitive with international trade routes with no UA's or UB's, especially considering they require buildings in the origin city just to open up. This means the base yields have to be good enough to give up the gold, science and the tourism, without being so good that you never want to use international trade routes. Having them create their own tourism is just silly, not really a workable option.

Is there a fix? Should we just abandon them and leave one aspect of the game as 'always inferior'?
 
Is there a fix? Should we just abandon them and leave one aspect of the game as 'always inferior'?

Abandoning them would be a lot easier. It would clear policies and allow buildings/UAs/policies/tenets/beliefs/whatever to have effect similar to internal trade-routes without feeling like they are overlapping too much. I mean both the Ottoman ua and the new effect on the Portuguese UI pretty much completely overlap with internal trade-routes. This way you could let the different policy-trees put a little flair on the international traderoutes without feeling like you're screwing internal traderoutes over. For example I had some Idea for the dreaded last policy in Aesthetics that I've been holding back mostly because Tourism already felt way too international traderoute focused.

Just to be clear, I'm not talking about leaving the internal traderoutes weak, like they currently are, I'm talking about completely scrapping them.
 
Just to be clear, I'm not talking about leaving the internal traderoutes weak, like they currently are, I'm talking about completely scrapping them.

I do think that, if internal trade routes cannot be made competitive with international, it would be better to remove them altogether than leave them as a pitfall for the inexperienced and AI.
 
I think they are strong for new cities (+7-10 food or prod in a new city help a lot), but they don't scale well.
What about make them scale a little better with era (maybe even nerf them a little bit at the start) and give them bonus from some buildings.
Maybe +1 Prod/Food for Internal Trade Routes from this city for production(includes Ironworks) and food buildings.
Could also make some ways to give them Science and Gold.

However I don't think removing them is a bad thing.
 
Eh, no need to remove them. Let's not forget that, in vanilla BNW, internal routes were largely considered the best value.

There are two things I intend to work on in the next patch.

Scaling down the gold potency of international routes a bit, esp. for CS routes.
Scaling internal TRs based on the delta of city-size plus the yields of the origin city. So higher deltas of city size (i.e. a 12 pop city trading with a 2 pop city) will generate more production/food, and higher-productivity/food cities will generate more production/food generally.

Internal routes should not be better than, or even as good as, international trade routes, as the risk is much, much lower. Also, UAs tied to internal trade routes are underwhelming in terms of fun/strategy - I tried this with the Ottomans, for example, and it was pretty boring. International trade routes are the stars of the show, so to speak, whereas internal routes should be used only for specific, but rewarding circumstances.

That all said, internal trade routes should, however, be competitive throughout the course of the game, which is what I intend to fix.

G
 
Eh, no need to remove them. Let's not forget that, in vanilla BNW, internal routes were largely considered the best value.
This. Truth be told, in vanilla I didn't even use external trade routes; it was better to use them to grow cities and have them be economic powerhouses by themselves than go external.

I'm kind of glad this changed with CBP.
 
Eh, no need to remove them. Let's not forget that, in vanilla BNW, internal routes were largely considered the best value.

There are two things I intend to work on in the next patch.

Scaling down the gold potency of international routes a bit, esp. for CS routes.
Scaling internal TRs based on the delta of city-size plus the yields of the origin city. So higher deltas of city size (i.e. a 12 pop city trading with a 2 pop city) will generate more production/food, and higher-productivity/food cities will generate more production/food generally.

Internal routes should not be better than, or even as good as, international trade routes, as the risk is much, much lower. Also, UAs tied to internal trade routes are underwhelming in terms of fun/strategy - I tried this with the Ottomans, for example, and it was pretty boring. International trade routes are the stars of the show, so to speak, whereas internal routes should be used only for specific, but rewarding circumstances.

That all said, internal trade routes should, however, be competitive throughout the course of the game, which is what I intend to fix.

G

Everything you said here is great. I also want to add that CS routes are less risky than Civ routes because CS are less likely to declare war on you. But they also don't give tourism bonuses.
 
This. Truth be told, in vanilla I didn't even use external trade routes; it was better to use them to grow cities and have them be economic powerhouses by themselves than go external.

I'm kind of glad this changed with CBP.

I agree, but feel it has swung too far towards international. Internal trade routes should have value, and IMO the game would be better if you could build a viable strategy around them. If internal trade routes are never worth using, then they are a trap for the inexperienced, much like international routes in Vanilla.

