Trade - Advice Please

[DrDave]

In a multiplayer game, I am building caravans in my core cities to build wonders in my SSC, and settlers in my outer territories to expand. I am producing a vast number of caravans, and therefore have many left over after building each wonder which I am using for trade.

I know that the number of beakers and gold you get initially is related to the size and distance apart of the two cities, and if there is a road between them (still to discover rail).

So is it better to spend several turns moving the caravans a great distance to get a bigger payoff in a future turn (particularly to a city demanding the commodity) or to move caravans to cities it can reach in 1 or 2 turns and take many smaller payoffs instead?

Any advice is greatly appreciated

Dave

 

[funxus]

You'll get a lot more profit per shield if you send them to a demanding AI city than to your own neigbouring city. So, I usually try to get them abroad and get a good system going with ships and roads to speed up transportation. There are limits though to how far I'm willing to send them...

 

[la fayette]

Originally posted by DrDave
.
is it better to spend several turns moving the caravans a great distance to get a bigger payoff in a future turn (particularly to a city demanding the commodity) or to move caravans to cities it can reach in 1 or 2 turns and take many smaller payoffs instead?

Any advice is greatly appreciated

Dave

You can travel a very long distance in 1 turn if you combine RR and shipchains.

My advice:
RR comes quite late, but you can establish a shipchain with triremes very early. That is what you should try to achieve (and you will love it because the delivery bonus of early caravans is x2 ).

 

[ElephantU]

Sending early and mid-game caravans by sea gives you two benefits: delivery to AI cities prevents the 50% loss for domestic trade (both bonus and trade routes), as well as enabling the doubling of bonus for off-continent delivery. Plus, ship chains can get a caravan more than 3 tiles per turn.

That said, a greater analysis for the SSC needs to be done. The trade routes are what counts for the SSC, and the best ones are to an AI city on your own continent connected by "optimal" road or rail. If this is impossible, head for the biggest AI city overseas that has the most visible trade generating terrain around it. Realize that the AI prioritizes trade last behind food and shields, so it will stupidly irrigate a Gems into Grass. Look for Whales, Silk, Spice and mined Wine in the city radius, and rivers. Bigger is usually better, but some of those citizens may be working non-trade Forests.

 

[A+ombomb]

Each square moved increases the value of the trade route by exactly the number that the trade route to that city will be in your city screen. This is assuming that both cities are on the same continent - as elephant said you gain a bonus for intercontinental endeavors. So let's say that we have two cities at the closest proximity, 2 squares apart, and the recursive trading in the city screen is +10 trade. This would mean that the value of the initial bonus for forming the trade route would be 20, assuming no roads or railroads or demanded item or any other such boosters. If you traded to a city 3 squares away, the same situation would produce 30. This means that you would acquire less trade if you had a normal caravan moving at 1 square a turn, since the cities 2 apart would produce +10 trade each for the additional turn it takes to travel for cities 3 apart. When you add in movement enhancers and freights, however, it clearly becomes far more productive to make routes to the further possible cities that still demand the commodity. If there are no distant demands, but only very nearby, it would probably be worth going the extra distance to trade with a far off city even without the demand, simply because of the multiplier for extra squares moved and the fact that ships move many squares a turn (and ship trains would make this a nobrainer).

I recently found out that the previous paragraph is only somewhat true - you need to have all the techs. Before having all the techs, each new tech you gain will improve a trade routes highest possible rating with the exception of the first 19 techs (once you hit 20 techs, it starts going up), and with the exception of the invention/navigation and the railroad. When you hit navigation or the invention, whichever comes first, your trade routes will be halved - so it might be a good idea to tech everything else that you want before grabbing either of these. Once you have one, the other doesn't reduce your trade. The railroad, similarly, also reduces your trade routes by 1/2. On the plus side, both invention/navigation and the railroad also increase the maximum you can gain from a route, so even though you will be temporarily at a disadvantage, eventually your routes will likely become more lucrative than before.