{The List-} Economics/Trade

[Kuciwalker]

I just remembered an idea from the C3 list that I think may work well and satisfy everyone (for strategic resources). Make it so that you don't need a resource to build a unit that "requires" that resource. Rather, you can allocate each instance of each resource you have to a city, and it provides some number of extra shields (a lot) per turn towards the production of something that requires that resource.

[Shogun Gunner]

Originally posted by Fosse
I seldom like this argument because we accept so much in this game as happening on a weird time scale. Warriors take 1000 years to walk a few hundred miles in the early game, trade deals last for no less than 20 years, and possibly thousands if made early enough.

The city management, military, and diplomatic models all seem to function at their own pace... so a month of time in one is close to a day in another and a year in another. What we need to look for is fun and good features for the game, and not worry overly much about if they make sense according to 1 year = 1 turn.

I too, think that stockpiling could be good for gameplay, and that is enough to get it a thumbs up from me.

yes, we all accept the timescale not being linear. Usually this argument is usually discussed concerning naval movement. Usually it goes like "Magellan circumnavigated the entire world in a few years, but even on a tiny map it will take me a minimum of twenty years to go around the civ planet"

I think we all have just sighed...and accepted it in the name of gameplay.

[Fosse]

Originally posted by skywalker
I just remembered an idea from the C3 list that I think may work well and satisfy everyone (for strategic resources). Make it so that you don't need a resource to build a unit that "requires" that resource. Rather, you can allocate each instance of each resource you have to a city, and it provides some number of extra shields (a lot) per turn towards the production of something that requires that resource.

This sounds like a great deal of micromanging to me, though, and it kind of cripples the idea of resources at all. Sure, you can build nukes without uranium, but if you have it you can click on every city that is building a nuke and asssign uranium to it, thus building it maybe 30% faster.

If that's the approach, why not just leave required resources for building things out entirely and go back to the Civ 2 model where every bonus tile was just that - a production bonus tile?

If the "resource allocation" happens automatically - which it should and I am not suggesting to know if you want it to or not - it would be better... but again would really defeat (to me) the idea of having resources in the first place.


Shogun gunner:
Yeah, the navy is where the time being out of synch really rears its head (and could stand to be tinkered with)!

[hexagonian]

Originally posted by Frozzy
Not really. The trade route follows the shortest route, so if you have roads between your cities they follow those roads. So, I often have a couple of warriors or legions in the early game going along the trade route making sue it isn't pirated. Same for the seas (with longboats & fire triremes)
I actually rarely have my trade routes pirated

As long as you have a compact empire, or you do not have land spurs of rival civs that jut into you area of control, then piracy is not a problem, because the routes did not pass through enemy territory. And if you have some cities overseas from your main civ, then piracy was soooo easy - especially since piracy was not considered to be an act of war in CTP2.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by hexagonian
And if you have some cities overseas from your main civ, then piracy was soooo easy - especially since piracy was not considered to be an act of war in CTP2.

That's one of the major annoyances in CtP2. Even if you patrol your routes, it won't prevent piracy. They will steal in front of your eyes, and if you try to make an anti-piracy agreement with the now know pirate civ, they won't agree unless you add a bribe. But if you are so dumb to bribe them to cease piracy, they will do it anyway, because deals are never honored in CtP2. So you have three choices. a) you can live with the piracy, b) you can cease oversea trade or c) you can start a war. Makes for a fun game.

[Fosse]

This might stray slightly into the off topic zone, but it is meant to address the piracy problems you guys are discussing...


I think that making a new category of questionable actions might be a good solution here.

Right now we have "Acts of War" or "Not." Having another type, "Incitements to War" might help out. If I pirate the AI, it may not cause war... but if I insist on doing it over and over then I'm asking for it, take harsher diplomatic penalties, and can guarantee that action will eventually be taken.

This is also why I support making fighting possible without being at war. If a civ I am not at war with keeps sinking my merchant marines, then I can blast them out of the waters, and possibly not have to go to war to do so. It would just be a REALLY stern warning.

This would add more to MP than to SP, I think, but can go a long way to making the single player game a better time to.

[Jon Miller]

Originally posted by skywalker
I think it would be cool if we used C3's resource system (with a few bonuses for multiples of the same resource) but had Galciv-esque trade routes (with the little freighter carrying oil, etc).

this is what I like

Jon Miller

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Fosse
This might stray slightly into the off topic zone, but it is meant to address the piracy problems you guys are discussing...


I think that making a new category of questionable actions might be a good solution here.

