How important should be trade routes in Civ7 and how should they work?

[Marla_Singer]

If we look at history, the control of trade routes has always been essential for powers to grow influential. Most of the earlier civilizations of the ancient world grew on rivers (Nile, Mesopotamia, Indus, Yellow River), as they allowed large resources shipments over long distances. Then trade grew over the coasts (already at Sumerian and Egyptian times), leading many earlier civilizations to spread over the seas rather than over the lands (most notably Phoenicians, Greeks and Romans, but not only).

In the Civ series, rivers are primarily depicted as a terrain feature allowing more food production, but its transportation value is more secondary. They aren't even on a tile, but between tiles, meaning that a unit can't even follow a river, it can only move alongside it. I think it would be better if rivers would be pictured like roads are, joining tiles to one another from the river spring to the sea. The game has a weird obsession to develop roads and wheel as very early techs, yet using roads for trade has been suboptimal untill the early 20th century. There were indeed important terrestrial trade routes, such as those used by caravans in Central Asia and Sahara (without wheel, actually), but that was the case only because there were no navigable alternatives.

Also I think it would be interesting to see trade routes appearing physically on the map. That would force their owners to protect them from raids and piracy, and make of them military objectives for rivals. As such, they would become a serious incentive to build military outposts or why not trading posts far from our borders.

What are your thoughts about it?

 

[bene_legionary]

Trade should be very important... but how trade will work has to depend on everything else. Will resources be traded? Are trade routes going to be beneficial for both the sender and the reciever? How will trade affect diplomacy and the development of your cities? Are traders going to be units?

 

[HorseshoeHermit]

I want them to be renewable on a shorter timeline. But not too short. 15-20 turns, possibly regardless of game pace settings. Or, more than "renewable"; I want them to have a decision to make on that timeline. (I want it such that) you should have to 'stay on top' of trade to get opportunities.
I think I'd also like it if you did have to have a 'trade network' somehow to trade goods with other civs. What form that takes I don't know. I worry that restricting by nearness would make most of the decisions automatic.

 

[civviefan]

Early trade and later corporate power is the area with most room for innovation in game mechanics. I would gladly take all of Civ6’s features with a radical reworking of trade, religion and ability for tall play as a legit Civ 7 that will engage me.

 

[Naokaukodem]

Interesting thread. First, there should be a big difference between having one or several trade routes rather than none. I mean, the gold output should be higher, and thus the difference between different levels of trade bigger.
Historically though, I think that trade has been beneficial to a small amount of persons, aka merchants. The benefits would go to them majorly, so maybe Civ6 didn't do it badly when giving so few (occasionnally) gold to the state. (us)
I would therefore think, along with the "virtuous circle" that is claimed by the capitalists, that trade routes should give happiness too. (and that would make sense if luxuries get involved into it somehow)

But for a true power of economy, I think we should introduce mechanics of economic war. Trade routes alone should not give too much gold, it's a vast ensemble of actions that should make a country rich. Like corporations, monopolies, luxury or strategic resources, etc. The sum of all economic actions should exceed the addition of them.

Additionnally we could rule a group of peoples, not a single people. So that we could still make profitable profits from trades from a part of our empire, and make wars with another. We could do both in the same time with/against the same player. But now I think it's too much change for the sake of 'trade routes'. (I don't tell it couldn't be interesting though)

 

[aieeegrunt]

Once you discover the earliest boat tech

(1). Rivers should automatically connect all adjacent cities with trade routes

(2). Rivers reduce move coasts to all adjacent tiles as if they had roads

The nextiest boat tech shoukd extend that benefit to coastal tiles

 

[Marla_Singer]

Once you discover the earliest boat tech

(1). Rivers should automatically connect all adjacent cities with trade routes

(2). Rivers reduce move coasts to all adjacent tiles as if they had roads

The nextiest boat tech shoukd extend that benefit to coastal tiles

I like that idea. There's a limit though regarding coasts, as some of them are impossible to sail through because of strong streams. That is the reason why we weren't able to sail along the Atlantic African coast before high seas navigation. Even though that would certainly bring excessive complexity to implement that in the game, I'm still disturbed by the idea that distances between harbours wouldn't be taken into account. As if already at the Ancient age, anyone having sea access in Afro-Eurasia could have access to all harbours of Afro-Eurasia. I would like the game to be more progressive.

