Settlement not connected to your empire's trade network

[bbbt]

Now on game number 2. I've entered the modern age and two of my cities that were connected and sending resources to the capital, now say "Settlement not connected to your empire's trade network" under their resources.

These are settlements that literally on the same continent as my capital, with roads connecting them to my cities and and to my capital.

I waited and added railroad stations for the offending cities, my capital and all the cities in between. Still no deal.

What's going on? Is there just a hard-coded X number of hexes away limit that resets each era, and railroads/roads are actually meaningless?

 

[evonannoredars]

Are the settlements really far away? Could be that you had a trade route range increase ability from an IP or something in the previous era that just allowed them to be connected but was lost upon age transition?

 

[bbbt]

They are between 15-20 hexes away from my capital.

That's sort of what I'm asking. I definitely had an increased trade route range in previous era from specialized settlements. If that's the sole factor, and railroads are essentially meaningless in regards to trade outside of the economic victory condition.

All my distant land etc settlements remained connected via fishing quays/ports.

 

[Yzman]

There is some weird mechanic where roads that go through your cities don't count, only roads between the cities. Send a merchant to those cities and see if he has the option to build roags to another city.

Also build a fishing quay if they are coastal. That can help with coastal cities.

 

[bbbt]

There is some weird mechanic where roads that go through your cities don't count, only roads between the cities. Send a merchant to those cities and see if he has the option to build roags to another city.

The merchant with the 'road to settlement' did the trick, thanks! I feel like a railroad building should also do that, but I guess not.

Before the mechant, I also tried building a factory in one of the 'unconnected cities' - and it wouldn't let me slot any factory resources, including the ones that were sourced from that very city.

 

[PatrickTheProgrammer]

As another data point, I had a single-tile, middle of the ocean town that I build up to size six. It had two resources that I was working (with fishing boats). This town was listed as "Not Connected to Trade Network!" in the View Resource Allocation screen. The town was also "Not Connected to Trade Network!" in the tooltip for that town after I installed either "TCS-UI-Improved-Plot-Tooltip" or "Civ7EnhancedTownFocus".

A few days ago, this would have triggered the 100th rage inducing profanity spewing rant - Thanks Civ 7 Designers!

But today, as a more mature and rational being, after reading the absolutely useless Civilopedia entries on this topic, I just thought, "why not run some tests, since Firaxis is too busy (snorting cocaine? swimming in pools of twenty-dollar bills? monitoring their Discord for wrong-thought?). Why not?

So I plunked down a Port next to the island and hey presto! the tooltip of shame went away, and I could add that town's resources to my other towns and cities (settlements).

 

[Nikolai II]

There is some weird mechanic where roads that go through your cities don't count, only roads between the cities. Send a merchant to those cities and see if he has the option to build roags to another city.

Also build a fishing quay if they are coastal. That can help with coastal cities.

That surely must be a bug.

 

[Yzman]

That surely must be a bug.

You would think so, but I think there is actually language in a tooltip that confirms it....

 

[Buktu]

I got a rail connection to my city little axe. I was able to build (well buy) a factory in that city as well (only possible when connected to capital by rail) and can move units by rail to its railstation. There is also a fishing quay as well as a port in that city.

But it still does not count as connected to my trade network?

Am I missing something? Or is this a bug?

 

[ProMeTheus112]

I believe it seems to bug sometimes, last game: on exploration transition, my city lost connection to trade network despite road connection to town with a fishing quay, I fixed it by improving a tile that expanded my territory to include the one road tile that connected it to the nearest city. They were connected in antiquity despite the gap, but not exploration until I did that.
But then the same happened in modern and it was disconnected again. Fixed it by settling an extra town nearby and adding another fishing quay. I don't really get it yet tbh : P

 

[y10]

I have a town that is nine tiles away from my capital that refuses to send food anywhere. I tried to use a merchant to build a road, but it says a road is already built. It's the exploration age, and I have a huge trade distance from a suzerain bonus. Could anyone tell me what I am missing, or is anyone running into a similar problem?

