info for archipelago maps

[§L¥ Gµ¥]

trying my hand at trade-route economies for the first time and I went to the war academy to try to find an article or two on the subject with no luck. Was hoping someone could point me in the right direction, or provide a few tips.

I usually avoided archipelago maps, but I *slightly* cooked my first try on emperor to ensure I got both the GLH and ToA, picked william for the dike and financial, and shifted my tech priorities. The game is won now in the early 1500's and I just picked up steam power, whether I go for domination or space.

But a few notes and questions:

trade routes: are they capped, or do they continue to grow in value over the course of the game? How much gold can I expect with all the bonuses, modifiers in the best case scenario? I had no idea how easy it was to net 12-20 gold on trade routes, essentially free gold for nothing, offsetting virtually all my maintenance costs. (I don't ever remembering my empire turning a profit from founding a new city!)

production: how can you maximize production on an archipelago map? Without the dike, I can see many of my cities struggling to produce. Am I stuck waiting until upgraded workshops before I can produce anything worthwhile?

commerce: less land tiles, less rivers means less cottages and slower growing ones at that. So far, trade routes have offset the shortcomings of some water tiles [compared to mature cottages], but without the GLH, how is it possible to keep the tech rate going reasonably fast?

viability of SE namely an SSE in archipelago maps: seafood rich capitals make for big populations, but reduced hammer counts make wonders more painful to build. The AI builds things slower on these maps I've found, but it doesn't mean I still don't get beaten to to colossus even when prioritizing metal casting.

 

[Sisiutil]

Well, you can always cook the map a little bit so it's more suitable to you. I'm fond of playing archipelago maps but with low sea levels and snaky continents; this usually results in a smaller number of long, twisty land masses with several choke points and plenty of varied land and resources, while still potentially allowing for the majority of your cities (if not all of them) to be coastal.

1. I don't believe trade routes are capped, but I think their mechanics work similar to population growth--that is, the growth rate gradually slows as the game goes on.
2. Provided you have sufficient food, you can and should leveraging slavery to get things built.
3. Specialist Economy.
4. For things like wonders you can also leverage slavery. Don't whip the wonder--that will take too long and there's a penalty anyway. Put something like a military unit into the queue ahead of the wonder, whip it for maximum hammer overflow, and let that overflow go into the wonder. Rinse and repeat.

 

[Fleme]

Here's a surefire three-step guide to winning Archipelago maps:

1) Build the Great Lighthouse.
2) ???
3) Profit (=Win)

 

[§L¥ Gµ¥]

Here's a surefire three-step guide to winning Archipelago maps:

1) Build the Great Ligthhouse.
2) ???
3) Profit (=Win)

love the underpants gnomes reference

 

[Dragonxander PR]

Some ways to ease out the game:

- Use rocky climate to get better production
- Make sure to have more than one landmass for your empire (try to have them close to each other)
- Traderoute amounts are limited--the highest amount possible in the game would be of 8 routes (1 base, 1 currency, 1 cothon from Carthage, 2 from GLH in coastal cities, 1 from free market, 1 castle, 1 airport--the latest ones require avoiding the tech Corporations; which eliminates the GLH bonus in favor of 1 traderoute on each city, applied to all cities).
- Traderoute values are determined by the following factors: being foreign, being ultramarine/transcontinental, being at peace with the trade partners (just requires having open borders & not having war for a long time), commerce commerce multipliers (harbor, customs house; & indirectly the // multipliers). There is also a bonus for traderoutes connecting your cities with other players' capital cities; & remember to not open borders with someone that has Astronomy when you yourself don't have it.

 

[Woodreaux]

I've been paying a bit more attention to trade routes yields lately, gotta love Hannibal's UB. Here's what I noticed about them:

• They start off at 1 for a baseline, same continent domestic route.
• For each population population unit above 10, you gain .05 or .10 on top of that.
• Routes to cities on other land masses gain a nice bonus.
• Foreign routes also gain a significant bonus.
• Foreign routes' bonuses to specific civs grow with number of years of sustained peace.
• Specific buildings (harbor, customs house) also tack on bonus.

So most of the factors are sort capped, except population and years of sustained peace. I'm forget whether or not the population bonuses are 1 way or both ways.