Right now we have "Acts of War" or "Not." Having another type, "Incitements to War" might help out. If I pirate the AI, it may not cause war... but if I insist on doing it over and over then I'm asking for it, take harsher diplomatic penalties, and can guarantee that action will eventually be taken.

This is also why I support making fighting possible without being at war. If a civ I am not at war with keeps sinking my merchant marines, then I can blast them out of the waters, and possibly not have to go to war to do so. It would just be a REALLY stern warning.

This would add more to MP than to SP, I think, but can go a long way to making the single player game a better time to.

I like this idea. I want a popup as soon as the AI does something that qualifies, and I face no diplomatic penalties for saying "declare war".

[Harovan]

Naval piracy should be not an act of war. Neither should be attacking pirates an act of war. I would be fine with seeing CtP2-like piracy, but restricted to Civ3-like privateers, i.e. units with hidden nationality, which can be sunk without having to start a war or even to take a diplomatic penalty.

[Jon Miller]

see I don't think that there should be CTP like piracy

but something similiar, like a noncontrolable unit moving back and forth (apparently like Gal Civ)

Jon Miller

[ixnay]

How's this for an idea: Use CtP-style trade routes - that is, visible routes on the map that can be interfered with by other nations. However, to actually pirate or disrupt trade, a unit would need to stay in one place on the route for a fixed number of turns - like, 5 or so.

With a delay like this, it would give players the ability to patrol their routes and stop problems before they happen, but someone that's sneaky enough can still get units in to wreak havoc if they play it right.

[Kuciwalker]

GalCiv-style piracy - just blow up their freighters, driving up costs or destroying the trade routes altogether.

[Frozzy]

Originally posted by ixnay
How's this for an idea: Use CtP-style trade routes - that is, visible routes on the map that can be interfered with by other nations. However, to actually pirate or disrupt trade, a unit would need to stay in one place on the route for a fixed number of turns - like, 5 or so.

With a delay like this, it would give players the ability to patrol their routes and stop problems before they happen, but someone that's sneaky enough can still get units in to wreak havoc if they play it right.

I love this idea. How about having two options: One is destroy the trade route, another is raid. Raid gives you some gold, keeps the trade route in tact and increases anger with the nation.

(One thing about CtP some people forget is that sometimes their were survivors of the piracy who saw your flag. In other cases, there were none, so you got away free without the civ knowing that it was your civ who pirated them),

Destroying, on the other hand, takes more gold, eliminates the route and is an act of war.

[Frozzy]

Originally posted by Jon Miller
see I don't think that there should be CTP like piracy

but something similiar, like a noncontrolable unit moving back and forth (apparently like Gal Civ)

Jon Miller

So you've said, many times

[wrylachlan]

So I was thinking about trade routes, and the ability to "pirate" trade routes, and how that isn't really well modeled in Civ.

To make trade piratable you need to have units carrying the goods. But if you do that, who decides what goods are carried where? If you have the computer decide, there will be someone saying, "I don't want THAT city to be an exporter". If you let the player decide, you're into micromanagement.

What if you simply abstract all trade to the commerce bonus and turn it into gold?

If I build a road between city A and city B, I get a percentage commerce bonus at both cities. The mechanism for the bonus to get there is a trade caravan loaded with gold that travels from A to B, and another that travels from B to A. When the caravans arrives, the gold is converted to commerce at a standard rate.

But to accurately model trade, what happens when 1 city trades with 50 other cities? Do they send out a fleet of caravans? That would get messy quick. Instead they consolidate, and only send 1 caravan to each of the cities they're connected to. From there the trade branches out and continues.

Example:
Panama City, and Mexico City are close to each other on an isthmus. Dallas, Houston, and Austin are behind Mexico City with relation to Panama City. If Dallas, Houston, and Austin want to trade with Panama they each send a caravan to Mexico. Mexico then consolidates their gold into one caravan and sends one caravan on to Panama. Similarly Panam sends one caravan to Mexico with all the gold for Mexico, Dallas, Houston, and Austin. When that caravan arrives at Mexico, it is broken out into three caravans that complete the trades.

The nice thing about this mechanism is that you only end up with 1 caravan for every pair of adjacent cities, yet your trade network can grow exponentially with the growth of your nation.

Additionally, you have trade forming natural choke points. So its more important to defend Mexico and Panama from privateers than it is to defend Houston.

Caravans should be able to travel on rivers, roads, RR, Oceans (if you have a harbor), and Airplanes(if you have airports). Maybe Airplanes can only carry a fixed amount of gold, so that the invention of the airplane doesn't totally replace Ocean trade.