Why City Connections are not intuitive

[Riconatic]

The rules are very obscures.
Here's the minimap for reference:
View attachment 720724
Here are all Settlements and their connections (checked by setting all Towns to Hub to count the number of connections from the Influence gained, and then converting them all one by one to Cities on a couple of reload to check where the food goes), at the start of Modern Era:
View attachment 720730
Red and purple continents are Distant Land, and Everwyk is a Treasure Island.

Roads:

• Capua does not have a road to Roma because it was founded after Patavium, and Patavium is nearer, so yep, space your Towns if you want a direct road to the capital.
• After some digging in old saves, Ravenna is connected to Aquilea because it was founded before Ostia, and they are 10 tiles apart. The foundation of Ostia afterwards on the existing road still connected it to the 2 others.
• There is a visual road between Aquilea and Parsa, but that does not transfer to an actual connection.
  • Capua - Parsa started as a Trade Route before I conquered the latter.
  • At the foundation of Aquilea, the road to Capua was initially more in the middle (it followed a minor river).
  • The roads in the area have changed with the Exploration era transition: maybe the 2 roads in T-shape have been changed to a ▼-shape, but with still only the original 2 connections.
• Samarkand was the last one added to my empire in Antiquity, from IP integration. It created a road to Ravenna, even though it has a naval connection to Ostia.
• Hastinges and Chereburghs are separated by a Coastal bay (with a Fishing Quay connecting the two sides) and a range of Mountains, still it's only a 19 tile distance to make the detour and the Modern age Land Route range is 20.
  • However the distance is 21 if also avoiding passing through the AI Settlement on the other side of the Mountains.
• Colcester and Chereburgh could have a naval connection, but for whatever reason a road has been built when I've founded Colcestre after Chereburgh (same as with the road from Samarkand?).

Space your Towns if you want a direct road to the Capital instead of between the 2 Towns, and if you want 2 Towns in the same direction feeding one City at one end, found the middle one last.

Naval:

• Same continent naval connections are OK, whatever the distance it seems (Aquilea - Roma is 45 tiles), but it needs the Town to be directly on the Coast or the Navigable River (no Fishing Quay required).
  • Near the Coast with a Coastal district does not work (Patavium).
  • On a Navigable River but with another Town in-between does not work (Parsa).
• Some times, there is a naval connection between continents (Samarkand - Chereburgh, Cusa - Everwyk, Everwyk - Fécamps, Cusa - Hastinges), and sometimes... just no (Samarkand - Aquilea, Cusa - Fécamps, Everwyk - Hastinges), even so the distance is not an issue?
  • I mean, Samarkand - Chereburgh, that's 30 tiles, but Bayeux is nearer (even when going to the next side of the island where the Fishing Quay is, if that's the factor) and on the same continent as Chereburgh but is not connected to Samarkand while Chereburgh is?
  • Aquilea is on a Navigable River, but does not have a Fishing Quay. But building one doesn't change anything, it still is connected to Roma (same continent) but not Samarkand (nearer).

Aquilea and Cusa have 5 connections, maybe there is a limit here? But that doesn't explain Everwyk - Hastinges...
Maybe there can only be one trans-continental naval connection.

[Edit]

Spoiler Capua - Aquilea - Parsa before and after the Exploration transition :

View attachment 720731
View attachment 720733

All I can say that this is horrible, all of it. For example if game systems depend on which town is founded first on exactly same spots, someone should be be fixing things extremely urgent manner.

 

[Evolena]

All I can say that this is horrible, all of it. For example if game systems depend on which town is founded first on exactly same spots, someone should be be fixing things extremely urgent manner.

I agree, it works against the idea of Towns feeding Cities if you have to make a Merchant for each Town to (maybe) get it to work.

 

[Taefin]

I guess it’s possible that the bad UI in this case is a cover for a mechanism that isn’t yet working as intended. It seems that connections and roads are calculated separately, without regular checks for disagreement.

 

[Elhoim]

I guess it’s possible that the bad UI in this case is a cover for a mechanism that isn’t yet working as intended. It seems that connections and roads are calculated separately, without regular checks for disagreement.

Yeah, I think the same, it takes a while and a mod to notice how broken it is.

Another case of a city not being properly connected on change to modern.

 

[tman2000]

Why would you split it? every city gets the full bonus.

Wait so if I have a 20% total naval production bonus from 4 oranges in a factory city, ALL cities get that bonus?

 

[Elhoim]

Wait so if I have a 20% total naval production bonus from 4 oranges in a factory city, ALL cities get that bonus?

In theory, but I don't think I properly got the one that speeds up building construction.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Wait so if I have a 20% total naval production bonus from 4 oranges in a factory city, ALL cities get that bonus?

