No way to defend sea trade routes

[Atwork]

I would only recommend internal trade, much safer and gives you a huge production and growth.

Whether to trade internally or externally depends on the circumstances. In my current game as Assyria, I have huge production and a good amount of gold, and I have the capacity to grow quickly, but I can't seem to scrounge up much surplus happiness. For nearly the entire game, I've limiting my surplus food as much as possible.

So, in this game, it would not help my situation whatsoever to trade domestically to build a large surplus of food in any of my cities. But, that is subject to change. Once I finally get circus maximus built and some zoos built, then maybe a domestic trade route or two will make sense.

As far as overseas routes, I prioritize trading with cities that my navy can keep an eye on. Luckily, I have a few great port cities that I can trade with, which are within reach of my scouting ships. And I have a small fleet that I can send in support, if need be.

 

[killmeplease]

you should control the aquatory not escorting an every cargo ship. especially playing as venice.
with great lighthouse and exploration opener your caravels would have a vast sight radius so you have to use only a few of them scouting the sea to spot any pirate
also pick trade routes so they're aligned, all the ships following the same path for the most of the distance. its possible because of how pathfinding works, when ships round landmasses.

 

[Calouste]

Lesson Learned: When playing Venice, be nice to England!

There's a reason Enrico Dandolo's intro refers to his cunning diplomacy. It's a hint.

 

[_invy_]

Well with venice you are supposed to dominate seas, have biggest and baddest navy so player is supposed to build one. And then place your ships everywhere your trade routes go. Venice certainly has gpt to support it.

 

[Morthis]

The ability to escort cargo ships would be nice but it won't happen. Path finding and 1UPT makes it impossible to implement.

Huh? Trade units don't even follow the 1UPT rule, not even as civilian, it's literally like they are not there. I don't think that on a technical level, there's a real issue to implementing this.

Personally I'd love to see the escort thing. It'd still be plenty possible to destroy trade routes, just destroy the escorting ship. Right now I just consider them lost in a war, I don't even bother trying to protect them. Even if you have vastly superior navy, ships move so fast (especially late game) that your cargo ships are gonna die anyway. All you'll accomplish is making your turns take twice as long trying to figure out where they all are and which ships are escorting which.

 

[fbass]

In my opinion, escort attachment would make trade route OP. My last game I played on "Small Continents" map and in late era, I receive 40-45 GPT per international routes (got 7 of them). What I see on the game was every Civ swarms their navy to protect the trade routes, so you see dozens of units on seas and oceans that otherwise empty. It makes the game more interesting..

What I would like to have is the option to build caravan/cargo ships even when your trade routes are full. Having to waste turns to build new ones after one got raided, in my opinion, sucks. One should be able to have them on reserve (maybe give maximum numbers).

Can we cancel trade routes btw? Or we need to wait until it expires? Cause there are times I want to change my trade relation after some leaders denounce me or preparing a sneak attack on me.

 

[attorneyatlol]

Huh? Trade units don't even follow the 1UPT rule, not even as civilian, it's literally like they are not there. I don't think that on a technical level, there's a real issue to implementing this.

The issue would be when you have a ship escorting your cargo ship and the cargo ship moves onto a tile with another ship on it already. Also, since you can establish trade routes into other civs without open borders, your ship won't always be able to follow your cargo ship.

 

[gunnergoz]

Not sure if it is possible to code this, but since trade routes are known and visible on the map, perhaps there could be a way to "assign" escort ships to them, to run patrols along that path. Ditto for land routes, where a speedy cavalry unit could run up and down the route to deter bandits and enemy looters. Modders, can this be done?

 

[Falconiano]

The OP is completely correct.
Economy made reliant on external trade routes is just bad design.

Just played a game where Greece is the runaway with 2000 score, I'm 2000 a well, others are 1000 or less.
He gobbled up all CSs and there is no way to trade at all.
He wins all WCs but that's not even the problem, I bribe everyone.
It's the fact I'm running with -100 gpt and science is impaired. Meh.

Water maps are hard, Pangea on the other hand is ridiculously easy.
Funny, considering it's the other way around in GK.

 

[Createk]

AI spam ships and manage ships better than a human player can,

I disagree here

 

[Randall_Flagg]

Do the people saying Venice should get alternate soucres of income know what Venices does? That is like saying Attila should be all about science and forget all about war.