Hence why I believe that it would considerably increase the interest of the game if trade routes would physically appear on the map. Keeping simple Civ series logic, let's assume that you sign a deal with an AI to import copper. Then rather than having copper arriving by magic, a trade route would appear on the map. Just to help imagining it, let's assume it would be pictured by a dotted line with little boats moving on it from the location of the ressource in the AI empire to your capital.

If there's an empty area in between uncontrolled by any of both Empires, then those could be raided by pirates from all other civs, therefore cutting out your access to copper. As such, in order to secure your access to copper, you would need to send patrolling boats along the trade route, or even build military outposts, making you able to claim lands without building an actual city, and therefore allowing to secure the trade route.

 

[aieeegrunt]

I like that idea. There's a limit though regarding coasts, as some of them are impossible to sail through because of strong streams. That is the reason why we weren't able to sail along the Atlantic African coast before high seas navigation. Even though that would certainly bring excessive complexity to implement that in the game, I'm still disturbed by the idea that distances between harbours wouldn't be taken into account. As if already at the Ancient age, anyone having sea access in Afro-Eurasia could have access to all harbours of Afro-Eurasia. I would like the game to be more progressive.

Hence why I believe that it would considerably increase the interest of the game if trade routes would physically appear on the map. Keeping simple Civ series logic, let's assume that you sign a deal with an AI to import copper. Then rather than having copper arriving by magic, a trade route would appear on the map. Just to help imagining it, let's assume it would be pictured by a dotted line with little boats moving on it from the location of the ressource in the AI empire to your capital.

If there's an empty area in between uncontrolled by any of both Empires, then those could be raided by pirates from all other civs, therefore cutting out your access to copper. As such, in order to secure your access to copper, you would need to send patrolling boats along the trade route, or even build military outposts, making you able to claim lands without building an actual city, and therefore allowing to secure the trade route.

You could easily attach a range limit to coast/sea trade routes depending on which techs you have.

I like your ideas. It does seem pretty silly that “trade screen” resources and luxuries can magically teleport around

 

[mitsho]

Water tiles need to be more complex, I agree (currents, winds, reefs, cliffs, treacherous waters etc).

But for trade:

- Trade routes spring up automatically without the players action. They connect important cities and ressources based on the need of the industry/population/etc.
- If you want to you can set up a manual trade route. But that is costly. You will do that 1-6 times per game max.
- Trade routes transport Stuff! You can only get the benefits of a resource if it actually reaches the destination.
- Trade routes give gold (and maybe the resources) when the little figurine actually reaches the destination city (and back). So raiding that figurine is important, not the trade route itself. Which also doesn‘t collapse just from one raid. Only if there are no figurines on a trade route for x turns, the route vanishes or reroutes. So you better police the pirates along the way.
- The trade action the player actually does is to a) provide infrastructure to facilitate trade, b) enact laws to facilitate trade and c) to block these in wars or conflicts. Or any variation of „facilitate“ (i.e. only allow Christian traders).

That would be my ideal thing. I don‘t like micromanagement.

 

[Saxo Grammaticus]

I have a preference for automated trade routes in the manner of Civ IV, with progressively more routes and greater value of trade. The basic model would be one trade route for a land connection, a river, and coast each. River delta starts would have a significant trade advantage, but every city participates.

At the same time, I seem to recall some river bias overshadowing a much greater history of long-distance land-based trade or movement of objects. A bonus (depending on one's perspective) of Civ IV's automation is the ambiguity of how a trade route actually threads between locations.

