Trading Post Improvement in G&K

[MARDUK80]

Game Info:

"Trading Posts are outposts where hunters and trappers may sell their wares to civilians in exchange for food, weapons, whiskey, gold, and all of the other trappings of society. They can generate a lot of wealth for a society."

Yields: +1 Gold. Prerequisite Techs: Trapping

I am a bit curious to hear comments on how would you improve the Trading Post worker improvement in CiV Gods & Kings ? Does it even need to be revamped at all ? Or just some minor tweak to it ? I would like to keep this topic an open discussion about Trading Post (ie. Gold improvement) and the role/importance how the concept plays in the game in general, rather than having simply new ideas & suggestions (ie. discussion topic, rather than new ideas)

Reminding the Civ IV cottage concept:

Cottages/Towns: Building cottages early in the game to allow them to develop into villages and towns later in the game really help your economy, as not many tiles provide commerce unless there is a resource or river on it. These towns can turn into major commerce sources to help feed your economy.

What are cottages and hamlets?

A cottege is a tile improvements that a worker can build to provide additional commerce. For example, a worker can build a cottage on a grassland tile to provide 1 commerce per turn. After having a city work that tile for a certain amount of turns (dependent on your game speed; it's 10 turns on normal), it will grow into a Hamlet, which provides 2 commerce (these aren't cumulative). Hamlets will grow into Villages, and Villages into Towns. Villages, which produce 3 commerce, yield an extra one if the player has Printing Press, and towns, normally 4 commerce, have the following bonuses: +1 for Printing Press, +2 commerce for the Free Speech civic, and +1 hammer for the Universal Suffrage civic. Over time, and built early enough, cottages can turn into an important part of your economy, as roads no longer provide commerce bonuses.

I really liked the way Cottages -> Hamlets -> Villeges -> Towns system worked in Civ IV. It really gave importance to build them as early as possible and defend them as able as you could. In the other hand Pillaging town tiles was also good way to gain gold and it made the whole pillaging concept more real, useful and fun. Unfortunately in CiV the AI hardly ever pillages any tile improvements even if they have extra ability for that (fe. Ottomans, Denmark). I think AI should always* pillage tile improvements whenever has opportunity to do so. Even Barbarians do not pillage. Especially on harder difficulty levels pillaging should be mandatory. I usually play on emperor. *(This should depend on the AI flavors - Harald, Genghis and Askia for example have very high interest to pillage. Gandhi, Pachacuti and Harun al-Rashid very low.)


"Trading Posts are outposts where hunters and trappers may sell their wares to civilians in exchange for food, weapons, whiskey, gold, and all of the other trappings of society."

Hmm, perhaps the gold yield should depend on how many luxury resources (why not strategic and bonus also) you have gained? This would represent "selling wares and other trappings of your society to civilians". Losing access to the luxury resource (pillaged, lost land or culture) would give direct hit to ones economy (in addition of cancelling possible trade deal, decreases happiness etc.) and makes tile pillagement even more important. Wars are ugly and major devastation of land and infrastructure always happens. I would like to see this having more important role in Civ. You would really want to keep those wars - battles - enemy units away from your territory no matter what. Also would be a nice addition if it would be possible to destroy tile improvements with Siege weapons.

I'm not sure about this, just liked to point out my desire for improved Trading Posts in G&K

 

[Optional]

There isn't much right about the current trading post.
It's way too easy to make money in the game, the trading post just compounds this problem, they can get spammed everywhere regardless - except on tiles with a resource - and on top of it they look horrible.

My first response is to trash the thing, destroy, hack it in pieces and don't let it come back.

I can come up with an idea as well, though, if you don't appreciate me coming here just as a vandalist.
I find rivers at the moment too unimportant. You sometimes see a player's starting settler on a river, but the player opting to move a tile away from it to settle on a hill.
This is unhistorical. In real life you would miss out on a lot if you didn't settle on the river. In Civ 5 there's no consequence for trade, this is wrong in my view. It's just a watermill you're missing.
I'm not going to pain my brain to how it exactly should be reworked, but making a market dependent on river placement wouldn't be a bad thing. I'm still not sure how a trading post could blend in. Having both trading posts and markets is like having duplicate buildings; they are both trading facilities that are good for gold.

In general I find less is better here, and somehow river dependency should come back.

 

[CYZ]

It's hard. In a way they are already overpowered (though I never build them outside puppetcities).

I'd give them a bonus when they are on a road or river tile. They get an extra production then (1 gold + 1 production is not bad). It might also makes roads and rivers a bit more important. Perhaps as to not overpower them, they get minus 1 gold for every adjacent tradepost (thus they should never be adjacent to each other.

It's realistic and increases the choices you have, but also makes these choices harder.

 

[Louis XXIV]

I think they're fine right now. I usually don't even bother to build them post-nerf. I should try TP spamming and see how effective they are before I really comment, though.

