Trade depot - irksome rationale

[Donny Viking]

Apologies of this has been covered before while I've been busy...

I can see why the trade depot had to be nerfed, and not available to brand new cities, but every time I found a city it plucks a nerve that it is the only building that can't be rush-bought. It just doesn't make sense that a cheap, prefabricated shed is the only thing that can't be bought. I don't often moan, but this is such a noob response to the initial problem.

Yes, it was too easy in the past and needed fixing, but this can't be the right way.

How about e.g. binning trade depots altogether and...
1. Having one trade route available once a city reaches 5 pop and another at 10.
or 2. Making trade routes much, much weaker, but still useful, like in Civ1.


For example?

Any other good ideas?

 

[joncnunn]

Moderator Action: Moved to Ideas & Suggestions

 

[Minor Annoyance]

Well you could rationalize it by not seeing it as a building but setting up the city as part of a trade network and mapping out routes to every other city on the planet.

 

[AmazonQueen]

I bsee it as being more like a caravanserai than a big warehouse

 

[LORD ORION]

I agree with OP

Making Trade Depot's not purchasable was a clunky fix.

Basically 1) It can't be OP is everyone can do it. (really, the 1st thing to do is build a trade deopt with +1 production in a city anyways)

2) There are cases where not being able to do it is unfair

Station appears near enemy and a trade route can be established immediately.
Station appears near you and a trade route cannot be established unless you drop a colony in the right place. (aww sorry, station timed out while your enemy was wracking up the early station route)

derp
bad new design from fix attempt that resulted from original bad gameplay design.... nice job.