magicalsushi
Prince
I can think of four reasons for opening borders: diplomatic bonuses, spreading religions/corporations, moving troops through rival territory, and getting foreign trade routes. This thread is mostly about the trade routes.
I usually open borders with as many civs as I can get away with - I'll open them to anyone if it's not going to cause someone else to get upset, or provide a nearby rival a route to unclaimed territory. As a result, I tend to get some pretty juicy foreign trade routes (which is one of the main reasons I open my borders).
It's occurred to me, though...I only have a finite number of available trade routes, but I have open borders to far more cities than that. Let's suppose I have 8 cities and currency (hence 2 trade routes per city), for a total of 16 trade routes. Now imagine I have open borders to 5 civs with 8 cities each. That's 40 available trade routes, but I can only use 16 of them at most. The question is, does that mean my rivals only get 16 trade routes from me in total, between all 5 of the other civs, or does *each* rival get one trade route per each of my cities?
People on these forums seem to give conflicting advice about the topic, but I suspect the latter description is correct. If so, surely this means I should minimise the number of civs I open borders to? In the scenario above, I only "need" open borders to 2 rival civs. Any further open borders will give me marginal benefits at best (a slight possibility of a small increase in trade route revenue in a city or two, but no actual extra routes), but they will potentially give big benefits to some of my rivals.
Is it still worth maintaining many open borders (assuming they don't cause diplomatic problems)? Do the diplomatic bonuses and very slight additional trade route revenue make up for having more open borders agreements than I would "need" to get foreign trade routes into all of my cities? Or is the vast potential benefit to rival civs too great to make this worthwhile? Let's assume I'm not worried about moving troops through rival territory or spreading religions.
I usually open borders with as many civs as I can get away with - I'll open them to anyone if it's not going to cause someone else to get upset, or provide a nearby rival a route to unclaimed territory. As a result, I tend to get some pretty juicy foreign trade routes (which is one of the main reasons I open my borders).
It's occurred to me, though...I only have a finite number of available trade routes, but I have open borders to far more cities than that. Let's suppose I have 8 cities and currency (hence 2 trade routes per city), for a total of 16 trade routes. Now imagine I have open borders to 5 civs with 8 cities each. That's 40 available trade routes, but I can only use 16 of them at most. The question is, does that mean my rivals only get 16 trade routes from me in total, between all 5 of the other civs, or does *each* rival get one trade route per each of my cities?
People on these forums seem to give conflicting advice about the topic, but I suspect the latter description is correct. If so, surely this means I should minimise the number of civs I open borders to? In the scenario above, I only "need" open borders to 2 rival civs. Any further open borders will give me marginal benefits at best (a slight possibility of a small increase in trade route revenue in a city or two, but no actual extra routes), but they will potentially give big benefits to some of my rivals.
Is it still worth maintaining many open borders (assuming they don't cause diplomatic problems)? Do the diplomatic bonuses and very slight additional trade route revenue make up for having more open borders agreements than I would "need" to get foreign trade routes into all of my cities? Or is the vast potential benefit to rival civs too great to make this worthwhile? Let's assume I'm not worried about moving troops through rival territory or spreading religions.
