Your rule of thumb for evaluating trade yields

[isau]

I don't think a linear comparison is possible between trade yields. Let me see if I can boil down the main issues:

• Food and Hammers are local yields. They have tremendous swing value depending on the Food and Hammers already available to a city. This is why a Trade Route sent from a fairly new city is often ideal. If Hammers go from 2 to 3 in that city, that's a 33% increase (and, effectively, a 33% decrease in build time).
• Culture is both a local and global yield. Culture contributes to grabbing land tiles, which is more of an issue early in the game than later once most tiles are already claimed.
• Gold, Faith, and Science are global yields. The output of the home cities doesn't impact decision making, just whether you are lagging in one of these areas in the global sense. The real question with these yields is for me "Do I need that thing more than supporting the local yield of a young city?" Gold in particular can be tricky with regards to this question, because although it is a global yield, it allows Gold purchases of buildings, which can contribute to local effects...

 

[Trengilly]

I'm in agreement with Victoria. Internal trade routes are only useful for two things 1) quickly getting a new city started (if necessary) and 2) maxing production in your spaceport city if going for a SV (assuming you haven't gotten Triangular Trade yet).

Population and Production are overvalued. Gold is king in Civ VI - you only need to produce districts and space parts (and spies).

Its odd/unfortunate that the more efficient methods of winning all involve, preventing cities from growing and not building all the late buildings or wonders. (Has anyone won a game with all their cities under 10 pop? I've come close.)

Which is why I prefer to role play games on Emperor

 

[Victoria]

Has anyone won a game with all their cities under 10 pop? I've come close

yes definately. It does depend. If I am immersive I'll even grow a city or two to 15, science does have requirements but they are not needed. Even a spaceport city can be founded a couple of turns before you win an then just chop in the spaceport.

 

[kamex]

Even a spaceport city can be founded a couple of turns before you win an then just chop in the spaceport.

As a builder, this makes me feel so sad.

 

[Victoria]

As a builder, this makes me feel so sad.

I 100% agree, chopping late in particular is insane. The reason being you start getting a new tech every turn or 2 so the chop value increases rapidly. All I can say is thank god there are no good % cards that help at that level. Low level Harald and monarchy are powerful chopping tools but even the 50% are great. Putting off swordsman to get the 50% chop from warriors can be great also.
As a builder you should enjoy your build game and just ignore the fact that chopping can speed up the game. It's not like the AI is efficient at it.

 

[Canadian Bluebeer]

Game speed also makes a difference. I only play on marathon, so gold will pile up.
Early on though, sometimes gold, sometimes production.
I always do the get a free envoy though.

I couldn't see what your gold/sci/culture was in your screenshot Victoria, so can't say which route would be best.

 

[Victoria]

I couldn't see what your gold/sci/culture was in your screenshot Victoria, so can't say which route would be best.

Let alone my victory target , personal ambitions or shoe size. Just based on the routes available, all I am saying is internal routes are often not best and was using that as an example.

 

[Disgustipated]

I so rarely use internal trade routes now that most of my cities do not have a road by the end of the game.
It's funny how Civ VI is not as cut and dried as civ V

I almost always go external trade routes when I can. I don't get what all the love for internal trade routes is. I can get maybe 1 more production trading to my capital than I can trading to an industrial city state. Big deal. Unlike you, I do try to get road networks up first, after that's it's all external. But I do prioritize ones that have some production mixed in with all that gold. Food is even a better bonus. And yes I do run arsenal of democracy if I'm playing a relatively peaceful game for even more food and production. But sometimes if I am in need of lots of cash, I do trade to commercial city states. It's hard to pass up fat stacks of cash sometimes. I love gold, and I'm not afraid to purchase building or units with it.

 

[Tech Osen]

I almost always go external trade routes when I can. I don't get what all the love for internal trade routes is. I can get maybe 1 more production trading to my capital than I can trading to an industrial city state. Big deal.

The trick is to let one of your early cities only build districts that give +1 production to trade routes. But you could also just play Poland and have the best from both worlds.

 

[Canadian Bluebeer]

Let alone my victory target , personal ambitions or shoe size. Just based on the routes available, all I am saying is internal routes are often not best and was using that as an example.

Well, having the route lay a road where you want it is a useful thing, and yes, I've done a route just for that.
Actually, early on I tend to choose my first routes just for the roads. (being a warmonger type, I'm gonna NEED said roads later)


I've chosen them because I need food in city, or for gold, or to make or keep someone friendly(ish) (for now).
I've chosen a route for gold, or to get an envoy, or just to get the trading post so next time I can get the route to where I want it.
(CS that don't have a harbor for instance)

I don't think I've ever chosen one based on science or culture though.