That being said, I disagree they need to change anything. Risk vs Reward, big risk with shoddy protection on your routes.

 

[Cymsdale]

The OP is completely correct.
Economy made reliant on external trade routes is just bad design.

No it's not. If your economy is dependent on trade, you should have made more of an effort to protect the interests of your nation before things got out of hand.

 

[Deggial]

Not sure if it is possible to code this, but since trade routes are known and visible on the map, perhaps there could be a way to "assign" escort ships to them, to run patrols along that path. Ditto for land routes, where a speedy cavalry unit could run up and down the route to deter bandits and enemy looters. Modders, can this be done?

I think, this is a very good proposal and shouldn't get burried unnoticed!

To assign the "escort", just place the ship on a tile with one single (!) trade route and press the newly to be introduced 'patrol' button. As gunnergoz proposed, the assigned unit simply might follow the path, as long as said path is not interrupted by units or closed borders. If it is a unit, the patrolling unit might simply wait until next turn to continue it's movement. If it is a closed border, the unit will turn immediately and patrole only this section of the entire path. You will need another unit to controle the rest.

If it is not too compex to code, the escort behavior could be like this, too: The ship now moves alongside the route and tries to stay as close to the cargo ship as possible.
'As possible' means: as soon, as another military ship or closed cultural borders block it's way, the patroling ship stops it's movement until the next turn or until the guarded ship reaches it's position again when returning. It is NOT needed that the escort is on the same tile as the cargo ship at any time!

In both variants: If there is an enemy ship in sight, the player will be notified with an unique icon and my take controle over the patroling ship to fight the enemy.

I think, this is very comprehensible and shouldn't be impossible to code.

But please: not as a mod, but in the main program with the next patch.

 

[Falconiano]

No it's not. If your economy is dependent on trade, you should have made more of an effort to protect the interests of your nation before things got out of hand.

There is no such thing as "IF your economy is dependent on trade".
In BNW economy IS dependent on trade.
At least for domination victory.
If you just sit into a corner with 4 cities, 8 units just for defense and spamming RAs or culture/tourism/eating CSs then yeah, you might not need trading, and it's as easy as it gets.

But try covering half the map with a couple dozen cities, you'll see that you need to trade, even if all cities have the Stock Exchange and Trading Posts.
And then you can see the flaws of this system as well.

BNW is all about peaceful victories, conquering a big map while also relying on trade is just not viable in most cases.

 

[Cymsdale]

There is no such thing as "IF your economy is dependent on trade".
In BNW economy IS dependent on trade.

Sell buildings?
Pillage?
Plunder other civ's trade routes?
Barbarian camps?
Great merchants?
Coastal Raiders?
Honor finisher?

 

[killmeplease]

economy isnt dependent on trade. you still get gold from trade network connections and trading posts. and from industrial onwards trede route part of economy starts to decrease as you grow. theres still possible to win the game without external trade routes at all but its harder which makes perfect sense both from gameplay and realism perspective.

 

[Ulthwithian]

While the escort idea has merit, I don't think it will do a whole lot. A single unit will not do much to protect your interests against someone who DoWs you. It probably WILL protect you against Barbarians.

There's also the fact that if I can defend a 40gpt trade route with a 3-5gpt Naval unit... that's rather a no-brainer, isn't it?

 

[killmeplease]

But try covering half the map with a couple dozen cities, you'll see that you need to trade, even if all cities have the Stock Exchange and Trading Posts.

this is plain false
theres not much change to the basic economy geterally speaking, they just removed river gold and decreased stock exchange modifier a bit.

 

[Falconiano]

Sell buildings?
Pillage?
Plunder other civ's trade routes?
Barbarian camps?
Great merchants?
Coastal Raiders?
Honor finisher?

Even all those combine won't outweight -100 gpt.

this is plain false
theres not much change to the basic economy geterally speaking, they just removed river gold and decreased stock exchange modifier a bit.

And decreased market gold.
And removed coast gold.
And no lowered maintenance to compensate.

It'll be a few patches before economy is fixed, denying is useless. You -need- to trade if you conquer.

 

[Randall_Flagg]

Well I hope that if they wimp this down for those who need their hands held, that we can mod it back.