A Confession

[Jimmywax]

I have gotten over 2000 several times even in regular civ games. It depends on the good, size distance, terrain, bonus for being on seperate continents, and another bonus if trading with the enemy. I also living lining my pockets later in the game by sending freight over rail straight to an enemy capitol.

[Eivind IV]

Still, I don't undertstand why the trade bonuses in the above posted test saves are so radically different ,when the proportions are so similar. It certainly beats me. To the extent it's destroying my night sleeps. I sometimes wake up in the middle of the night, cold sweating, screeming out: "Why, oh, why!?!". Well, not really, but it annoys me

I need a closure to this frigging problem

[Boco]

Unfortunately I lack time to examine your example, but is it possible to plug in numbers from your examples into Samson's equation? It could help your rest.

[AGRICOLA]

Originally posted by Kobra Here's a test for you. It's not the same commidty slot, but the revenue differences are enourmous. Both saves have an activated freight outside New York, with Berlin as their home. They both have a commodity the city is demanding.

There is no mystery about this. Different commodities have different bonuses. The higher a commodity is on the trade advisor's list (hides to uranium), the bigger the bonus. In your example gold has a much greater bonus than silver.

There are threads both here and at civfan that have dealt with this in detail.

[Eivind IV]

I know that, but I've tried to change the city demands as well, to have even more similar situations (silver and silver and gold and gold), and the imp sav still gets much much more than the BK one.

It is a mystery.

[AGRICOLA]

I think that you may be trying to compare apples and oranges. The two examples appear to be in different eras (trade bonus parameters, etc.) as far as Civ2 is concerned.

For example, if you level the playing field by giving all techs to each side in both saves, the payoffs change radically. However, I don't think that the changes can be explained by the number of techs alone, they may also be related to the game year (turn number) or a particular tech.

[jeibel]

Remember that some techs, like railroad and navigation, halve freight payoff bonus. Perhaps the difference was in the tech assigned to each sides.

[jeibel]

And, BTW, a curious situation is Gold Gulch, where caravan between cities distant only a few squares generate minnimal payoffs (10-300), while giving huge trade revenues, (even 19 ! ), identical to that of imp1870 !

[N35t0r]

AFAIK, the trade revenue does not depend upon distance between the cities, but rather on their size and raw trade output.

[germanos]

I'm lost.

[Exile]

The above comments are pertinent. I left the Railroad tech out of AoI, and, IIRC, Navigation was renamed something else and it usually doesn't appear until late in the scenario.

And I do believe that distance DOES increase the payoff of trade routes.

Also, the "continent" effect does work. Trade routes to cities on their own island/continent does payoff better than those on the same continent, even if the overall distance is not as great. I discovered this with AoC when I started creating trade routes based on Cyprus, Crete, and even Sardinia and Corsica.

However, my own experience is that gold and oil (especially oil), payoff luxuriously because of multipliers for those trade items. I have landed oil caravans based on San Francisco into British cities and the payoffs have consistently exceeded 4000 gp.

[techumseh]

Is this relevant? http://coc.apolyton.net/guides/trade_payoff.shtml

[N35t0r]

Exile, AFAIK, distance increases the Money (and science) payoff that vans yeld, but not the Trade bonus between the intervening cities.

[germanos]

Originally posted by germanos
I'm lost.

But now I 've found

Eivind/Kobra: In your scenario the payaff cannot be greater then 754 gold. The reason for this is the 'science-cap': The pay-off at delivery can NEVER be bigger then 2/3 of the amount of beakers needed for your next research.

In your scen, the Axis needs 1131 beakers, while in Imp1870 the Germans need 4898 beakers. This makes the respective maximum pay-off 754 and 3265.

Do note that your Axis unit indeed brings 754 gold.
The potential for the pay-off is much, MUCH bigger though, and is (undoubtedly)*) fully consistant with the results from Imp1870. If you would bring a not-demanded cargo to New York (which invokes a 50% penalty with regard to the pay-off for delivery) you will see that this cargo also will bring 754 gold

*) disclaimer: not fully tested, but with the example I have given it leaves very little doubt.


On a side note: N35t0r is right that trade-routes are not affected by distance, nor by cargo type. The pay-off IS affected by distance and Cargo-type (among others: do check the Great Library here for full details)

[Eivind IV]

Originally posted by germanos


But now I 've found

OMG, Germanos, you're a friggin genious!

I turned up the tech paradigm to 100/10 in the BK-test and it immediately payed off "Imp-ish"!

All these equations and the answer was plain and simple, and right ahead of our nose

I am extremely grateful for this information, Germanos!