Trade Route Balancing

[Stalker0]

Here's another area where we can laser in on.

Land Routes vs Sea

Sea Routes give much more than land and can connect farther, but they are harder to protect and more costly to replace.

Is there a balance issue or is this fine as is?


Internal vs External Routes

Early game I think internal is better to get your cities developed quickly. Internal routes on sea cities is a BIG benefit. I generally only go external early game to pick up influence with a CS, or if I am behind in tech and get a nice science benefit.

Early game balance seems fine to be, as its less about internal vs external and more about "getting a trade route vs the billion other things I can be building".

As the game progresses I used to switch to external routes, but lately I'm not sure.

14-20 GPT vs +9 hammers or food? Further I am not giving my enemy any benefits with an internal trade route and ITRs are easier to defend, especially when there is war.
On the other hand an external trade route can knock out poverty in a big hurry, probably more so than most things you can build.

The fact that I am conflicted here is likely a good thing and may indicate balance.


So any thoughts? Do we have any balance issues here or is this system good to go as is?

 

[Wodhann]

I think land trade routes need to eventually become as good as sea trade routes as time goes on. I mean is nowadays really that much better to send something over the coast than directly via land, assuming both points are on the same land mass?

I mentioned before in the WvT thread, but in my opinion internal trade routes is one of the reasons Wide is better right now - mainly because, the more cities you have, the more internal trade routes you can make, and since the cities produce gold themselves you don't really need external ones (you'll get more gold from well developed cities than trade routes). I think they need to be seriously looked at.

 

[ExpiredReign]

This is what I argued in CEP, unsuccessfully.

Sea trade is inherently more beneficial. More supplies, greater distance, more destinations all of which argue to me there should be more return. I think vanilla is fine.

Internal trade is another thing entirely. I reckon the vanilla mechanic is just... wrong.

It should be shuffling your yields around your cities but it's more like some magical supply of stuff that appears on your doorstep. If City_A has a production trade route City_B, its internal production should be reduced and it should receive a trade off in another yield from City_B, which likewise has that yield reduced.


On a side point, the mechanic for finding suitable trade cities is in need of a tweak.
Take the early game when much of the map may still be hidden. Your may meet a unit from a city whose location is still hidden. If it is in your radius you can send a caravan/cargo ship to that site and still not know what the terrain is in between. Either we give a reveal of the hexes that the caravan/cargo ship traverses or that city is unavailable until we actually find it.

 

[mystikx21]

I think land trade routes need to eventually become as good as sea trade routes as time goes on. I mean is nowadays really that much better to send something over the coast than directly via land, assuming both points are on the same land mass?

Depends on the trains. But the answer to that question is probably still yes in many cases. Things being on the same land mass does not mean that it is viable to transport goods across it. (consider things coming from Chile or Brazil to the US, that's the same land mass, or from China to Germany). One of the bigger advantages for sea routes over land routes IRL is the cross-border shipment problems are reduced to almost zero. So sea routes should almost always be more profitable in the game. This is not a huge problem provided that the trade-off is that the sea routes are at higher risk from pirates or warfare.

A second point would be that trade routes can be construed as abstracted to mean that objects coming from overseas are then transshipped elsewhere. The value of the over seas routes and the foreign routes is that they are bringing in "goods" that you theoretically can't get somewhere else as effectively.

I would consider the following though for game play reasons even if realism fails us.
1) A more significant boost from caravansary than harbors (something like +4 instead of +1-2). This would not equalize the routes, but would make the land routes more attractive relative to the cost.
2) A boost at Railroads or a similar tech to land routes (presumably that can be done via techs now). That could include domestic routes.
3) Possibly another boost at a later tech (a flight related one for example?)

 

[Wodhann]

When I meant land-mass, I mentioned the "reachable" land-mass - trade routes in the game are already limited by range anyway. And sea trade routes should reach further than land ones, that's a given.