My suggestion in the past was to give them 2 gold, but -1 food. This meant that they're most beneficial in low-food tiles (such as desert) and you need to have high food sources nearby to support them. Unfortunately, the game mechanics won't let you get less food than the base tile, so it didn't work properly in game when I tried to mod it this way.

 

[Xichael]

Trading Posts were stupid aesthetically. Sure they kind of look like towns later in the game but why not just call them towns? I mean seriously urbanization isn't restricted to a city every few tiles nowadays.

 

[Exterminas]

I think the problem with transporting the Hamlet-System into CiV would be in the overal balancing.
Something that V allows you that IV did not is to play a very small yet effective empire.

This is the result of the high upkeep resulting from buildings that make your cities more efficient.

If we were to add the Hamlet-System to CiV they would have to increase maintenance to combat the effect of larger empires growing absurdely rich, thus absurdely powerful. (Reminder: Gold is a lot more powerful in CiV than in CiIV) But raising maintenance would cripple smaller empires, since they can't generate infinite income like a large puppet-state can.

I do agree that the old system was more fun, but then again I like playing as an efficient state with about five large cities. I would not want to sacrifice this possibility for a fun concept.

 

[nokmirt]

I like trading posts because they help control unhappiness due to unwanted growth in puppet cities. There has to be some kind of way to keep unhappiness under control.

Really though, I am not sure if I have ever cared for this new happiness system in CiV. The AI is so unbalanced compared to the human in this regard, its like night and day. You can hardly ever keep up with AI happiness. I like large empires with this current system they are very hard to manage. I do hope religion in G&K goes a long way to giving some happiness bonuses to your growing empire.

I would rather see villages grow up around cities and give bonuses to happiness, trade route income (I do not like the idea of tons of roads though like Civ 4, a town within a certain radius to a city is automatically connected to that city's trade route, if that city is linked to a trade route.), and production as they grow. This would control growth in cities, because people could settle in the countryside. This way you can pick and choose when and where to grow a village, using this to balance growth, or deter growth in the big city if you wish. Essentially it would be a great tool for managing happiness within your empire, and it is more realistic.

Trading Posts should stay in the game, but be used for different purpose. Not sure what? Maybe they could be built to give a boost to trade route income, especially if you have a long trade route, which happens often. You could build a trade post every so many hexes, to improve income. (Or perhaps one TP per trade route.) You can call it cheating if you want.

Trading posts should evolve and improve as the game continues to something else as well. Perhaps a Distribution Center in the Modern Era. Every era should have an upgrade. Then one trading post could be added to one trade route, which evolves and builds up income era to era. I think that could work.

Oh by the way to the poster above, what large empire was not rich and powerful? What is the sense of growing a large empire, if not to become the richest most powerful empire in the world? Who wants to play a strategy game for hours to grow a poor, feeble, huge empire that could fall anytime like a house of cards? Not me good sir! Game balance be damned. If you cannot gain power and money with growth, then the game is already unbalanced.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

Trading Posts should stay in the game, but be used for different purpose. Not sure what? Maybe they could be built to give a boost to trade route income, especially if you have a long trade route, which happens often. You could build a trade post every so many hexes, to improve income. (Or perhaps one TP per trade route.) You can call it cheating if you want.

You could use them to give your city worker access to tiles outside the 3-tile radius.

 

[nokmirt]

You could use them to give your city worker access to tiles outside the 3-tile radius.

That is actually not a bad idea, especially if you have a resource just out of your reach. Good thinking!

 

[Exterminas]

Oh by the way to the poster above, what large empire was not rich and powerful? What is the sense of growing a large empire, if not to become the richest most powerful empire in the world? Who wants to play a strategy game for hours to grow a poor, feeble, huge empire that could fall anytime like a house of cards? Not me good sir! Game balance be damned. If you cannot gain power and money with growth, then the game is already unbalanced.

I absolutely agree that building a large empire is fun. That is why there are a million strategy games out there that encourage you to do just that! Including four parts of the Civ-Series.

There are hardly any game where you play the efficient and small underdog that takes away the prize on the long run by defending their mountain passes while the rest of the world suffers from war.

If you are dead set on historical examples, though I firmly believe that Civ never was and never will be about historical accuracy, how about Switzerland? Or to some degree medieval France?
France had a centralized economy with only a handful of large cities and Switzerland is pretty much the only country in Europe that was never conquered, yet is very prosperous.

And if you want to see where growth gets you on the long run, just ask the Russians how much they enjoy owning forests ans tundras devoid of civilization.
Though as I said, I don't think we should argue over gameplay elements by pretending we are historians.

 

[19Mellon73]

Can't stand them either...
They are bland in gameplay and aestatics.

The problem with every modification would be the fragile economy - balace.

I could imagine an upradeable tradingpost, while they have to be either on a river or road.
In that way you have to sacrifice a riverfarm or shell out for a road a few turns.

Additionally a village tile could be introduced that can grow into a town within x turns "worked", providing then 1 gold like the tradingpost does now.

 

[Drawmeus]

Trading Posts should not be touched in G&K, unless it's a small balance change.

