Reworking Trade: No more 30 turn deals, new Treaties and more

[ZeoLite357]

As everyone knows, trading in Civ 6 with the AI is a frustrating enterprise that has and remains riddled with exploits, inconsistencies and general annoyingness. The pricing of resources, diplomatic favor and other mechanics is frustrating and RSI inducing, but often necessary in Deity AI playthroughs.

Proposal:

I propose a wholesale simplification of trade with the AI to eliminate 30-turn deals, eliminate multiple trade deals with the same AI, and to make a trade deal with each AI roll over every turn, to be renewed or changed by either of the civs any turn. This means that any turn after a trade agreement is agreed, it can be adjusted by either player, requiring assent from both sides, and continually rolls until the end of the game. A trade agreement can of course be stopped at any time by either side. (Obviously steps should be taken to stop the AI from spamming the player every turn with micro-changes).

This would affect the following things:

- No more lump-gold as an option for resources, diplomatic favor, cities etc. Just GPT (gold per turn)
- No more exploits using 1 strategic resource for over-gold amount, or diplo favor
- Luxury resources would be 'lent' to the other player as long as the trade agreement is in effect, same as open borders.
- War between the two civs ends any trade agreement they have
- Strategic resources per turn in a trade agreement with the other civ cannot exceed generation per turn

Problems:

To deal with issues such as making peace with an enemy AI for X turns, I propose Treaties. Also, in the case where a civ really needs a lump-sum of strategic resource, for instance, I would propose readers to look at the recent Economic Victory thread which suggests a global trade market with supply and demand.

Treaties:

Treaties are a game-long agreement signed between two civs, except either AI can break a treaty beginning from the turn following the signing of the treaty. Treaties that are broken will incur grievance cost and maybe diplo favor cost (which decays the longer the treaty has been around), and keeping a treaty for longer will improve relations with AIs as they view you as more trustworthy. Treaties could allow for some very 'strict' criteria to be imposed on civs, which would be interesting.

Treaties could also be extended to the World Congress for all civs to sign if they so wish.

Interesting mechanics that could be involved in treaty signing:

- X cannot declare war on Player Y
- X cannot receive amenity benefits from luxury resource Y
- X promises not to settle near Player Y
- X promises not to nuclear-proliferate
- X promises not to create military units requiring strategic resource Y
- X promises to not spy on Player Y
- X promises not to send rock bands into Player Y's territory
- X promises not to build buildings within district type Y
- X promises not to convert a city of Player Y

A lot of these ideas essentially incorporate the 'promise' system into Treaties to make them more formal.

 

[Chekko]

I'm not bothered by the current trading system but this would make it less of a hassle to trade with those Civs you are friendly with for the entire game pretty much. One thing I want in the trading menu are favors. Why can't my enormous production ever come to use? And hell why not with Seaports, connected roads/railroads and airports you can ship some "production".

 

[9gkj548hkm20vk79dj689bnj4]

ugh, yes, please have trade routes continue until I tell them to stop.

but then again in Civ 4 you occasionally had other leader comings in saying "we demand you stop trading with XYZ!" which was sort of annoying too.
Now If each item had a value, multiplied by the number of turns the deal is active, and then canceled, that would be the equivalent of a diplomatic relations penalty, therefore having the same trade partner for a long time would be beneficial.

 

[civfan_999]

ugh, yes, please have trade routes continue until I tell them to stop.

Trade routes in civ 6 are designed such that the trader unit moves one time per turn and the route takes as long as one round trip (with a minimum of 20 turns). I think what you are suggesting could be solved by adding a mechanic where you could decide how many trips the trader will do and you could choose, for example, 10 laps of a 16 turn trade route to basically last the whole game. I personally wouldn't use this. When trade routes end, I want to look for the new best, which could be different either because things have changed and that is no longer my most profitable option, because I've entered into a war and I am looking for a path safe from plunder, I am trying to satisfy a city state quest, I am now trying to boost growth and/or production in a city and want to switch to domestic or ally focused trade routes, or I am trying to boost production in a specific city (for example to build the science victory projects or a wonder) and I want to relocate more trade routes to a specific city.

The part that annoys me with trade routes is that I never know how many turns are left. In the trade screen I can see that the trade round takes 22 turns, but I don't know when it started. I would prefer that to be a count down, i.e. it has 22 turns LEFT. That way I know when my traders will be available to be redeployed.