How do you protect trade routes?

[kalkas]

Hello,

I have two questions:

1) How do you protect a trade route?

2) Can you protect a trade route that goes through a teritory of another civ with whom there is no open border? It seems that there is no way to protect such trade route from barbarians.

I feel that I have less control with trade in Brave New World. It is much unpredictable.

Best regards,

Aleksandar

 

[Alzadar]

Trade routes can be pillaged in two ways: an enemy unit can actively move onto the tile it's on and pillage it (costs no movement) or they can just wait on the path of the route and when the caravan/cargo ship moves through him it will be pillaged automatically.

So to protect and route you need to both stop enemy units from moving directly onto your caravan and also kill any units blocking your route before the caravan goes through them.

Basically it's quite hopeless to protect long routes (especially water routes) if you go to war with a major civ. On the flipside it's very easy to pillage enemy routes and make tons of gold. Easy to make 1200+ gold just camping outside Venice and pillaging routes as they come.

 

[Makavcio]

Well, you don't. You either create them in safe lands (far way from uncharted/unobserved territory) or in areas where AI is doing the job for you. During wars, you just build new caravans and ships and send them somewhere else.

 

[troublmaker]

Make sure there are no barbarians. You might as well kill the barbarians camps anyway because they're free XP for your troops.

 

[Matthew.]

In the early game you only set-up trade routes where you can keep one of your units near by.

Later in the game just build a new caravan if one gets pillaged. They only take a couple turns and can be built in any city and then transferred to the city you want to trade from.

 

[mcaswell64]

I don't even try.

I suppose it is possible if you carefully plan your routes, but the cost and hassle outweigh the benefit if you ask me.

 

[phos_hilaron]

An alternative is prior to waging war (assuming you are DOWing) is to reallocate your trade routes as internal production or growth...it helps manage this and keeps them to reallocate post war.

I personally find the extra production my trade routes give help when I'm trying to push out a couple more cannons or what have you.

 

[dexters]

Start local with your first routes, send to close city states or your nearest neighbour where you hsve a good line of sight and can defend. I usually also reserve 1 route sending food back to my capital from my 2nd city, so that route is almost always safe.

Then as the fog of war gets pushed back, you send further.

In times of war, it's going to be harder to protect your routes from pillaging but use common sense.

If you're DoWing an enemy and they form a land connection to your trading partner on their other side, I would slowly divert those land trade routes to a sea route that's safer or to another Civ, because those land routes will likely be pillaged.

Sometimes bad things just happen and you can't help it.

 

[Redaxe]

Im playing as Spain in an island map. I lost all my trade routes once Greece DoWed me with all of his city state allies. I had a strong fleet of frigates and I gradually gained control of the seas but Greece had a tech lead over me and got battleships so I sued for peace and tech'ed up to Submarines.

If you're in the late game submarines are by far the best unit to achieve total sea control. They're invisible to air units and so long as you don't leave a sub on a tile adjacent to an opponent unit (even civilians on land) they should be safe. They work really well in pairs and promoted with the wolfpack upgrade, 2 subs can sink nearly any ship in 1 turn. So with several pairs of subs out on the oceans you can sit them on 'alert' outside enemy ports and along your trade routes and you should easily gain control of the seas.

 

[Bibor]

You can't really escort trade routes. You need to make sure that the whole route is "safe". In early game, use natural barriers (sea, mountains, lakes) to predict from where barbarian attacks are more likely to come. Cities protected by mountain chains and peninsulas are particularly good candidates for trade routes.

Naval routes - make sure there are no coastal barbarian camps active along the route. If there's that usual 1-hex frozen island with barb camps, I'm afraid you'll have to send a navy and marines (not the actual unit, but rather unit role) and clear it out.
Land routes - send caravans to "safe" cities, even if it means a bit less cash.

 

[kalkas]

Thanks for your helpful replies.

It seems that it is very hard to maintain trade routes. Beside killing barbarian camps, are trade routes the main source of gold? I find it very challenging to generate gold in this expansion. I liked it when rivers were a source of gold.

 

[Bibor]

Thanks for your helpful replies.

It seems that it is very hard to maintain trade routes. Beside killing barbarian camps, are trade routes the main source of gold? I find it very challenging to generate gold in this expansion. I liked it when rivers were a source of gold.

A combination of internal trade routes (road/railroad/harbor connections) and international trade routes are your main source of gold income throughout the game. Don't neglect the internal trade routes.

Trade routes to other civilizations (especially capitals) are very lucrative and also provide science (provided the AIs are ahead of you in tech).

The best (and also the safest) way to generate early cash from trade routes is to expand your empire toward another empire and create a trade route to their largest city. This way your trade route will be safe (close proximity of borders). This is because borders extend line of sight by 1 hex, so your empire doesn't need to be exactly adjacent to the AI empire.

 

[Dentalfury]

I rarely find myself having to 'defend' a trade route from another civ because I usually try to direct trade away from the direction of likely aggressors. But then again, i'm fairly new to BNW and i'm only on my 4th game or so.

 

[Bibor]

I rarely find myself having to 'defend' a trade route from another civ because I usually try to direct trade away from the direction of likely aggressors. But then again, i'm fairly new to BNW and i'm only on my 4th game or so.

This is more of an issue with intercontinental naval trade routes, where every city state and its dog can take potshots at your trade routes

 

[katfish]

Hello,

I have two questions:

1) How do you protect a trade route?

2) Can you protect a trade route that goes through a teritory of another civ with whom there is no open border? It seems that there is no way to protect such trade route from barbarians.

I feel that I have less control with trade in Brave New World. It is much unpredictable.

Best regards,

Aleksandar

I actually disabled barbs after few games. When they are on it feels like its not you play civilization - its civ plays you.

 

[Vidszhite]

Barbs screw with the AI as much as they screw with you. Sometimes moreso. Plus, without encampments, one huge source of early CS influence is gone. Considering how fast you snowball is often related to how many CS you befriend, that is a major downside to playing with barbs off. For the influence alone, I play barbs on (immortal) and am considering raging barbs in my next game.

 

[katfish]

Barbs screw with the AI as much as they screw with you. Sometimes moreso. Plus, without encampments, one huge source of early CS influence is gone. Considering how fast you snowball is often related to how many CS you befriend, that is a major downside to playing with barbs off. For the influence alone, I play barbs on (immortal) and am considering raging barbs in my next game.

I actually believed this but ran out of patience when saw barb horseman ride across 3 CS to pillage my marble. On higher difficulties barb camps disappear quite fast but on king and lower, where i want my fun, they keep pestering you whole game.

 

[Socratatus]

So you can`t assign battleships to escourt your tradeship? That seems something that the Devs could`ve -should`ve done.

In fact, assigning troops\ships to Workers, Great people and even Scouts would certainly be a useful ability.

 

[Jaybe]

My experience is that you CAN escort your caravan/trade ships. It's not going to be pillaged until the actual unit is intercepted and you can see where it is going to be ...

What I'm as yet uncertain about is WHEN your trade unit moves: before or after AI & barbs.

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Having less control over the game and it being less predictable is GREAT for BNW!!