Trading Tips Needed

[IMBC2]

With over 35 cities by AD 700, I am a Democracy that has discovered Communism, about to finish Theology (bye bye Oracle), and going for Espionage to turn all my diplos into spies.

I am astounded by a few posters who say that they've got a 100 cities BEFORE 1 AD on the most difficult level of play and are cranking out 2-3 discoveries PER TURN! I am further astounded by one poster who has an empire the size of mine, but is also somehow managing to get 2-3 discoveries PER TURN!

I am playing on a large map with 7 civs, my Senate has declared peace with Japan and the Vikings (but I still incite revolts ) on super easy level. I am building my cities very close together and even thought my Barbarian settings are "Restless tribes", I still do not hear much from them.

As an experiment, I decided to see what would happen if I set my science rate to 100% of all revenues. Even so, I can barely manage to get 3 discoveries every 4 turns, given that I don't bankrupt myself in the process. From the posts that I have read here and at Apolyton, I feel that with more efficient trading methods, I could be achieving the same science result (2-3 new techs per turn) as these super democracies of these great players.

Here is my current trading "strategy":

I have most of my towns connected by roads (but not railroads). Whenever I create a trade freight, I always trade with the town closest to me since the freight will usually arrive in one turn, regardless of whether the good is demanded by the destination city or not. This gives me instant science as well as cash. I also do food caravans because I had taken advantage of the nasty food caravan trick and have cities with a hunger of 5 or more. I really don't want any population decreases right now. My largest city is size 25. What I am hoping for is that once these cancerously large cities have citizens working each of the 20 squares around their town, I can make infinite scientists out of new citizens that result from city growth.

I am currently NOT trading with any AI cities at the moment as I am concerned about giving trade to the AI nation and I prefer to bribe/subvert them on first contact anyway. With my overeager-for-peace Senate signing treaties behind my back and my tech advantage, they certainly are ripe for the bribing.

My future plan is that when I have Flight and airports in all my cities, I can airlift caravans directly to where their goods are demanded (my towns only as the AI is so far behind me technologically).


Does anyone have any advice on how I can trade better to further optimize my science output?

 

[TimTheEnchanter]

Do you have a "Super Science city" (SSC) If not, read up on that.

Deliver goods to a foreign city that demands it, relatively far away, and on a different continent if possible. This takes a little longer, and some planning, but it results in much higher delivery bonuses that can often give you an extra tech per turn (but no more than one extra) and tons of cash to rush build even more goods vans (and other stuff). To speed this up and reduce the inevitable times where demand dries up right before you deliver, use ship chains and rail networks.

Its OK to be nice with the AI when they are helping you. I use them for trading partners all the time. When you no longer have a use for them, blitz them into oblivion, but in the meantime, let them work for you (Keep in mind, I am a notorious peacenik in succession games and such)

Don't count on "infinite scientists" - once you go beyond working all 20 squares, only the first 16 additional specialists can be bean counters or einsteins. After that, additional people can only be Elvi and do nothing but eat food and boost your civ score.

There's probably more to add, but that should give you something to start with.

 

[IMBC2]

I've played 300 years of game time since my post last night. Yes, I have my capital city acting as SSC with Isaac's and Shakespeare's wonders. If I set my science to 100%, it would be cranking out 400 beakers per turn. I figure that at that rate, I am about 2-3 turns from discovering Radio (thus allowing me to build an airport). Perhaps this is worth the big hit in my treasury for those turns. Since no other Civ even has gunpowder yet, I would easily be able to airlift my freights to all my towns. I have a "modest" empire of close to 50 cities now, my biggest being my SSC at size 29.

I guess I was pretty much stuck in the early going BEFORE Radio. I know that it would be very frustrating to build a Hides caravan going to Rome (on another island) after discovering Searfaring and Navigation only to discover that once I get there, Rome no longer demands Hides! I even got jilted by my own cities doing this!

