Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[Ben E Gas]

yeah, I rushed thru trying to see as much as I could. Tried to get to wars faster. But I realized I was missing much of the game & I wasn't very effective at war by doing that. I haven't even seen all of the wonders videos. At first I was a little disapointed in them, but I'm beginning to like them.

 

[Lord Parkin]

Does anyone have a formula to calculate how much money trade routes will make, and which cities they will go to? From my limited experience, I have noticed the following basic rules:
- Foreign trade routes are far more profitable than national ones
- Longer trade routes gather more income than short ones
- Larger cities get more money from trade routes than smaller ones
- The largest cities tend to link their trade routes together with each other to maximise income for their respective civs
- Larger cities get preference on the "best" trade routes
- Smaller cities get the "leftovers"

Is there a proper mathematical formula around somewhere, though? Or at least, are there other factors which I haven't noticed? (For instance, do trade routes over an ocean get more money than trade routes over an equal tile distance of land?)

Thanks in advance.

EDIT - Also: I've noticed that since Warlords 2.08, the AI workers are much improved (thanks to Blake's AI mod, right?). One curious thing I've noticed though is that sometime in the late industrial age (shortly after biology), all the workers start converting practically every single town into a farm, resulting in an extremely large population boom in all their cities. However, this appears to stifle their research (at least, they go from being previously quite competitive to lagging way behind me). Is there a sensible reason for this action? I've noticed that the AI also start mass-building military units at this time (although they don't seem to use them much), so perhaps the extra population is intended to lower support costs (allowing more free units)? Or maybe to increase trade route yields? (Though I doubt that'd make up for the lost income of the towns.) I don't know for sure though.

 

[a4phantom]

I'd noticed that AI cities surpass mine in population late game, while I surge ahead in scientific research. Didn't realize it was because they plowed over towns for farms. Emminent domain run amok?

 

[OscarWildebeest]

Lord P's question reminded me of one of my own.

If I get a Great Merchant, do I get more money if I place his trade mission in a foreign capital? Or is it just distance from my capital that makes the difference, rather than the size/status of the destination city?

 

[Sisiutil]

Lord P's question reminded me of one of my own.

If I get a Great Merchant, do I get more money if I place his trade mission in a foreign capital? Or is it just distance from my capital that makes the difference, rather than the size/status of the destination city?

I believe it's a mix of those things: distance from your capital and size of the city seem to be the key factors.

I've never even checked to see what a GM would bring in for a domestic city. Since foreign trade routes are more lucrative, I should imagine a foreign trade mission is too.

 

[Welnic]

I'm pretty sure it has to be a foreign city, I think that if you hover over the trade mission icon anywhere else it tells you this. The size of the city has the biggest effect on the amount. I think that there is a minimum distance that you need to be, and after that it doesn't matter that much. Great Merchants can enter civs with closed borders, so they make pretty good explorers early when you are searching for that large city.

 

[Sisiutil]

I'm pretty sure it has to be a foreign city, I think that if you hover over the trade mission icon anywhere else it tells you this. The size of the city has the biggest effect on the amount. I think that there is a minimum distance that you need to be, and after that it doesn't matter that much. Great Merchants can enter civs with closed borders, so they make pretty good explorers early when you are searching for that large city.

It's not always the biggest city. In the current ALC, I sent a GM to England, and York (size 10) gave me 2100 gold, while London (size 15 or so) would have given me 1500. London and York were very close together, so it wasn't just distance either. The only big difference was that York was a dual holy city (Confucianism AND Christianity), so maybe culture makes a difference?

 

[Welnic]

I found the explanation at the bottom of this thread. And there is a summary at the end of the last post. To say that it is complicated would be an understatement. It uses the same basic formula as trade routes.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/archive/index.php/t-170344.html

 

[Roland Johansen]

Does anyone have a formula to calculate how much money trade routes will make, and which cities they will go to? From my limited experience, I have noticed the following basic rules:
- Foreign trade routes are far more profitable than national ones
- Longer trade routes gather more income than short ones
- Larger cities get more money from trade routes than smaller ones
- The largest cities tend to link their trade routes together with each other to maximise income for their respective civs
- Larger cities get preference on the "best" trade routes
- Smaller cities get the "leftovers"

Is there a proper mathematical formula around somewhere, though? Or at least, are there other factors which I haven't noticed? (For instance, do trade routes over an ocean get more money than trade routes over an equal tile distance of land?)

Thanks in advance.

There's a War Academy article by Krikkitone about this. You can find it here. It's a fairly short article with one formula describing how to calculate the value of a trade route if you know the 2 cities. It doesn't discuss how trade routes are chosen. But in my opinion, you're exactly right. The biggest cities containing harbors get the trade routes with the biggest foreign cities first and then the lesser cities get their share untill the small size 2 inland city gets a few domestic trade routes with the best cities left after all the other cities got their share.

