Trade Routes over water not working?

[JBConquests]

I have my capital in the middle of one continent and a city on another island. I built harbors in the island city and a harbor in a city on the water on the same continent as the capital but I still don't get a trade route. I am in the modern era. What am I missing?

Edit: The capital and the city with the harbor are connected via road.

 

[Dusk]

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=386652

 

[Tres_Huevos]

Do you have an unbroken chain of explored water tiles between the two harbors? Because it seems you need to for them to work. At least it did in a game I played. Otherwise, I have no idea what could be wrong.

 

[Fariic]

If your capital isnt on the coast with a harbor of it's own then you need a road connecting at least one city with a harbor to the capital.

 

[JBConquests]

Thanks for the link Dusk.

Yes, I have an unbroken chain of explored water tiles in between the two cities.

Yes, I have a road connecting my capital to a city on the coast and the city on the coast has a harbor.

Thanks for the tips - I wonder if this is a bug?

 

[PieceOfMind]

Just a suggestion in case you haven't tried it already, see if it updates itself after 1 or 2 turns. I'm not entirely sure but in a game I played earlier, I think that fixed a problem when my capital with harbor and another city with harbor didn't show as connected right away.

Also, if you open strategic mode and enable the Trade Routes overlay, you should be able to see trade routes I think. That might help diagnose the problem, but I haven't used that overlay much so I can't say for sure. Maybe there is something blocking the route.

 

[Dusk]

I think you need navigation before trade routes can cross ocean, until then it's only coast.

 

[PieceOfMind]

Indeed, and it's probably quite easy for coastal routes to be blocked, especially if not all inside your visibility range.

It'd probably also be true that you need to have at least uncovered an unbroken path between the two points. Fog is ok, but clouds aren't.

 

[Mustakrakish]

I had a situation where I build harbors in several of my cities, but the trade route wasn't establishing. After a few moments of hesitation I decided to build a harbor in my capital also... and the trade routes were established.

 

[shadowplay]

Also keep in mind that if barbarian ships are present in your borders, they blockade trade-roots from the cities they're near. I don't know the exact numbers but their effect radius is rather significant.

 

[JBConquests]

I finished the game and never did get the trade route to establish. The island city was quite a ways from my mainland. Mainland was at the bottom of a standard sized map, island city was at the top. It isn't clear to me why the trade route never established. Everything was explored, it is possible there were barbarian boats somewhere in between on occasion but not the entire time.

I started a new game, build a city on a seperate island which was only 1 square away from my mainland. I built a harbor in a mainland city which was not my capital but had
a road to the capital, and a harbor in the island city and the trade route worked fine.

Maybe it wasn't establishing the trade route in my earlier game due to the distance between the cities?

Perhaps all the coastal water routes need to be in your control? (even though I had Navigation)

 

[Alraun]

It isn't clear to me why the trade route never established. Everything was explored, it is possible there were barbarian boats somewhere in between on occasion but not the entire time.

How do you know they weren't there the entire time? As long as they don't stay in a city's shooting radius they're probably going to survive for a very long time. Unless you have ships constantly patrolling the coast, there's no way to be sure.

 

[JBConquests]

How do you know they weren't there the entire time? As long as they don't stay in a city's shooting radius they're probably going to survive for a very long time. Unless you have ships constantly patrolling the coast, there's no way to be sure.

There were no barbarians around my island city most of the time. I did have a Frigate around the island for island defense. There were no barbarians around my mainland where the harbor was. And there was an entire ocean in between them. Maybe if there is a barbarian anywhere in the entire ocean, your trade routes are automatically blocked.

 

[Rohili]

I have this problem too. I conquered a bunch of cities on the same continent as my capital, but they were too far away to make roads worthwhile (plus there are civs in between who refuse to have open borders with me). One of the conquered cities was on the coast, so I annexed it to build a harbour. I then connected that harbour city to the other conquered cities in the area by road.

However, it's been at least 10 turns now and I still do not have a trade route yet. My capital is connected by road to two coastal cities with harbours, and there is an explored coastline between those two cities and my conquered harbour city. I also have researched Navigation, so I don't know what's the problem.

 

[JBConquests]

I have this problem too. I conquered a bunch of cities on the same continent as my capital, but they were too far away to make roads worthwhile (plus there are civs in between who refuse to have open borders with me). One of the conquered cities was on the coast, so I annexed it to build a harbour. I then connected that harbour city to the other conquered cities in the area by road.

However, it's been at least 10 turns now and I still do not have a trade route yet. My capital is connected by road to two coastal cities with harbours, and there is an explored coastline between those two cities and my conquered harbour city. I also have researched Navigation, so I don't know what's the problem.

Yea, I've gotten trade routes to work with harbors as long as the harbors are really close to each other. If they are far away, no luck. Sorry, at this point I can't quantify "far away" and "really close".

 

[Svest]

Are you 100% certain you never actually got the trade route? By that I mean, I recently was playing an archipelago map where at first I thought my trade routes were broken too. The little icon never showed up on the city and I never got the message that said trade route established. However, upon further investigation of my income I was in fact getting money from trade routes for the cities I had built harbors in.

 

[JBConquests]

I did not investigate any deeper than relying on the icon under the city.

Unfortunately I don't have the same game anymore to go back and check your theory.