is Morocco's UA a joke?

[chazzycat]

The fact that the bonuses don't apply to the trade route, but go directly into your empire-wide bucket, means they are not multiplied by anything. That means the HIGHEST bonus you get is just 8 culture a turn and 24 gold unless you get the trade route wonders. Even if you get Colossus and Petra that's a whole whopping 10 culture a turn and 30 gold. That's at the end of the game, when it's practically meaningless. And the kicker is, it requires you to work sub-optimal trade routes to get the bonuses. So the actual gain is even less than that.

Is the UI supposed to make up for this? The Kasbah is alright, situational, but not that high powered or anything. I feel like the best thing they have going for them is the start bias, which is kind of sad.

Am I missing something?

 

[Teholb]

*sigh*
Everyone hates on Morroco's UA, not understanding the real power behind it. The bonus to you is small, that's true. Ok, now consider this: A civ has a choice between sending a caravan between his capital and yours, or his capital and B civ. You're Morroco, though, so that's an easy choice for A civ. You give a higher GPT, and thus you get the opportunity. That's also bound to be + on King+. All of this snowballs into good bonuses if played correctly and early.

 

[PhilBowles]

The fact that the bonuses don't apply to the trade route, but go directly into your empire-wide bucket, means they are not multiplied by anything. That means the HIGHEST bonus you get is just 8 culture a turn and 24 gold unless you get the trade route wonders.

Foreign trade routes connecting to your cities count as well. So you can in principle have up to 20 culture (8 trade routes of your own, each to a different CS, and 12 civs each trading with you) and 60 gpt on standard maps.

I agree that the Moroccan UA isn't brilliant outside the earliest game stages, and perhaps on pangeas where you're relying on less lucrative caravan trade anyway, but it's a little better than you make out. Making use of it early is key; you'll get a better bonus (plus culture) than Portugal will for most of the game, and the culture boost at a time when it's relevant, and it kicks in earlier than Venice (who early in the game probably don't have enough trading partners, and who have to lay out 390 or 480 gold or equivalent par trade unit that will take 20 turns or more to make up its cost in the early game).

 

[Bad Wolf]

*sigh*
Everyone hates on Morroco's UA, not understanding the real power behind it. The bonus to you is small, that's true. Ok, now consider this: A civ has a choice between sending a caravan between his capital and yours, or his capital and B civ. You're Morroco, though, so that's an easy choice for A civ. You give a higher GPT, and thus you get the opportunity. That's also bound to be + on King+. All of this snowballs into good bonuses if played correctly and early.

This.

Have you ever checked how much money you're making from other trade routes being sent to your cities?

 

[chazzycat]

I mainly just kept getting annoyed every time I hovered over my overall culture and would see "Traits: +3" or some value ridiculously low compared to the rest of my output. At end game I was at 400 or so CPT...what is 8 compared to that.

Those "traits" bonuses never eclipsed 24 gold and 8 culture (didn't get the wonders). If I was getting bonuses for those trade routes from AI to me, then it was not being displayed in "traits".

It's possible I was reaping some good benefits from incoming trade routes, but I don't recall. I will check that out tonight, maybe that's what I was missing.

 

[Teholb]

The gold/culture is good in the early game, but I'm telling you, the main benefit is the early free science. When you start at 8 or 10, I don't recall off the top of my head, +1 is a lot. And considering that the amount of incoming trade routes is unlimited . . . you can really make a lot out of something that at first seems weak. All that free science gives you tech earlier, which allow you to reap their benefits sooner, and so on until you've got a nice tech lead over the AI if you've played your cards right. And, of course, if you had the fortune to have a major civ trading partner asap.

 

[iconocast]

its like the issue ppl had with Sweden in gnk. they couldn't understand how to work diplomacy and GG.
same with Morocco, early trade routes and the fact its motivation for other civs to not dow u if there getting a bonus to there trade income. not to mention the early culture is a boon.

 

[chazzycat]

The funny thing is I completely dominated that game as Morocco. Won by culture a few turns before I was about to win by diplo, emperor level.

I think, I just wasn't aware of the benefits I was getting because I didn't check the incoming trade routes screen very often.