 

[Taefin]

I have a town that is nine tiles away from my capital that refuses to send food anywhere. I tried to use a merchant to build a road, but it says a road is already built. It's the exploration age, and I have a huge trade distance from a suzerain bonus. Could anyone tell me what I am missing, or is anyone running into a similar problem?

I ran into this when a city center was surrounded by navigable river, with a spiraling land paths to other settlements that avoided the river, but that was impossible to connect. That was my second game and I have leaned more of what I would troubleshoot since then.

All that said, despite its confusing nature, once I started using the UI mod that lists connections, I’m thinking the connection mechanics are actually pretty deep, and create interesting options for using merchants to create hub towns. My current Mongolia game I am 10 over the settlement limit (apparently going over the limit also has an escalating penalty to influence) and I am seeing that hub towns are essential for maintaining influence with large empires. Luckily I captured some a cluster of cities that had built harbors, and now they are towns connected to 6+ other settlements.

 

[Evolena]

There is an interesting case here: Ursa Ryan video with timestamp

Khemenu was the first Town, and was not connected:

• despite being both connected by sea and on the same continent (and only 10 tiles at that), no naval connection because...
  • not on the actual Coast?
  • only a Fishing Quay in the Capital?
  • (but I've had a Town on a Navigable River without any Coast/River Building connected by sea to my Capital with way more tiles between them...)
• no land connection because...
  • 5 tiles with 2 Navigable Rivers to cross? (pink)
  • 10 tiles with 1 Navigable River to cross, but no urban District to cross? (orange)
  • 11 tiles to go cross the Navigable River at the Fishing Quay? (green)

But when Nekheb is then created, its Road to Waset (yellow) suddenly also creates a Road to Khemenu (green), and the Resource of the latter become available!

• the new Road passes through the Fishing Quay on the left bank of the Navigable River, but that seems to allow the now 10-tiles Road segment to reach Khemenu from the right bank of the Fishing Quay (green)

The rules for the creation or not of a Ferry to cross the Navigable Rivers is still obscure. It can exist, but when and why? Tech related?

 

[Brutus2]

I’m having a similar issue. Settlement only four tiles from my capital with roads between. Was connected in Antiquity, lost connection as soon as Exploration started. I built a Merchant but while standing on the capital the roads button is greyed out with tooltip that says “no settlement within range needs a connection”.

Sorry for not having a screenshot. I’m traveling and playing on Steam Deck, posting from my phone.

 

[y10]

For my case, I have a town between my Capital and my town that won't send the food. I am guessing that a town can't send food to a city if it would have to go through another town. Can anyone confirm or refute this hypothesis?

 

[Yzman]

For my case, I have a town between my Capital and my town that won't send the food. I am guessing that a town can't send food to a city if it would have to go through another town. Can anyone confirm or refute this hypothesis?

The road can't go through another town. It needs to be a road from the two towns. Try creating a merchant and have him see if he can create a road if able. They usually fixes it.

 

[Evolena]

For my case, I have a town between my Capital and my town that won't send the food. I am guessing that a town can't send food to a city if it would have to go through another town. Can anyone confirm or refute this hypothesis?

Indeed, with an exception: if the Town in the middle is placed after the further away Town.
See here, Aquilea - Ostia - Ravenna : https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/why-city-connections-are-not-intuitive.695290/post-16778838

 

[y10]

The road can't go through another town. It needs to be a road from the two towns. Try creating a merchant and have him see if he can create a road if able. They usually fixes it.

I unfortunately already tried the merchant. It can't create create a road to the capital. I think that it was because it already had a road to the capital, but the road went through another town.

 

[Yzman]

I unfortunately already tried the merchant. It can't create create a road to the capital. I think that it was because it already had a road to the capital, but the road went through another town.

Try seeing if it can make a road to another city. I am not sure why it works...but it tends to.

 

[vorlon_mi]

The road can't go through another town. It needs to be a road from the two towns. Try creating a merchant and have him see if he can create a road if able. They usually fixes it.

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