Internal vs. External Trade Route Yield Mix

[pineappledan]

I posted this earlier in the 01-15 patch notes:

The more I think about it the more I'm at a loss for what to do about this problem with how Culture works, with respect to TRs.

External Trade Routes (ETRs) Generate // for you, and are a stable source of and throughout the game, both from the lag mechanic and from CS trade routes. Throughout the game, ETRs become more and more important for their output as well. They give massive amounts of on completion, and provide a steady 10-20% modifier to all sources of against the target civ. You can also further augment ETRs to generate with City-States.So really, you could say that ETRs are /// and sometimes .
Internal Trade Routes (ITRs) Generate / in large quantities, but nothing else. A new mechanic has just been added for ITRs to play with, and it's just more /

One of the problems with balancing ITRs vs ETRs is that ETRs provide 2x the different Types of yields than ITRs. Furthermore, 2 of those yields feed directly into 2 different Victories, and indirectly feed into a third:
You can think of Science victory as just filling a massive bucket
Cultural victory is filling a constantly growing bucket.
Diplomatic victory requires constantly filling 12-20 small buckets simultaneouslyITRs then come with a severe opportunity cost if you hope to go for 1 of these 3 possible victories.

Science victory is most easily stopped via conquest, a VC most easily achieved via strong industries for unit output. You can therefore see ITRs as a counterbalance to the potential of ETRs to push a Science Victory.
Diplomatic victories are most easily stopped simply by destroying other people's TRs. this keeps them from filling those buckets too easily/cheaply.
Cultural victory, Paradoxically, requires defensive generation in order to counter enemy production. Both of these yield types are found on the same Trade Route type: ETRs. So you need to counter a CV using your own ETRs, even if you aren't going for a CV yourself.

IRL this doesn't make much sense, because cultural mixing through trade, though productive in generating new ideas, does not lead to what we want: cultural resilience, which is what could more accurately be thought of. This was attempted with the old Japanese Sakoku ability, but it wasn't fun to play against because A) it limited player options and was too subtle and late-game for a decent UA, and B) the UA seemed to push ITRs indirectly, but didn't actually boost ITRs in any way and ITRs were much weaker than they are now.

As a result, I think something should be done to add some generation to ITRs. It won't do to keep buffing ITRs with yields if they don't offer counterplay options against Cultural victory.

Then G said:

It's something to consider, yes - I've actually (gasp) thought about moving culture off of ETR and onto ITR, and making ITR produce per-turn Tourism instead. Could probably even (double gasp!) remove the end-of-route bump of tourism for ETR, or just reduce it a bit, to counterbalance this. This is all very rough, never went through with it because it's a bit trickier than swapping yields.

So let's discuss. How might Culture be dealt with in External and Internal Trade Routes, so that they might make ITRs a viable counterplay option against a civ going for a CV?

 

[phantomaxl1207]

ITR's getting Culture would help them fuel new Cities faster. How soon will the Culture kick in? Would ETR's gain another Yield in exchange of losing ?

Is there any need or desire to change the Ottomans' UA, as their UA triggers on TR completion with these new mechanics? Other TR UA's are per Turn.

I am surprised that no later game Buildings provide on finishing a ETR.

What if, having higher levels of Influence reduced opposing Player Influence? Say both Players having Popular with one-another will give them less Influence than a Popular to an Exotic Influence.

 

[pineappledan]

I don’t necessarily think that should be eliminated from ETRs, but maybe the amount from policy leaders could be harshly reduced, maybe only 1 per policy lead. The from CS ETRs could be cut by half IMO

To compensate, ITRs could gain a either a flat 2 to destination city, or more buildings could be added to YieldsOnITR. Maybe 25 on ITR for Customs House and 50 on Stock Exchange?

Mendicancy could be changed to 22 on ITRs, scaling with Era, and swap the flat 2 on cities to a different yield

 

[Minh Le]

I think you guys are undervaluing ITRs. In my recent games I used them a lot and they are the thing that carried me, not ETRs, only use 2 or 3 to the culture leader. I tried using ITRs with Medicancy/Fealty; Statecraft/Industry; Industry/Order. All of these combinations give really good yield on ITRs and each ITR worths more than 10 of my citizens working food tiles. That's huge.
Give culture to ITRs then I dont see any reason to use ETR anymore .

 

[Stalker0]

My main concern with weakening ETRs is that high level players rely on them as a rubberband mechanic, allowing players to keep up somewhat with AI bonuses through the extra bonuses they receive. This also allows lesser civs to catchup to the big boys a bit.

If we weaken ETRs we weaken that mechanic. Now if the diety players want the game to be even harder that is one way to do it, or this could be done in conjunction with a slight reduction to the AI handicap.

Overall, I don't feel ITRs need to be equivalent to ETRs all the time...as long as they have a niche. Right now they are decent early on (especially for starting cities), but tend to fall in usefulness pretty quickly once infrastructure is established. So if we can stretch that niche a bit, that would be enough for me.

The fact that CV play relies a lot on ETRs is not a critical concern for me.

G also mentioned going back to some static bonuses for tourism instead of just a big lump sum. I'm all for that, I like the steadier pace myself, its easier to see how your doing than when everything comes in giant bombs.

 

[Minh Le]

Even going for CV, 2 or 3 TRs to the culture leader are enough (or you wont be able to win CV). ITRs are more valuable to feed cities to work culture specialists.

 

[chicorbeef]

Internal Routes are buffed with Mendicancy and Fealty. I think it's enough.

External routes are supposed to be valuable. It makes much more sense that trading with your neighbours is profitable. It creates good interactions and catchup mechanics in the game. It makes sense that using exclusively internal routes would be weaker than a mix. If we give Culture to Internals I think we'll swing too far in the wrong direction.