I think land trade routes should be about as good as sea ones by the point you researched railroads. But I'm sure we can come up with something creative to achieve this.

 

[ExpiredReign]

I simply don't see why land routes should be on a par with sea routes.
Taking the logistical impasse of long-distance land trade, sea trade is always going to be more profitable.

I would go with larger boosts to the land route if certain criteria are in place.

If trading with MAJOR civs there could be these bonuses.
However the total bonus should never reach that of a sea route between the same two cities.

• BOTH trade partners knowing RAILROAD
• if there is a connecting railroad
• Both trade partners have researched FLIGHT
• sending AND/OR receiving city has an AIRPORT

Trade with MINOR civs could be less restrictive.

 

[mitsho]

I don't think we should discuss realism in regards to trade routes, civ does abstract way too much here anyways. What's important for me is that the gameplay works. And here we have a clear switch from land to sea taking away choice from the player. They don't need to be the same either (= risk&reward are different anyways), but if you want to keep the different buffs in the social policies, land routes do need a buff in the late game.

Why would airports buff land trade routes btw.? I'd probably be fine with it, but in general, buildings should have one purpose and not mix yield benefits.

Two changes I can see making trade routes more interesting, but are probably too far a deviation from the main game: 1) Production/Food from internal trade routes depend on the sending city (without taking food away) 2) There's a cap on how many trade routes a city can send away that may increase with caravanserai, harbors, social policies and the extra wonders (Colossus, Petra). At the moment, you basically just create on trade city, which is fine from a micromanaging and gameplay standpoint, but I'd find it more interesting the other way around.

 

[ExpiredReign]

...

Why would airports buff land trade routes btw.? ...

My point was, that city has the capability to receive trade from airplanes, which would be greater than trade by road or rail. I guess you could argue that that isn't the case.

 

[Lord Tirian]

I don't think we should discuss realism in regards to trade routes, civ does abstract way too much here anyways. What's important for me is that the gameplay works.

Additionally, if you make internal trade routes transport routes, they will lose a lot of worth, since there's already the opportunity cost of using it as gold trade route instead (and I think the "helping opponents" is somewhat overstated since you can focus on city states to reduce that effect).

That's also a reason why I'd like to keep trade routes as the main source of gold - it keeps internal trade routes balanced and makes them an interesting choice: "do I buff a city or do I get gold?" Messing with either (making gold more abundant or making internal trade routes weak by making them transfers) basically marginalises the trade route system as a whole.

Why would airports buff land trade routes btw.? I'd probably be fine with it, but in general, buildings should have one purpose and not mix yield benefits.

I think it's because it's a thematic fit (imported air goods grant more "local" stuff to trade). And if the airport was a tourism-only building, I'd agree with buffing it to make it useful to other playstyles, but airlifting is very potent already.

At the moment, you basically just create on trade city, which is fine from a micromanaging and gameplay standpoint, but I'd find it more interesting the other way around.

I'd really like to see something like diminishing returns from extra trade routes in the same city, encouraging spreading them out. It means having "trade hubs" is encouraged, but having more than one becomes better (you basically balance the diminishing returns with your percentage gold boosters). Could even use that to buff land trade routes by exempting them from it.

Would need to communicate that to the player, though!

 

[Stalker0]

I actually think trade hubs are somewhat realistic though.

Many countries had the "nexus of trade" in one or two areas.

Right now we also have two mechanics that encourage you to spread trade around.

1) internal trade routes are useful to spread around to double up bonuses to a single city.

2) poverty encourages spread. Putting tons if gold in one city if not as efficient for knocking out poverty as putting one good trade route in several cities

 

[Wodhann]

That's also a reason why I'd like to keep trade routes as the main source of gold - it keeps internal trade routes balanced and makes them an interesting choice: "do I buff a city or do I get gold?" Messing with either (making gold more abundant or making internal trade routes weak by making them transfers) basically marginalises the trade route system as a whole.

