I don't understand trade routes

[The Almighty dF]

I feel silly for saying this but...
I've been playing Civ4 since release, have beaten the game on deity several times, and am doing rather well on BtS (when not near Shaka the zerg-rusher)...

But I still don't get trade routes. I read the war academy article on them, but still don't understand them. I usually just set workers to do trade routes automatically.

 

[KMadCandy]

i may not be understanding what you're misunderstanding at all. if so, sorry!

i'm sure you know that trade routes are what you see in the upper left of your city screen. once you have a trade route connection between your cities or with another civ, the game automatically picks the most profitable ones between your cities according to whatever the rules are (i don't know what they are, i just let it do the magic).

then there's a command like "build trade network" for workers. it will hook up resources, and build roads between your cities. but one connection between cities is enough as far as trade routes are concerned -- road, river (only after sailing in BtS), coast (post-Sailing), ocean (post-Astro). what the workers do for a trade network, and the existence of trade routes, aren't directly connected except that it'll have the workers build the roads for you.

if you're talking about this article, it has nothing at all to do with workers except that the cities need a path to each other, and often that involves building a road. you won't get better trade routes by using your workers to build a trade network if you already have all your cities connected to each other and to all civs you have OB with. they'll hook up resources you haven't hooked up yet, which can give you stuff to trade, so that's spiffy.

once there is a connection, the game sorts out the trade routes automagically. if a new city possibility pops up (you find/build a new connection, you open borders with somebody else, you or an OB partner build a new city) then it'll change which city's connected to which behind the scenes. which is good, since my brain can't handle all that math.

i think the trade network command makes extra roads, more than you need just for the trade routes. i think it puts roads on most tiles? i'm not sure, i don't use it myself but i see lots of roads in the AI lands and they have to use automated workers so that's my guess. but there are plenty of other reasons to have extra roads so it's not necessarily a horrible thing.

 

[Quechua]

If cities are connected by roads, rivers, or coastline (after sailing) they can have a trade route, which gives you some extra commerce. You can only get a trade route to foreign cities if you have open borders with the civ. Not quite sure what your question is.

 

[The Almighty dF]

Ahh.. thanks. ^^
That's pretty much what I wasn't understanding. I never noticed that thing on the top left.
Generally when I'm on that screen, I'm focusing on GPP.

This'll help my economy a -lot-. And I don't have to use automated routes anymore, which is good because that option leads to workers putting forts on valuable resources.

 

[KMadCandy]

ewwww forts! take a look at your commerce from trade routes, i think you'll like it. can be quite a bit in BtS with the bonus for intercontinental trading. even an SE can get freebie commerce that way

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Forts are great on valuable resources... they give you the resource and make it easier to defend.

 

[Polycrates]

Ahh.. thanks. ^^
That's pretty much what I wasn't understanding. I never noticed that thing on the top left.
Generally when I'm on that screen, I'm focusing on GPP.

This'll help my economy a -lot-. And I don't have to use automated routes anymore, which is good because that option leads to workers putting forts on valuable resources.

Yeah, it's easy to ignore and scorn trade routes as too minor to bother with (I did this too for the loooongest time), but when you focus on it a bit you find that the rewards for good trade routes are incredible. It's not uncommon for me to have 1/3 of my economy coming from trade routes at some points (one game recently, I switched from Free Market to Mercantilism as a test and found myself about 700 commerce/turn worse off).

Even early on, trade can make a big difference. You can have one trade route/city at the start, and just connecting all your cities gives you an extra gold/city, which is enough to make a difference.
By default, every city's trade route(s) will be with another one of your own cities, and the returns will be fairly ordinary. But every foreign city you have an open trade network with will automatically replace one of those routes in one of your cities (it works out the best returns automatically, thank god). These foreign routes are a lot more lucrative, especially with big overseas civs.
So if you've been fostering good trade relations (good trade connections, open borders with a few civs, trying to stay peaceful with your trade partners etc), you can do really well.

Sailing will also usually give you a big jump, since full overland connections to other civs are often difficult at that point.
Currency automatically gives an extra trade route, which is often a pretty massive boost.
And I would honestly rate Astronomy as the most important economic tech in the game. Getting those juicy intercontinental trade routes is massive (you get a huge bonus), and even better when you start trading and selling them your spare resources too.
Free Market civic and the Corporation tech will both also give you extra trade routes, which can be more difficult to take advantage of as effectively (you need more trading partners etc) but the benefits can be great. A crummy city can often instantly be worth much more than it costs in maintenance as soon as it's founded, just from trade routes.

Oh yeah, and don't neglect harbours and Customs Houses; these can rake in a lot of extra money.

 

[Derbus]

What are the benefits of trade routes exactly? I know you mentioned extra commerce, but how much?

Is the commerce they generate based on distance, or what the other town has?

