[NFP] Getting new trade routes and traders could use some rebalancing/nerfing

[KyivanRusCivPlease]

I find that in every game I use the same strategy: build Commercial Hubs near rivers in all cities (except coastal ones) no matter the low +2 Adjacency Bonus, then construct or buy Markets for more trade routes. As a result, gold from trade routes is too easy to get. The situation is similar with Harbors and Lighthouses.
What if new trade route slots had more requirements, like e.g. a minimum Adjacency of 3 for Commercial Hubs and 4 for Harbors or/and only allowing Markets, Lighthouses and Traders to be hard built, not bought?

By the way, I think Adjacency Bonuses for other specialty districts should be more meaningful and yield more rewards.

Do you also think getting new trade route slots is a bit too easy and lacking diversity and that there is too much gold from traders?

 

[Galvatron]

Maybe the problem is that there is no east to get gold without trade routes. Banks take aeons to pay for themselves for example.

Edit: also a limit on how much 'trade' there is to be had in a city might help. Right now if a city is worth 5 gold in a trade route that will worth 5 gold if you send one route or a hundred. If there were a diminishing return on how valuable the route is that might make trade routes less all consuming. You could even make trade routes passing through cities 'consume' the commerce happening there.

 

[Buktu]

I think its fine as it is. A market is 120 production or 480 gold, traders start at 40 production/160 gold. So if you buy a market and a trader you pay at least 640 gold. Even if you made 30 gold per turn from the traderoute (+3 from the market) thats at least 20 turns to pay for itself. And 30 gold is not that common in earlier stages of the game so it takes even more time to pay for itsself in that case.
And dont forget you have to use a district slot for this as well. Its not like CHs are great if you take away/delay the trade route.

 

[ShakaKhan]

I also think it's fine as is, the only thing that urks me about it is that the basic strategy described in the OP (one CH or HB in every city but not both leading to increasing trade route slots by one per city with no maximum cap) is one of the deal-breaking benefits in the wide-over-tall debate. The potency of trade routes (and inexpensive cost of traders) makes having more slots too valuable to not prioritize. Sure there are other ways to have more slots, a few civs like Persia and Cree get a single extra TR over the entire game, and very few civs (Mali, Carthage, and most prominently Portugal) get a few extra trade routes. There are also a few world wonders (Colossus, Zimbabwe, might be forgetting one) to add one or two more. And the other way of getting more trade routes is through grabbing the Great Merchants that add more slots, which as long as you can stay on top of your amenities make them the best GMs for this reason but alas, the accumulation of each type of Great Person points, including GMs, is another benefit of wide over tall.

Sure, you can play some civs like Kongo and Khmer taller over wider, but wider Kongo or Khmer are even better. The only one who's well-designed for tall over wide is Maya but my opinion only, I think the bonus and penalty numbers need to be swapped: +15% to all yields of cities within 6 tiles and -10% to all yields of further cities. I've tried them a few times, sometimes only settling cities that get the bonus and other times first prioritizing those cities and then having a few penalized "annexes" to give some supplementary trade routes, great person points, and gold and faith accumulation, and found that getting the +10% was noticeable but not impactful enough to make up for the handicap, and the -15% was enough to really question ever settling those cities.

Perhaps if there were some extra rules, like having fewer than X number of cities divided by Y world era, you could get extra trade routes from having both markets and lighthouses in the same cities (which would require an overhaul of the Owls Society) or that being below that threshold also made banks and stock exchanges give an extra trade route slot. Also, the audience chamber could use a rework - the ancestral hall is well-designed for wide empires and the warlord's throne is good for aggressive play, but it seems the audience chamber was designed for tall-over-wide play but just doesn't cut it. Also the diplomatic quarter and it's buildings could be reworked and with emphasis towards this end.

I don't intend to derail this thread from trade routes towards tall vs. wide, but the latter is derivative of the former.

 

[aieeegrunt]

Merge the concept of districts, improvements and buildings

Tiles, and buildings within those tiles each require a pop

Problem solved

 

[Hellenism Salesman]

Sure, you can play some civs like Kongo and Khmer taller over wider, but wider Kongo or Khmer are even better.

Not to drone on about wide v. tall and make it another one of those threads, but it should be noted that when you have civs that can grow tall cities as fast as Khmer, you have no reason not to go wide. It takes so little investment to get a +4 Food farm (which you can make 3+ of with a single builder) that your cities can start churning out population within the first 10 turns they were settled. Since it requires so little investment to gain pop, you can basically just devote your resources to doing "wide but better," since you have the additional population a civ without food bonuses (like Rome) lacks. And this isn't even mentioning your insane Faith economy which is just screaming at you to go Monumentality and spam out more settlers and builders for farms than a "wide" civ could ever hope for.

 

[Equilin]

I actually find more gold in AI trading than traders, unless i have some kind of buffs (e.g.Spain, Portugal) to trade routes. I think it's fine because traders double as roadbuilders, and i want as many of those as possible.