I also never play on standard speed, but do know that at that speed, the other yield importance changes priority vs marathon.

 

[Forster]

I so rarely use internal trade routes now that most of my cities do not have a road by the end of the game.
It's funny how Civ VI is not as cut and dried as civ V

I try to move my traders in such a way that they pass through my cities that are not connected on the way to the desired trade partner. This way I don't have to waste traders creating an internal road net.

 

[UWHabs]

I try to move my traders in such a way that they pass through my cities that are not connected on the way to the desired trade partner. This way I don't have to waste traders creating an internal road net.

Works especially well if the best CS are on opposite ends of your empire, then you can just plan your routes to the opposite one more often than others. Or I use the occasional CS send-route quest to fill in a route across my empire if it works out that way.

 

[Softly]

Some informative posts, but has gotten kind of off-topic. My intention in creating this thread was to see what everyone's "rule of thumb" was for comparing yields. Trade routes was just a convenient standard to use since it sort of allows you to compare local yields (production) with non-local yields (science and gold). Looking back I def could have made myself more clear.

Phrased another way, if I sat you in front on a game of civ with the monitor off, and I said I could either give you +1 prod/city or +3g/city, which would you choose? How about 2cult/city vrs 3science/city? 2 gold vrs. 1 faith?

 

[Frostburn]

Some informative posts, but has gotten kind of off-topic. My intention in creating this thread was to see what everyone's "rule of thumb" was for comparing yields. Trade routes was just a convenient standard to use since it sort of allows you to compare local yields (production) with non-local yields (science and gold). Looking back I def could have made myself more clear.

Phrased another way, if I sat you in front on a game of civ with the monitor off, and I said I could either give you +1 prod/city or +3g/city, which would you choose? How about 2cult/city vrs 3science/city? 2 gold vrs. 1 faith?

Early game I value culture above all else- maybe 1 culture = 1.5 production = 1.5 science. I would say 1 production = ~3 gold, so priot to my first government 1 culture = ~4.5 gold

I like early culture because I find upgrading government to get the 4 card slots pretty important. After that I think culture/science/production are about equal in value. with gold being ~3x less valuable per unit of culture/prod/science. Food is really strong for low pop cities and the least valuable yield once the city has built up some population. Food value is inversely proportional to city population, being most valuable at a city with 0 pop


tl;dr Early before government: 1 culture = 1.5 science/production =3 gold
After that: 1 culture = 1 science = production = 3 gold

Food = most valuable for cities with 1-3 pop, gets increasingly less valuable as pop rises

 

[empresskiova]

It’s pretty hard to answer, since it’s all about the situation you are in. I don’t think there is a one true formula that works in every game and in every situation.

I’ve had games where the production is more useful to me than the gold could ever be (one fun game as Rome comes to mind... I had 4 players declare war against me at once through Joint Wars). And then games where the gold is simply crucial to my strategy (often low production games).

Another fun game I had was as Poland... I started on a peninsula and had little room to expand and was too weak scientifically and productively to go the conquering route. I had to spam out trading districts (this was before harbors and commercial zones didn’t stack traders) and island colonies the best I could to get international routes going as I was running the +1 Science/Culture for Traders card. This fixed my backwards people and would’ve let me win the Science game. In that game, a few coins and cogs wouldn’t have saved me (though I got the best of both worlds because of their UB).

 

[Phoenix1595]

I agree with @empresskiova-- the question is entirely subjective, given variations in each civ, play style, map, etc.

While production seems to be king in Civ6, and trade routes can offer a vital source for hammers, I could not say that I would always choose hammers over, say, gold. It all depends on the game and my own personal objectives.

 

[KnightModern]

I have 5 rules, ascendant
1. do my city desperately need food?
2. do my city desperately need production?
3. which one that gain most gold?
4. which one that I need more, science or culture?
5. which one that give me advantage for religious pressure?

 

[liv]

I think if your needs were food and production you should build a builder not a trader

 

[Archon_Wing]

. (Has anyone won a game with all their cities under 10 pop? I've come close.)

No, but getting close. I think it is actually better because there is little use in growing so big.

From prince to emperor, the average "workhorse city" for me has been getting smaller. Usually I had a bunch of 15-20 pop cities but now it is to the point where only my capital passes 10 pop and that is usually when I stop caring anyways. I imagine people that make quick finishes dont even need to go that far. Stuff like neighorhoods and aqueducts seem pretty worthless to me even if I take longer.

 

[KnightModern]

I think if your needs were food and production you should build a builder not a trader

you can transfer trader to new cities to boost their production for awhile
and sometimes you want to settle in bad place for gaining food, like tundra because there are strategic or luxury resource there