[R&F] Why the trade exclusion of markets vs. lighthouses?

[BarbarianHunter]

I don't understand why a strong, well-positioned city can't build both a market (in a Commercial Hub) and a lighthouse (in a Harbor) and thereby produce two trade routes instead of just one. That's certainly realistic, right?

Is there some kind of balance issue I'm not seeing? It just seems so arbitrary, and unnecessarily limiting to me. I'd love to hear a logical explanation for why the game is set up this way.

To address the original query, I think it has to do with concentration of the routes in the later-mid and late game. These can compound production values. And some ridiculously high production numbers can be achieved with VERY large empires. I think these numbers might be attainable with considerably smaller empires if you were to allow double routes. If you combine Kilwa, Rhur Valley, and Warlord's Throne for a moderate sized empire it could become the must have optimal "tall" play strategy. I think this production value could be arrived at with considerably less cities, and in a golden age there's nothing anyone can really do.

Spoiler :

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[legalizefreedom]

That would be taking a page from the BERT book.

This was from vanilla BE and was not a good thing. It was also before relatively easy trade routes through miasma. Thank goodness they fixed it on or before BERT.

 

[chazzycat]

I saw someone suggest in another thread that double routes should be allowed when a city hits a certain size or adjacency bonus threshold, like how the rationalism and free market policy cards work.

Personally I think this is a great idea.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

I saw someone suggest in another thread that double routes should be allowed when a city hits a certain size or adjacency bonus threshold, like how the rationalism and free market policy cards work.

Personally I think this is a great idea.

Or even just have the yields be more dependent on city size.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

To address the original query, I think it has to do with concentration of the routes in the later-mid and late game. These can compound production values. And some ridiculously high production numbers can be achieved with VERY large empires.

There's no particular reason for cities to be allowed to have more Traders operating out of them than they have Trade Route capacity.

In other words, only 1 Trade Route per city would eliminate the above issue. City with Colossus would have 2. Maybe the initial "free" trade route capacity from the civics tree gets assigned to your Capital.

Then you start adding Trade Route capacity as the population of the City increases and/or increase the yield on those Trade Routes based on the size of the City and you've got a bit more balance between a 15 city empire with 10 Pop each and an 8 city empire with 4 25 Pop cities and 4 10 Pop cities.

 

[BarbarianHunter]

There's no particular reason for cities to be allowed to have more Traders operating out of them than they have Trade Route capacity.

In other words, only 1 Trade Route per city would eliminate the above issue. City with Colossus would have 2. Maybe the initial "free" trade route capacity from the civics tree gets assigned to your Capital.

Then you start adding Trade Route capacity as the population of the City increases and/or increase the yield on those Trade Routes based on the size of the City and you've got a bit more balance between a 15 city empire with 10 Pop each and an 8 city empire with 4 25 Pop cities and 4 10 Pop cities.

Not a bad idea. I'm not sure I'm all that enthusiastic about it though. Personally, I think Firaxis got it right with the trade routes as they stand. In order to concentrate trade routes and realize an outrageous production value in a city, you need a VAST empire (ie. the game is already over). If you were to allow x2 trade routes per city, however, it could be done much earlier and with a much smaller empire. To one degree or the next, I think it makes single player more competitive and precludes any stealth wins by a sneak "tall" style multiplayer civ. In essense it limits the variables you have to consider in a given multiplayer situation as you know the relative cap of trade routes to cities and potential yields if concentrated in a single city.

EDIT: Adding value for larger cities is a decent enough idea IMO though.

 

[Zdarg]

Even my first trade route, which I used to send internally to get a cross empire road, I now prefer to send on an international route from the far end of my empire, getting the cross empire road that way instead.

Far end?
Why you don't create first trade route when having one city only?

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

Far end?
Why you don't create first trade route when having one city only?

I often don't get my first Trader until I'm about to research the Commercial Hub tech (Currency). Until then, I'm more likely to be first pumping out a defensive army (4 Warriors, 4 Slingers), then pumping out Settlers using the production boost policies for each.

 

[Archon_Wing]

I feel safer about not losing my traders

That's probably the #1 reason for me to trade internally early since I can't or won't defend it. Barb scouts ruining routes sucks.

International Trade Routes are definitely superior overall, and usually I try to get them ASAP. But there are exceptions like your land having no food or something.

Also forming a trading post to another civ increases diplomatic viability which is a combat bonus.

 

[Mesix]

Hmm, I've been going internal for the first few eras before switching over to INT almost completely.

I used to do this, but I've since decided I prefer even small amounts of extra science and culture (and faith and gold) as soon as possible. In theory I can see situations where boosting the population and production of an early city would pay off down the road, but in practice it seems like just getting up the civis/tech tree as fast as possible is even better. No conclusive numbers to confirm that impression, just a sense after playing the game a bit.

