Success on Deity but problems with trade routes

[Zeuxis]

Hi Folks!

I am really enjoying the secret societies and my recent experience is that playing Russia on Deity with the Void Singers is a tremendous combination.

Russia gets loads of faith and great people points that lead into a lot of early Great Writers and Artists and later Great Musicians. With the Old God Obelisk, you have the ability to find a place for these early works of art that with Russia often come either before you have researched the techs to put them somewhere or before you have built enough to house them.

The Old God Obelisks gives you the immediate ability to display the early great works and you can move them to the normal places to display them later. This gets your tourism game going from the turn that you get your first great person and this is earlier than before the new update for sure.

The advantage continues to the midgame as well because as Russia, even on Deity, I always get a Great Musician or two well before I can get Broadcast Towers to display them. The Old God Obelisks are tremendous here as well.

On my latest game I then powered into Rock Bands (Russia generates huge amounts of faith) and supplemented them with cultists.

To my surprise, I won a culture victory on Turn 202 which is my earliest win on any level. I think this was partly due to the Void Singers abilities, partly due to a very lucky start near a good natural wonder, and partly due to my increased experience. So thanks to the tips you guys provided as well as on line gurus like Potato McWhiskey.

So great, but I still have one important things that I don't seem to have mastered - trade routes. I worked really hard at expanding my network from the very beginning and ended up with 12 routes but I simply couldn't reach the two civs furthest away - if I had I would for certain have won in under 200 turns as one of them had the highest tourism defence. Can anyone give me any tips on this/

Thanks

 

[LobstaBoy]

First of all congrats on your win! Thats a good time for sure. Russia was powerful before SS, now with this update im excited to try them.
As for trade routes, the only tip i have regarding routes/culture game is , the point of the routes is the + tourism, not the immediate gratification of +science/culture/gold/production like in every other game.
Pay attention to civs that are the furthest from you- and go out of your way to send their neighbors early routes. This extends your range, you will be in a position late game to cover every civ with your trade routes.
Especially good with Sara Breedlove ( i think thats the +25% merchant iirc).

 

[whacker]

So great, but I still have one important things that I don't seem to have mastered - trade routes. I worked really hard at expanding my network from the very beginning and ended up with 12 routes but I simply couldn't reach the two civs furthest away - if I had I would for certain have won in under 200 turns as one of them had the highest tourism defence. Can anyone give me any tips on this/

Try to settle a city in close vicinity to the AIs you want trade routes to. It is ok to do this later in the game, when you generate much tourism and have the bonus to trade routes from tech and GM. Because loyalty will most likely be a problem, try to get a cultural alliance or just chop in lots of pops.

Congrats on your improvements, keep it up!

 

[Aurelesk]

Land trade routes have 15 tiles range and sea ones have 30 tiles range. Those ranges reset when your Trader can go through a trading post. One way to cover the map is to make sure to send a trader to key cities (coastal cities with harbor next to it to reach other continents, or cities in the middle of the continent) so you can extend your trading post network. It also means you have to send your early trade routes on cities that are not the most profitable (sometimes).

Also, you need some scouting. You can't send a trade route to a city if there is some map not discovered yet.

As suggested by @whacker you could settle a garbage city near some civilizations (snow / 1-tile island cities) just for the purpose of trade route but watch out some loyalty issue. Make sure to have 3+ Amenities to spare (+6 Loyalty), a Governor (+8 Loyalty) and instantly buy a Monument (+1 Loyalty) so you will only face at most -5 Loyalty per turn (or more if some Amanis are there). Then you could slot some cards (2 Loyalty for Garrison, 2 Loyalty for Governor) to prevent your city from flipping. If you have a religion, convert your city to it for a +3 Loyalty. Once it has enough population, you can slot out the loyalty cards.
Since it is a garbage city, you could potentially just settle outside of Loyalty range. Or, as mentioned by whacker, have a cultural alliance to ignore the loyalty issue completely.

Edit: I forgot to mention one-thing. Once you got a trading post in a city, the trader does not need to go in that city center. The tiles range also refresh with the Harbor district. If you want to enjoy a Canal city, you need first to have a trading post there. If you want to optimise the path of a Canal city, make sure the Harbor and the Canal next to each other, or at least on the same track.