EDIT - Also: I've noticed that since Warlords 2.08, the AI workers are much improved (thanks to Blake's AI mod, right?). One curious thing I've noticed though is that sometime in the late industrial age (shortly after biology), all the workers start converting practically every single town into a farm, resulting in an extremely large population boom in all their cities. However, this appears to stifle their research (at least, they go from being previously quite competitive to lagging way behind me). Is there a sensible reason for this action? I've noticed that the AI also start mass-building military units at this time (although they don't seem to use them much), so perhaps the extra population is intended to lower support costs (allowing more free units)? Or maybe to increase trade route yields? (Though I doubt that'd make up for the lost income of the towns.) I don't know for sure though.

Blake has improved his mod multiple times after a basic unpolished version was incorporated in the warlords patch 2.08. I would advice you to download the latest version. Know that the combat AI has also been improved now and the worker and city placement AI have been fine tuned (and many more things). Also Blake is not alone anymore. There are a few guys working on the mod now.

I found the explanation at the bottom of this thread. And there is a summary at the end of the last post. To say that it is complicated would be an understatement. It uses the same basic formula as trade routes.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/archive/index.php/t-170344.html

A very interesting read. I hadn't seen any formula that calculated the value of the trade routes. I wasn't aware of the harbor bonus or the 'connected to its capital' bonus. And both of these bonusses are rather large. If you want to know about the effects, then I would advice to read the bottom part of mjs0's post. The formula is rather large and might be difficult to grasp but the short explanation at the bottom of the page is rather short and clear. I've copied it here.

So, to summarize,

You always get a base amount of 500

The variable part is 200 times a value that is proportional to game speed and related to

* the city size
* whether the city has a harbor
* whether the city is connected to its capital,
* whether the city is foreign (means 'not on our team', rather than just 'not ours'),
* a number of modifiers defined in XML files
* and the lesser of:
- the population of your capital
- the distance to your capital scaled based on map size.

If you want to know more about how large some of the effects are and you have a hard time understanding the mathematics of the formula, then here are some of the mathematics put into words.

The effect of the harbor in the foreign city is as big as the effect of 10 points of population (a city of size 6 with harbor equals a city of size 16 without harbor), the effect of the foreign city being connected to its capital is equal to the effect of 5 points of population (a city of size 6 connected to its capital equals a city of size 11 which is not connected to the capital).

Note that you can always see the potential value of the mission before you activate the mission. So you can always pick the best city without knowing anything about this formula.

 

[Crighton]

I know I should know this but . . . if I have a city set to produce research and then chop a forest with hammers going to the city does this not turn trees into beakers?

 

[ggganz]

I know I should know this but . . . if I have a city set to produce research and then chop a forest with hammers going to the city does this not turn trees into beakers?

The trees become hammers, and then 50% of the hammers become beakers.

 

[Lord Parkin]

Great, thanks for the help on the trade routes. A couple more questions:

Are there lists around somewhere of
- the units barbarians can get? (For instance, I've never seen a barb Chariot to date...)
- the techs all the different Great People can lightbulb, and when? (I assume that each Great Person has a list of possible techs they can lightbulb, and the cheapest one which is available to the player at the time is selected for the lightbulbing?)

 

[a4phantom]

How is <i> the target of </i> collateral damage determined? If I put a few machine guns with Drill3 in a stack, are they likely to take the damage and mitigate it a little? Also, besides putting Drill3-4 on every unit, which is impossible and would be ridiculous, is there any other way to mitigate collateral damage if you can't prevent the attack (you're in enemy territory)?

 

[cabert]

The trees become hammers, and then 50&#37; of the hammers become beakers.

I don't think so.
Did you try? As far as I remember, nor the overflow hammers nor the chop hammers are used for beakers or gold conversion in vanilla. I don't know if it works in Warlords, but then it would be 1 hammer=1beaker.

It's not always the biggest city. In the current ALC, I sent a GM to England, and York (size 10) gave me 2100 gold, while London (size 15 or so) would have given me 1500. London and York were very close together, so it wasn't just distance either. The only big difference was that York was a dual holy city (Confucianism AND Christianity), so maybe culture makes a difference?

I don't know the formula but I have an easy trick to determine where to send the merchant :
keep pressing the shift key and "send" the merchant to a wanabee destination for the trade mission. You can then theorically give your merchant another order. One of those orders is the trade mission.
And so you can know how much gold you get for this specific city.
Cancel (there is a button to press, a red void symbol) the order queue and start again for another wanabee destination.
This way you can choose your destination or choose to settle the guy in perfect knowledge.

 

[a4phantom]

Obviously "it depends on circumstances", but is there a rule of thumb for at what point in the game it becomes more valuable to conduct a trade mission than to settle a Great Merchant? Assume you're at peace and he can get to the most fruitful location, and that you don't urgently need a massive infusion of cash.

 

[Lord Parkin]

Obviously "it depends on circumstances", but is there a rule of thumb for at what point in the game it becomes more valuable to conduct a trade mission than to settle a Great Merchant? Assume you're at peace and he can get to the most fruitful location, and that you don't urgently need a massive infusion of cash.

