Your rule of thumb for evaluating trade yields

Softly

Warlord
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Aug 25, 2017
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Find myself using the following rule of thumb for comparing trade yields to different locations

1 prod = 1 culture = 1.25 science = 2 faith = 3 gold

Wondering if everyone else has something similar. Remember this is a rule of thumb so assume a veil of ignorance and you don’t know the civ, era, victory condition or city’s needs. Food is far too situational to meaningfully be included in this.
 
Are you talking about placing a city? To me it has to have a decent food source, next to a river, and a few hills to place an Industrial Zone. I don't figure culture, faith, or science into it.
 
Personally it varies too much by situation to have a general rule, but something like the above is reasonable. I'd probably be more like 1 prod = 1.5 culture = 1.5 science = 2 faith = 3 gold, but there's certainly a lot of cases that it varies:
-Early game, before a pantheon, getting that first faith is big. Obviously 1 faith + 1 gold > 1 prod early, and before the pantheon, 1 faith + 1 gold > 2 prod. But once that pantheon drops, I basically stop caring about faith until much later, when I start seeing what I can do with it.
-And then depending on the game, I either value faith as equal to the other yields or virtually 0. If I'm not going religion, then most of the time I treat faith as a pure "bonus" resource. If I get enough faith to make it useful, great. Otherwise I ignore it. But if I'm going religion-heavy, then I might value it as much as science or culture, and more than production (my last game, where I had Valetta + Jesuit Education + Theocracy + Goddess of the Harvest, production meant virtually 0 for me, other than for being able to churn out builders to chop things)
-And in a general game, how I value science vs culture basically depends on how much of each I'm getting. If I'm lucky and get enough culture from city-states like Kumasi or Nan Mandol, then I might value science more. But other games where I really struggle for culture, then I might rather value 1 culture at 2 or more science (for example, if I'm thinking about which policy card to run, or which city-state to send an envoy to).
 
Personally it varies too much by situation to have a general rule, but something like the above is reasonable. I'd probably be more like 1 prod = 1.5 culture = 1.5 science = 2 faith = 3 gold, but there's certainly a lot of cases that it varies:
-Early game, before a pantheon, getting that first faith is big. Obviously 1 faith + 1 gold > 1 prod early, and before the pantheon, 1 faith + 1 gold > 2 prod. But once that pantheon drops, I basically stop caring about faith until much later, when I start seeing what I can do with it.
-And then depending on the game, I either value faith as equal to the other yields or virtually 0. If I'm not going religion, then most of the time I treat faith as a pure "bonus" resource. If I get enough faith to make it useful, great. Otherwise I ignore it. But if I'm going religion-heavy, then I might value it as much as science or culture, and more than production (my last game, where I had Valetta + Jesuit Education + Theocracy + Goddess of the Harvest, production meant virtually 0 for me, other than for being able to churn out builders to chop things)
-And in a general game, how I value science vs culture basically depends on how much of each I'm getting. If I'm lucky and get enough culture from city-states like Kumasi or Nan Mandol, then I might value science more. But other games where I really struggle for culture, then I might rather value 1 culture at 2 or more science (for example, if I'm thinking about which policy card to run, or which city-state to send an envoy to).

Agree in general, except where you said that in some games you value faith more than production. For Valetta/Jesuit/Theocracy/Indonesia, something that costs 100 prod will cost 200 faith (170 with theocracy). Faith gets the benefit of (a) the purchase being instantaneous while production taking turns (b) Can be used in any city and/or saved for later. Production gets the benefit of (a) policy cards (this one is huge) (b) No way to spend faith on districts, projects or wonders (c) don't need to stay in theocracy.

If you are not going for a religious victory, even with Valetta/Jesuit/Theocracy/Indonesia it is hard to justify 1 faith being worth more than .5 production.
 
Agree in general, except where you said that in some games you value faith more than production. For Valetta/Jesuit/Theocracy/Indonesia, something that costs 100 prod will cost 200 faith (170 with theocracy). Faith gets the benefit of (a) the purchase being instantaneous while production taking turns (b) Can be used in any city and/or saved for later. Production gets the benefit of (a) policy cards (this one is huge) (b) No way to spend faith on districts, projects or wonders (c) don't need to stay in theocracy.

If you are not going for a religious victory, even with Valetta/Jesuit/Theocracy/Indonesia it is hard to justify 1 faith being worth more than .5 production.

Yeah, I guess true I would still go with a mine (3 prod) over a mission (4 faith) as Spain in that one. Even after exiting Theocracy once my army was done, it was still easily worth it to buy all my campus and theatre buildings with faith instead of waiting the 25-30 turns to slow-build them. And districts were mostly built from chops.
I still used some production cards for the couple times I did slow-build troops, and used the builder production card too.

But even in that game, the valuation changed city to city. My top 3-4 cities I did try to get them enough production to build things, but all the little cities elsewhere production was worth almost 0 there - they were basically there just as fillers to get me faith from chops, and if they happen to finish something valuable, great.
 
The rule of thumb is irrelevant because you only ever trade internally unless Kumasi.

You always yield food and production that way....all too important for new cities...you should always have new cities.
 
It depends on what I want to achieve. I like having high Gold yields and having lots of different small yields instead of something like +3 Food and +3 Production (unless that city is still developing of course, in which case Food is king).
 