Not to drone on about wide v. tall and make it another one of those threads, but it should be noted that when you have civs that can grow tall cities as fast as Khmer, you have no reason not to go wide. It takes so little investment to get a +4 Food farm (which you can make 3+ of with a single builder) that your cities can start churning out population within the first 10 turns they were settled. Since it requires so little investment to gain pop, you can basically just devote your resources to doing "wide but better," since you have the additional population a civ without food bonuses (like Rome) lacks. And this isn't even mentioning your insane Faith economy which is just screaming at you to go Monumentality and spam out more settlers and builders for farms than a "wide" civ could ever hope for.

Wide vs Tall is a fallacy emerged from flawed/imbalanced game mechanics anyway. A successful civ, imo, should be wide AND tall, and the problem was that in 5 wide was punished too much and in 6 tall give too little benefit. If given the chance a civ should go both direction anyways.

 

[iammaxhailme]

I'm not sure trade routes need to be nerfed exactly, but I agree that I basically do the same thing no matter what victory type I'm doing... in my first few tall cities I make my victory district first (campus, theater, etc) and then in all my other cities I just make a harbor/commercial hub immediately and use them as money feeders.

Basically, I think there needs to be a better reason to build a more diverse array of districts. Perhaps the cost of a district can rise for each one of the same you have (instead of the flat one step cost rise for having a lot of it), or a district's cost could scale to what percent of all your districts are that type (for example if 80% of your districts are harbors, harbors cost 80% to build; but if only 5% of your districts are airports, then airports cost 5% to build; obviously that's a huge discount, this needs to be scaled somehow, but you get the idea)

I actually find more gold in AI trading than traders, unless i have some kind of buffs (e.g.Spain, Portugal) to trade routes. I think it's fine because traders double as roadbuilders, and i want as many of those as possible.


Wide vs Tall is a fallacy emerged from flawed/imbalanced game mechanics anyway. A successful civ, imo, should be wide AND tall, and the problem was that in 5 wide was punished too much and in 6 tall give too little benefit. If given the chance a civ should go both direction anyways.

While I do agree that it doesn't necessarily need to be tall VERSUS wide, I think civ 6 did it more in the wrong direction... you can go wide in 5 just fine if you make lots of happiness buildings, but in civ 6 if you do anything other than poop out 30 cities by the medieval era you're just going to really get left behind... exceptions for special civs like Maya and Khmer. They need to meet in the middle somehow, and civ 5 shows the way... give some buildings population-based bonuses like civ 5's library

 

[ShakaKhan]

I... give some buildings population-based bonuses like civ 5's library

I agree, and having some buildings that increase yields with population would help (hence, everyone's raving about Khmer), but the heaviest detriment to tall civilizations is that each city can only have one of each district and one of each of three buildings in that district per type - period. This puts a hard cap on 1.) the majority source of your four "global yields" (I consider food and production "local yields" and science/culture/faith/gold to be "global yields" even though culture does have a local impact on border expansion), 2.) trade routes, and 3.)the majority source of every type of great person point. Aside from some of the previously mentioned suggestions to address this, I think the primary fix to this would be a rework of the specialists system, which is something that's been asked for since the release of the vanilla game.

 

[DeckerdJames]

Wide vs Tall is linked to amenities. Mod the game so that you need one luxury amenity per 2 population and they don't apply to 4 cities. if I remember correctly, the current way is that 1 luxury amenity pleases 2 pop in each city, up to 4 cities max. After 4 cities you would need another copy. By simply changing this one mechanic, you can easily adjust the wide vs tall dynamic.

Trade routes also have a stake in this mechanic. The value of amenities needs to be adjusted to be more valuable, if each luxury amenity don't go as far as 4 cities. I think the AI changes what it is willing to pay based on it's needs but I don't know much about the limits of what it will propose in a trade. The value of luxuries needs to scale based on demand appropriately.

In this game, by making amenities please 2 pop max instead of 8 pop (over 4 cities) the choice between wide and tall is more significant because each new city will need it's own amenities. A size 10 city will need 5. Ten of those cities will need 50 amenities between the various sources such as luxuries, entertainment, etc. That will make it significantly harder to make a civilization both tall and wide.

However, perhaps, buildings such as a market, bank, or stock brokerage needs an additional bonus of gold per population in a city. Perhaps +1 gold in the market, +2 in the bank, and +3 in the stock brokerage. That will be +6 per pop in a city with all three buildings (which might be so high that it obsoletes Reyna's tax collector ability which would be undesirable). That same mechanic for the harbor buildings but less gold and some extra food instead. However, adding this mechanic would require a change in how much the AI values gold vs other things.

After that, you can adjust how far a single amenity from luxuries will go to make a tall empire on par with a wide one. If balancing is difficult, a 4th tier building can be added to the entertainment complex. The district is where a tall empire might be able to have an advantage because you simply need to build fewer of them across the empire to get the maximum benefit obtainable. Therefore a tall empire might invest significantly less to make their citizens happy than a wide one would. That is as it should be though and it makes logical sense.

