What is Exports-Imports and does it matter?

[Culture Bomb]

I've never quite got what the exports-imports section at the bottom of the demographics screen means.

Even when I am leading in almost all other ways, eg GNP, Mfg goods etc, my exports-imports is almost always negative and I'm normally ranked last.

I realise it is some kind of gauge of income from trade routes, so could it be because I have not built the buildings that increase trade routes or income like harbours, etc?

Is it actually important as a measure of how successful and prosperous my economy is?

 

[wydon]

Since we're on the topic of demographics, what's with approval rating and life expectancy?

 

[Silu]

Exports-imports means the net trade routes to and from your empire. If it's massively negative that means other Civs are "leeching" routes from you. Normally this isn't anything to pay much heed to, but sometimes it can even be worth to change to Mercantilism to deny these trade routes to your rivals. Very very rarely though.

Approval rating and Life expectancy are simple [0, 100] functions on your empire's overall happiness and unhealthiness, respectively.

There's a post in the war academy detailing all this and more about demographics

 

[Bushface]

Note that in Civ4 exports and imports are not what you'd expect: exports are the commerce gained by all the other civs, combined, from their trade with you, while imports are the commerce you get from trading with them. What matters is not whether your ratio is high or low (it's the ratio that determines ranking, not the difference) but how high your imports are. Also, however high the exports figure is it costs you nothing: in Civ4, commerce is not a matter of reciprocity but simply generated by the computer, and a small city will get more from trading with a large one than vice versa. Furthermore, if your city A is trading with foreign city X it does not follow that city X is trading with city A.
Other civs cannot "leech" your routes, unless they fill their quota of routes by trading entirely among themselves, which they will only do if trading with you is less profitable. That can happen if your cities are small compared with the foreign ones. Trade routes are decided by the computer, to maximise the commerce of every city, and thus can (and do) change rapidly from turn to turn.
Going to Mercantilism means no foreign trade routes. That denies the others any trading with you, but also prevents your trading with them, so no exports and no imports either. However, if you spot that a large part of the income of one of your rivals is due to trade with you then you can cause him a lot of trouble by closing your borders with him, at some diplomatic cost.
For an example of the unimportance of the exp-imp ranking in the Demogs screen, at a certain point in a recent game my ranking was 9th and last while my "value" was -84. Since my foreign trade "imports" were worth 146 (I counted it) the total commerce gained by my 8 remaining opponents was 230 (146-230= -84) giving me a ratio of exp/imp =1.575, hence the civ in 8th place must have had a ratio of 1.6 or higher. This was clearly Isabella of Spain, whose value was -52: hers was the only other civ with 4 decent-sized cities, of which I had 7. If she was getting as much as half my 230 export commerce, she'd have to pick up at least 180 export of her own and she didn't have enough big cities to do that, though I couldn't investigate her cities at that time to prove the point. I therefore believe her foreign income to be considerably less than my 146. So although I'm rated last I'm getting much more commerce from foreign trade than any of my rivals, which ought really to put me in 1st place, not last. Conversely, the "rival best" value is 32, which I'll bet confidently was Pacal of Carthage with his one miserable little 4-point city stuck on a peninsula at the other end of a huge pangaea from my nice, rich lands. There is absolutely no possible way in which his top position in this category is justified.

 

[Cristoval]

If my Imports/Exports rating is in the negative, should I switch to mercantilism civic? My cities are well upgraded with ports, harbors, and tolls. My economy, I feel is pretty strong, but my Import/Export rating is still too low. Does this mean civs are "leeching" off my trade routes?

 

[s.bernbaum]

If you are talking about the numerical rating on the tab accessible from the graphic rating screen, that is backwards from the rest of them. The lower the number, ie 1 is best, applies to the rest but for Import/Export the higher numbers are best. You are in "first" place in the category if you are number "1" in the rest. However, if you are playing with for example 7 civs then you are in first place if the number is "7" for Import/Export.

 

[Cristoval]

If you are talking about the numerical rating on the tab accessible from the graphic rating screen, that is backwards from the rest of them. The lower the number, ie 1 is best, applies to the rest but for Import/Export the higher numbers are best. You are in "first" place in the category if you are number "1" in the rest. However, if you are playing with for example 7 civs then you are in first place if the number is "7" for Import/Export.

Well, I am placed 28th out of 30, but the value is -27, and rival best is 38, while rival average is 0, rival worst is -38, a negative number. I am confused.

Spoiler :

 

[s.bernbaum]

That's a confusing thing to everyone. If you look through old threads, you'll find that it comes up a lot. The general consensus is: 1) it is an irrelevant number 2) someone messed up and even though it says "exports - imports", it is really calculating "imports - exports", therefore the higher numerical rank is better (so 28 out of 30 is real good) but doesn't really matter anyway

 

[RIcs]

like aboves and old threats said, that number wasn't quite important.. and as your empire expanded, you are almost certainly will be at the bottom in the value of " import - export " .

Being top on that category just means your cities are NOT GOOD as much as other civs.

Just one more notion :
Switching to Mercantilism won't kill other civs foreign trade as much as you thought.
Because cities will seek the next best city to trade with, after you close your cities from their choices.

For Example:
Beijing used to trade with your Athens for 9 commerce.
After you close foreign trade (go Mercantilism),
Beijing might just trade with Kyoto for 8 commerce now.

It wouldn't hurt much until
1. you own half of the world pop, and
2. you have well-developed vassals ( to lessen the damage to your own ).

 

[oldskald]

I'll be honest here and admit that the demographics screen is one the least used functions for me. I learnt in Civ2 to use the evidence of my eyes with regard to preparedness, research slider, happy cities, GPT, etc rather than the screen. For example; approval rating. I'm rarely leader in this category, but my empire is usually larger, with a recently captured city or two. This means I have a larger population. Larger population = more unhappy people (even though I don't necessarily have unhappy cities) with some "yearning to return to their homeland." This doesn't mean I'm not winning, however.

Some players may disagree, and may have effective strategies informed by their use of the demographics screen. For me, though, my game improved from the time I learnt to stop caring about this screen, and use the evidence of my eyes looking at the map and my individual city screens.

 

[Akbarthegreat]

I'm a free market fanatic

 

[kochman]

I have never even bothered looking into this... it doesn't really matter. It's just data that is basically irrelevant.
If you need more money, build more financial buildings...
If you don't, build other things.

 

[yturk39]

I'm willing to bet there's more to it than simply how many health points your cities have.

I mean, if you're running Slavery and you whip some of your population for production you might even make the city healthier than it was; as far as what that just did for your people's life expectancy...erm, ask the departed.

Likewise, wouldn't you think starvation affects this stat as well?

And while I haven't gone so far as to try and prove it, I wonder also if allowing your units to sleep for a few turns doesn't help this somehow. When my workers start wiping their brow and going "whew!" I'll think about how hard I've been pushing them, and whether or not they might be due a vacation for a turn or two.

 

[2metraninja]

Demographics are absolutely nice tool, except these 2 rows - approval rate and life expectancy.

The negative number in the Exports - Import thing shows exactly this - from your cities more gold departs than comes. This usually shows that your cities are and well developed thus can pay more to the small cities of your opponents. Sometimes it is a good idea to close borders even if you are not going to use Mercantilism.