Obviously 1 faith + 1 gold > 1 prod early
I agree with you post apart from this bit. +1 per city early is pretty powerful. While just 1 city perhaps you are right but that second city has so little production the card is often +25-+50% in effect. This little +1 production card is too strong to not use.

The rule of thumb is irrelevant because you only ever trade internally unless Kumasi.
I cannot remember the last time I used crappy internal trade routes.
While I have no strict rule of thumb an early trade route for +1/+1 just does not compete with
+4 gold / +1 science or culture
A road to my next enemy I want to kill
+6-8 gold
If you use rule of thumb then those internal trade routes just do not compete apart from to get an early city going.

So I will use an internal trade route early to bump prod but soon after the value drops off and if Mvemba is through that jungle a road through is of so much more value.

To buy buildings gold is rough 3x production.

A very rough rule of thumb for me is
0.5 culture =
1 science =
2 prod =
6 gold =
0 faith or food

It's rare I will build a theatre and culture is very important, especially early

By the time my internal trade route gives +3 prod a money CS gives 10-12 gold.
 
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I mostly use internal trades unless a city state requested a trade.
Exactly. And the only reason why I would trade with another major civ (or a citystate without a quest) is to prepare a trading post that would then allow me to trade with a far away City State for its quest :)

EDIT: Oh and few times when I wanted to speed up a cultural victory by choosing the policy that gives bonus turism to civs you have a trade route to. But his must have been like twice, not more.
 
Exactly. And the only reason why I would trade with another major civ (or a citystate without a quest) is to prepare a trading post that would then allow me to trade with a far away City State for its quest :)

EDIT: Oh and few times when I wanted to speed up a cultural victory by choosing the policy that gives bonus turism to civs you have a trade route to. But his must have been like twice, not more.

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
 
Victoria I'm also a proponent of external trading, but do you not even use internal trade route when getting a new city up and running? Food, while worth very little to an already established city, is very powerful in a recently founded city as it lets you work more tiles and lock in district costs sooner.
 
late game, CS trade routes are rather nice. +5 prod +10 gold per (policy card)
Very handy.

Early on, I go production first unless starved for gold. Production is king.
:)
 
Victoria I'm also a proponent of external trading, but do you not even use internal trade route when getting a new city up and running? Food, while worth very little to an already established city, is very powerful in a recently founded city as it lets you work more tiles and lock in district costs sooner.

In her previous post, Victoria did say she valued early game internal trading for the production boost.

I know a lot of players like the internal trade strategy, but like Victoria, I see greater gains by gradually switching to external trade routes by mid-game. Production and food are great, and I do think the creation of internal trade posts and roads is crucial to make external trade worthwhile later, but the opportunity costs of foregoing huge gold, science and cultural yields are massive. Even the diplo bonuses from trade are enough to keep some warmongers at bay.

Given what we know about the expansion (World Congress, more diplo issues), I foresee external trade becoming a very important variable.
 
Food, while worth very little to an already established city, is very powerful in a recently founded city as it lets you work more tiles and lock in district costs sooner.
if you want big cities sure... I do not. I want little cities ideally 2 pop with a campus would be perfect. I'll happily settle where the is no water. I'll build a monument there until it's time to chop in a campus. Sure I will have some bigger cities for extra districts but I do not want them to all grow to 7, then I have to get ED.

Production is king.
Gold is god... I'll buy a library faster than you can build it. It's not that straight forward but if I take my game last night, I had the choice for my first trader of +1/+1 or +4 gold to Monty (and a meh 1 faith) I took the Monty route because it gave me gossip in what he is building and also gets me +2 which I manage to turn into friendship. The faith did help with a pantheon, I rarely use the +1 faith card anymore, it has to be a specific reason like I just found 20 faith.

Playing England can be a bit different because of harbour/CH triangles. That's +3 for a trade route and quite early. Thrown an encampment in your capital and NOW it's not worth the external trade route for a while.

Seriously... +1 production or +6-8 gold to a money CS it's a no brainier based purely on that. A road over rough terrain in a place I logistically need it takes precedence over practically anything. I find a trade route to your next enemy is great because when you DOW it cancels.

As the example with Monty shows, sometimes you just want to make friends and on deity a few turns later he built a campus in that city so I was onto a winner.

As this is the right thread.... so which would you choose based just on this screen in my current game (deity standard standard continents)
upload_2017-11-10_20-16-47.png
upload_2017-11-10_20-19-44.png
 
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Hi Victoria, I'll play :). So this would obviously depend on a few things but since Kongo already has those swordmen of his and I have only warriors I may send it to him it that would bring me closer to friendly. Otherwise Cartage looks good but maybe from Plymouth.
 
I said just based on the figures @liv ... as it happens I am already friends with Kongo... its the culture in that trade route that makes it good, not the friendliness... also as it happened I was waiting for the friendship to end... so I made a road to them while I took Carthage and then DOW with swords, xbow sand a few turns later knights, but you did not know that. The +3 gold makes it the same as +1 prod... but the culture tips the balance for me.
 
As a warmonger I would like that road to Kongo. And yeah good point - one culture that early makes a big difference
I thought you were all about peace LOL
 
As a warmonger I would like that road to Kongo. And yeah good point - one culture that early makes a big difference
I thought you were all about peace LOL
On deity? It's not that easy to win peacefully, especially with an English start... note, no fresh water and little production. I played GOTM26 peacefully and ended up watching television while playing.... zzzz
 
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