Even my first trade route, which I used to send internally to get a cross empire road, I now prefer to send on an international route from the far end of my empire, getting the cross empire road that way instead. I never attack AI cities or else laying a road to those cities would be even better, I suppose.

Actually, I also use the internal trade routes almost exclusively in the early game. You get much more benefit from the additional population and the ability to build districts faster. Getting a district and a level one building up provides significantly more of the desired resource (research, faith, etc.) than an early trade route does. The additional population also provide research, loyalty and religious (once you have founded a religion) pressure, etc.

There is also the knock on production benefit. Not only do you get the marginal increase in production from the trade route. You also have the ability to work more production tiles with the food from the trade route supporting these population.

Yes, the game is largely decided by getting through the tech (and civic) tree. The fastest way to accomplish this is with internal trade routes.

The exception in my games is when sending an trade route to a CS to complete a quest.

I saw someone suggest in another thread that double routes should be allowed when a city hits a certain size or adjacency bonus threshold, like how the rationalism and free market policy cards work.

Personally I think this is a great idea.

This is a very good idea from a design standpoint. By allowing policy cards to increase trade route capacity, there is an opportunity cost to the player who decides to favor trade over other policy options. This could be a way to introduce a more viable tall vs. wide strategy back into the game.

 

[acluewithout]

I don’t know. I mostly like how Trade Routes work. I wouldn’t want to mess around with them too much.

I like how Trade Routes slightly flavour wide empires by being linked to districts (you’d lose that if they were more based on civics). I like how they have a diplomatic element, in that they they’re stronger with allies (so a reason to make friends), policy cards, and Allies + Policy Cards, but also they improve diplomacy. I like how they deal with trade in such an abstract way - extra yields - rather than actually reallocating any yields, because I think that makes them much simpler to use and actually is the right level of granularity for the game.

Like I said, I’d maybe move Trade Routes to Banks to buff Harbours and just overall reduce TRs a little. Maybe give the Foreign Ministry +1 Trade Route to compensate. Maybe another Trade Route if you have sufficient presence on another continent. I’d prefer if you could only trade luxuries and resources with leaders if you had a trade route (at least during the ancient and classical eras). And I think there should be a Military Card which prevents barbs pillaging sea Routes (because the reality is basically no one uses sea trade routes because of the pillaging risk, and because there aren’t enough Military Policy Cards).

I don’t like the idea of Policy Cards giving Trade Routes - that’s sort of how Merchant Republic worked in Vanilla, and I don’t think that was good. I wouldn’t link Trade Routes to Pop - it would just create another break point for populations rather than make population useful.

Yeah. Trade Routes are basically good as they are, more or less.

But now roads are another question...

 

[SammyKhalifa]

I don’t know. I mostly like how Trade Routes work. I wouldn’t want to mess around with them too much.

I like how Trade Routes slightly flavour wide empires by being linked to districts (you’d lose that if they were more based on civics). I like how they have a diplomatic element, in that they they’re stronger with allies (so a reason to make friends), policy cards, and Allies + Policy Cards, but also they improve diplomacy. I like how they deal with trade in such an abstract way - extra yields - rather than actually reallocating any yields, because I think that makes them much simpler to use and actually is the right level of granularity for the game.

Like I said, I’d maybe move Trade Routes to Banks to buff Harbours and just overall reduce TRs a little. Maybe give the Foreign Ministry +1 Trade Route to compensate. Maybe another Trade Route if you have sufficient presence on another continent. I’d prefer if you could only trade luxuries and resources with leaders if you had a trade route (at least during the ancient and classical eras). And I think there should be a Military Card which prevents barbs pillaging sea Routes (because the reality is basically no one uses sea trade routes because of the pillaging risk, and because there aren’t enough Military Policy Cards).

I don’t like the idea of Policy Cards giving Trade Routes - that’s sort of how Merchant Republic worked in Vanilla, and I don’t think that was good. I wouldn’t link Trade Routes to Pop - it would just create another break point for populations rather than make population useful.

Yeah. Trade Routes are basically good as they are, more or less.

But now roads are another question...

I don't think I'd link TR numbers to pop, but I'd increase the yields. 2 pop=1 gold (or whatever). It just makes sense that a trade route to/from a giant metropolis would be more lucrative than one to some little 2 pop town, but it also wouldn't add to the actual number of routes you have to manage.

I don't think I'd like making them even harder to attain without giving a new way to make roads. I generally like how TR roads work, however (except make military engineers better able to build them).

 

[acluewithout]

I’d like to have the option of using gold to buy a road between your own cities or your city and an allies cities.

I don’t know what FXS should do to buff pops. I don’t think boosting yields is the right approach. Perhaps reworking Governors would help.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

I’d like to have the option of using gold to buy a road between your own cities or your city and an allies cities.

I don’t know what FXS should do to buff pops. I don’t think boosting yields is the right approach. Perhaps reworking Governors would help.