Well, for a realistic answer it will of course have to depend on circumstances... you'll need to make up your own mind. (Incidentally though, I almost always settle my own Great Merchants, since the extra food is more valuable to me than the gold bonus, especially earlier in the game.)

If you want a purely mathematical analysis though... assuming a normal game of length 460 turns, and that an average Great Merchant will yield about 2000 gold from a trade mission (a very tentative and likely unreliable assumption)... well, if you compare that with the 6 gold per turn from a settled Great Merchant, he'll get you 600 gold per 100 turns he's settled. (I'm not sure, but I don't think multipliers apply to great people's revenue... do they??) So in other words, unless it's very early in the game then you'll probably get more money from conducting the trade mission than from settling the Great Merchant (and plus you'll get it all at one time, which is more useful). However... you need to consider the benefit of that extra 1 food per turn, which will allow you to grow faster and thus work new tiles (and reap more commerce) more quickly.

 

[cabert]

Obviously "it depends on circumstances", but is there a rule of thumb for at what point in the game it becomes more valuable to conduct a trade mission than to settle a Great Merchant? Assume you're at peace and he can get to the most fruitful location, and that you don't urgently need a massive infusion of cash.

My rule of thumb.
I settle all great merchants except :
1) If I really need the money in a very near future ($rushing a wonder, upgrading troops,...)
2) If the game is going to end in a very near future (less than 50 turns). Why only 50 turns? because the food is more vital than the money if the game is longer than this.

 

[Lord Parkin]

I'm curious as to what other people do with their Great Scientists. Personally, I tend to build Academies in my highest science cities (since they usually get quite a significant boost to science due to all the villages and towns I have around by that time). I've heard other players tend to prefer using them for lightbulbing techs, though. What's your preference?

 

[cabert]

I'm curious as to what other people do with their Great Scientists. Personally, I tend to build Academies in my highest science cities (since they usually get quite a significant boost to science due to all the villages and towns I have around by that time). I've heard other players tend to prefer using them for lightbulbing techs, though. What's your preference?

This is very dependent on
1 - how you tech vs the AIs
2 - what goals you have
3 - what cities you have

1) if you're hanging behind in techs (like playing deity), lightbulbing opens up trade options, to help you catch up. In this situation, it's almost a must.
2) if you go for cultural, academies give you 4 cpt. But lightbulbing philo gives you a religion (and a holy city is 5 cpt ). If you go for space, you need to think long term. academies are often better.
If you want to beeline to something, lightbulbing is often better (every turn counts). If you're building space parts, remember that settled scientists give also 1 hammer. 1 hammer isn't much but it's better than researching a future tech!
3) If you have only poor beaker cities, it's no use to build an academy. Settling a scientist can have more impact in the long run then.

 

[DrewBledsoe]

My rule of thumb.
I settle all great merchants except :
1) If I really need the money in a very near future ($rushing a wonder, upgrading troops,...)
2) If the game is going to end in a very near future (less than 50 turns). Why only 50 turns? because the food is more vital than the money if the game is longer than this.

Here's some pointers on great merchants, and how in my opinion "running a trade route" is almost always much more valuable than settling the merchant.

I'll take an example from a recent game (marathon / monarch /huge)...

I pop my 1st GM and the trade run produces 3300 gold going to Rome (adjudged the best available city at that time 300AD). Now at that time I'm massively expanding, and am falling behind techwise, with half a dozen "new" cities holding back my economy. I immediately switch to running 100% science and discover alphabet, calender and code of laws before the money runs out. Now that would be worth the trade run on it's own, but the new tech allows me to trade for half a dozen other techs, I wouldn't have had, as I had no tech trade leverage. Therefore the GM trade route run, has directly resulted in 9 new techs.

The 2nd GM arrives in around 1100AD, and runs to Rome this time netting 5500 gold.Again, because I've a large expensive, expansive empire to maintain, I'm slightly lagging behind in tech, with nothing to trade. The cash is converted to science at 100% rate, and music, (amazingly I was first), then guilds, then banking are reserached, and these again traded for 4 or 5 other useful techs.

And its not just the sudden "tech splurge" that running a trade route facilitates, it's also all the possibilities resulting from the results that have to be taken into account. Faster COL, gave me courthouses much earlier, which saved money for every turn they were built of course. Calender allowed me to trade excess resources earlier. Banking allowed me, well banks quicker, which again is 50% extra cash for each turn they exist.

What I'm trying to show, is that there is a lot of "hidden" bonuses that a GM trade run can facilitate. It's not just 4000 gold vs 6 gold and 1 food per turn for ever, it's a whole lot more. Almost the only time I'd personally settle a GM is very late in the game, when money has become so plentiful, a large cash infusion is no longer that necessary. In virtually every other instance, cash is far too valuable, even if it's only used for massive troop upgrades.

I have to add that the above probably works best with a large empire, as it allows you to "unlock" the potential of your empire at a time when upkeep costs are stifling your economy, but hey thats the way I like to play