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Civman10

Chieftain
Joined
Mar 3, 2002
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can everyone fully explain how cavans and trade work.

i know a city can only have thre routes but can it receive more than three?
 
OK. Here we go...

You build a caravan and pick a commodity (we'll leave out Food)
When that commodity is delivered to another city you get a Bonus that is dependent on a number of factors including distance between cities, different/same continent, same/foreign civ, freight/caravan, whether certain techs have been researched so far, or whether there are Superhighways or Airports in the cities. Note that the message says the bonus is Gold, but you ALSO get a bonus in science beakers that is (with some exceptions) equal to the stated gold bonus.

When the commodity is delivered, a trade route is established in BOTH cities. This route gives each city extra trade arrows. The amount of arrows depends on the "native" trade in the cities, same/foreign civ, existence or roads/RR *on certain routes* between the cities, superhighways, etc.

Once you select a commodity for a caravan, the city can not produce another caravan of that commodity. However, the game will frequently change the commodities available and will under certain circumstances "free up" production of previously delivered commodities. Commodities demanded by cities also change (for me it seems to happen right before I am about to deliver a bunch of caravans :rolleyes: )

As long as you are allowed to select a commodity, you can create as many of these trade caravans as you want from any city. However a city will get the ongoing trade route (the extra arrows) from no more than THREE routes at any one time.

You can deliver the caravans to any city and still get the delivery bonus, but that city will still only get the benefit of three trade routes at one time. There are circumstances where the new route will replace one of the old routes, but I'm not sure how that is determined.

How's that for a start?
 
I need help too!
I been playing Civ II(Test of time) for a month still i keep wondering how the hell did most people managed to get net gold 500 to 5000 PER TURN?

I been playing few games still my average net gold is around 2 to 170 per turn...

One of my latest game is..
5.2 Million Population
GNP $200 million
MGT goods 141mTONS
Annual INcome $105 per capita
Productivity : 50....


I have about 20 cities.... most of them have Marketplace, bank, grany, courthouse, .. etc.... and adams smith co, Great Library, Shakespear theatre, Womens suffrage .. and i got enginners to integarate all the land.....

Total cost: 132
Total Income: 144
Total Science: 96
Discoveries: 10 turns

well i havent build freight yet cuz my last game i did built isnt profit enuigh.... so i need your help to guide me thru please....
i prefer to trade around my cities only not the computer... i know i get less profit but i like it that way.. pls help me.....

Do i build 3 freights in each city and trade around with each other? Do i build 3 freights in each city and sent them all to my capital?

I want more GOLD... im sick of having around 20 gold per turn and my gold balance is only less than 1000 it sux seeing everying in here is having around 20,000 gold on balance.. I NEED HELPPPPPPPPP.... i been searching trade post in here but most didnt clarify enugh for me to underdstand.. ps help me.
 
Ideally, you want each city to have 3 trade routes. Each trade route adds arrows to your cities' trade production - which translates directly into gold and science beakers depending on your tax rate. You also get gold and and equal # of beakers upon delivery.

Routes to your own cities return less gold/beakers upon delivery, but then one caravan or freight adds a route to two cities. So it is actually worth the same as a foreign route on its per turn value. That is, it's worth half as much, but you reap both halves. Just make routes, don't worry about increasing the value right away.

You should have trade routes started immediately upon discovering trade. If you wait until the modern era (I'm guessing that because you have Women's Suffrage), you've lost out on a huge amount of income over the course of the game. If you set up a trade route in 1000bc, by 1750ad it could net your civ many hundreds of arrows. Multiply that by 3 and again by the number of cities - Trade alone can earn you many techs and thousands of gold.
 
can either receive three routes or send three routes or both?does it matter about supply and demand?

when it says +0 (or what ever number, what does that mean?
 
You can send or receive as many trades routes as you want, but only the three best routes (no matter how they are formed) will be active and count towards the cities trade.

Matching supply and demand just gets you a higher delivery bonus, it doesn't have anything to do with the number of trade arrows the city receives as a bonus.

A +0 means that you have made a trade route between two cities, but that the cities are (a combination of things); too close together, too small, or don't have enough trade on thier own to get a bonus.

Be sure to check out the War Academy section on trade.
 
When you build a caravan at city A and deliver it to city B, it creates a trade route between city A and city B, so each city now has one trade route.

Then you deliver a caravan from city C to city B. City A has one route, city B has two, and city C has one.

City D delivers one to city B. City A has one route, city B has three, city C has one, and city D has one.

City E makes a delivery to city B. City A has one route, city B has three, city C has one, city D has one, and city E has one.

City A to city D. City A has two routes, city B has three, city C has one, city D has two, and city E has one.