Yes, it should work that way.

In theory, but I don't think I properly got the one that speeds up building construction.

Those bonuses are calculated and displayed in a bit weird fashion. You often don't see them directly, but they actually work. Although there could be some bugs and I can't say whether all resources work normally.

Also, I think it's affected by city connections, which is another obscure thing.

 

[Elhoim]

I think a lot of these issues come because there seems to be different "connection" systems. For example, Aquileia is not connected to Rome, but the road reaches Rome. It seems I can't make the merchant connection because the button checks for "is there a road to this settlement?". Since there is a road, it assumes it's connected, but it's not. Sigh, such a mess.

 

[MIS]

The rules are very obscures.
Here's the minimap for reference:
View attachment 720724
Here are all Settlements and their connections (checked by setting all Towns to Hub to count the number of connections from the Influence gained, and then converting them all one by one to Cities on a couple of reload to check where the food goes), at the start of Modern Era:
View attachment 720730
Red and purple continents are Distant Land, and Everwyk is a Treasure Island.

Roads:

• Capua does not have a road to Roma because it was founded after Patavium, and Patavium is nearer, so yep, space your Towns if you want a direct road to the capital.
• After some digging in old saves, Ravenna is connected to Aquilea because it was founded before Ostia, and they are 10 tiles apart. The foundation of Ostia afterwards on the existing road still connected it to the 2 others.
• There is a visual road between Aquilea and Parsa, but that does not transfer to an actual connection.
  • Capua - Parsa started as a Trade Route before I conquered the latter.
  • At the foundation of Aquilea, the road to Capua was initially more in the middle (it followed a minor river).
  • The roads in the area have changed with the Exploration era transition: maybe the 2 roads in T-shape have been changed to a ▼-shape, but with still only the original 2 connections.
• Samarkand was the last one added to my empire in Antiquity, from IP integration. It created a road to Ravenna, even though it has a naval connection to Ostia.
• Hastinges and Chereburghs are separated by a Coastal bay (with a Fishing Quay connecting the two sides) and a range of Mountains, still it's only a 19 tile distance to make the detour and the Modern age Land Route range is 20.
  • However the distance is 21 if also avoiding passing through the AI Settlement on the other side of the Mountains.
• Colcester and Chereburgh could have a naval connection, but for whatever reason a road has been built when I've founded Colcestre after Chereburgh (same as with the road from Samarkand?).

Space your Towns if you want a direct road to the Capital instead of between the 2 Towns, and if you want 2 Towns in the same direction feeding one City at one end, found the middle one last.

Naval:

• Same continent naval connections are OK, whatever the distance it seems (Aquilea - Roma is 45 tiles), but it needs the Town to be directly on the Coast or the Navigable River (no Fishing Quay required).
  • Near the Coast with a Coastal district does not work (Patavium).
  • On a Navigable River but with another Town in-between does not work (Parsa).
• Some times, there is a naval connection between continents (Samarkand - Chereburgh, Cusa - Everwyk, Everwyk - Fécamps, Cusa - Hastinges), and sometimes... just no (Samarkand - Aquilea, Cusa - Fécamps, Everwyk - Hastinges), even so the distance is not an issue?
  • I mean, Samarkand - Chereburgh, that's 30 tiles, but Bayeux is nearer (even when going to the next side of the island where the Fishing Quay is, if that's the factor) and on the same continent as Chereburgh but is not connected to Samarkand while Chereburgh is?
  • Aquilea is on a Navigable River, but does not have a Fishing Quay. But building one doesn't change anything, it still is connected to Roma (same continent) but not Samarkand (nearer).

Aquilea and Cusa have 5 connections, maybe there is a limit here? But that doesn't explain Everwyk - Hastinges...
Maybe there can only be one trans-continental naval connection.

[Edit]

Spoiler Capua - Aquilea - Parsa before and after the Exploration transition :

View attachment 720731
View attachment 720733

In my current game, I have two coastal cities that aren't connected (for trade network purposes) that are on the same continent, 26 tiles apart. This site says it should be 30: https://civilization.fandom.com/wiki/Trade_Route_(Civ7)

Edit: the next turn I tried buying a Fishing Quay, which worked, even though the city hall was already on the coast.

 

[Evolena]

In my current game, I have two coastal cities that aren't connected (for trade network purposes) that are on the same continent, 26 tiles apart. This site says it should be 30: https://civilization.fandom.com/wiki/Trade_Route_(Civ7)

Edit: the next turn I tried buying a Fishing Quay, which worked, even though the city hall was already on the coast.

I provide an example to help understand the rules, but these are still obscure.
Aquilea was clearly not connected by road to Roma, and yet sent its food there even in Antiquity age: it was on the same continent, on a Navigable River without any Fishing Quay, yet 45 tiles appart by sea.
However if the tiles are interrupted by the borders of another Empire, that can disrupt the connection.

