Where are the stations?

[Gar]

I'm on my 4th full game, probably played a dozen or so openings to mid game. My question across all those game: Where are the stations to trade with?

Most games see 3-5 stations spawn, 3-4 are then ignored/eliminated by the AI to the point where mid game usually only 1 or 2 stations exist on the entire map. Now granted given how much space they take up (seriously, why the huge buffer when they don't visually take up that much space?) so few stations is not a bad thing, but it still makes them seem like a non-feature. I've never got a station quest yet.

I'll admit to being a CS addict in CiV, usually play on huge worlds with 35-40 CS, so having stations be so unpresent makes the world feel empty and boring. Weren't stations supposed to respawn? Can we have a expensive project 'sponsor station' as something you can build?

 

[spider1]

Trade stations disappear if no one trades with them.

 

[sprang]

I usually see several spawn later in the game. But the AI does have a habit of just wiping the buggers out, even if they're not in the way. And the early ones usually disappear from lack of interest. I've lost stations I actually wanted to keep around because my Fence quest didn't trigger in time to let my trade convoy get there past a nest.

 

[Rakshasa72]

I'm having a similar issue with stations. Playing on a massive map on marathon speed there is only about 2-3 station foundings. Then no more stations show up the rest of the game.

I loaded the game on to my tablet. Set up a tiny map at quick speed and there is a dozen station foundings. There is literally more stations then there are regular cities.

I haven't really been able to figure out what's causing this. It may be a function of game speed or map size?

 

[Gar]

Could it possibly be marathon speed (which I also play) spreading out the station spawns too far?

Stations are so fragile anyway, and the first wave of stations usually pop up before anyone has trade depots, none of them get traded with and disappear before they can be used.

My personal station wishlist:
- A slider in game setup like they had for city states. Let me add more to a game if I'd like it.
- A better rate of respawn on stations, so that a killed station means another will shortly show up somewhere else.
- Perhaps double or triple the time the first stations can be ignored before they disappear. Especially if it was spawned from a quest. I picked that, I need to have a reasonable amount of time to make use of it before it despawns.