City D to city A. City A has three routes, city B has three, city C has one, city D has three, and city E has one.

Does that help? You can deliver or receive more than three caravans, but only three trade routes can be created for the city, whether they are from caravans sent or received, there can only be a maximum of three trade routes for each city.
 
i am in year 720 bc and hae made tons of cavans but they keep only giving between 0-1 trade points. how can u get that figure better?
is it best to make new trade links after u get freights?
 
and do u get get the bonuses added to your routes eg. 50% for frieht, 50, rail, 50%air or do u did to start a good trade route for that?
 
Thanks Duke of Marlbrough for your excellent tips!

HELP!!!!!!!!!
Also, do I build 3 Freights in each city and deliver bunch of it at the same time?

Lastly, How does Food Freight work? Lets say if I deliver a food freight from City A to City B..... City A's food = -1 City B's food = +1 ......... Isnt that a trade off??? Why would I wanna send a Food freight from City A to city B when my City A's population is increasing and i dont wanan ahave shortgae in food in future. i have experience food shortages in my previous game ......
 
why do they have the gross domestic product of your country? whats the point if you have gold? and is nowhere near that amount
 
Originally posted by Yakuza
Lastly, How does Food Freight work? Lets say if I deliver a food freight from City A to City B..... City A's food = -1 City B's food = +1 ......... Isnt that a trade off??? Why would I wanna send a Food freight from City A to city B when my City A's population is increasing and i dont wanan ahave shortgae in food in future. i have experience food shortages in my previous game ......

Basically, this is how it works. It is useful if one of your cities is producing zero surplus food per turn and will not grow any more then you either rejig the workers so you get a food surplus or send in a caravan to help it out. They are also very useful for bui.ding wonders. If you want to cancel a food trade route (say for example that the city I used as an example above has now grown past its difficult stage and is now producing food at a normal rate) then simply send another food caravan in the opposite direction and it will stop.
The way in which food caravans work has allowed a trick that will boost your population far beyond what it might normally achieve. When you deliver a caravan from city A to city B, city B gets +1 food and city A gets -1 food. Simple enough, you may think. However, city B also fills the food box halfway, so that it is halfway to growing larger. Therefore, if you deliver two food caravans in the same turn, next turn the city will grow another size, regardless of whether it produces enough food to sustain this extra population for any more turns. Due to an unusual bug, city A can send another caravan to city B but it will have neither -2 food nor +2 respectively. So you can use this to send as many caravans from one city to another, and it will never lose more than one food but will fill the grain box halfway each time. Continue to do this and you'll get an instant population explosion! Note, however, that any population above size 36 in your cities will not do your civ any good, apart from the score boost. Once you have a worker in each square then the extra people turn into specialists, but once you have enough Elvises (or Elvii, as I prefer) then they will have no effect and you only get 1 Civ score point for each one. But if you want a huge score, then this is the way to do it! :goodjob:
 
Originally posted by Civman10
i am in year 720 bc and hae made tons of cavans but they keep only giving between 0-1 trade points. how can u get that figure better?
is it best to make new trade links after u get freights?
The best way to increase the value is to make sure your cities produce more arrows. Build roads, work special terrain or ocean, grow larger to have more workers.

The value will increase as your city grows and the workers produce more arrows. Think in terms of a percentage - if it adds 10%, but the city is small and only produces 4 arrows, you get zero. Later when the city produces 20 arrows, the trade route will add 2 more.

Existing trade routes in a city can be replaced by newer routes. If you set up hides and beads, they will return less than gems or spice.
 
There is an optimal route along which a road or railroad must be built to gain a bonus for that trade route. Someone made a graphic showing it, but I have no idea where to find it. :(

A number of factors can increase the return for a delivered caravan - the type of commodity (e.g. silk is worth more than hides), the number of arrows each city produces, the distance, whether they are connected by airports, etc.

William Keenan wrote a good summary of all these factors. At Apolyton, the thread was titled "Caravan Delivery Payoff Formula", which I think is also the title of his web page of the info. Search the web on that title if nobody posts a link...
 
Isn't the optimal route for the trade that Sodaq mentioned just the route that the AI follows when you put the caravan on GoTo? To work it out then just leave it be and then road any squares that it comes off the road onto. It's a pain in the neck, but it will marginally improve the pay-off you receive on delivery.
 
Not only trade routes, also market places, banks and stock exchanges improve your income. If you've SoL, switch to Fundi for a while to make some money and rush build them.
If not, stay at democracy, build caravans, put them on ships and deliver them to big AI cities (>size 10). Do that until each of your bigger cities has got 3 trade route to different AI cities.
Attention: Avoid to conquer your foreign trade cities!
 
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