HOw to increase the food delivered by internal trade routes?

[Greasy Dave]

How do I increase the food being shipped in internal trade routes?

Currently I'm only getting 1 food supplied in both directions. The production being delivered is much higher, between 5 and 8.

I'm wondering if there's some building I'm missing - or if it's fixed at 1 or 2 food units? It's kind of weird that I can ship hammers easily but not food?

 

[Sprenk]

I don't know the mechanics for how food and production are decided (maybe something to do with diversity of food types?), but I can assure you that food can often be quite a bit higher than 1! (it can also occasionally be non-existent). If you have multiple cities and want to micromanage, you might look at the "available routes" tab and see if you can figure out a good rotation to maximize food payoffs.

 

[Greasy Dave]

Thanks for getting back to me - that's really odd. I've built trade centres in all my cities and have convoys maxed in all of them. In the available routes tab I only get exchanges of 1 food, 5 production or 1 food, 9 production. Food is never higher than 1 or 2 for whichever city I send it from.

There must be something I'm missing, I just can't see what it is?

TBH, it's not a massive problem right now as I'm in the negative health and can't grow much faster - but I'd like to know what I'm doing wrong for when I get the health sorted...

 

[Acken]

As far as we know, it's based on the difference between the cities, if a city has not a lot of food send a route from a city with a ton of it.

 

[AgentDib]

I think this highlights the key problem (bug?) with trade routes as implemented. The food between two cities with the same base is 0, but if you have a big discrepancy than both cities get a lot of food out of it.

For example, an early trade vessel going between my 9 pop 28 base food capital and a 3 pop 8 base food new settlement provides 7 food to the settlement but also 3 food to the capital. That is nuts for 105 hammers on epic speed and reverse polarity prevents trade routes from being affected by aliens. I think it's something like 1/3 of the difference provided to the smaller city and 1/6 provided to the larger city.

 

[Quineloe]

It's a shame they don't explain the mechanics behind the benefits anymore like they did in BNW

 

[kingsbury]

I think it may have something to do with resource diversity or something. Civ has been notorious with regards to lack of hard documentation. The civlopedia is one of the best manuals/documentation in the entire gaming industry but it completely fails to explain some of the nitty gritty numbers and calculations.

 

[chumchu]

I'm interested in the mechanics behind this as well. It is ridiculously overpowered at this point as you can easily get around 20 yield from each trade route very early in the game. If it is based on difference in production then you should probably specialize each city towards either production or food + whatever of energy/science/culture you need.

 

[Sprenk]

I don't think city size is much of a factor, since I've seen two equal-sized cities with considerable food involved in the trade--and vice-versa.

 

[AgentDib]

After further testing, I think what matters for production trade is the 1) difference between the "base" stats shown in the city mouse-over tool tips and 2) the direction of the trade.

City A, 8 pop - 32.65 production (17 base)
City B, 10 pop - 42.3 production (23 base)
City C, 9 pop - 45.4 production (17 base)

A trade caravan from A->B results in +4 to A and +7 to B.
A trade caravan from B->A results in +7 to A and +4 to B.
A trade caravan from A->C results in 0 production change.
A trade caravan from C->A results in 0 production change.

 

[Acken]

Yes it's base stats.

 

[AgentDib]

Food comparison below, looks to be similar.

City A, 35 food (13 base)
City B, 40 food (14 base)
City C, 26 food (0 base)

A trade caravan from A->B results in +1 to A and +2 to B.
A trade caravan from A->C results in +2 to A and +7 to B.

Unless there is something else at play it looks like a good strategy will be to alternate your cities between production focus and growth focus.

 

[joncnunn]

Food comparison below, looks to be similar.

City A, 35 food (13 base)
City B, 40 food (14 base)
City C, 26 food (0 base)

A trade caravan from A->B results in +1 to A and +2 to B.
A trade caravan from A->C results in +2 to A and +7 to B.

Unless there is something else at play it looks like a good strategy will be to alternate your cities between production focus and growth focus.

Or the short cut is whenever you build a new city you run a new caravan there from your most mature city that you currently can and get BOTH.

 

[AgentDib]

Or the short cut is whenever you build a new city you run a new caravan there from your most mature city that you currently can and get BOTH.

Based on the direction perhaps you should have a centrally located capital and then send one trade route from each new city to the capital.

 

[cazaderonus]

Based on the direction perhaps you should have a centrally located capital and then send one trade route from each new city to the capital.

So far, once i have the third route in each city with the autoplant i go :

1 to capital
1 to another young city
1 international

Works great.

 

[joncnunn]

So far, once i have the third route in each city with the autoplant i go :

1 to capital
1 to another young city
1 international

Works great.

All cities having 1 to the capital is definitely what I was thinking.

But it should only be mature ones to young cities. The second one originating from a young city should instead go to a different mature one instead of to another young city though since it's based on difference in yields.

If you reach the point where there's not much difference in yields, it's a strong indicator that it's time for another city (unless you are reserving the space for Promised Land victory)

 

[sprang]

With food, you can't just run all routes to the capital. The "base" for food is the surplus used for growth. So, paradoxically, the fastest growing cities can send the most food!

But that suggests that as your cities' growth slows, and surplus food drops, their trade food drops too - leading to a potential famine!

Anyone see this with two mature cities?

 

[Memoryjar]

As far as we know, it's based on the difference between the cities, if a city has not a lot of food send a route from a city with a ton of it.

I don't think so. I sent a trade convoy from a cap with +30 food to a new one, only hammers were exchanged at first. I wonder how it works. Same question for foreign trade route, energy and beakers can move down then move up, sometimes to no energy or no beakers. Curious.

That's where I regret old user's guide, print on paper. :/

 

[Acken]

I don't think so. I sent a trade convoy from a cap with +30 food to a new one, only hammers were exchanged at first. I wonder how it works. Same question for foreign trade route, energy and beakers can move down then move up, sometimes to no energy or no beakers. Curious.

That's where I regret old user's guide, print on paper. :/

Hve you checked if +30 was because of routes ? Only base food/prod matters.

 

[AgentDib]

I agree that we need a lot better documentation on this.

Base food production according to the tooltip:
Terrain + Buildings + Specialists + Trade Routes - Food Eaten

Which is of course completely different from "base" production. So specialists and trade routes would count for food but not for production.