What do you focus on for trade routes?

[Marvinlegend]

In another thread theorizing about 1-pop cities empire the OP mentioned using trade routes to get growth going. In >90% of cases I focus on the highest production yield for my trade routes, most of them are also internal. Often when a trader is free I look over my empire to see which city could use a little prodcution boost (for example if currently building a factory and taking 17 turns) relocate the trader and start the route from there.

What do you focus for trade routs?

 

[Znabel15]

50/50 food and production. It is usually sent to my capital anyway as it always seem to give the best returns on both yields.

 

[Onii-chan]

Any small cities still well under their housing cap to the capital (or other big city). If I don't have any of those available anymore, then the best international ones I can find. As for what yields those are depends a bit on the situation and what I feel like I need the most at the time

 

[Gyromancer]

I do the same as OP - pick a city with a long completion time (or a wonder I really want to finish soon) and maximize production. If two routes are within 1 and have a significant difference in food, I might pick the food for a small city. (Would be nice if the interface would sort routes...)

 

[ZHONN]

Housing can be a problem pretty soon so food isn't often a priority. I've yet to make the exact calculations between gold and cogs and take into account the situationability, as it is a relatively new game, and oftentimes the gold yield is accompanied by other yields which can be even more difficult to value exactly at the moment.

 

[RealHuhn]

Housing can be a problem pretty soon so food isn't often a priority. I've yet to make the exact calculations between gold and cogs and take into account the situationability, as it is a relatively new game, and oftentimes the gold yield is accompanied by other yields which can be even more difficult to value exactly at the moment.

4 gold equals 1 production for rushbuying. More with the 2nd tier government which boosts rushbuys (forgot the name).

In my last game as Egypt (they get +4 gold per international trade route), I've played around with international trade routes a bit more. And it worked fairly well. Some city states gave me 2 hammers, 10 gold or so when internal routes were still 1/1 or 2/1.
In late game with Great Zimbabwe and Globalization, I've got trade routes close to 40-50 gold per turn. Quite absurd. Overall, I had 1000 gold per turn on turn 250.

In general, main priority should be production, especially when capped by housing. Try to set up a city with optimal districts. Encampment (+1), commercial hub(+1), industrial zone(+2) and harbor(+2) boost production for internal trade routes (+7 total with the basic +1 from the city center). Other districts only give food.

 

[Compound Interest]

I go mainly for production. Always send out trade routes from your newest cities to give them a boost. I usually use the extra production to get an industrial district up as quickly as possible.

In the very late game when I have researched E-commerce, or if I am playing Russia, I will go for international trade routes. I mainly pick for gold then.

 

[ZHONN]

4 gold equals 1 production for rushbuying.

That is the simple part. I've yet to get thoroughly acquainted with all the variables, and how much to give credit to the situationability of the gold. As it is, I typically heavily favour the gold, especially with the proper boosters. It may very well be the reasonable choice all the time.

 

[Alchemy101]

Perhaps it is my district mix but food and production are rarely equals. Hence my usage to get cities going. Typically, depending on era, new cities will gain some level of bonus from regional production. There is no such effect for food.

With that said I do divert "extra" trade to low production cities. The marginal gain of +5 on a city with 10 cogs it better than one with 50.

 

[Mahasona]

(Would be nice if the interface would sort routes...)

Better Trade Screen is brilliant for this. Sort under Civs, hammers, whatever you like!

http://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/better-trade-screen.602636/

(Only works on a new game though)

 

[Gtdead]

Production most of the time. In rare circumstances I will use a food trading route to get the last civilian to unlock the next district.
For new cities I have a habit of chopping and harvesting the food generating resources if they exist. It skyrockets the population.