The biggest question is how many caravels should I build (given that I already have 10 coastal cities at that point) and how many caravans should be in those caravel ship chains? Are you saying that I should bring a settler or two to the island that I will trade with, include every different kind of caravan from my SSC on those caravels, have the settlers build roads upon landing on the island while I send every different possible caravan to the target city to trade with them?

I might need to know the fundamental workings of a "ship chain" do you know any good links?

 

[ElephantU]

An SSC with Copes, Newts, and Shakes should be cranking out a lot more than 400 beakers per turn. Your SSC is big enough, but is it founded on 4 high-trade special tiles? Have you turned every tile into a trade-producing tile? Have you added SuperHighways? You want as many trade arrows as you possibly can arrange, even if you have to terraform a few tiles.

Posting a save might help...

 

[IMBC2]

Your SSC is big enough, but is it founded on 4 high-trade special tiles?

Drat! I KNEW my SSC was missing SOMETHING! No specialty trading tiles in Washington. However, it does have nine Einsteins. It currently needs food freights to prevent starvation at size 29.

However, I built roads over every tile, including rivers, that wasn't a hill or mountain (I think there are 2 such tiles in Washington). My superhighways will be done building in the next turn. Mountains and hills never generate trade tiles. Is there a way to introduce trade into such tiles without transforming (takes too many turns)?

BTW, I found a decent explanation about ship chains at Apolyton's Great Library. I only learned yesterday that ocean squares really boost trade. Which is why I used an engineer to start a new city on a peninsula about 100 game years ago.

Another question about science:

Does the SETI Wonder eliminate the need for Research Labs in my cities, or do cities with Research Labs also gain more benefits once the SETI Wonder is built?

 

[ElephantU]

SETI is equivalent to a ResLab in each city, so you can get rid of them. Pyramids, Great Wall, Mikes, Womens Suf, and Hoover are similar.

 

[IMBC2]

First of all, thanks ElephantU, you saved me a couple of turns worth of wasted production with those Research Labs.

Just got done playing 8 turns.

A few thoughts/questions:

1) I finally discovered why I haven't heard so much from the Barbarians this time around. They all seem to be sailing the seas looking for a good invasion landing spot but never quite finding one. I have put off researching Mobile Warfare until I absolutely have to so that the Barbarians can continue to be "lost at sea". The funny thing is that since I'm so advanced in tech, I now see Barbarian musketeers invading the coasts of my competitor Civs whose best defense is legions! LOL! Once I research Mobile Warfare, I will be very wary of the "Barbarian uprising near (city name)" occurences as they will normally be partisans that can pillage and fortify in the same turn My main island has a maximum of 3 squares separation between towns with all towns fully connected by roads. (That is, a maximum of 3 undeveloped terrain squares that are not a part of any city.) Could a partisan uprising occur even within that small gap?

2) My SSC, with Superhighways, SETI, University, and Library, Copernicus, Newton, and Shakes, can now crank out 840 beakers per turn at 100% science. Other than recruiting more Einsteins, there won't be another way to up the Beaker production. Is this a good amount for a SSC?

3) Oh yeah, and with exactly 50 cities, those 8 turns that I mentioned earlier in my post took me 4 hours to play out! Is this normal for civilizations this large?

 

[Ali Ardavan]

2) My SSC, with Superhighways, SETI, University, and Library, Copernicus, Newton, and Shakes, can now crank out 840 beakers per turn at 100% science. Other than recruiting more Einsteins, there won't be another way to up the Beaker production. Is this a good amount for a SSC?

For a city not built around a river bed or on a 3-4 special site, yes. Just for comparison, my GOTM66 science city built at a 4 special site (Whale, Fish, Buffalo, Silk) was producing over 1100 beakers at 100% science.

3) Oh yeah, and with exactly 50 cities, those 8 turns that I mentioned earlier in my post took me 4 hours to play out! Is this normal for civilizations this large?

