Tangible Trade-Routes

[Chandrasekhar]

And of course there would need to be some mechanism to destroy water trade routes when they became obsolete for whatever reason.

 

[Maniac]

Roads can be destroyed. Destroying a road really does have an impact on trade, since roads are necessary to get large goods across in a timely matter. It has nothing to do with security.

Roads make trade easier, but they aren't a requirement. See the aforementioned Silk Route and Transsaharan trade. My point is that roads being necessary for trade is an abstraction just as sea lanes would be.

Roads also contribute significantly to gameplay. They may be a hassle to create, but they both provide trade and increase movement. The increase movement part is a biggy too - land units are generally slower than naval units, so increasing movement for land units is more potent than doing so for naval units (law of diminishing returns).

Not really true anymore in FfH. About every unit can get Mobility I and Haste. Multiplied by three by roads you get a movement of nine tiles. For Mounted Units it's double: basic 3 MP + Mobility I & II + Haste *3 = 18 tiles. By comparison the fastest ship in FfH moves five tiles IIRC. And the movement increasing promotions are harder to get. So personally I consider the use of roads to speed up naval movements not an exploit, but correcting a shortcoming in the game design: too little attention for the naval side.


I won't reply to the rest of your post, as I fear we'd uselessly start arguing in circles.

 

[TheBoatman]

Was it civ2 or ctp that trade routes were shown on the map and were pillagable? but i don't remember the exact way it worked...

The basic idea is a good one, but the routes aren't built on the sea, they are merely lines on the map. It would be nice to have naval movement bonus (+2?) along these lines, inside one's own borders and inside open borders. This would make for movement promotions. Pillaging could be 'intercepted' by ships docked in a city and given order 'protect trade routes'. It should be a ship per city because a ship per route would be unbalanced and too costly.

 

[Chinese American]

...make privateers capable of siphoning the gold from trade routes of the cities they are blocking (i cant remember who brought that up, it was a few days or a week or so ago).

I brought it up in my More Trade Routes thread a few days before this thread started. I was going to make robbers and pirates units that stayed outside a city to steal gold, food, and hammers from the trade routes. (my mod allows food and hammers to come in from trade routes.)

I tried to implement something simple, but I learned that for something this complex, you really need to plan out concretely on how this will work in terms of clearly defined game concepts and mechanics because there are many questions that need answers. For instance, exactly what is taken away from the trade routes? How and when does this event occur in the game turn? Which units have this ability to steal loot and how do they interact with other units? How does the pirating civ get the loot? Where does the loot go (esp. food and hammer). (also new in my mod is a national pool of food and hammers that works like gold.)

I wanted to make the looting ability a promotion so that regular units can also become looters. What should the requirements be before a unit gets to earn this promotion? What does this ability actually do? Does it take gold and resources from the city? Does it reduce the trade routes profit, and how and by how much? Percentage or finite amount?

Of course there are going to be looter units that are predefined to have the looter promotion. How do they come into the game? Should players get to make them, or should they come from barbarians only? Are they invisible? If so, which units can see them? Do they have regular combat abilities? If so, they will also be able to capture enemy workers and settlers. If you want to prevent this, how would you do it? Does the AI know how to use them and to fight against them?

These are the kinds of problems that I encountered when I tried to implement this in actual code. Also, consider if this is too much micromanagement and if it will add strategy and fun.

 

[Sureshot]

The simplest case I can think of (or remember being stated) would be to have any sea based trade routes that exist create a negative trade route worth -1 gold in the city blocked by a Pirate (looting) ship. The pirate ships owner would then receive 1 gold per turn from the situation. The other city (the city who the trade route connects to) would experience no change.
A city would be considered blocked if it can't work any of its sea tiles that are adjacent to the city.

Thats the simplest case, but the more complex way to make it more involved would require messing with however it decides water connectivity for trade, then lets say a pirate ship occupies a space that is required for several trade routes (the square is necessary for a boat to travel from city a to city b), then the pirate ship would receive a percentage (why not all? because the trade route would cease to exist if nothing made it through) of all trade that requires that section of ocean to link up.

Land based trade routes would be handled in a very similar manner in the more complex version.

For instance, exactly what is taken away from the trade routes? a percentage of the trade routes output
How and when does this event occur in the game turn? whenever a trade route is blocked at the time of its output (i.e. when the trade routes owner would have gotten the commerce/hammers/whatnot)
Which units have this ability to steal loot and how do they interact with other units? I'd say they act exactly as privateers do
How does the pirating civ get the loot? by blocking trade routes
Where does the loot go? in the treasury or national pool
What should the requirements be before a unit gets to earn this promotion? a specific tech, like the way you cant get mobility until youve researched exploration, if its to be allowed to all units, that is
What does this ability actually do? it siphons gold from trade routes blocked
Does it take gold and resources from the city? it would add negative value trade routes, that are not the full value, thus only taking a percentage
Does it reduce the trade routes profit, and how and by how much? that would be variable in more complex cases, id say just 1 gold in simplest case
Percentage or finite amount? percentage in complex cases, finite 1 gold in simple case
How do they come into the game? ideally as UUs
Should players get to make them, or should they come from barbarians only? definately player made, but no reason barbs couldn't have them. Lanun having them and Hippus, would be ideal
Are they invisible? i wouldnt make them invisible, theyre more like privateers than spies
If so, which units can see them? not applicable
Do they have regular combat abilities? regular with bonuses, like how pirate ships get gold for every ship they defeat
If so, they will also be able to capture enemy workers and settlers? land bandits could capture the same way a normal land unit does
If you want to prevent this, how would you do it? no need to prevent it
Does the AI know how to use them and to fight against them? AI's won't like enemies in their lands, but its hard to say whether theyd know how to combat it; it would be better just to give negative diplomacy modifiers to deal with it