Trade should definitely be important and integrated with other systems. For example, trade routes should act as channels for cultural exchange, innovation, and population movement. I like the idea of policies around them and a geopolitical dimension. I want defined trade routes and trade centers to work somehow, but like many aspects of trade it probably depends on resolution of wealth balancing. A financial reward for possession of trade centers and trade routes would be undermined by the AI bonus to yields under the current model.

Another advantage of Civ IV's automated trade is a stark difference between a more integrated world and one without trade that does not seem as noticeable in Civ VI. Ideally, a world with open markets and free-flowing trade would carry prosperity and geopolitical consequences, whereas a set of autarkic powers would reflect deep and bleak sacrifices.

 

[aieeegrunt]

I have a preference for automated trade routes in the manner of Civ IV, with progressively more routes and greater value of trade. The basic model would be one trade route for a land connection, a river, and coast each. River delta starts would have a significant trade advantage, but every city participates.

At the same time, I seem to recall some river bias overshadowing a much greater history of long-distance land-based trade or movement of objects. A bonus (depending on one's perspective) of Civ IV's automation is the ambiguity of how a trade route actually threads between locations.

Trade should definitely be important and integrated with other systems. For example, trade routes should act as channels for cultural exchange, innovation, and population movement. I like the idea of policies around them and a geopolitical dimension. I want defined trade routes and trade centers to work somehow, but like many aspects of trade it probably depends on resolution of wealth balancing. A financial reward for possession of trade centers and trade routes would be undermined by the AI bonus to yields under the current model.

Another advantage of Civ IV's automated trade is a stark difference between a more integrated world and one without trade that does not seem as noticeable in Civ VI. Ideally, a world with open markets and free-flowing trade would carry prosperity and geopolitical consequences, whereas a set of autarkic powers would reflect deep and bleak sacrifices.

Seems like the default answer to making Civ6 better is making it more like Civ4

Screw workers though, builder charges is so much better

 

[reddishrecue]

Builder charges with no costs for repairs for pillaging are particularly awesome particularly when being invaded by barbarians. Its not bad to keep a worker or militaries saved up in areas where barbarians can come in and pillage.

 

[HorseshoeHermit]

Seems like the default answer to making Civ6 better is making it more like Civ4

Screw workers though, builder charges is so much better

But with charges, why not just put a builder action as something with a hammer cost in the build queue ? Why the extra step?

 

[aieeegrunt]

But with charges, why not just put a builder action as something with a hammer cost in the build queue ? Why the extra step?

Do you mean putting improvements on the map in the build que, or possibly buying them with faith/gold?

Because that would be even better honestly

 

[Dunkah]

I think Trade routes should vary, (along with every other aspect of the game), as the game goes on.

Early trade routes should be state sponsored and work just about as they do now.
However they should be available to attack/Raid by anyone who so chooses.
Each should have a unit assigned to them (or not), and that unit would fight off anyone who tries to raid them.
But for all intents and purposes it would be a trader unit.
if the trader gets defeated the attacker gets to choose to steal the goods and release the unit or kill the unit.
If your trade routes are being attacked then it's up to you to declare war on the offending civ.

Later they should be part of the Corporations rules.

 

[AffineConstant]

Once you discover the earliest boat tech

(1). Rivers should automatically connect all adjacent cities with trade routes

(2). Rivers reduce move coasts to all adjacent tiles as if they had roads

The nextiest boat tech shoukd extend that benefit to coastal tiles

The automatic "trade route" thing doesn't make sense as trade routes are currently done. But creating a concept of "internal infrastructure" might be a really useful new concept for Civ.

There's already a bunch of mismatches in the way the game is played, over here you have giant food producing city with nothing else of interest around it, and over there you have a city that could get a ton of resources/buildings but doesn't have enough food to make much of an impact. If you had a way to use builders to send food from big otherwise useless food producing city to useful place, without using an otherwise more valuable "trade route slot" you'd almost certainly prefer to send somewhere international, that would be great. Internal infrastructure has been one of the dominant economic development forces of history, can and should easily slot into Civ as it is, but is mostly just missing entirely.