Do you have to trade something? eg: sheep for iron

Sea trade: how do you do this?? no workers to build a road on water

 

[KMadCandy]

sea trade routes (like all trade routes) set themselves up automagically when available if they're the most profitable for those cities. when available = unblocked path that's unfogged and you have the appropriate tech. no worker actions needed after a connection is available, just map exploration and tech.

if it's an over-ocean path, and you know astronomy but the guy you have OB doesn't, you get the juicy intercontinental-bonus trade routes with your cities but his cities do not get the juicy trade routes with yours. that can be a huge advantage to your side. with some maps even sailing opens up intercontinental trade routes of course, from nearby islands and culture borders across water etc. but that's one of the big reasons to consider gunning for astro early on certain types of maps.

you don't need to trade resources to get trade routes between cities. you just need open borders (and an unblocked pathway). note that OB is an ongoing trade, subject to demands from that civ's worst enemy that you cancel, so if your OB guy has a worst enemy you don't want to piss off, keep that in mind. when i'm meeting the overseas crew for the first time i like to meet them all to know the full diplomatic picture before i decide who to trade with, since i hate getting negative diplo penalties. red clashes with my hair.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Trade route yied is based on 2 factors

1. Base Value.. this has a minimum of 1 and it is the Smaller of
Population of the Other city x 0.10
or
Distance to the other city x 0.06 (for normal map size)


2. Bonuses these depend on this city (the one getting the commerce)
+5% per population over 10
+25% if this city is conected to your Capital
+50% for a Harbor in the city
+100% if the city is on another landmass
+0-150% if the city is foreign (more the longer you have been at peace with them)
+100% for Foreign Overseas commerce with a customs House
+100% for Temple of Artemis

So midlate game, base values can be 1.5 to 2.0
and bonuses can be +400% (x5) so 7-10 commerce for 3-4 trade routes
even a domestic Overseas route to an inland city gets +150% so 4-5 commerce if you have some overseas colonies.

 

[KMadCandy]

Trade route yied is based on 2 factors

1. Base Value.. this has a minimum of 1 and it is the Smaller of
Population of the Other city x 0.10
or
Distance to the other city x 0.06 (for normal map size)

so that's why when i get sid's sushi and ridiculous amounts of seafood some trade routes are internal with base values over 3. it's those ginormous 30+ population cities! i can't get enough of the stuff, i'm so bad. if i'm willem it's not fishing villages, i end up with fishing metropolises

 

[Derbus]

Thanks for the replies Krikkitone and KMadCandy... it helps.


On a similar note though, do corporations work the same way ?? I recently set up my first corporation which was Sid's Sushi.

The only noticeable bonus is +4gold and a bit of culture for establishing the corporation in a town which had fish. (dispalys +4g when i mouseover)

What troubled me was that when I built Sid's, it actually said, that I lost some coin!! Anyway after establishing it, I took a few cities with crabs in it, but it didn't seem to have any effect on my corporation.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Check the strategy Articles section there is an Excellent thread there on corporations

 

[Derbus]

Thanks, could you link it for me please? Can't find it.... I already had a look around on the main page for information regarding corporations. I found a bit of a write up on the BTS info center but it doesn't answer a lot of questions.

For example right now, I have sids sushi corporation. Is there a point to setting it up in my own cities? You get +4 for the sushi branch, but the maintainance costs in all my cities is higher than 4.

Initially my bonus was +1 +4, then after I set up my first branch (after the corporate HQ), it jumped to +2 +6 . Since then, I've set up around 5-6 more branches but the bonus still remains the same.

 

[KMadCandy]

the bonuses you get aren't based on the number of branches. they're based on the number of resources you have. for sushi it's the 3 types of seafood and rice. hover over the corp icon in a city that has a branch, or check the pedia, to see how much you get of what for which resource. you do pay more maintenance for more resources used by the corp, a higher processing fee i guess. but for sid's you can turn the food into merchants if you're really going broke. i'm a total sushi addict when i'm playing. can't stand to be near the stuff really tho.

here's a link to an article about corps

oh ... and put the HQ in your wall street city. WS is better in a corp city than a shrine city if you have to make a choice. HQ in a shrine city that has WS already is golden . that article gives a lot of details about which corps can't go in the same city, and which ones you might want in wall street and which ones you might not, etc.

 

[Derbus]

Thanks for the link Kmad, i didnt' even notice the subsection forum within this Strat forum.

It is kind of strange having a strat forum within a strat forum. o_O


The article was EXCELLENT, and answered pretty much all the queries I had about corporations.

Only thing I need to know is the definition of "having access to a resource" Does that mean the resource shows up in the resources window, or must the resource be in the actual city map (fat cross).

eh, i'll work it out for myself jumping back in game now..

Thanks for the reply

 

[mice]

Only thing I need to know is the definition of "having access to a resource" Does that mean the resource shows up in the resources window, or must the resource be in the actual city map (fat cross).

Not fat cross, just in your borders hooked up, or traded for with another civ

 

[Derbus]

Thanks. yep discovered that.

Pity I didn't have a reasonable save game before I set up the Sushi HQ. I thought it needed to be where a sushi resource was, missing out on a lot of gold because its not in my holy commerce city.