No way to defend sea trade routes

[HurricaneKnapp]

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



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.

Post-industrial gold from killing units with the Honor policy easily exceeds 100 gpt. There are also ways to lower maintenance costs. Your problem is you are still playing G&K in BNW. Try something new.

 

[Cymsdale]

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

If you are getting -100 gpt, it sounds like you need to disband a few units. There is such a thing as overkill.

 

[Scarpa]

I don't like the escort idea, you should have naval superiority to have safe sea trade, IMO.

Just got the game and started a Portugal/King/Continents game to try a naval trade empire and am looking forward to seeing how it works out, especially after reading this thread.

 

[dr.skeletor]

In my Venice game I had a 40 something GPT traderoute running through the ocean outside of Tokyo while Nobunaga and I were at war. However, I was trouncing Japan so badly they never ended up pillaging it (they did pillage some other route, but that was 1 route of 14 I had running at the time).

As some have mentioned before, the enemy has to be on your cargo ship and select pillage traderoute in order to destroy the route. An effective way for me to prevent this was to station caravels/destroyers on the outside of the routes to intercept incoming barbarians/enemy ships. I only needed about 3-4 extra ships to guard all of my routes (the extra movement from lighthouse and exploration plus the extra sight do wonders here).

 

[Civsassin]

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

This is patently false. The game has been out for a week, and we are making absolute statements after, what, 3-4 games. International trade routes are your primary source of income in the early game. Later in the game, your economy should be based on more than international trade routes. If international trade is the only way you are making gold, and you want to win via domination, your strategy is flawed.

 

[Muskie]

War is not a viable option any longer.There is literally no incentive for a player to go for war mongering, especially in a water-dominated map.

AI spam ships and manage ships better than a human player can, such that the instant a war is declared, you can expect all of your trade routes to be ripped apart.

You can argue "well historically trade routes were the first to go in a time of war." Yes maybe that's true, but "historically" trade routes were important units to protect for this reason. Given the current game mechanics, I've sat frigates on top of my cargo ships but somehow the enemy still destroy my trade routes. The fact that my cargo ships have no vision also limits my ability to save them or protect them.

Given how exposed trade routes are, especially to an enemy AI's navy, there needs to be some way to defend trade ships. If trade ships don't get the option to flee (like workers do when barbarians come by), then there should at least be an option to attach a military escort over the trade ship to ensure its security.

As it stands right now I can expect 0 income from trade routes the instant a war is declared (particularly crippling as I'm playing Venice). This puts me in a tough corner, since on the world stage in the game I'm playing right now I'm behind technologically, diplomatically, and culturally. Military is the only forte my civ carries right now, but I can't fund a military if England's caravels destroy my trade routes left and right without any way for me to defend them.

First of all don't piss off your neighbors so much they suddenly declare war on you with no warning. Secondly choose less valuable but easier to defend trade routes. Thirdly, build a bigger navy and have them sitting around on alert along the trade route to intimidate.

In Alpha Centauri you could set a unit to patrol and it would follow a path. I was never a big user of that feature but I know people and the AI used it to patrol their borders for alien incursions.

The other option you have is spies. I use my spies to defend, to influence City States and to serve as diplomats, but the AI spies on me and regularly spies on each other, they get intell that so and so is building up forces to attack. If you're so worried about being attacked by some AI Civilization spy on them.

I also think if protecting trade routes is your primary concern you need to choose your Civilization and unit upgrades with more care. There is a unit upgrade for both land and sea units allowing them to see further, I always liked giving that to one or two units if possible. Air units can have increased range, this is something I always take with my interceptors. Alas I don't think air units set to intercept would automatically intercede to defend trade caravans or cargo ships from a land or sea attack.

Perhaps Firaxis will introduce a feature like patrol or escort, but in the mean time I think you have to be a better neighbor, not expand so much, help out the other Civs when they ask for it, sign some friendship agreements or if you're really concerned about being attacked out of the blue, sign some mutual defence pacts.

It isn't rocket surgery, adapt, evolve, overcome.

 

[dr.skeletor]

I was definitely making a lot of gold off of standard methods (selling luxuries,working tiles, puppets, etc.) but the vast majority of my gold was from trade routes. My worst routes by endgame were something like 28 gpt. My best one was for 41 gpt I think. If you ignore trade you are not going to be able to keep up, especially since I was in a game with Morocco and Portugal. With routes raking in that much gpt, you can easily spare ships to act as sentries with gold to spare.

