Thoughts on modern piracy

[whitelaughter]

Must be their UU, because their privateers are far more effective against combustion units than mine are.

There's no way a Civ privateers can hold its own against a Transport.

However, piracy is always in the choke points: leading up towards Suez, near Singapore, historically near Panama.
How about a 'new resource' - if a city has coast on two opposite tiles, then it can send out a workboat to turn a water tile into a 'shipping route'. At minimum, would give the city another trade route.
And privateers etc would be able to pillage the shipping route.

Thoughts?

 

[Airefuego]

^^ I like it.

Actually I think trade routes in general need a lot of work in Civ IV.

The big trading cities in past times were rich because all the other trade routes went THROUGH them. Not because the City itself was big.

Eg: Venice was awesome because all the trade between Europe and Turkey/Middle East passed through it.

In my view, trade routes should be a direct function of the number of OTHER cities that your City connects BETWEEN, and should be weakened by the existence of alternate paths between those others.

So the only port on a continent - or a choke point like in WhiteL's example above - should have absolutely massive trade while all the other cities have only a little.

 

[whitelaughter]

Assume that trade is practical for X tiles (dependant on map size, and grows as new techs are developed). Each city is linked to a number of cities, that's their basic number of trade routes. The value of each trade route depends on their respective rank: the city with the fewest links gain 1 per trade link, the next city 2 per route, and so on.
then cities gain bonuses dependant on your resources. The best linked city gains 1 for every resource you have. The second best city gains 1 for every resource you have two of, and so on.

The thing is, that although more accurate, it's probably not adding to the game...ultimately, all you care about is the bottom line, and that shouldn't change.

[grins] How about smuggling? A workboat can build an 'invisible' improvement in the waters of a rival city - if it does so, you steal the profits of one of their trade routes. Finding and destroying a smuggling improvement would be an espionage action?

 

[lampshade]

^^ I like it.

Actually I think trade routes in general need a lot of work in Civ IV.

The big trading cities in past times were rich because all the other trade routes went THROUGH them. Not because the City itself was big.

Eg: Venice was awesome because all the trade between Europe and Turkey/Middle East passed through it.

In my view, trade routes should be a direct function of the number of OTHER cities that your City connects BETWEEN, and should be weakened by the existence of alternate paths between those others.

So the only port on a continent - or a choke point like in WhiteL's example above - should have absolutely massive trade while all the other cities have only a little.

i like it too. the classic examples being constantinople, where constantine moved the capital of the roman empire to the bosphorus, an entirely new city established from scratch purely because it was a defensible trade choke point. singapore is a more modern example. i would love it if trade was ramped up in later civs - there's loads of scope for making something out of it that wouldn't harm/confuse the casual gamer but would introduce a new set of options for advanced players.

other examples off the top of my head - liverpool and bristol - massive trade cities during the industrial revolution. amsterdam - the dutch have no natural resources but have thrived due to their trade and trading position (read jared diamond how civilisations choose to thrive or die - can't remember the name of the book now). also petra in jordan - had a great position on a trade route from east to west. also, panama (canal).

 

[Roller123]

The big trading cities in past times were rich because all the other trade routes went THROUGH them. Not because the City itself was big.

Isnt it more or less the same thing. Cities were big because there were lots of trade going through them. Or a lot of consumers. Which leads to a lot of trade. The problem is, real world cities evolved naturally at places with good trade possibilities, based on geographical location. In Civ4 cities are placed by the mighty hand of god/player with no relation to trade whatsoever.

Essentially there will be a need for an extra farmable resource "trade". Considering "city size" already equals "trade amount" approximately. Wouldnt that be an unnecessary over-complication. Also think of archipelago maps.

Also, having trade actually influence players decisions would mean, it should be made pretty important. And thats a major balance shift. Isnt trade what Civ4Col is about btw? Its all about trading.

 

[civ_king]

i like it too. the classic examples being constantinople, where constantine moved the capital of the roman empire to the bosphorus, an entirely new city established from scratch purely because it was a defensible trade choke point. singapore is a more modern example. i would love it if trade was ramped up in later civs - there's loads of scope for making something out of it that wouldn't harm/confuse the casual gamer but would introduce a new set of options for advanced players.

other examples off the top of my head - liverpool and bristol - massive trade cities during the industrial revolution. amsterdam - the dutch have no natural resources but have thrived due to their trade and trading position (read jared diamond how civilisations choose to thrive or die - can't remember the name of the book now). also petra in jordan - had a great position on a trade route from east to west. also, panama (canal).