My problem with internal trade routes right now is that if you're building Wide, not only they're the only ones you need, but they help you gain supremacy over empires going Tall.

Cities are living "trade routes", they produce gold by themselves, and you can turn production into gold if you want. If you have a lot of cities, you don't even need trade routes, all you have to do is set up an internal trade route net and you'll have a Tall AND Wide empire that produces everything through cities.

You're right about making trade routes more important. But, you know, the same could be achieved by making internal trade routes less important.

What I would do with internal trade routes, if I had the capacity, is this:

Internal trade routes of each type (food and prod) could only be initially assigned from the capital to another city, and only to that city. Then, you could only assign another internal trade route starting from that receiving city. Each subsequent city will make the route weaker and weaker. So the first receiving city could get for example 6 food, then the following 4, then 2, then 1.

But yeah, this would probably be a nightmare to code. I'm just exercising my imagination.

 

[ExpiredReign]

@mithso's comment about 'abstraction' got me thinking.
Looking at the design of trade you could conclude that it was developed after the idea of pillaged trade routes, and hence the need to enlarge your navies, was added.

Let me elaborate. Why do we need units to describe the trade route? They can't be moved by the player. They move on their own set route and that can't be modified through play. The only time units serve a function is when the city you want to trade from is currently producing something else and you relocate a trade unit from another city. From that point on trade is governed by the Trade Route UIs and we only ever need to worry about them when enemies are near to the route itself.

Trade could easily have been done with just a behind the scenes mechanic in the same way other types of trade is done via the diplomacy interface. Then this whole discussion whether land or sea trade is better would be moot. What we are really looking at is the defendability of trade routes with the tacked on benefit of making them give different returns.

With that background in mind we could now strip the trade back to just one simple 'Trade Unit' that can go anywhere if criteria is met or even enlarge the types of trade units to include perhaps 'Air Cargo units' that can trade safely all over the globe.

The point I'm getting at is: vanilla trade does okay in displaying the abstraction of cost/return in the trade systems. Caravans are cheaper and give less but are good early. Cargo ships give more but require more to maintain the route and can be used on into the end-game. As I said before, they feel balanced to me.


On a side note. Is it just me or is anyone else bemused by the art assets used by cargo ships well into the Modern era? Little 'galleon-like' ships plying the waves with battleships and destroyers sailing by. Has Firaxis messed up the timing of the asset change for cargo-ships?

 

[Stalker0]

My problem with internal trade routes right now is that if you're building Wide, not only they're the only ones you need, but they help you gain supremacy over empires going Tall.

I'm still not fully convinced that the vanilla game favors wide play, but even so a lot has been put in place to give Tall advantages. (the new happiness mechanic makes fast expansion very difficult so far).

Internal Trade Routes do help small cities get off the ground fast...but they also help my capital become even more of a super city.

I don't feel this is a strong rationale for changing the system.

 

[Stalker0]

I don't think we should discuss realism in regards to trade routes, civ does abstract way too much here anyways. What's important for me is that the gameplay works.

I strongly agree with this.

I mean, if we want to get "realistic"...mines should start exhausting themselves at some point in the game. Where are all these magic hammers coming from?


If we need to change the routes because of balance issues, then alright. But I don't want to fundamentally change how they work because it "doesn't feel right".

 

[Wodhann]

I was thinking to myself just now. Maybe my internal trade route concern should be a problem I should raise after seeing how CP fares in the multiplayer arena. I don't think it's possible to test this very well against the AI, considering AI tends to put a lot of focus on external trade routes.

I'll retract my points about internal trade routes for now, but will come back when we start doing multiplayer alpha testing (which, by the way, I do not think it's yet time for).

 

[Gazebo]

Keep in mind that trade route gold is factored into the poverty test. Cities that are naturally gold-poor may need trade routes to stay out of poverty. Too many trade routes from the same city may adversely affect poverty elsewhere in your empire due to averages rising.
G