The big risk with an expansion pack like this is trying to do too much. They have three major priorities already - the City-State overhaul, Religion, and Espionage. If they try to "fix" the early-mid game economy, or try to better model trade, the most likely outcome is that they mess it up worse AND hurt the city-state, religion and espionage features. A development team can only do so much stuff, and stretching themselves thin isn't going to help anything.

The next expansion pack could address international trade and internal economies, or they can make it a focus of a major post-expansion patch, but these kinds of changes demand a huge amount of attention and they need to do this stuff when it's their sole priority, not when they've already got three other, bigger selling points to get right.

 

[drubell]

Well remember Civ 5 originally had TPs at 2g, but it was a bit too powerful because of the way gold works in Civ 5 compared to Civ 4. So it was dropped to 1g with a 1g bonus at Econ.

In theory, players are already likely to have more gold in G&K than in vanilla because of the several city-state quests. You'll be able to get influence through a variety of methods and so throwing gold at city-states won't necessarily be the most effective way to gain influence.

 

[bonafide11]

I just don't understand what a "trading post" is.

 

[GenjiKhan]

I just don't understand what a "trading post" is.

Unless you have the pirate version of didn't play Civilization V yet,this is a trading post:

http://www.dndjunkie.com/civilopedia/IMPROVEMENT_TRADING_POST.aspx


To improve the trading post in Civ 5,I think it's more important to change the concept of puppet-cities and/or the ai balance on higher levels before .

 

[SammyKhalifa]

Unless you have the pirate version of didn't play Civilization V yet,this is a trading post:

http://www.dndjunkie.com/civilopedia/IMPROVEMENT_TRADING_POST.aspx


To improve the trading post in Civ 5,I think it's more important to change the concept of puppet-cities and/or the ai balance on higher levels .

Well yeah, but why are they clumped around cities? The should go out in the middle of nowhere somewhere.

 

[headcase]

So it was dropped to 1g with a 1g bonus at Econ.

Maybe at Economics workers can build Towns over Trading Posts for the 1 extra gold instead of being automatic. Then if building\popping workers costs more depending on how many workers your civ already has (and\or cost more maintenance for each additional worker), this would give an advantage to smaller civs compared to the current system.

 

[MARDUK80]

I find rivers at the moment too unimportant. You sometimes see a player's starting settler on a river, but the player opting to move a tile away from it to settle on a hill. This is unhistorical. In real life you would miss out on a lot if you didn't settle on the river. In Civ 5 there's no consequence for trade, this is wrong in my view. It's just a watermill you're missing.

I agree.

II'd give them a bonus when they are on a road or river tile. They get an extra production then (1 gold + 1 production is not bad). It might also makes roads and rivers a bit more important. Perhaps as to not overpower them, they get minus 1 gold for every adjacent tradepost (thus they should never be adjacent to each other.

This is a good idea.

One solution that came to my mind is, perhaps ditch the trading post improvement altogether and create new Town improvement. You can build them only to the tiles around City (six tiles max.) and they give +1 Gold and Towns next to Rivers (perhaps Lakes/Oasis too) give +2 Gold. To balance the loss of Trading Post a bit, why not make Camp and Plantation improvements to generate +1 Gold each ? This would limit the TP/Town spam efficiently and would make Gold gaining a little bit more difficult in CiV. Like it has been mentioned earlier; gaining gold is way too easy as it is. You would have to find other means for your Gold and obtaining Luxuries would be the best way – gold from Plantations and trading the resources to rival Civs.

I still think taking idea from Civ4 would be a strong choice, but to limit it a little bit. The new Town improvement would start from Settlement (no gold) and after certain amount of turns it would grow to Town (or after discover of appropriate Technology).

Trading Posts should stay in the game, but be used for different purpose. Not sure what? Maybe they could be built to give a boost to trade route income, especially if you have a long trade route, which happens often. You could build a trade post every so many hexes, to improve income. (Or perhaps one TP per trade route.)

Yeah, I think it would be nice to somehow represent “Silk Road” and the other important trade routes like it. Perhaps if two cities which generate certain amount of gold and have road connection together, there might be a chance for Trading Post to appear into one of the road tiles. It would generate +1 Gold and since road tiles cost upkeep you do not have that (“too&#8221 much of them.

You could use them to give your city worker access to tiles outside the 3-tile radius.

Not a bad idea at all.

 

[seasnake]

I think the idea that Trade Posts lose 1 income for every other trade post they touch would be excellent. The problem with bringing back the cottage system is balance, you can make a lot of gold in this game already. But this would prevent Trade Post spam and reflect history, they were spread out to key locations.

Forts should be improved, allow for ships and air units to land as well.

 

[GeoModder]

Mmm, with espionage making an appearance in G&K's, it might be an idea to let TP's generate an espionage point when worked (on top of their current yield).
Also, historically TP's established themselves on "strategic" locations (road junctions, pilgrimage places, stuff like that...). If TP's could only be build adjacent to such "sweet spots" one couldn't spam the map anymore for population control or something.