 

[PhilBowles]

I mainly just kept getting annoyed every time I hovered over my overall culture and would see "Traits: +3" or some value ridiculously low compared to the rest of my output. At end game I was at 400 or so CPT...what is 8 compared to that.

Those "traits" bonuses never eclipsed 24 gold and 8 culture (didn't get the wonders). If I was getting bonuses for those trade routes from AI to me, then it was not being displayed in "traits".

It's possible I was reaping some good benefits from incoming trade routes, but I don't recall. I will check that out tonight, maybe that's what I was missing.

Count up the number of civs/CSes you have trade with in total, from all sources, and compare with the value you get in culture each turn.

Remember that the Moroccan bonus triggers once per CS or civ, not once per trade route -so if there are two trade routes with, say, Songhai (one of yours to them, and one of theirs to you), no second bonus. You just count the total number of civs + CSes involved. Obviously, since CSes won't set up trade routes, if all your routes are going to other civs, and you have no more than 8 civs in the game, you can't gain any extra bonus from incoming trade.

same with Morocco, early trade routes and the fact its motivation for other civs to not dow u if there getting a bonus to there trade income. not to mention the early culture is a boon.

The AI doesn't work that way. Trade routes have a fixed effect on the likelihood of a civ declaring war, it appears - the AI doesn't take into account whether it's trading with Morocco, or how much gold it's making from trade overall (if it did, wars would be a lot more common - trade income is usually a minority of the income of an established civ). Even civs that don't have open trade routes with me (or are even embargoed) have been reluctant to declare war in the past, so it may be that the AI's more passive behaviour is largely unrelated to trade altogether. I haven't noticed much effect of gold on where the AI chooses to trade, either - it will happily ignore cities with Petra or East India Company.

At the very least, you can't sell an AI on a diplomatic "bonus" that's unquantifiable and very possibly wholly imaginary.

 

[Tyrvos]

The buffs for your trade routes help most in the early game, with low gold it's extremely good tbh. Later, the fact others get more gold from trading with you means you are getting for gold from the trade routes you don't own as well. It's overall solid throughout the game.

 

[chazzycat]

I went back and loaded up a few saves from that game to double check the incoming trade routes. It didn't really ever seem to be much of a factor. I had a few routes most of the time, but didn't seem like more than average. I also had the largest coastal city on the map, for most of the game. Still it didn't seem like all the civs were flocking to me or anything.

@Tyrvos, you are right to some extent, +3 gold is more noticeable in the very early game. But you only have 2 trade routes for a long time, 6 gpt (1 lux sale) for a considerable investment does not a UA make.

 

[adwcta]

Desert start is nice, but slow, but ultimately powerful. Morocco's UA lets you compensate for that start with a large amount of + gold in the early game and + culture. It's not great or anything, but it's also not horrible.

Your 3 early game trade routes = +9 gold and +3 culture. And, if you're smart about it, you'll send it to places not sending trade routes to you, like CSs, or people who prefer to trade with others (for now), which could yield you much more. You cap out at 9 trade routes (let's say you miss Colossus on Deity) for 27 gold and 9 culture per turn, plus whatever civs trade with you. If all civs on a standard map trade with you in mid-late game (as they should if you played morocco right), that's 48 gold 16 culture per turn.

That's not as dominant as early game UA, but still decent. You have to manage it, and it's all very subtle.

(Kasbah is also highly underrated. You get +3 resources instead of +2, and it takes advantage of golden ages, and you get it well before +2 bonuses come for non-river tiles.)

 

[Matthew.]

No need to try and justify it, some UA's are strong throughout the entirety of the game, some are not. Morocco's UA fades out by end-game, simple as that.

The question is whether it is useful enough in the first part of the game to compensate. I'd say it is solid enough to put Morocco in the mid-tier group, but even played optimally it will never match some of the stronger UA's.

 

[chazzycat]

If all civs on a standard map trade with you in mid-late game (as they should if you played morocco right), that's 48 gold 16 culture per turn.