Maybe, but I would be okay with them just increasing the road building from military engineers. An interesting but underused unit (because it's no good). Let it build a "road to" string of six or something.

 

[UWHabs]

Giving extra routes to a policy card doesn't make sense, since then you can cheat, add the extra routes, and then swap out cards and wait for your routes to finish before putting the cards in again. The current trade route cards at least only give a bonus when used.

I like how routes work now, but I would also agree that in some ways, they're lacking. The fact that they simply create wealth/food/production/culture/etc... out of nowhere right now seems off. I wouldn't mind sort of bringing them back to being used to move luxuries/resources between towns, but if they brought that in, they would need to have a much better way to automate them so that you only decided at a high level how to set up your traders.

 

[acluewithout]

I don’t think Trade yields actually represent what you get from the other city. It’s nit that granular. Instead, I think the yields represent the overall benefit to your economy. Like, you send a trader to another Civ, they don’t actually bring back units of culture and science. The yields just represent the overall “benefit of trade”, which is more science and culture (and wealth (gold)). So, given that, I don’t think that creating something out of nothing is actually unrealistic.

It’s a bit harder to use that rationale for internal routes, but I think you can think of the food and hammers as the benefits of internal trade - better allocation of resources, increased efficiency. I mean, really, I’m not even sure food always represents food. I think sometimes the game can just use food to mean growth.

I think the conceptual problem with trade is more around how it usually only benefits one party. That makes complete sense balance-wise, but maybe breaks immersion a little (especially when some Civs do get that benefit). Not sure I really care either way.

 

[BarbarianHunter]

This is a very good idea from a design standpoint. By allowing policy cards to increase trade route capacity, there is an opportunity cost to the player who decides to favor trade over other policy options. This could be a way to introduce a more viable tall vs. wide strategy back into the game.

Not a bad idea surely, as there has been quite a bit of concern re: tall playstyles not being of much value. Perhaps give the retirement options for great admirals an extra trade route? A military policy card of say 1/2 trade route for each harbor and another commercial policy for another 1/2 a trade route for each harbor seems a sufficient penalty for anyone dedicated to a radical mid game centralized trade route policy. Again, by and large, I generally like the trade route system as it stands.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

Actually, I also use the internal trade routes almost exclusively in the early game. You get much more benefit from the additional population and the ability to build districts faster. Getting a district and a level one building up provides significantly more of the desired resource (research, faith, etc.) than an early trade route does. The additional population also provide research, loyalty and religious (once you have founded a religion) pressure, etc.

There is also the knock on production benefit. Not only do you get the marginal increase in production from the trade route. You also have the ability to work more production tiles with the food from the trade route supporting these population.

Yes, the game is largely decided by getting through the tech (and civic) tree. The fastest way to accomplish this is with internal trade routes.

The exception in my games is when sending an trade route to a CS to complete a quest.

The challenge with using trade routes internally for this purpose is the length of time those routes run. The shortest possible route runs 22 turns (standard speed, the route between the cities on the map covers 11 hexes)) and if you're not careful could be as high as 40 turns (if the route between the cities on the map covers only 10 hexes instead of 11). For a reasonably typical route between two cities of 8 hexes length, the route will be in place for 32 turns.

I never mind getting science/culture/gold/faith for as long as the route is running. Food and production are less likely to be of material benefit for the full term of the trade route.

So while I definitely agree that there are times, especially in the early game, when boosting your population or completing a district (or building you can't afford to buy) is better than a small science or culture boost from an international trade route, in practice I rarely find situations where this true, and end up running international routes as my default.

The game is so forgiving, however, that I'm not pressed to play it so efficiently as to be forced to carefully evaluate that, even in the early game. As I stopped using internal trade routes and started sending external ones, my games got easier and my empire developed more quickly, and I just kind of stopped worrying about internal trade routes unless a clear situation for one sat up and slapped me in the face.

 

[Leathaface]

Originally you could get double trade routes, but they patched it out after it became apparent that trade routes were so powerful.

I agree. The Science and Culture you can get from alliances has really made trade routes a lot better, they would be OP if you could build two trade routes in each city in R&F. Plus if you hit a Golden Age and choose Reform The Coinage, you'd be making an absurd amount of money.

If you were going for a Scientific victory it'd be way too easy to purchase a Spaceport with that amount of money. Or you could purchase Great Works from other Civ's no problem.

 

[UWHabs]

I agree. The Science and Culture you can get from alliances has really made trade routes a lot better, they would be OP if you could build two trade routes in each city in R&F. Plus if you hit a Golden Age and choose Reform The Coinage, you'd be making an absurd amount of money.

If you were going for a Scientific victory it'd be way too easy to purchase a Spaceport with that amount of money. Or you could purchase Great Works from other Civ's no problem.

Yeah, definitely the increased yields for allied routes is finally a good reason to want to stay allied with someone. I know I'm usually very upset when an alliance runs out and they don't want to renew.