Trade units?

[Alinestra Covelia]

I'm trying to make a game where two human controlled nations may commence trade and commerce pretty much instantaneously as they want to. I have made a few trade ships which work properly and some trade ground units with very high movement rates. However I was hoping to be able to make an air trade unit.

Has anybody found a way to make this work? I've tried "domain 3" type units but they still try to attack the city instead of trade with it. If this could be done it would be a great help to the scenario.

[Boco]

Seems, that you've already disproven something in Mixing and Matching Land, Sea and Air Unit Abilities (Kobayashi).

Unlike diplomats, land trade units can attack and still perform their trade function. If they attack units outside a city, they behave like normal ground units while if they attack a city, they automatically behave as a trade unit. This means that all attack related abilities are compatible with land trade units except the howitzer ability. A useful unit that could be made is an armored car (for banks, not the type used by infantry). 

Sea and Air units which are given the trade role function as completely normal units and cannot make trade routes. They also cannot help build wonders. So there is no reason to have non-land trade units.

A desperate shot: change the af to 0.

[Alinestra Covelia]

Yep, my findings prove that ships can and do form trade routes. Planes, however, are a different story.

[Angelo Scotto]

I'm afraid it's impossible to have a air unit which is also a caravan unit, from what i remember from CSPL programming that was due to a bug in Civ .

From CSPL Manual:

ToT uses the same physical byte to store FuelLost and Commodity (I guess this is a Civ bug since the byte adjacent to this one in the unit section doesn't seems to have any meaning), if that byte represents Commodity or FuelLost can be deducted by the type of unit (if it's a bomber it will represent FuelLost while if it is a caravan it will be Commodity).

So, since the same byte is used to represent fuel or commodity you can't get an air caravan (at least not a normal one, what about helicopters? )

Anyway, you could always use CSPL

[Henrik]

Originally posted by Alinestra Covelia
Yep, my findings prove that ships can and do form trade routes. Planes, however, are a different story.

Must be tot specific that doesnt work in MGE I'm sure of it. Or did you do something special to the stats, etc to make it happen?

[Boco]

You may be onto something pretty novel and useful! I couldn't get Naval trade units to create trade routes in my ToT scenario. What are your unit settings?

[Alinestra Covelia]

Aw, heck. No, sorry. False alarm.

The unit that I thought was a ship trade unit was actually a domain 0 unit. That makes it a land unit.

This is a dramatic comedown from what was building to be a pretty promising climax.

So, any other ideas for instant (or near-instant) trade arrangments between human players? Apart from hacking into cities with CivCity, that is?

[Boco]

Two odd ones:

Paratrooper Freights.

Use an additional map with rail links between all transporters. Only trade units can enter this map. Place transporters at the desired locales near cities. It's kinda rudimentary, but it might work. You'd have a lot of freedom to name your terrain on the 'trade route' map. Units on this map, could have a unique vulnerability to 'criminals'. Perhaps some could be paid a 'protection' fee (bribed) to look for other victims.