I'm pretty sure you don't get the bonuses for incoming trade routes...i loaded up my turn at the end of the game and only had 24/8

 

[Aristos]

The AI doesn't work that way. Trade routes have a fixed effect on the likelihood of a civ declaring war, it appears - the AI doesn't take into account whether it's trading with Morocco, or how much gold it's making from trade overall (if it did, wars would be a lot more common - trade income is usually a minority of the income of an established civ).

Not true. Careful with urban legends. Please go to the thread where it is being discussed now for details directly extracted from the code. With all the reactions and sentiments going on, the worst we can do is hearsay.

 

[Teholb]

The AI doesn't work that way. Trade routes have a fixed effect on the likelihood of a civ declaring war, it appears - the AI doesn't take into account whether it's trading with Morocco, or how much gold it's making from trade overall (if it did, wars would be a lot more common - trade income is usually a minority of the income of an established civ). Even civs that don't have open trade routes with me (or are even embargoed) have been reluctant to declare war in the past, so it may be that the AI's more passive behaviour is largely unrelated to trade altogether. I haven't noticed much effect of gold on where the AI chooses to trade, either - it will happily ignore cities with Petra or East India Company.

At the very least, you can't sell an AI on a diplomatic "bonus" that's unquantifiable and very possibly wholly imaginary.

Wrong
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=502647

In every game I've played as Morroco in BNW, I end up DOF'ing every civ (except the one or two majorly aggressive ones/those of differing ideology) and having massive trade. That thread I linked to has a lot of solid evidence supporting the theory that trade routes boost diplomatic relations.


People are seriously misunderstanding BNW and the reasons the AI behaves as it does. Seemed obvious to me from the very first game; now the snippets of code and the explanations posted in that thread support it with tangible evidence, not just anecdotes.

 

[Lyoncet]

I think this sheds a lot of light on the soft power of Morocco's UA:

viApproachWeights[] is a vector of weights defining how each AI will "approach" any other player... whatever is inside the brackets is the index of the vector, and there is an index for each of the possible approaches (WAR, HOSTILE, FRIENDLY, DECEPTIVE, etc). The diplomacy code is truly complex, and takes into account many different factors (and even more now with all the new systems). In the case of the piece of code being analyzed, MAJOR_CIV_APPROACH_WAR is the index that points to the "cell" of the vector that holds the weight of the "WAR" decision (approach); each of these weights is modified by many actions/situations/history/treaties/etcetcetc, and the modification is stored in the corresponding cell.

So, in this case, whenever the GPT of the AI is positive, and the GPT without the trade routes to that target is negative, then the weight for the approach WAR is reduced by that amount (summed but is a negative value according to the IF condition). In simple numbers, say the GPT of the AI is 100, and the total gold of the trade routes to/from the target is 120, then the weight for the WAR decision will be reduced by 20.

Everyone else is getting more out of their trade with Morocco (all else being equal), which also means they're a more likely target for trade routes which means the AI is even more reliant on staying at peace. While the AI is more of a pushover in BWN (largely because of trade routes), early war isn't unheard of, and Morocco seriously hedges its bets in terms of staying on the good side of its neighbors.

Although it would be nice if the GPT/CPT were just part of the base route so you could see them on the screen and so they'd be subject to multipliers. And now that I think about it, that part not being included may keep it from factoring into the AI's calculations on how much GPT they'll lose by losing the trade route.

 

[steveg700]

True, the bonus culture bonus is minimal. To the point of being an odd inclusion. Still, I'll take it.

 

[adwcta]

I'm pretty sure you don't get the bonuses for incoming trade routes...i loaded up my turn at the end of the game and only had 24/8

You do. You just only get it once per civ. So if you send a trade route, and they send a trade route, you only get the bonus once. Hence, you need to diversify to maximize the bonus (of course, it would be at the cost of even more gold... but presumably you pair it with Patronage and Freedom to get the CS bonuses for doing this).

 

[chazzycat]

ah, gotcha. Yeah I think I had the same incoming civs as my outgoing ones. But to change my outgoing ones to lesser city states in order to spread it out to the max, would have cost me more than 3 gold each. Even with patronage, which I did have, I would have lost money due to much smaller values from the CS routes. CS routes were worth about 10 gold less than major civ routes, at least in this game.