Yes, the amount of time it takes to play a turn is directly proportional to number of cities. My turns in late stages of GOTM66 were taking 75-80 minutes each (over 120 cities)

 

[ElephantU]

And 1) Yes, Barbs can "spawn" in undeveloped (no Rd/RR, Irr, Mi, etc) non-city-radius land tiles on any island. Putting a unit on the tile stops them from spawning on that particular tile, but they can spawn right next to it. I suspect the game does some partly-random, partly based on distance to nearest city computation for Barb spawns, so they tend to appear in the place that has the least cities nearby. Pirate appearances seem to follow a 16-turn pattern similar to the Solo cycle, but I have not seen anyone document a pattern to land spawnings.

 

[sethos]

The number of appearing partisans depends on the city size. I remember some games where 128 partisans appeared. To keep the number small, send an engineer into the wilderness an found a new city. Protect it by a spy and a stealth-fighter from a nearby city.

 

[rysingsun]

Are you saying that I should bring a settler or two to the island that I will trade with, include every different kind of caravan from my SSC on those caravels, have the settlers build roads upon landing on the island while I send every different possible caravan to the target city to trade with them?

as best as i understand the question: yes.

the per-turn bonus when trading with a foreign city is twice that of what you get with your own city, assuming they are the same size. to give you an example, if your size 20 city trades with a foreign size 20 city you might get 30 trade arrows per turn for each trade route. but if instead of trading with a foreign city you trade with your own local city you will get about 15.

so a very nice way to arrange your trades is as follows: find a foreign power on a separate landmass. send some settlers there and build a couple towns. send addition settlers who will road up around their cities, since they tend to be pretty slow about getting around to that. send your caravans to their cities. do not neglect to develop your own new towns on their landmass. they will eventually become giant metropolises like your other cities. ultimately you "give away" these cities to the foreign civ by declaring war and allowing them to occupy them. hopefully they occupy at least one of them without damaging the infrastructure (sewer system, airport, superhighway, etc) and then you can use this giant city as a destination for all your freight in the late game.

if the foreign landmass is large you can build many cities on it. this will allow many airlift operations each turn to it saving some work.

to answer another of your questions, with 254 cities i can do my turns in an hour or maybe a little more, depending on how many engineers and how many freight i have running around.

 

[ElephantU]

I guess I was pretty much stuck in the early going BEFORE Radio. I know that it would be very frustrating to build a Hides caravan going to Rome (on another island) after discovering Searfaring and Navigation only to discover that once I get there, Rome no longer demands Hides! I even got jilted by my own cities doing this!

Demand changes over time, as cities grow and you accumulate techs. Getting vans there faster keeps this from hurting you. That is the value of the ship chain - you can traverse the whole chain in one turn, same as a railway.

The biggest question is how many caravels should I build (given that I already have 10 coastal cities at that point) and how many caravans should be in those caravel ship chains? Are you saying that I should bring a settler or two to the island that I will trade with, include every different kind of caravan from my SSC on those caravels, have the settlers build roads upon landing on the island while I send every different possible caravan to the target city to trade with them?

I usually shoot for at least one ship per coastal city, and I try to build a majority of my cities on the coast. A ship chain passes caravans from ship to ship, so you don't have caravans "in" the chain for more than one turn. Upgrading the ships to caravels and galleons is wise both for greater per-turn carrying as well as getting rid of the red faces once you switch to Democracy. The settlers are not necessary at first, but if you see yourself using that civ long-term then having a port on their island to land your vans in and a railroad to get them to their cities permits faster delivery. As to the kinds, ship those that are demanded at first but realize that often the demand will change after the first delivery. Then it should lock in for a while before it comes up for recalculation. Delivering several to the same city can sometimes cause demand "flopping" between two commodities, but this usually requires some playing with your home-city trade arrows too. Don't just look at one AI city, look also at what the nearby ones are demanding as well.

 

[sethos]

The bonus is halved when you trade with your own cities - but both cities will get the bonus. So the amount is the same. I prefer to trade with my own cities.