At this point, the balance of Vanilla is irrelevant to the mod. Internal routes should not be neglected simply because they are dominant in Vanilla.
 
They do with maxed Statecraft. Moreover, this bonus is world-wide, which is superior to normal routes.

Ah yes, I forgot. Well I guess another weakness of CS trade routes is that they can be interfered with without war: just steal alliance and yields go down.

Also I think it is easier and less diplomatically abrasive to pass City State Embargo than Sanction an individual civ.
 
They do with maxed Statecraft. Moreover, this bonus is world-wide, which is superior to normal routes.

Yes, but you also lose out on the trade diplo modifier with major civs, which actually has a pretty big effect on their desire to DOW you (AI is extremely unlikely to DOW a civ if trade with that civ keeps them in the black).


G
 
Eh, no need to remove them. Let's not forget that, in vanilla BNW, internal routes were largely considered the best value.
That's kinda up for debate really, if you were playing deity you were pretty much forced to run all international trade-routes all game to catch up in science.

On the topic of removing them, I just think it would make balancing a lot easier. Internal traderoutes, in my opinion, just aren't very interesting. Sure having them as a safe alternative or if you and city-states gets embargoed is nice. However there are other ways to solve that, for example embargoed civs could be allowed to trade with other embargoed civs/city-states.
Sure removing internal trade-routes might seem like a pretty drastic, but it is like pulling off a blood-sucking leech, you just gotta rip it off and get it over with.
 
That's kinda up for debate really, if you were playing deity you were pretty much forced to run all international trade-routes all game to catch up in science.

On the topic of removing them, I just think it would make balancing a lot easier. Internal traderoutes, in my opinion, just aren't very interesting. Sure having them as a safe alternative or if you and city-states gets embargoed is nice. However there are other ways to solve that, for example embargoed civs could be allowed to trade with other embargoed civs/city-states.
Sure removing internal trade-routes might seem like a pretty drastic, but it is like pulling off a blood-sucking leech, you just gotta rip it off and get it over with.

It's a lot easier, code-wise, to fix them than it is to rewrite the stuff you mentioned. Just saying.

No reason to discard them - choice is good.
G
 
Perhaps the buildings that exist specifically to buff trade routes (Caravanassery, Harbor, Custom House) could also do something for internal routes. Not a direct buff to the yields they already provide, but something to make them more interesting. Armed guards, so they can't be sacked. Increase religious pressure from the destination city. Generate gold, science, faith, or culture. Add tile yields to tiles they cross. Let internal routes provide food AND production in one.
 
Perhaps the buildings that exist specifically to buff trade routes (Caravanassery, Harbor, Custom House) could also do something for internal routes. Not a direct buff to the yields they already provide, but something to make them more interesting. Armed guards, so they can't be sacked. Increase religious pressure from the destination city. Generate gold, science, faith, or culture. Add tile yields to tiles they cross. Let internal routes provide food AND production in one.

Right now, the plan is to more aggressively scale bonuses from era scaling (Was .5 per era, is now 1.00 per era) and added a delta that adds +1 yield for every 3 citizens difference between the cities (so a 9 pop city running a TR to a 3 pop city would generate +3f/p). I'm also reducing the % modifiers for international TRs a bit more, esp. for CSs.

G
 
If they necessarily need to stay, how about just drastically changing them? Let them provide gold on a lower rate compared to international trade-routes but do something else, like boost border-expansion or growth-rate?
 
Right now, the plan is to more aggressively scale bonuses from era scaling (Was .5 per era, is now 1.00 per era) and added a delta that adds +1 yield for every 3 citizens difference between the cities (so a 9 pop city running a TR to a 3 pop city would generate +3f/p). I'm also reducing the % modifiers for international TRs a bit more, esp. for CSs.

G


Does this go on top of the fixed amount of food it provides? Will production routes be treated the same way?
 
Right now, the plan is to more aggressively scale bonuses from era scaling (Was .5 per era, is now 1.00 per era) and added a delta that adds +1 yield for every 3 citizens difference between the cities (so a 9 pop city running a TR to a 3 pop city would generate +3f/p). I'm also reducing the % modifiers for international TRs a bit more, esp. for CSs.

G

I like this one :) Nothing much to add, just wanted to say that I agree.
 
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