Help me understand a very old rule change

[Tomice]

In one of the patches for vanilla civ6 back in 2017 (Australian Summer), we've had a rule change regarding trade routes. Prior to the patch, you could get 2 trade routes per city if it was coastal and had both a harbor and a commercial hub.

Now that they buffed coastal cities in various ways, I wonder if the old change was a mistake?
Was it the start of the perceived weakness of coastal cities?
I can't remember what the reasoning was, and it wasn't discussed much back in the day (just checked the thread).

Was it an UI issue? Was it too cumbersome to have all those routes?
Or was it a necessary balance change?

What would happen if we reverted the change? Any major balance hiccups?

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

No, costal cities have Always been seen as weak but there was not much debate about Commercial hub vs habor Before the trade route limitation.

 

[Kaan Boztepe]

the reasoning was that trade routes are too powerful to have so many.
with the right cards in government and democracy allying yourself with someone you could get like 20+ production&food and 40+ gold with 2 trade routes which to be honest is really a lot

 

[iammaxhailme]

I don't mind the change described in this topic, but I wish trades dind't require a market/lighthouse. It's too many hammers just to get a few trade routes

 

[Tomice]

I don't mind the change described in this topic, but I wish trades dind't require a market/lighthouse. It's too many hammers just to get a few trade routes

This wasn't the case before, a market or comm. hub was enough.
They changed it to weaken wide expansion / infinite city spam. Now a young city needs a bit longer to bring its trade route online.

Maybe this is also the answer to my initial question - they might have seen it as a move against city spam strategies?

 

[Hakan-i Cihan]

I think the following points are also taken into consideration along with points mentioned above:

• The trade routes don't need to be used for the city which grants them, so benefit doesn't need to go to the coastal city.
• A trade route is a source of yields which is not tied to coastal tiles. Current changes increase overall yields for coastal tiles so that these compete better versus land tiles.

 

[Tomice]

I think the following points are also taken into consideration along with points mentioned above:

• The trade routes don't need to be used for the city which grants them, so benefit doesn't need to go to the coastal city.
• A trade route is a source of yields which is not tied to coastal tiles. Current changes increase overall yields for coastal tiles so that these compete better versus land tiles.

But is this a disadvantage?
Being able to "project" yields elsewhere is a strong ability.

Then again, you made me realize that a second trade route doesn't favor "truly" coastal cities.
It just means each city should have one water tile in its radius - just somewhere to build a harbor!

 

[Prester John 2]

I wonder what the game would play like when trade routes starting points would be limited to the city the lighthouse/market is in. The devs must have thought about that. It would definitely call for more strategic planning of where to put the commercial district. You could only expand paths from your starting city. Trade route duration would have to be shorter.

 

[XplosiveLun]

I wonder what the game would play like when trade routes starting points would be limited to the city the lighthouse/market is in. The devs must have thought about that. It would definitely call for more strategic planning of where to put the commercial district. You could only expand paths from your starting city. Trade route duration would have to be shorter.

See Beyond Earth, where each city can support 1 trade route with a trade depot and additional based on population size. Routes from small city to big city generally yield the most, and vice versa. Essentially both games encourage you sending caravan to your (or their) best city.

 

[WillowBrook]

I wonder what the game would play like when trade routes starting points would be limited to the city the lighthouse/market is in. The devs must have thought about that. It would definitely call for more strategic planning of where to put the commercial district. You could only expand paths from your starting city. Trade route duration would have to be shorter.

Definitely worth considering. I would want yields for the receiving city to be bigger, though, so you could still use them to help new cities get off the ground.

 

[Sostratus]

Was it an UI issue? Was it too cumbersome to have all those routes?

At the time we didn't have the ability to just hit "renew route" and even when just england had the double routes perk, managing those routes was absolute micromanagement hell.
It was strong but not in a way you'd want to play more than once or twice.

See Beyond Earth, where each city can support 1 trade route with a trade depot and additional based on population size. Routes from small city to big city generally yield the most, and vice versa. Essentially both games encourage you sending caravan to your (or their) best city.

i sort of miss how BE did it, if only because it had a nice tradeoff between # of cities and city pop.
Although to cut down on micromanagement, instead of extra traders they could just boost route yields from that city. This concept could even be in civ6 if they wanted; a harbor + CH combo could grant more route yields than just one or the other. Sort of like how water trade works now except, with domestic routes too.

 

[Hakan-i Cihan]

But is this a disadvantage?
Being able to "project" yields elsewhere is a strong ability.

Then again, you made me realize that a second trade route doesn't favor "truly" coastal cities.
It just means each city should have one water tile in its radius - just somewhere to build a harbor!

You already get what I was referring to. But also a part is in your question, it could become too strong then to have many routes with 2 routes per city.

Previously there was also a lot of lag if one had many routes, which is solved only in one of the later patches.

 

[Kaan Boztepe]

there is an argument to make that we could use the BE model
with more pop means more trade routes ,
and to balance it make it start after 10 , it could even be incentive to play tall .
I would however still tie that ability to ocean tile within city limit or railroad network to a certain number of cities.