International trade routes are way better than domestic trade routes!!

[Iberian]

International trade routes? Hard to complete trade routes to nations I am setting ablaze.

I agree though the gold bonus is insane, especially for late game overseas routes.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

Depends on what your objective is.

Very few wonders in the game, if any, speed up your victory times. Doesn't mean you shouldn't build them if you have fun doing so, but every extra wonder you build is pretty much guaranteed to delay your victory relative to using that production on other things. If you divert international trade routes to domestic trade routes, the delay is even greater, as now you're giving up science, culture, faith, and gold on top of the cost of the production itself.

Just in general, if your economy is built around producing things, instead of buying them, everything is going to take longer. Running domestic routes to get more production delays things even more. Again, doesn't mean you shouldn't do it. Growing big cities and building lots of wonders can be great fun, in and of itself!

Well, I usually do build a few wonders like the Hermitage and Broadway for the extra great works slots when I am going for a culture victory. But I will chop and use a Great Person to rush the wonder quickly rather than use domestic trade routes.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

The fact that foreign routes are better usually leads me to only have a few of them; enough for a comfortable economy. The rest of my traders I use domestically to grow young cities or to support wonder construction.

 

[Sagax]

Still sticking to internal routes. for wonder-hoarding purposes. That is, until I unlock Wisselbanken and Democracy and never look back.

 

[Socrates99]

I don't see any domestic route beating wisselbanken+arsenal of democracy. That's +6 production, plus whatever the target city gives depending on it's districts.

I don't always have that option at the end. Usually I wind up being a pretty bad boy.

 

[Archon_Wing]

International Routes have always been better. Internal routes can be good for poor land, and early game when it's harder to defend the trade route. Also good if your start lacks food. (say you're Russia). But external trade routes can pull in science and culture.

I have no idea why internal routes became such a meme. To me it's in the same league as the archery beeline. A very outdated meta that still works, but the game has changed since, so.... I mean we all know that the game favors wide and food is the least important yield, so that's half your trade route going to waste.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

International Routes have always been better. Internal routes can be good for poor land, and early game when it's harder to defend the trade route. Also good if your start lacks food. (say you're Russia). But external trade routes can pull in science and culture.

I have no idea why internal routes became such a meme. To me it's in the same league as the archery beeline. A very outdated meta that still works, but the game has changed since, so.... I mean we all know that the game favors wide and food is the least important yield, so that's half your trade route going to waste.

Wouldn't you like it to be a tougher decision though?

 

[Archon_Wing]

Wouldn't you like it to be a tougher decision though?

Yea. But you could argue international routes carry higher risk too and thus should be better.