I think the two are balanced right now, especially with the new bursts of Production/Food.

 

[CrazyG]

The purpose of internal trade routes is to develop cities, right? I think it should stay that way and only give food/production. Its elegant design to have internal routes give local yields, and international routes give the empire wide yields.

 

[pineappledan]

My objective wasn't to necessarily buff ITRs and weaken ETRs with this discussion. I wanted to discuss changing the yield "mix" on ITRs/ETRs.

ETRs provide 4 different yields, whereas ITRs provide 2, and only ever provide them 1 at a time. Even if ITRs have very good yields for those 2 yields, it's still limiting that an ETR can be contributing all 4 types of yields at once.
The other problem is that 2 of ETR's yields, and contribute directly to a victory condition, while ITR's /, do not. The strong infrastructure provided by ITRs can be valuable enough on its own, but if you're focused on a cultural or science victory, then it's hard to pass up a source of those yields in favor of slightly better infrastructure which can indirectly contribute to those ends.

If Culture is reduced, removed from ETRs, it would be more than fair to increase Gold and Science, and maybe even add back some benefits to Tourism. Likewise, if we added Culture to ITRs, I think we could relax the overall yield output to make room, so to speak.

The purpose of internal trade routes is to develop cities, right? I think it should stay that way and only give food/production. Its elegant design to have internal routes give local yields, and international routes give the empire wide yields.

Wouldn't adding some to ITRs count as developing cities? Culture IS a local yield. It can take a while to get borders growing quickly to grab the resources for that city.

 

[Minh Le]

My objective wasn't to necessarily buff ITRs and weaken ETRs with this discussion. I wanted to discuss changing the yield "mix" on ITRs/ETRs.

ETRs provide 4 different yields, whereas ITRs provide 2, and only ever provide them 1 at a time. Even if ITRs have very good yields for those 2 yields, it's still limiting that an ETR can be contributing all 4 types of yields at once.
The other problem is that 2 of ETR's yields, and contribute directly to a victory condition, while ITR's /, do not. The strong infrastructure provided by ITRs can be valuable enough on its own, but if you're focused on a cultural or science victory, then it's hard to pass up a source of those yields in favor of slightly better infrastructure which can indirectly contribute to those ends.

If Culture is reduced, removed from ETRs, it would be more than fair to increase Gold and Science, and maybe even add back some benefits to Tourism. Likewise, if we added Culture to ITRs, I think we could relax the overall yield output to make room, so to speak.

Wouldn't adding some to ITRs count as developing cities? Culture IS a local yield. It can take a while to get borders growing quickly to grab the resources for that city.

Food TRs to a city allow it to work more culture/science specialists so they actually contribute to any kind of victory condition. ETRs Science/Culture only worth if youre behind, or to ally city states. If youre still behind in Renaissance, this game probably lost already, and you wont have that many of ally city states to trade with, and even if I have plenty of CS ally, I still find that food TR to my cities are more valuable.

 

[Stalker0]

Food TRs to a city allow it to work more culture/science specialists so they actually contribute to any kind of victory condition. ETRs Science/Culture only worth if youre behind, or to ally city states. If youre still behind in Renaissance, this game probably lost already, and you wont have that many of ally city states to trade with, and even if I have plenty of CS ally, I still find that food TR to my cities are more valuable.

I think this is a bit of a false premise, especially with culture specialists. I can usually work all of my guilds without issue, even without ITRs.

 

[pineappledan]

Food TRs to a city allow it to work more culture/science specialists so they actually contribute to any kind of victory condition. ETRs Science/Culture only worth if youre behind, or to ally city states. If youre still behind in Renaissance, this game probably lost already, and you wont have that many of ally city states to trade with, and even if I have plenty of CS ally, I still find that food TR to my cities are more valuable.

Yes, hence why I said direct vs indirect contributions to those victory conditions. Merely explaining back to me what those indirect contributions are isn't really making an argument.

 

[CrazyG]

Wouldn't adding some to ITRs count as developing cities? Culture IS a local yield. It can take a while to get borders growing quickly to grab the resources for that city.

I still wouldn't consider culture a local yield. If you need more tiles, buy them. If you need gold, get an external trade route.

I agree that the link between tourism and external routes can be.....strange? I'm not sure what the word is, but I'm not a fan of ETR being too important in cultural victories.

Trade routes provide science when you are behind in tech, which if you are going for a spaceship victory, isn't very likely. I don't think their science very much contributes much to a scientific victory.

 

[Bromar1]

Wouldn't adding some to ITRs count as developing cities? Culture IS a local yield. It can take a while to get borders growing quickly to grab the resources for that city.

I don't know if this is possible but what about +25% border growth to cities receiving ITR? This would help infrastructure without inflating yields

 

[Stalker0]

Trade routes provide science when you are behind in tech, which if you are going for a spaceship victory, isn't very likely. I don't think their science very much contributes much to a scientific victory.

I think it does early on. Often you are behind the AI as you build up your infrastructure, and use the rubber band of trade routes (and spies) to get tech parity and then can move ahead. Late game I don't get much science from ETRs, but for a good portion of the game you do.

 

[CrazyG]

I think it does early on. Often you are behind the AI as you build up your infrastructure, and use the rubber band of trade routes (and spies) to get tech parity and then can move ahead. Late game I don't get much science from ETRs, but for a good portion of the game you do.

I do pick up science from trade routes early in the game, even as Korea, but I've never had the thought "I'm trying to win by science, therefore I should do a ETR instead of an ITR". If we are talking about the science victory itself, we are talking about late game science, and its not significant.