Trade bonuses and calculations for intermap routes

[tobyr]

I have seen many equations about the value (and bonuses) of trade routes, but I believe I have not seen any that take multiple maps into account. There are several issues, and I would appreciate info on the following:

(A) Do the trade calculations assign a value for a trade route that starts on one map and ends on another map? (I think not.)

(B) How does the game decide whether an intermap trade route connected by a road or railroad? Or does it assume that cities on different maps are simply not connected?

(C) How does the game decide whether a trade route begins and ends on different continents, when the route switches maps? (The value of a trade route that moves to another map, goes just a few squares and ends, is very small; this suggests that the game does not regard the trade route as going from one continent to another. I am not at all sure about this.)

(D) What about a trade route that begins and ends on map 0, but is connected via roads that go from map 0 to 2 and back again?

(E) It just occurred to me that a trade route can have ZERO distance, using transport sites to move from one city to another, at the same coordinates on another map. I wonder what that route would be worth?


- toby


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toby robison
criticalpaths@mindspring.com

[Cam]

Toby,

I can only concur with your 'guesstimates' on these points, and with no actual testing whatsoever I concluded that the trade routes did not take into account in any noticeable way inter-map travel of trade units, that is, your (C). Despite this, the game does appear to treat continents on overlapping maps as different landmasses - and therefore in theory one would at least expect a doubling bonus for landmass-to-landmass trade - but in practice there seemed to be little of this anticipated return.

My anecdotal findings stem from the Time Threat Paradox scenario, where I was regularly disappointed in the trade benefits from freights that went to or from the Modern vs. Fabian maps.

I might have a play around with this, and hopefully provide some more conclusive answers.

[Cam]

Just a small update - on question (E) - I did a trade route on two maps with the same X,Y co-ordinates and received a zero return trade route with no bonus at all (both cities had a population of four citizens and the product - 'beads' - was in demand by the receiving city).