I will also add that specialist slots are also an advantage for a taller city. They need to significantly enhance the relevant yields of the city though. I don't have enough experience with it to know if they do. If they don't enhance them enough, instead of adding a flat bonus to the yield, perhaps each specialist might multiply the city yields by some percentage.

edit:I am still pretty much in the learning phase of the game. I was just learning that many of the higher tier buildings already have per citizen yields so that is already in the game. Knowing this definitely will make me want to get those higher tier buildings much more quickly.
The seaport gives 1 food per citizen.
The stock exchange gives 2 gold per citizen.
The research lab gives 1 science per citizen.
The military academy gives 1 production per citizen.
The synagogue gives 1 faith per citizen.
The power plants give 1 production per citizen.
The broadcast center gives 1 culture per citizen.

 

[The googles do nothing]

Do you also think getting new trade route slots is a bit too easy and lacking diversity and that there is too much gold from traders?

Rather then too much gold I think there is not enough maintenance costs. There's lots of powerful aspects of the game that you don't have to offset with maintance - specifically unit promotions, great generals, and science and culture from city states.

 

[Datian]

I find that in every game I use the same strategy: build Commercial Hubs near rivers in all cities (except coastal ones) no matter the low +2 Adjacency Bonus, then construct or buy Markets for more trade routes. As a result, gold from trade routes is too easy to get. The situation is similar with Harbors and Lighthouses.
What if new trade route slots had more requirements, like e.g. a minimum Adjacency of 3 for Commercial Hubs and 4 for Harbors or/and only allowing Markets, Lighthouses and Traders to be hard built, not bought?

By the way, I think Adjacency Bonuses for other specialty districts should be more meaningful and yield more rewards.

Do you also think getting new trade route slots is a bit too easy and lacking diversity and that there is too much gold from traders?

I don't agree at all.

In a typical game, without owls or specific civs like Portugal or Mali, you only have one trade route per city, plus a handful (a "free" one with foreign trade, and all the other ones having to be earned with great people or wonders).
Either you use this trade route for development and keep it internal, or want gold and will send it abroad. It's only in the middle/late game, with democracy and wisselbanken, that you can have both, development yields and gold.
Besides, they are the only convenient way to have roads, you really want at least one per city.
So in the end, they're not that numerous, and not that lucrative : an early trader will cost around 200 gold, and yield 6 gpt if sent abroad... the ROI is not impressive !

As for the thousand ways to punish wide empires, I don't understand why anyone would want that. The whole point of civilization as a 4x is to build a powerful empire... width should be a solid way to gain power. I know it's an old discussion and off topic, but this is the part of civ5 which froze it in a single, optimal way of playing, and I don't see why players would want this to happen again.

 

[Linklite]

In a typical game, without owls or specific civs like Portugal or Mali, you only have one trade route per city, plus a handful (a "free" one with foreign trade, and all the other ones having to be earned with great people or wonders).
Either you use this trade route for development and keep it internal, or want gold and will send it abroad. It's only in the middle/late game, with democracy and wisselbanken, that you can have both, development yields and gold.
Besides, they are the only convenient way to have roads, you really want at least one per city.

I really agree with this. Add on to that that vulnerability of traders (I'm playing a Portugal TSL and got into a war with Phoenicia. Seriously, my trade routes were ravaged until I could get the Mediterranean locked down with a bunch of galleys!) and I don't see them as OP in anyway. In fact, they're both vital and fragile for a civ's well being - a very historically accurate point, to my knowledge. There was a world wide war fought between Britain and France fought over trade.

So in the end, they're not that numerous, and not that lucrative : an early trader will cost around 200 gold, and yield 6 gpt if sent abroad... the ROI is not impressive !

Yeah, this is something I struggle with. 34 turns to make back your investment isn't exactly a bargain. That's true of everything in Civ 6 though, people don't build IZs because it cost several hundred prod to build but only gives you a dozen back.

As for the thousand ways to punish wide empires, I don't understand why anyone would want that. The whole point of civilization as a 4x is to build a powerful empire... width should be a solid way to gain power. I know it's an old discussion and off topic, but this is the part of civ5 which froze it in a single, optimal way of playing, and I don't see why players would want this to happen again.

Civ 6 goes the other way, though. Going tall, outside of a few civs, is just not a strategy. The optimal strategy is to just churn out city after city until you dominate the world. Then they get tall anyway. There's just no reason to target going tall. In my Portugal game, Khmer has specifically gone tall by the looks of things. Their pops are about twice as large as mine, but I have more cities. I'm slaughtering them in every metric bar faith/religion, and mostly because I haven't actively pursued it. I have two HSs, both inherited. In a good game, tall and wide should be two different strategies that are viable and powerful. In Civ 6, we have wide and a consolation prize for peaceful players who got boxed in early on.