I know this is a game, but in real life there has always been huge problems with unguarded trade routes being plundered. You had privateers in the Age of Exploration and U-boats during the World Wars. The ocean is so valuable now that I've actually positioned ships in it so that, in a way, it's an extension of my territory. This is the first time in a Civ (III and IV included) game I have thought of the ocean of anything other than "blue mountains" pre-astronomy and "10 turns before I get to kill Russia" post-astronomy.

 

[Chilly5]

1. Economy is VERY much based on trade. I ended up winning that Venice game by Diplomatic victory (ironic...I killed every other civ except the Iroquois, who I began nuking. Me and the 4 city states left that I didnt Merchant-of-Venice voted me for the "peaceful, diplomatic, victor").
Throughout the game I was funded by my neighbor Hiawatha, who was 1st place in military, score, culture and wonders all game. By the end of the game I had 18 trade routes running through his place and was making 1200 gold each turn.
The instant I pressed the button "declare war on Hiawatha," 15 of my trade ships were instantly destroyed. This is something I do not understand...they died during MY turn, it wasn't even possible for Hiawatha to control his units to kill my ships, it happened the moment that I declaration-of-war'd.
Point is, when I did so I went from making 1200 gold per turn to 300 gold per turn. Even transferring/making new ships to trade with friendly city states could not bring me past 700 (luckily by that point in the game I was floating 40k gold and didn't care what happened. This was Emperor, standard size, standard speed btw).
International trade IS a must in this game now.

2. It is not a balance mechanic problem, its a game mechanic problem. It's just poor design to create economy units that are unprotectable.
- Let them have vision
- Let them be directly controllable
- At least let us see their tile path in the coming turn when we select them (so we can make a unit follow them reasonably, instead of guesswork.)
- What's the point of showing trade route paths anyway if there's no way to defend them? It's actually pointless! It might as well be invisible just like the road system connection works. The fact that we can see trade routes shows that this is just lazy design implementation. If we can see the route paths, we should be meant to be able to defend them...then give us the ability to defend them!
- Allow us to draw/adjust the route ourselves so the ships don't needlessly run through enemy territory (longer distances would subtract gold earn, so in general it's best to go the shortest route possible)
- Give the ships health so a Modern Cargo Ship doesn't get destroyed by a Trireme that Alexander left isolated halfway across the world.
- Give us an option to see all enemy trade routes (at the least enemy trade routes in a city if we have a spy in the city). Currently the AI has advantage in naval warfare because the AI automatically knows where all of your trade routes are, whereas the player cannot see traderoute paths unless he sees the tradeship itself.
- Is it possible to retract trade vessels? I noticed that when I declare war on an AI, all of their cargoships harbour up in their cities. I never noticed an option for me to do the same. We should be able to retract trade vessels, or choose to cancel trade mission any time the unit is in our city.
- At the least allow us to attach military escorts.

My idea:
Open borders should be available at Writing. International trade should require open borders. Caravans and Cargo ships now give 1 tile of vision around them. You can attach a military escort to a caravan by moving a military unit onto a caravan and selecting "Escort trade," whereby it will follow the trade route.
What this means - Just like in history where trade routes were more than just a spread of commodities...but a spread of information, now trade routes give more visibility to the map (which has always been a problem in civ5 in my opinion. the lack of visibility is just stupid. if Im trading with a neighbor why shouldn't I be able to see what's going on over there?). Requiring open borders means you need to have at least passable relations with a civ to instigate trade. It's stupid for me to see Ethiopia denouncing me, hostile to me, angry at me in every way, but openly trading with me simply because I decided I wanted to send a trade ship to Addis Ababa. Open borders also means it's more okay to allow vision, and it allows military escorts to follow the trade vessel efficiently.

 

[Scarpa]

The ocean is so valuable now that I've actually positioned ships in it so that, in a way, it's an extension of my territory. This is the first time in a Civ (III and IV included) game I have thought of the ocean of anything other than "blue mountains" pre-astronomy and "10 turns before I get to kill Russia" post-astronomy.