The book is called Collapse when abbreviated

 

[lampshade]

The book is called Collapse when abbreviated

thanks. yeah interesting book. went on a bit too much about easter island for my liking - with a lot of unproven assumptions.

the stuff about greenland was fascinating, but on the whole Guns Germs Bombs & Steel was better - kind of like having the blinkers taken off your historical worldview. finished it and thought "wow". why did eurasia take over the americas and not the other way round? (in summary: eurasia is east-west and the americas are north-south - everything - diseases, trade, people, move more easily over the same climate and without the panama chokepoint).

it was also a massive shock to me to discover that there were big societies in the s.w of the US centuries ago, i never knew that.

ferdinand braudel - a history of civilisatons is pretty much the classic imho.

apologies for going off topic, back on topic i really want an upgraded trade mechanism in another civ, although i fear it might be horrendously complex to code properly.

 

[whitelaughter]

, back on topic i really want an upgraded trade mechanism in another civ, although i fear it might be horrendously complex to code properly.

The gaol is to create a simple system that can have complicated effects - sort of like a game of Go.

At the moment, the interesting part of trading is swapping Techs around. Buying of the AI is normally cheap, because the AI doesn't know to pay heavily for a tech and then reselling it multiple times at say half the price. It'd be even more effective if the AI would actually vary what it researched depending on circumstances, rather than just researching the same techs every time.

BTS allows you to trade for multiples of the same resources, yes? So it should be possible to buy up resources and then resell.
If you buy up all of Nation A's spare fur, and then resell to Nation's B,C and D, then they shouldn't break the agreements: Nation A will look out and see that there are no nations needing Fur (so no motive to free any up) while the other nations won't see another source of Fur, so should continue to buy it off you.
Does this work?

 

[r_rolo1]

No, you can only do that with corp resources and if you have the corp ..... and Civ IV designers made that the AI never sells a resource cheaper than other AI would buy it. This was made to cut some exploits with resource trades that you can do in Civ III

 

[Jerry60k]

Sounds like this could effectively be a part of the drug trade thread.Say a city has access to sugar then they could perhaps produce rum and therefore the rum trade via Privateers.

 

[whitelaughter]

and Civ IV designers made that the AI never sells a resource cheaper than other AI would buy it.

That's fine. Even if you're not making a profit, then you are still 'stealing' the diplomacy bonuses for ongoing trade. That alone would be sufficient reason to do this.
Whether it would be worth reselling once you've got a corp though....

Sounds like the rorts in Civ III are precisely what we are looking for! I really wish game designers would stop closing rorts, and instead work on incorporating them into the game.

 

[Airefuego]

Another problem with CivIV trade is that it ignores the "mutual gain" benefits of trade.

In game terms...

Example 1: Tokyo and Karakorum each have one silk and one dye in their BFC, they don't need to trade.

Example 2: Tokyo has two dyes, and Karakorum has two silks, so they trade, hoorah!... but in the game they are now in EXACTLY the same position as the cities in Example 1. Whereas in real life, this trade route would enrich both cities more, in terms of money, beakers and cultural contact. AND the port city connecting them - say, Shanghai - should also benefit from being the trade hub.

 

[whitelaughter]

Agreed. the problem is how to represent this without unbalancing the game.

 

[Infantry#14]

I thought this thread suggests modern pirate units, like you can upgrade a privateer into a modern pirate ship.

My suggestion:
Pirate Ship
Str 20
-Invisible to most units except destroyer
-Sentry
-50% bonus against transports
-20% Withdrawl Chance
-Capture transports and carriers
-Req Refrigeration + Satellites

 

[whitelaughter]

Interesting.
The Strength is about right - able to take a Transport yet easily dismantled by a Destroyer.

Upgrades - Privateer to Pirate Ship? Pirate Ship to Destroyer?

Privateers already get Sentry - why not Flanking instead of the Withdrawal chance? That'd make them more valuable as potential upgrades.

The German Privateers in both world wars were quite effective for a short period of time - the Thor and Penjuin coming to mind. How about requiring Fascism instead of Satellites?

 

[FriendoftheDork]

Why not just allow submarines to blockade and attack in peace like privateers? Maybe a bit unrealistic

BTW remember that privs are not pirates. Barbarians represent pirates and barbarian ships in modern age could represent modern ones.