However "rivers act as roads" is brilliant, but so is "crossing a river takes extra time". Maybe there's a way to have both.

 

[Klaus Hergersheimer]

I'm not a big fan of controlling them directly.
In fact, I think a trader should just form automatically once a surplus in a city is generated, and essentially run on its own. It would be up to the player to build roads for it to move better, defend it from enemies, etc.

 

[Naokaukodem]

However "rivers act as roads" is brilliant, but so is "crossing a river takes extra time". Maybe there's a way to have both.

Yes there is. Make every tile bordering rivers act as roads as long as you don't cross them.

As I am about rivers, I don't know if this would feasible for clarity purposes, but I would like different sizes of rivers. Maybe some small ones could appear in a single hex, and consider this tile like marsh or something ? Eventhough I don't think crossing several small streams is nearly as difficult as crossing a swamp. Don't get me wrong, there could be not only "normal" rivers and streams, but an infinite number of sizes from crossable without halt to impassable, from navigable to unpracticable (depressions). I say this because I think water should be even more important, and spawning in a location with no rivers should be a very strong exception. (depending on the difficulty level ? Instead of giving AIs tons of bonuses, let's make the development of our civ more challenging ?)

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

The first major 'improvement' to Trade Routes from Civ VI is simple:

ONE trade system.
Not one for trading strategic and luxury resources and one for Everything Else.
Not one that has no limits in range or number and one limited in number of routes and their range.
Not one set up solely by diplomatic action and one by economic action
Not one that automatically builds roads and one that apparently moves goods by Magic.

The second improvement would be to realize that Trade predates Start of Game. There is solid archeological evidence of the trading of Obsidian and sea-based resources like shells and 'jewelry' (abalone, pearls) clear across the Mediterranean before 4000 BCE, which implies that trade in more perishable goods was also going on. Also, there is no discernable difference between the earliest river boats (like the earliest Egyptian Nile boats) and coastal craft (like the boats plying the Red Sea and Persian Gulf out of Egypt and Mesopotamia).

That means in-game Improvements in trade route length and capacity can start from a pretty solid base: the earliest land routes will be pack animals or people, carrying at most 30 - 100 kg each, but able to traverse land without requiring road-building. Sea routes using the earliest galley or sail technologies could carry up to 15 tons each (30 tons and more by Late Ancient (Bronze Age), which shows the major distinction between land and sea-based trade: to move Bulk Goods like raw materials (timber, stone, brick, Food) you need a water route - which should be possible using a combination of rivers and coasts.

Speaking of rivers, the lack of importance given to them as travel enhancers in Civ so far is positively criminal. I suggest that Navigable Rivers ('big ones') should practically be required to build any large city away from the coast: without water-borne Food imports, no city can draw from more than about 100 kilometers away even with wheeled transport, whereas river/sea transport can draw from a 1000 km or more (examples are legion, but note that every major ancient to Renaissance (early modern) city was on a coast or navigable river or both: Rome, Athens, Paris, London, Moscow, Antioch, Byzantium/Constantinopolis, etc.) - and China built the Grand Canal system partly to make sure that goods could be transported around the Empire by water to feed cities like Beijing.

Finally, as others have noted, most trade routes were not established by The State, they were efforts by individuals, individual families, groups, 'companies', etc. Classical Athens already had Shipping Insurance and 'consortiums' where several rich men would cooperate to put up the cost of building a trade ship and hiring an experienced captain to sail her, and then split the profits - 'capitalism' and Sea Trade go very much hand-in-hand, since boats were relatively expensive in time, resources and labor to build - 'captal investment' in other words.

So, a better Trade System will start earlier, be definitely divided in what it can carry between Water and Land routes, and not only generate Wealth by carrying needed goods like Luxuries and food and building materials, but also will affect (especially Sea Trade) the economy and economic technologies and techniques available to the Civ.

