Geothermal powered trade routes?

[Minor Annoyance]

I've been playing with less trade routes, which has gone well. I can't instantly build everything anymore and cities that aren't served by trade routes don't feel like they're stagnant by comparison. I am thinking it is intentional to have internal trade be a big factor. Civ 4 had corporations model how today a lot of what's produced comes from farther away.

However three routes per city makes for a lot of trade and work to manage them. But if you cut it down then it makes it hard to have a very specialized city supply many others. The fact that the sender gets less than the destination also makes it so your more pumping up the already good city rather than the sender. One way to fix that is to change trade routes to work the same both ways so the best cities don't have to always be the sender to give the most.

Here's my crazy idea though. Geothermal powered trade routes. In civ 5 I wondered if there should be a building that uses oil to improve trade. In real life the global economy is tied to a resource and it seemed odd that it was only needed for the military.

Now we have the geothermal resource, which seems like it's meant to be important, but is only used by four wonders. So my idea is to have an East India trading company type national wonder that runs on geothermal energy and gives a bonus to trade routes yield (assuming it gets reduced) and a few more trade routes. Possibly allow up to four to be built, which would allow you to create a trade hubs for each of the tradable yields.

So, is this madness or genius?

 

[KrikkitTwo]

I've been playing with less trade routes, which has gone well. I can't instantly build everything anymore and cities that aren't served by trade routes don't feel like they're stagnant by comparison. I am thinking it is intentional to have internal trade be a big factor. Civ 4 had corporations model how today a lot of what's produced comes from farther away.

However three routes per city makes for a lot of trade and work to manage them. But if you cut it down then it makes it hard to have a very specialized city supply many others. The fact that the sender gets less than the destination also makes it so your more pumping up the already good city rather than the sender. One way to fix that is to change trade routes to work the same both ways so the best cities don't have to always be the sender to give the most.

Here's my crazy idea though. Geothermal powered trade routes. In civ 5 I wondered if there should be a building that uses oil to improve trade. In real life the global economy is tied to a resource and it seemed odd that it was only needed for the military.

Now we have the geothermal resource, which seems like it's meant to be important, but is only used by four wonders. So my idea is to have an East India trading company type national wonder that runs on geothermal energy and gives a bonus to trade routes yield (assuming it gets reduced) and a few more trade routes. Possibly allow up to four to be built, which would allow you to create a trade hubs for each of the tradable yields.

So, is this madness or genius?

Genius... but rather than a national wonder, just a building that consumes Geothermal
You can build as many as you have cities and Geothermal for.

 

[GeoModder]

Genius... but rather than a national wonder, just a building that consumes Geothermal
You can build as many as you have cities and Geothermal for.

Yep, that's better indeed.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

You could have a few buildings

Relay Station: Consumes 1 Geothermal: adds 1 Trade routes
Transport Hub: Consumes 3 Geothermal: adds 2 Trade routes

 

[GeoModder]

You could have a few buildings

Relay Station: Consumes 1 Geothermal: adds 1 Trade routes
Transport Hub: Consumes 3 Geothermal: adds 2 Trade routes

Instead of adding buildings, having the Auto Plant requiring a reliable source of energy like petroleum or geothermal or even a solar collector within emitting range could do. If for some reason the power source falls away, and no backup is available, the extra trade route simply... shuts down...
OTOH, maintenance for the Auto Plant should be nil too then. Just to compensate.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Instead of adding buildings, having the Auto Plant requiring a reliable source of energy like petroleum or geothermal or even a solar collector within emitting range could do. If for some reason the power source falls away, and no backup is available, the extra trade route simply... shuts down...
OTOH, maintenance for the Auto Plant should be nil too then. Just to compensate.

Well that wouldn't work well with the typical mechanic... resources either
1. allow a building because they are in range
OR
2. allow a building by being consumed

 

[Minor Annoyance]

I only thought of them as national wonders because you could trade for all the geothermal build lots of them then let the trade expire and have negative geothermal but still have the buildings. Like in civ 5 with coal and factories if you weren't using ironclads. A better solution would just be have the trade routes shut down if you don't have enough geothermal. Which doesn't happen now with resource dependent buildings.

 

[GeoModder]

Well that wouldn't work well with the typical mechanic... resources either
1. allow a building because they are in range
OR
2. allow a building by being consumed

Would be too bad if solar collectors couldn't be used to power energy-intensive buildings within a city. I find it a neat mechanic.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

I only thought of them as national wonders because you could trade for all the geothermal build lots of them then let the trade expire and have negative geothermal but still have the buildings. Like in civ 5 with coal and factories if you weren't using ironclads. A better solution would just be have the trade routes shut down if you don't have enough geothermal. Which doesn't happen now with resource dependent buildings.

That is something they need to change, resource (or affinity) dependent buildings should lose their effects if you don't have enough resources (or affinity because yyou captured the building)

 

[Minor Annoyance]

After some patches I may go ahead and try this as a mod. I would have four building, one for each trade yield. Mainly so you could pile them all into fewer cities if you wanted. Each would give a small bonus to one trade yield and give two trade routes for two geothermal. What would be good would be if I could have them require a certain number of affinity levels, but not a specific one like the early unit upgrades. That way I could put them early in the tech web and not have to think too much about where. Also make them moderately expensive and if possible have one of them automatically sell, picked at random if you go negative in the resource. Call it a market crash. This would keep you from trading for the resource and letting it expire.

I may make some for petroleum too at two routes for three resources.

 

[Bandobras Took]

Actually, it might be a fun limiter on trade convoys/vessels themselves to make each one require Geothermal.

 

[qwerty25]

This is a rather ingenious idea! One could use all of the left-over energy resources as a limiter for the trade routes. You could expand it into lets say for a trade depot to require either 2 geothermal/ 3 petroleum/ 3 biomass. (or fewer amounts if this seems too heavy of a burden) And then maybe a national wonder or technology in the future (such as magrails) can reduce the cost down to 2 biomass or 2 petroleum allowing you to attain more trade routes.