Trade routes?

[jez9999]

OK, I know this'll be a novice question on these forums, but I've scanned my Civ2 manual and can't seem to find the answer to this.

When you set up trade routes using caravans or freights, you get a note at the bottom showing you the city, commodity, and extra trade generated by the route. I have several questions about these.

1. What's the maximum number of trade routes per city? Only 3 are ever displayed; does this mean the max is 3, or does it mean each city can only have 3 outgoing trade routes but infinite incoming routes? Which 3 are displayed if this is the case?

2. Does what the cities supply and demand change, and how often?

3. Am I right in thinking that trade routes set up by AI caravans/freights are different to yours, because they seem to involve 2 commodities instead of one? ie. The game will say something like 'silver/silk trade route established' - with your caravans, there's only one commodity involved, which you choose when the caravan/freight is built.

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Re: Trade routes?

Originally posted by jez9999
OK, I know this'll be a novice question on these forums, but I've scanned my Civ2 manual and can't seem to find the answer to this.

When you set up trade routes using caravans or freights, you get a note at the bottom showing you the city, commodity, and extra trade generated by the route. I have several questions about these.

1. What's the maximum number of trade routes per city? Only 3 are ever displayed; does this mean the max is 3, or does it mean each city can only have 3 outgoing trade routes but infinite incoming routes? Which 3 are displayed if this is the case?

2. Does what the cities supply and demand change, and how often?

3. Am I right in thinking that trade routes set up by AI caravans/freights are different to yours, because they seem to involve 2 commodities instead of one? ie. The game will say something like 'silver/silk trade route established' - with your caravans, there's only one commodity involved, which you choose when the caravan/freight is built.

1. 3 is the maximum.

2. Yes. You should check the "Great Library Index" sticky on this page and look up "Caravans" in the Great Library (or GL #2). There should be plenty of information on how/when trade routes change... I am no expert, but apparently the process is somewhat well understood by others.

3. Not sure.

[rjmatsleepers]

Re: Trade routes?

Originally posted by jez9999
OK, I know this'll be a novice question on these forums, but I've scanned my Civ2 manual and can't seem to find the answer to this.

When you set up trade routes using caravans or freights, you get a note at the bottom showing you the city, commodity, and extra trade generated by the route. I have several questions about these.

1. What's the maximum number of trade routes per city? Only 3 are ever displayed; does this mean the max is 3, or does it mean each city can only have 3 outgoing trade routes but infinite incoming routes? Which 3 are displayed if this is the case?

There can be more than 3 routes into a city (yours or an AI), but you get no benefit from an incoming route and they are not displayed.

Originally posted by jez9999
2. Does what the cities supply and demand change, and how often?

3. Am I right in thinking that trade routes set up by AI caravans/freights are different to yours, because they seem to involve 2 commodities instead of one? ie. The game will say something like 'silver/silk trade route established' - with your caravans, there's only one commodity involved, which you choose when the caravan/freight is built.

With your trade routes there are also two commodities involved - the one you choose when the van was built and another selected by the game from the destination city. You can see this clearly when a new trade route is established before you have all three routes in place. When you establish an internal trade route, this will block production of one commodity. If the destination city already has three routes, the new route may not displace one of the existing routes. As STYOM says, you will find a detailed discussion of trade routes in the GL.

RJM