Settlement not connected to your empire's trade network

[Yzman]

That's an unusual decision. Connecting through other towns worked in Civ3, Civ4, Civ5 and Civ6.

Yes its incredibly annoying. I had a city that was down at the bottom of my continent with another civ in between and no matter what I did, I could not get a factory going in this city. They need to overhaul this system or make it a lot more transparent. My suspicion is the only way to make it work is I would have had to have it connected to a coastal city, which would then need a port to connect to closer cities. But that is silly when I have a continuous path with rails to Capital...

 

[vorlon_mi]

Yes its incredibly annoying. I had a city that was down at the bottom of my continent with another civ in between and no matter what I did, I could not get a factory going in this city. They need to overhaul this system or make it a lot more transparent. My suspicion is the only way to make it work is I would have had to have it connected to a coastal city, which would then need a port to connect to closer cities. But that is silly when I have a continuous path with rails to Capital...

I was watching a couple videos by Ursa Ryan and Potato McWhiskey last night. Both said that the trade network system -- and the rail connection system -- is buggy in the game, as of March 2025. I'm hoping they stabilize it soon. I agree it needs to be more transparent.

 

[syberkowboy]

I had four cities all with Train Stations... three with factories. I confirmed I could move a ranged unit between any of the cities by rail. I could not build a factory in one of the three cities. I had issues with "settlement not connected to your empire's trade network" for the three that were not my capital. I was able to establish the connection for two of the three by using a merchant "create a trade path". I was never able to establish the connection with the fourth. Frustrating. Curious... is there any dependency on how far the factory is from the Rail Station in the same city? None of the cities are more than 5-7 tiles away with nothing obstructing a path between them. Advice?

 

[vorlon_mi]

In my last two games, I've tried this tactic as a prevention/workaround. I can't guarantee that it will help.

When I unlock the tech to build rail stations, build them in other cities (not the capital) first. Imagine a "hub and spoke" model, where the capital is the hub. I will often have 4 cities (including the capital) in Modern, so I have some options. Once I build the rail station in the capital, I shouldn't need to use the merchant's "create a trade path", but I might have to. Another tactic is to build a port, if one of the cities is on the coast or on a navigable river. This seems to prompt the logic to recalculate the trade network, which could help.

Similarly, when factories are unlocked, I try to build those in the other cities (or buy them in a town) before the capital.

It's a bug at the moment, so I hope that they fix it. I'm still in Exploration, for my game started after the most recent patch, so we'll see what happens when I get to Modern.

 

[bumpyglint]

Also here had the same bug.

Also to me happened in Modern for cities close to the capital and that were always been connected. I discovered it "late" in the Age, after I built factories in those cities (and factory could not be completed in cities without a connection).

It's definitely bugged and REALLY annoying. In one case the merchant could create a new road, in order to fix this, for another city this was not possible; no idea why....

 

[chazzycat]

I think it's pretty clear at this point that connections should be a top priority for the next patch. We really need clarification on how they are SUPPOSED to work. There's just a lot of questions and confusion in general.

"Trade network" is about slotting resources and moving them. Is this a completely separate system from "connections" that send food to cities? Or no? There's heavy overlap at minimum, because fishing quays seem to be involved in both. But overall it's just confusing having two semi-related systems with little details on how they function.

What's going on with connections that are working in antiquity but then break for exploration? Or sometimes vice versa...a broken one will magically fix itself.

Do bridges matter? I swear I've formed valid connections without bridges many times. But a lot of people seem to be saying they do matter? This would explain the broken connections upon a new age, since each age has new bridges. But again, I am quite confident that I've formed many connections over navigable rivers without any bridge at all.

What about cliffs? Do these factor into range calculations for merchants? If not, why do merchants frequently say "no valid connections" when another settlement is very close by? This would somewhat make sense, but is not mentioned anywhere.

On the subject of merchants. Why is it that sometimes if I want to connect A to B, it won't allow it. But then I move the merchant to B and all of a sudden A is a valid settlement to connect? What?

The whole thing is just really confusing. I am usually able to connect ~95% of the things I want to. But man that 5% sure is extremely annoying

 

[Yzman]

I think it's pretty clear at this point that connections should be a top priority for the next patch. We really need clarification on how they are SUPPOSED to work. There's just a lot of questions and confusion in general.

"Trade network" is about slotting resources and moving them. Is this a completely separate system from "connections" that send food to cities? Or no? There's heavy overlap at minimum, because fishing quays seem to be involved in both. But overall it's just confusing having two semi-related systems with little details on how they function.

What's going on with connections that are working in antiquity but then break for exploration? Or sometimes vice versa...a broken one will magically fix itself.

Do bridges matter? I swear I've formed valid connections without bridges many times. But a lot of people seem to be saying they do matter? This would explain the broken connections upon a new age, since each age has new bridges. But again, I am quite confident that I've formed many connections over navigable rivers without any bridge at all.

What about cliffs? Do these factor into range calculations for merchants? If not, why do merchants frequently say "no valid connections" when another settlement is very close by? This would somewhat make sense, but is not mentioned anywhere.

On the subject of merchants. Why is it that sometimes if I want to connect A to B, it won't allow it. But then I move the merchant to B and all of a sudden A is a valid settlement to connect? What?

The whole thing is just really confusing. I am usually able to connect ~95% of the things I want to. But man that 5% sure is extremely annoying

I do know the merchant needs to be able to physically walk there, so things like cliff and mountains are definite issues.

 

[chazzycat]

I do know the merchant needs to be able to physically walk there, so things like cliff and mountains are definite issues.

That makes sense and is even a good thing IMO. Making geography more important is a solid design decision. But players need to be aware that's how it works

 

[DJMGator13]

My last game all cities were disconnected from my Capital and trade network in the modern age, even with rails and fishing quays. It also prevented me from building factories in other cities. I tried adding new trade routes, building bridges even planted a new city just to claim neutral territory on home continent. Nothing worked until I added a Port in the Capital. Then factories were available everywhere and I had more trade route options with AI's too. (Sidenote: I did switch capitals at start of Exploration Age.)