Reasons:
In the beginning, you need only only 3 camels (not 6) for two cities to get 3 trade routes for both of them.

In the late game, your cities are normally better developed (market places, banks, stock exchanges, superhighways, airports), so that you will earn more, especially when you send your freights via "air mail". You'll make up to 5 000 gold per freight, if you send it to a far away city (e.g. from the left top corner of the map to the right bottom corner.

 

[ElephantU]

I might need to know the fundamental workings of a "ship chain" do you know any good links?

I don't have a link off the top of my head, but it is simple to describe. The basic idea is that you space a group of ships apart by how far they can move in one turn. The first one ideally starts in one of your port cities connected to your primary group of cities. Once one or more caravans are in the starting city they are put to Sleep and the first ship moves out toward the second. When the first and second ships are in the same space you "wake up" all the caravans, then move the second ship out towards the third. Waking the caravans up transfers them to the second ship (actually, what it really does is make them eligible to leave the tile aboard the first ship that leaves, so make sure you select the SECOND ship to leave first or you will still have them loaded aboard the first ship). You can continue this as far as you want in one turn, as long as the ships each are in the same tile when you transfer the caravans.

If the caravan started its trip in the starting city it should have movement points left at the end; if not you will have to wait till the next turn to land it on the AI's coast. If the endpoint of the chain is one of your own cities you can use any unused movement points to move the caravan out toward it's destination.

A variation on the chain, but one that takes more ships, is to space the ships only half as far apart as they move in one turn. This allows you to move them back to their starting points in the same turn. Otherwise you have to spend the second turn moving ships back, but if you are moving caravans both ways between two of your own continents this second turn will not be wasted. This is why Solo encourages offshore trading colonies in the mid to late game (and why Magellan is a worthwhile wonder for trading games with long ship chains).

 

[Ace]

The bonus is halved when you trade with your own cities - but both cities will get the bonus. So the amount is the same. I prefer to trade with my own cities....

Don't you mean trade routes here? The Bonus is the one-time award for delivering a cargo to a city. AFAIK, both cities do NOT get the bonus, but both cities DO get a trade route.

 

[Millman]

The bonus or trade wears off after awhile and they are left with the stuff that's traded for you to keep trading again. I like to only go for the really rare stuff like Gold and Uranium. Spending turns on beads or silk isn't really worth it sometimes, but if you are playing on the diety level, then I wouldn't know a thing.

 

[starlifter]

I might need to know the fundamental workings of a "ship chain" do you know any good links?

Look here, at the 2nd half of that post for some trade-related links & a ship-chain example with an illustration (and some mathematics).

The bonus or trade wears off after awhile

No, the bonus does not wear off. It is a one-time grant of gold and science beakers to the civilization owning the trade unit which initiates the trade. That unit is then removed from the game, leaving a Trade Route in both the source and destination city (if a city already has 3 routes, whether this new route is kept depends on quite a few factors, which are explained in other threads).

both cities do NOT get the bonus, but both cities DO get a trade route.

That is right. The posts about both getting "half" the bonus are wrong (but I think the post that started that was really referring to trade route, and used the wrong term, which might confuse those new to trade).

You'll make up to 5 000 gold per freight, if you send it to a far away city (e.g. from the left top corner of the map to the right bottom corner.

Only if the cost of your science advance at that moment of delivery is 7,500 or more beakers. This normally means you are well into Future Tech. Calculating the bonus depends on lots of things, but the biggie that you cannot overcome is the 2/3 trade bonus cap.


Some trade threads...

I must be stupid. How do you trade? (from el_kalkylus) [note: I regard HG much higher now than back then due to GOTM gameplay]
Power Democracy start?
Trading helps your empire (from bechtka)
Gold! And how can I get it? (from Exsanguination)
Thoughts on trade (from Kev) [long detail in this thread; use SHs & Airports!]
Trade Start in GOTM 68 (chicken-and-egg; example of getting started, ala Kev's thread)

Trade!