Why are internal food trade routes usefull?

[ZooBooBooZoo]

Hi all,

I've seen that ppl use internal food trade routes as a growth booster but I don't understand exactly how it works.

If it moves food from one city to another, how do you benefit from it?
unless you're trying to boost a specific city which has lots of production tiles and few food tiles.

BTW - I know sea trade routes give twice the amount of gold, are there any more bonuses to the sea trade routes over the land ones?

Thx in advance.

 

[Lord Yanaek]

Internal TR don't move food from city A to city B. They "magically" create food. Don't start to think about realism, you already know why realistic trade routes would suck.

A TR will generate 3 / turn in target city and require a Granary in origin city. You get an additional +0.5 / era and sea based TR will get twice that (so an ancient era sea TR will give 6 / turn, just like Hanging Garden).

The trick with food TR is to make your expansions grow faster since you often already have a granny in cap when you settle them, then reverse them for a huge capital once your new cities are decently sized. Some people consider those (especially sea based TR) totally broken and they are quite powerful. However, what those people forget about internal TR is their high upkeep cost.
What upkeep, caravans are maintenance free right?
Yes, but if you use them for , you are not sending them to AI civs. On hight difficulty an early foreign TR can easily give you 4-5 and 3-4 / turn, so it's basically the "upkeep" cost of an internal TR.

Now, there are situations where you can't send TR to other Civs and of course more gives more and and possibly more with city connections, so there are times when you want to use internal TR. Also, if you plan on a lot of early wars (that's no longer as good as it used to), you don't want your caravans wandering around unprotected. The same holds true if there are way too many barbs. You may also want to be self supporting so you won't end up banckrupt when you finally start some military campain. All i, all, internal TR are good, but foreign TR are very good too. Whether you want one or the other depends on you particular play style, the map, the difficulty ...

 

[ZooBooBooZoo]

Thanks for the very detailed answer Bob!

what about my question about sea trade routes?

 

[Plumfairy]

BTW - I know sea trade routes give twice the amount of gold, are there any more bonuses to the sea trade routes over the land ones?

Advantages of Sea Trade Routes:
Double gold income*
Double food/production income if used as internal trade routes
Longer range (roughly double range, depending on which techs & buildings you have)

Disadvantages of Sea Trade Routes:
Their trade units (cargo ships) require 25 more hammers to build than caravans
They tend to be much harder to defend from barbarians, due to the wide-open nature of oceans



*Land trade routes get a 25% gold increase if the city is located on a river, but rivers don't affect sea trade route incomes. So if your city is adjacent to a river, sea trade routes only provide 75% more gold.

 

[ZooBooBooZoo]

Thanks guys

 

[kb27787]

I dunno... why is +16 food to your coastal capitol early game (after animal husbandry and sailing) useful?

 

[justanotherturn]

I dunno... why is +16 food to your coastal capitol early game (after animal husbandry and sailing) useful?

It's bad. all your pop is going to be fat and lazy. you need sparta-like training to unlock the fitness civ achievment.

 

[joncnunn]

I dunno... why is +16 food to your coastal capitol early game (after animal husbandry and sailing) useful?

Because in G&K not only do you want all cities running every science slot at all times, but you also want some city (usually your capital) running all the guild slots as well.

The +16 food will really help the capital both run all those specialists and continue to grow. I also note that if you go Tradition that Monarchy gives half unhappiness in the capital; so it really works well for your capital to be your biggest city.

 

[jtwood]

Internal TR don't move food from city A to city B. They "magically" create food. Don't start to think about realism, you already know why realistic trade routes would suck.

ugggggh

i read this a long time ago and completely ignored internal trade routes:

Trading with your own cities

Apart from trading with other nations and City-States, you can target your own cities. The point of this is, as stated above, to aid their initial growth, or help them while struggling with production.

You can transfer either Food or Production to a city. Note that in order for you to transfer Food to a city, you must have built a Granary in the origin city, while for Production you need a Workshop. Cities with neither of those two buildings can't serve as bases for domestic trade routes.