This is exactly why I started a Portugal game. I love the naval aspect of this game but the AI is so stupid it's really quite stale once you get a single task force together to hunt down everything else. I really hope the trade system provides a solid reason to attain and defend naval territory.

 

[Cymsdale]

Sounds like people want to be able to have their cake and eat it too.

 

[Chilly5]

First of all don't piss off your neighbors so much they suddenly declare war on you with no warning. Secondly choose less valuable but easier to defend trade routes. Thirdly, build a bigger navy and have them sitting around on alert along the trade route to intimidate.

In Alpha Centauri you could set a unit to patrol and it would follow a path. I was never a big user of that feature but I know people and the AI used it to patrol their borders for alien incursions.

The other option you have is spies. I use my spies to defend, to influence City States and to serve as diplomats, but the AI spies on me and regularly spies on each other, they get intell that so and so is building up forces to attack. If you're so worried about being attacked by some AI Civilization spy on them.

I also think if protecting trade routes is your primary concern you need to choose your Civilization and unit upgrades with more care. There is a unit upgrade for both land and sea units allowing them to see further, I always liked giving that to one or two units if possible. Air units can have increased range, this is something I always take with my interceptors. Alas I don't think air units set to intercept would automatically intercede to defend trade caravans or cargo ships from a land or sea attack.

Perhaps Firaxis will introduce a feature like patrol or escort, but in the mean time I think you have to be a better neighbor, not expand so much, help out the other Civs when they ask for it, sign some friendship agreements or if you're really concerned about being attacked out of the blue, sign some mutual defence pacts.

It isn't rocket surgery, adapt, evolve, overcome.

This is not an instance of my inability, but an instance of bad game design.
They were not declaring war on me, I was declaring war on them.
I had the strongest navy in the game. Towards the end I **** you not I was sitting on ~30 battle ships ~15 submarines ~10 cruisers and ~4 great admirals.
The problem was not my navy.
It was the unwieldiness of trade ships.
I cannot see where they go. I cannot select where they are. I cannot see their immediate vicinity.

I wasn't losing trade ships because the enemy out-navy'd me.
I was losing trade ships because the instant I declared war on the opponent, random isolated triremes from their exploring days somehow happened to be on the path of the trade route, and instantly destroys my trade routes. This happens during MY turn, when I declare war. It's instant, the AI doesn't even get to move, my ships just die.
As it stands it's NOT POSSIBLE to defend your trade routes. Which is inherent poor design, as they are quite the investment (especially early game).
All I'm asking is to allow some feasible way to better manage/defend the trade routes.

 

[lankypeter]

Or you have to time your war and pre-plan for it to include trade. I make sure when I am planning to declare that I will move trade routes out of their territory in advance of the declaration. And, as you start to declare war, the game warns you what you will lose in terms of trade routes and says you will lose them immediately. I understand not liking the mechanics, but it states exactly what will happen when you declare war - trade routes will die. I don't like the escort idea. We still have pirates in the world - governments don't protect cargo ships now in real life, why would they in game.

 

[crdvis16]

http://civilization.wikia.com/wiki/International_trade_route_(Civ5)

Read the part about plundering. You can plunder from ANY point on the path. The location of the cargo ship or caravan is irrelevant.

 

[Chilly5]

Or you have to time your war and pre-plan for it to include trade. I make sure when I am planning to declare that I will move trade routes out of their territory in advance of the declaration. And, as you start to declare war, the game warns you what you will lose in terms of trade routes and says you will lose them immediately. I understand not liking the mechanics, but it states exactly what will happen when you declare war - trade routes will die. I don't like the escort idea. We still have pirates in the world - governments don't protect cargo ships now in real life, why would they in game.

Governments do protect cargo ships.
Maybe today it's not so much a big deal, but you should be able to compare today to peacetime in Civ-terms, some barbarian pirates are hardly worth holding up a patrolling navy over.
Now think back to the British empire and the various trading companies. Hell the East India company was militant in it's own right! There was a lot of war and high-seas danger back then, and military escorts were a common sight.

It's my misunderstanding about trade routes dying when you declare war then. Is it possible to retract trade ships prior to war?

