Game facts

[spiceant]

im writing an article on several aspects of the game (trading routes, the likehood of religions spreading, incidentally discovering minerals in mines, great people farming and many more)

i have discovered a lot of things already, the most about trading routes recently, their profit is determined by their <distance> * <factor determined by map size> * city size * <factor decided by wether or not city is of size 7 or less>.
anyway its taking a lot of my time and i wonder if anyone else has done research on these finicky aspects of the game, it would save a lot of effort.

 

[Bevertje]

im writing an article on several aspects of the game (trading routes, the likehood of religions spreading, incidentally discovering minerals in mines, great people farming and many more)

i have discovered a lot of things already, the most about trading routes recently, their profit is determined by their <distance> * <factor determined by map size> * city size * <factor decided by wether or not city is of size 7 or less>.
anyway its taking a lot of my time and i wonder if anyone else has done research on these finicky aspects of the game, it would save a lot of effort.

so you mean you get the most money from trading routes with the furthest city of size 8 or higher? is this true for city trading routes or for great merchant trade routes or for both?

 

[MrCynical]

Isn't there a factor in trade routes for whether the city is foreign or not? Foreign trades routes are always vastly more profitable than internal for me, though this could be simply that that the foreign cities are further away. The documentation definitely states somewhere that foreign trade routes are more profitable than internal, which seems to imply there is a modifier for it.

 

[spiceant]

trading routes to other civs citys generate about 2.4 times more then ones with your own citys.
trading routes to size 1 citys generate only 1 commerce
trading routes to citys of size 7-6 have their profit reduced by 25%, 4-5 by 50% and so forth. for the rest of the story, it doesnt matter what size the target city is as long as its over the size of 7.
2.5 squares on huge maps are about equel to 1 square on duel size maps (trading route wise). i didnt bother to check the other sizes.

 

[Shillen]

Sorry I can't help you but trade routes are one of the things I'm most interested in learning about.

Let's say that Berlin and London are both equal distance from Paris. Let's further say that Paris can only have 1 trade route. How does the game determine whether London or Berlin gets to trade with Paris?

 

[spiceant]

1 city can have 1000000 incoming trading routes, it can only have up to (i believe) 6-7 trading routes from which it gains the profit itself.

 

[Finite Monkey]

1 city can have 1000000 incoming trading routes, it can only have up to (i believe) 6-7 trading routes from which it gains the profit itself.

So does the AI always select the most valuable trade? If that city is razed does it immeadiately reassign the trade to the next most valuable?

Is it then possible to have your entire empire trading with one city that is far away, foreign and large?

Good answers so far though, thank you for posting.

 

[Smirk]

You only have one foreign route per foreign city, all the rest of the possible allowed routes will be local. While you can naturally only have one route to any given city in each city, you can have many cities with routes to that city. So, in any typical game any slots that cannot be filled with foreign routes will instead get local ones.

It takes a turn to update routes so any changes during the current turn don't come into affect until the next. Since the gold earned is only added during the turn change it doesn't really matter what its showing currently.


Since I seldom play without getting open borders a case hasn't arisen where I could judge what value it would be to create a great local trading city for the sole purpose to raising those local routes. Since all your other cities are usually connected they could all benefit, but its a questionable strategy since open borders tend to create more gold. Maybe in an isolated start this could be attempted.

 

[spiceant]

You only have one foreign route per foreign city, all the rest of the possible allowed routes will be local. While you can naturally only have one route to any given city in each city, you can have many cities with routes to that city. So, in any typical game any slots that cannot be filled with foreign routes will instead get local ones.

you'r saying that that if new york has a trading route with berlin no other american city can get a trading route with berlin?

also i preassume that the ai always picks the best possible trading routes each time a turn is ended