John, important note about roads and trade in ToT

[tobyr]

In ToT, adding roads to some types of terrain yields an extra trade even though all the documentation sugests otherwise. (E.g., the civilopedia and the terrain table that comes with ToT do not show these increases.) I believe the rule is:

EVERY special land that yields trade, yields one extra trade with a road, EVEN IN THE ORIGINAL GAME!

For example: Gold (no extra), Wine (extra) and iron (extra).

I have tested this on a number of ToT lands (original and fantasy) and it really seems to be the rule. I would appreciate it if someone would test this in CIV2 and make quite sure that CIV2 is different.

- toby


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toby robison
criticalpaths@mindspring.com

[DaveV]

Here's how it works in Civ II, based on my experience. Roads increase trade by +1 in:

Plains
Desert
Grassland
Any river square
Any special which produces trade (fruit, furs, gems, gold, ivory, silk, spice, wine)

[tobyr]

Does the civilopedia in CIV2 explain that the special terrains that generate trade will get an extra trade?

The Prima offical strategy guide to civ 2, which discusses terrains in painful detail, does not seem to mention this.

The pretty terrain booklet that comes with ToT (and the toT civilopedia) are quite clear in showing that these special terrains do NOT give extra trade for roads.

Seems like a pretty big oversight in documenting the game!

- toby


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toby robison
criticalpaths@mindspring.com

[John Possidente]

Hmm...if that's true (and I don't doubt your observations) then someone on the original Civ2 programming team wasn't sharing information very well. As a player, I'm not a micro-manager of that caliber, so I never actually noticed that the special resources all produce the extra Trade from Roads.

[tobyr]

John,
Welcome back!
Please note that DaveV above said that Wine works this way in Civ2. If true, that means all the detailed documentation I've seen about the orginal game AND the civ2 (pre-toT) version have documented this feature incorrectly.

People have been going over civ2 with a fine-tooth comb for YEARS. Is it possible that no one has complained before that the ability to increase trade on special terrains is documented incorrectly? I was expecting to be told that this characteristic of terrains had mysteriously changed between civ2 and ToT, but perhaps it hasn't.
- toby

[St Leo]

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that by the time we started noticing the increase, we were long past rereading the manual. Besides, no one complains about the fact that it listed only three or four special effects techs while there are gazillions of them.:-)

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St. Leo
http://ziggurat.sidgames.com/
http://www.sidgames.com/forums/

[John Possidente]

Yeah...it's a secret feature.

[tobyr]

Well, one last comment on this subject. As a recent newbie, I had a very hard time learning how to read the (civilopedia help and terrain booklet) documentation and understand what it was telling me, because I kept having this feeling that whatever I decided from the docs wasn't right. It took quite a while to figure out my confusion.

Better luck on the documentation next time...
- toby

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toby robison
criticalpaths@mindspring.com