Also note that when trading in this way, the origin city doesn't get any benefit, and neither does your empire as a whole. Still, this is a very good option to jump-start a city in the middle and late game, when you have many other trade routes assuring your income.

http://civilization.wikia.com/wiki/International_trade_route_%28Civ5%29

Either I totally misunderstood him, or he's just flat-out wrong.
Regardless

 

[zukenft]

yeah, the part about "empire not getting any benefit" is technically wrong. more citizens or faster production is always good. also food routes are good even in early game, especially since you almost always start with tradition, and bigger capital means more gold.

 

[Syntax Error]

When pursuing a Culture Victory, the other two or three cities I settle next I treat as extra Granaries for my Cap. Since the only way to produce a respectable amount of culture now is to use the guilds, with the Hermitage boosting the Culture output of the city it's built in, it just follows that the Capital SHOULD GET ALL THREE GUILDS. Internal Food Trade Routes will solve this problem for you.

 

[RedRover57]

Internal food trade route to your capital is not just about growing your capital large (although it certainly can help do that). It can also allow you to work more production tiles without starving, which can be great for building early wonders or military units. It's also why an early granary is a good idea. A 4 food shipment to your capital means that you can work two 3 hammer mines and still be food neutral.

 

[lampuiho]

because a hill is 2 -3 hammers in early game, without resources. internal trade routes should give the same food amount as hammers. which means you can have an extra hammer with each 2 food. And external trade routes usually only give minimal gold in the beginning (like around 5 gold which is definitely worse than 4 - 6 hammers right?) However, on diety you get lots of science bonus for trade routes with AIs. That's when you should consider trading with AIs instead.

 

[budweiser]

4 food sent to the capital will feed 2 writers. Coincidence?

 

[Soffacet]

Early growth is king, and the internal routes are instrumental in getting cities 2-4 online as quickly as possible, and then for growing the capitol as quickly as possible (or just propping it up as it works as many hammers/specialists as possible).

Early gold sucks. Gold in general sucks until you acquire the income multipliers and cost divisors that make it more efficient than hammers later in the game. But until that time, the initial cost comparison suggests that you value 1g as ~0.20-0.25 hammers. Since you should usually be valuing apples even more highly than hammers, there's really no contest between internal and international TRs early on.

 

[jtwood]

Not that it would change your eventual outcome , but you did not mention that intl trade routes can boost science 10% or more in the early game. That's nothing to shake a stick at, though the growth is almost assuredly still better.

 

[Doctor Doom]

I love settling about 3-4 city's around a small body of water so I can send food sea trades easy.

 

[kreal]

Internal TR don't move food from city A to city B. They "magically" create food. Don't start to think about realism, you already know why realistic trade routes would suck.

A TR will generate 3 / turn in target city and require a Granary in origin city. You get an additional +0.5 / era and sea based TR will get twice that (so an ancient era sea TR will give 6 / turn, just like Hanging Garden).

The trick with food TR is to make your expansions grow faster since you often already have a granny in cap when you settle them, then reverse them for a huge capital once your new cities are decently sized. Some people consider those (especially sea based TR) totally broken and they are quite powerful. However, what those people forget about internal TR is their high upkeep cost.
What upkeep, caravans are maintenance free right?
Yes, but if you use them for , you are not sending them to AI civs. On hight difficulty an early foreign TR can easily give you 4-5 and 3-4 / turn, so it's basically the "upkeep" cost of an internal TR.

Now, there are situations where you can't send TR to other Civs and of course more gives more and and possibly more with city connections, so there are times when you want to use internal TR. Also, if you plan on a lot of early wars (that's no longer as good as it used to), you don't want your caravans wandering around unprotected. The same holds true if there are way too many barbs. You may also want to be self supporting so you won't end up banckrupt when you finally start some military campain. All i, all, internal TR are good, but foreign TR are very good too. Whether you want one or the other depends on you particular play style, the map, the difficulty ...

Here is a scenario: City A sends +3 food to City B which is stagnant without it. What happens when trade route ends? Will City B start to starve?

 

[Tzar Sasha]

Here is a scenario: City A sends +3 food to City B which is stagnant without it. What happens when trade route ends? Will City B start to starve?

Depends upon whether the target city has grown and if so what tiles are being worked. But yes, City B can start to starve.

 

[Acken]

It creates extra food without the need for a citizen and limited cost (Cargo and Caravan are cheap).

Since growth is the most important mechanic of civ5, internal route are often the favorite especially when compared to the meagre amount of gold you get early game (I usually use a 3:1 ratio for comparison).