 

[Eramas]

I'm losing my mind, any ideas?

Why is Cleveland (bottom-left) connected to Chalkis (top-right), but not to Athenai (middle-right)? I have ports everywhere.

Second question:

Why Prophet's Town (middle-left) and Penfekim'teko (top-left) don't send food to any of my cities? Cleveland from my previous image is south of Prophet's Town and somehow it sends its food to one city.

 

[Evolena]

I'm losing my mind, any ideas?
Why is Cleveland (bottom-left) connected to Chalkis (top-right), but not to Athenai (middle-right)? I have ports everywhere.

Second question:
Why Prophet's Town (middle-left) and Penfekim'teko (top-left) don't send food to any of my cities? Cleveland from my previous image is south of Prophet's Town and somehow it sends its food to one city.

One hypothesis is that all types of connection (food, resource network, trade routes, railroad network) not necessarily have all the same rules.

For the second question, I've had a case where I only had one sea connection between each couple of continent.

 

[Elhoim]

One hypothesis is that all types of connection (food, resource network, trade routes, railroad network) not necessarily have all the same rules.

No, they clearly don't, and each part uses different systems. For example, the merchant checks if there's a road connection to set up connections, but the food uses a different system. And on top, the trade network is a different one as well. It's all a huge mess.

As others said, at this point the game should just use the trade network, and food shared between all cities connected to the trade network (with the possibility of choosing a destination). Right now it's impossible to calculate where goes where, and how to make it go somewhere, plus the continent rule creates some silly situations when a city is close to a continent divide and can't get food from a town 3 tiles away.

 

[UWHabs]

I'm losing my mind, any ideas?

View attachment 722840

Why is Cleveland (bottom-left) connected to Chalkis (top-right), but not to Athenai (middle-right)? I have ports everywhere.

Second question:

View attachment 722843

Why Prophet's Town (middle-left) and Penfekim'teko (top-left) don't send food to any of my cities? Cleveland from my previous image is south of Prophet's Town and somehow it sends its food to one city.

I don't know exactly, but from what I gather:
-Cleveland is coastal, so it counts as connected to every other coastal settlement on its continent. Somehow, maybe Chalkis counts as "coastal" and on the same continent (North America)?
-Prophet's Town is on a different continent (Gondwana). So it doesn't connect coastally to the landmass with Pittsburgh/etc... Why it's connected to Cleveland, I don't know exactly, maybe there's an exception where if 2 towns are within a distance of each other they can still count as a connection.

Just best guesses though.

 

[Melkus]

Yep, may be a case of weird continental borders - I had that in a recent game (some of the distant island towns belonged to the main "continent", others didn't, and the main continent had an unintuitive divide in the middle as well)

 

[Krikkit1]

Yep, may be a case of weird continental borders - I had that in a recent game (some of the distant island towns belonged to the main "continent", others didn't, and the main continent had an unintuitive divide in the middle as well)

I think the continent rule definitely needs to be dropped
have it simply
1. short range connection (10-15-20 by land) (30-45-60 by water)
2. Network (connected by multiple short range connections)

food distribution/ hub town/form road/railroad connections form*.... short range connections
trade resources/build factory*... network

*Rail network using Ports and Railstation only instead of Settlements and Fishing Quays

Perhaps allow Naval connections to move over urban tiles of cities with a Fishing Quay/Port to avoid the "put the Quay on a lake" problem.

 

[Elhoim]

New update, same old problems. For some reason, the game doesn't let me connect a city that's clearly in range (Rome To Caesarea in the exploration age).

 

[Eramas]

New update, same old problems. For some reason, the game doesn't let me connect a city that's clearly in range (Rome To Caesarea in the exploration age).

Just curious, but have you tried the other way around, so from Caesarea to Rome? Worked for me a few times, no idea why.

 

[Elhoim]

Just curious, but have you tried the other way around, so from Caesarea to Rome? Worked for me a few times, no idea why.

Yeah, didn't work. Having the same issue with Carthage, which is double problematic as they can only have 1 city.

 

[Fluffball]

It was kindly pointed out to me that factory resources effects are global.

Why would you split it? every city gets the full bonus.

Wait...What?!

Is this true?

If so why is it not communicated in game in any fashion as this is game changing!

There is a hint of some sort of global buff with the healing 1hp resource which seemed like it would be silly to just have in one city (although being silly never seems to stop devs doing silly things) but after realizing you can only put one resource in a city...which is also not communicated and is contrary to ability to mix resources the rest of the time, you just can't...I have been trying to match the best resource with the best city as I thought they were city exclusive.

Resources being global really should be front page news.