Visible and smart trade routes

[akjone02]

Trade routes are a potentially important part of civ IV that I don't believe is particularly well developed. To that end I'm interested in creating a mod (or seeing a mod created) that will modify their behavior somewhat.

First a question:
I remember in the early previews of bts it was said that trade routes on oceans would now be visible, thus making the blockade option actually make sense. so far I have not seen an indication of a trade route anywhere but the city screen. Is there an option I'm missing here? Am I being silly and everyone else can see trade routes except me?

Here's what got me thinking:
I play another game called galactic civilization that handles trade routes in a way that I think makes a lot of sense. They are visible on the main screen and don't change turn by turn but over time. Because of that, it is possible to establish bases along the trade route and earn revenue from it. This, to me, makes a lot of sense for a game like civ, especially since, historically, many settlements DID appear because of a strategic position along trade lanes.

Recently I was playing a game on a real earth map as Egypt, and it occurred to me that controlling the Suez canal should give me economic benefits as well as strategic ones.

Here's what I'd love to see:
-Visible main-screen trade routes (could be as simple as a line, as complex as a little animated shipping\caravan traffic).
-Extra trade revenue not just in end cities, but in cities passed along the way
-Military units can be used to patrol such routes (keep them free from pirates and bandits), earning extra gold for the route and all cities along it, or to blockade such routes, either stopping some trade or stealing some revenue.
-Smart trade routes that favor multiple civ and continent destinations, not just a whole series of routes to the furthest civ away
-Possibly complex trade routes, that travel from inland cities to coastal cities where they can improve revenue of sea-borne trade routes (this is getting ambitious I know, but I might as well aim high and see what happens).

Any or all of the things listed above may be implemented already and I just don't know about it. If so I'd love to know how it works, if it's included in the main game, or if a mod exists doing these things.

Aside from that I'd love any advice people can give me on how to mod something like this. I've never worked on a civ IV mod but I'm a programmer so I should be able to figure it out. Any advice and especially advice on trade routes would be much appreciated.

 

[Tholish]

1. Awesome ideas. Trade routes are in fact kind of lame and obscure, with no graphics and not a lot of stuff you can do with them. Meet people, do open borders, get bonuses, trade them, build these buildings and you get money. Just not a lot of game there. I was going to do most of that anyway. I liked the little trade boats and carts in Age of Empires, that you could set up to go back and forth, earning you money the whole time. It would be neat to be able to have a unit that establishes a new trade route by travelling it, and every time it moves the graphic ( different color road, or a line on the ocean like a route?) changes behind it along its path. A new unit of this sort would be charged up when built, so the more hammers you put into it the longer the trade route could be. Trade route should give both civs a gold bonus of a percent of the income of the poorer of the two connected cities, with a preponderance to the owner of the route. Think military units should just prevent loss, not gain profit.

2. How to. I don't know any more than you do. Could do a crude XML thing, just dump standard trade routes and make a bunch of units you can build that do the Great Merchant thing (sea and land versions both) and that also can be captured. Don't know how much the AI would use it. They use Great Merchants, but how many would they build and how much would they know they were good to capture llike cottages are good to pillage? Would they make land privateers so you would have to escort? Don't think that's what you want.


3. I hope somebody does tell you how to do this. If you can program it might be possible to do some approximation of some of what you want.