While this helps clears up things, it does not take away the grievances I have about the limited systems put into the game to protect your trade routes.
It's not a matter of me not preparing. No amount of preparing allows me to see all of the dark corners of the map to catch the two galleasses sitting on the opposite side of the world.
They should be allowed to raid, but I should also be allowed to protect.

http://civilization.wikia.com/wiki/International_trade_route_(Civ5)

Read the part about plundering. You can plunder from ANY point on the path. The location of the cargo ship or caravan is irrelevant.

My misunderstanding then. I made a thread about it and people told me you had to be on the ship. What's the point of the ship graphic then?
Are you sure this is the case? Because this changes everything. This means trade routes are by nature non protectable, which means there is actually NO reason to EVER go to war with another faction, especially over water (as in, you are militant and you are strong enough, and have the option to defeat a weaker enemy...you would never choose to wage war, as their random galleys will cut away 70% of your profits with no stopping them)

 

[Philosophia]

I find that it's pretty awesome that war can be disastrous for the economy now.

It's annoying to have the trade routes pillaged so easily because it's such a big part of keeping up in gold. Also, I find that wars in history have usually been beneficial to the economy. Think of World War I and how it, partly, created a huge influx of money in the 1920s through a large amount of jobs. Again in World War II when the United States became a leader in the world's economy because of how much production was needed and thus more jobs. I think that, yes, there should be some consequence to going to war and that consequence should discourage the player from being at war all game. However, I don't think the player should have no way, or rather not have an adequate way of preventing key sources of money from being ruined because this just wasn't the case in real life to my knowledge.

 

[EEE_BOY]

Even as Venice, trade routes should be spread out, and both land and sea to different civs.

I think the initial dow does more psychological damage than its real economic hit, late game ships and caravans are cheap, you can quickly stablize your economy. Unless all your opponents decided to dow you, which only happens in mp.

 

[Scarpa]

or rather not have an adequate way of preventing key sources of money from being ruined because this just wasn't the case in real life to my knowledge.

Germany nearly won WWII via U-boats alone, the Allies were severely crippled and were losing massive amounts of cargo until Hitler yanked the rug out from under Doenitz.

I don't want to get crazy off topic but 'escorts' historically have done very little to prevent trade losses and there are many, many instances of sea trade having dramatic effects on the outcome of war.

 

[Adjuvant]

I like the way it is. It reminds me specifically of the "uboat menace" situation before and during world war 2, but really this happened in all eras.

Look at the golden age of piracy from the mid 16th century to about the mid 18th century. Warring European countries would give letters of marque to civilian ships granting them license to attack opponent trade interests at will. There were famous privateers and some have become "household names" like Captain Henry Morgan. Spain had an insane income from the new world, but they needed it to fund war interests. Consistent crushing of their treasure fleet trade routes caused dire repercussions economically and socially.

 

[rexman07]

I agree that protecting sea trade routes right now just isn't fun.

I'm in a game as the Ottomans, where I built the Great Lighthouse, used my first Trireme to capture a barbarian Galley (which I then sailed home and upgraded), and then captured a third one. I had these three ships patrolling my coasts to protect my two sea routes. Yet I STILL lost two naval sea routes to barbarian Galleys that somehow snuck through the cracks!

So, maybe I did a poor job distributing my boats or whatever to protect my trade routes. That's fair. I'm new to the expansion.

But that's missing the point.

Having to protect my trade routes against unseen, unpredictable, potential threats -- EVERY TURN -- is not FUN! It's far, FAR too fiddly. We're talking about spending, maybe, an hour of my life over the course of a full game just on positioning my units to guard against barbarian spawning or declarations of war that never came.

I consider it cheating to just reload from a recent autosave whenever something bad happens to you. But with the current implementation of naval trade routes, I'm tempted to just park my Caravels in my cities, and then if one of them gets randomly plundered, I'll reload and send out the Caravel to guard it.

That's why so many people like the idea of a "patrol this trade route" option. It would remove some of the tedium.

 

[Ulthwithian]

If you're a warmonger, and you want to protect your naval trade routes, there are two points to consider:

1) Do not trade with people you are about to go to war with. If that means you have no one to trade with, I believe this becomes classified as a 'First World Problem'.

2) Prioritize destroying your enemy's navy over taking their cities.

As the aggressor, you have the strategic advantage. Don't waste it.