Oh, and if Civ VII includes any kind of Diffusion mechanic, Technologies, Peoples, Religious, Civic and Social influences and Plagues will also move by Trade along with the 'normal' goods.

 

[BuchiTaton]

The first major 'improvement' to Trade Routes from Civ VI is simple:

ONE trade system.
Not one for trading strategic and luxury resources and one for Everything Else.
Not one that has no limits in range or number and one limited in number of routes and their range.
Not one set up solely by diplomatic action and one by economic action
Not one that automatically builds roads and one that apparently moves goods by Magic.

The second improvement would be to realize that Trade predates Start of Game. There is solid archeological evidence of the trading of Obsidian and sea-based resources like shells and 'jewelry' (abalone, pearls) clear across the Mediterranean before 4000 BCE, which implies that trade in more perishable goods was also going on. Also, there is no discernable difference between the earliest river boats (like the earliest Egyptian Nile boats) and coastal craft (like the boats plying the Red Sea and Persian Gulf out of Egypt and Mesopotamia).

That means in-game Improvements in trade route length and capacity can start from a pretty solid base: the earliest land routes will be pack animals or people, carrying at most 30 - 100 kg each, but able to traverse land without requiring road-building. Sea routes using the earliest galley or sail technologies could carry up to 15 tons each (30 tons and more by Late Ancient (Bronze Age), which shows the major distinction between land and sea-based trade: to move Bulk Goods like raw materials (timber, stone, brick, Food) you need a water route - which should be possible using a combination of rivers and coasts.

Speaking of rivers, the lack of importance given to them as travel enhancers in Civ so far is positively criminal. I suggest that Navigable Rivers ('big ones') should practically be required to build any large city away from the coast: without water-borne Food imports, no city can draw from more than about 100 kilometers away even with wheeled transport, whereas river/sea transport can draw from a 1000 km or more (examples are legion, but note that every major ancient to Renaissance (early modern) city was on a coast or navigable river or both: Rome, Athens, Paris, London, Moscow, Antioch, Byzantium/Constantinopolis, etc.) - and China built the Grand Canal system partly to make sure that goods could be transported around the Empire by water to feed cities like Beijing.

Finally, as others have noted, most trade routes were not established by The State, they were efforts by individuals, individual families, groups, 'companies', etc. Classical Athens already had Shipping Insurance and 'consortiums' where several rich men would cooperate to put up the cost of building a trade ship and hiring an experienced captain to sail her, and then split the profits - 'capitalism' and Sea Trade go very much hand-in-hand, since boats were relatively expensive in time, resources and labor to build - 'captal investment' in other words.

So, a better Trade System will start earlier, be definitely divided in what it can carry between Water and Land routes, and not only generate Wealth by carrying needed goods like Luxuries and food and building materials, but also will affect (especially Sea Trade) the economy and economic technologies and techniques available to the Civ.

Oh, and if Civ VII includes any kind of Diffusion mechanic, Technologies, Peoples, Religious, Civic and Social influences and Plagues will also move by Trade along with the 'normal' goods.

Then comes mesoamerican cities like Teotihuacan that at its zenith was bigger than any European city (except Constantinople that was already in the literal edge of Europe) despite have no navigable rivers, being 2300 meters AMSL and > 200 km from the coast, with not pack animals neither practical transport use for the wheel (only in toys). Other nice example was Tenochtitlan (also bigger than anything in Europe apart from Constantinople) that certainly had a big lake but the amount of long distance goods traded in Tlatelolco market should have been something when it was described like this:

‘We turned to look at the great marketplace and the crowds of people that were in it, some buying and others selling, so that the murmur and hum of their voices and words that they used could be he heard more than a league off. Some of the soldiers among us who had been in many parts of the world, in Constantinople, and all over Italy, and in Rome, said that so large a marketplace and so full of people, and so well regulated and arranged; they had never seen before.’​