Trade Routes With Barb Cities

[ramses II.]

In my last OCC game I found a size 8 city that was taken by barbs (Kyoto). The city was quite near my own (I used it as barb farm, too). I just had discovered trade, so I let my caravans got there. It seems that there's no difference between AI cities and barb cities concerning trade routes.

[Ljube]

Really? I would assume the corruption in a barb city being maximal since barbs have no capital. That should reduce the trade significantly.

[rah]

Like AI corruption and happiness

[solo]

Ramses,

When trading from an SSC with good trade specials, most of the trade arrows used to compute route amounts and payoffs will come from the SSC, so even if a barb city's base trade is lower than that of a comparable AI city because of corruption, the total amount of trade arrows won't be that much different.

[rah]

Good point. Always go for bonuses bonuses bonuses.

In our MP games, you have to jam caravans down their throats, since most players will not let you deliver then if they can stop it.

[Elephant]

Can you get the Rd/RR bonus with a Barb city? You cannot form an "alliance" with the Barb civ, so you'd have to bribe every Barb unit right away to keep them from blocking the road...

[duke o' york]

But surely the rd/rr bonus is only dependent upon the route being free when the delivery is made. You need only send the caravan along with a decent defender so that it doesn't get squished, but also use dips along the road to ensure that no barb units get in your way. You'd have to only bother bribing the units that would block the optimum route at the time of delivery, and save the money on the rest. Mind you, the bonus for delivery would have to be impressive to make paying off all the barb units worthwhile.

[rah]

The easiest way is if there's a mountain, two squares away from the barb city. Build the road through there and keep a good defensive unit or two on it. Every unit the city builds will impale itself on that location and the road will always be clear.

[:) Smiley]

Those valleys and gorges around the mountain'll start filling up fast though!

[rah]

Only with dead bodies.

[Bloody Monk]

Originally posted by Elephant
Can you get the Rd/RR bonus with a Barb city? You cannot form an "alliance" with the Barb civ, so you'd have to bribe every Barb unit right away to keep them from blocking the road...

To the question, yes, you can; and if there are no AI cities within the range to get the Rd/RR bonus, a Barb city is a good alternative. It is easier to get those 30+ trade routes to your SSC if you can use the Rd/RR bonus effect.

IIRC, Solo once tried to "give away" one of his cities to Barbs in an EL game so he could put this into operation. The bonus will be based on the SSC basetrade only; but, it is the ongoing routes that make this an interesting tack.

Monk

[debeest]

Originally posted by duke o' york
But surely the rd/rr bonus is only dependent upon the route being free when the delivery is made.

My understanding is the opposite. On any given turn, the trade bonus depends on the road being unblocked. To continue to get the bonus on a regular basis, you have to keep the road free of units that aren't allied with you.

The delivery payoff, which also can get road bonus, only depends on the road being free on the delivering turn, of course.

[Ljube]

Originally posted by rah
The easiest way is if there's a mountain, two squares away from the barb city. Build the road through there and keep a good defensive unit or two on it. Every unit the city builds will impale itself on that location and the road will always be clear.

Ah not necessarily rah. Listen to my sad story now with a happy ending.

Once I lost my third city (Uppsala) to barbs (deity game 1x1x). I found the city in a hut, so it wasn't really that much damage as it could have been had I lost the third city in a regular game.

I lost the city partially because I played a gambit variant and didn't research horseback riding to get monarchy as soon as possible, cause I found masonry or pottery in a hut before I founded my first city. When I got monarchy, I decided not to take Uppsala back by force, but wanted to buy it back. To do that, I had to research writing and I was left without any offensive military technology for the period.

However, I had one archer which I found in a hut. There was a mountain next to Uppsala on the road to Trondheim, so I placed my archer there and fortified it hoping it will hold. And it did. The barb archers from Uppsala were committing suicide attacks from time to time, upgrading my archer to vet in the process.

The situation was progressing as planned until I received a message:

Sneak attack by barbarians!!!!!!!!

My vet archer fortified on mountain was gone and barb archers started their approach on Trondheim. It was a race with time from then. Moving all workers to trade squares, I managed to research writing on the turn barb archer positioned itself on a hill next to Trondheim. A diplo was produced and I bought the intruder.

A couple of turns later the same dip liberated Uppsala.

[Elephant]

Good story. The Barb civ was acting like a normal AI civ. Could your archer have been bribed? But then again, on what basis would that be a "sneak attack" if they had been attacking the mountain for decades?

[Ljube]

Originally posted by Elephant
Good story. The Barb civ was acting like a normal AI civ. Could your archer have been bribed?

No, it was attacked.

Originally posted by Elephant
But then again, on what basis would that be a "sneak attack" if they had been attacking the mountain for decades?

Yes, this is the question. I have never before or after been sneak attacked by barbarians. This was the only time something like this happened to me. Does anybody else have similar experiences?