Help on harbors/sea trade & governments?

[battists]

Howdy, I'm a relatively new player who has been playing on Chieftain / Std / 8 civs as the Egyptians, and I have a few problems.

Harbors / Sea Trade:
OK, so how exactly does this work? Do you have to get Magnetism before you can do any sea trade at all? I've played up to 750 AD or so, I have contact will all civilizations, I have many harbors, and I still can't trade with any of the civs that aren't on my continent. I read the manual, but it's a little bit vague. Does my city with a harbor have to be precisely facing the opposing civ's harbor? Does it have to be within a certain distance? It seems weird that I'm hours and hours into the game and I still can't trade luxuries with anyone but the (@#$ Greeks on my own island.

Governments:
This is really more of a question about corruption and waste. The manual (and everyone on this site) talks about how Republic (for example) is much better regarding corruption and waste than Despotism. If that's the case, I haven't been able to figure it out.

For example, in aforementioned game where I'm in 750 AD, I have about 25 cities, and it looks something like this under despotism:

+104 income
-9 science
-46 corruption
-38 maintenance
-0 units
---------------------
+11 total

55 waste (figured this out just by counting on the F1 screen - is there an easier way?)

This was with 20% science and 0 happiness.

I changed to Republic, expecting a savings in corruption and waste. Here's what happened:

+205 income (great!)
-24 science
-94 corruption (hunh?)
-38 maintenance (makes sense)
-74 units (makes sense)
-----------------------------------------
-25 total

My waste was even higher, something like 70 shields. Not to mention, I have the additional problems of having to deal with war weariness and no military police.

So, what gives? My capital is relatively central, and I just completed the Forbidden Palance, and still this is what I get. With numbers like these, there's no point in moving away from Despotism at all, so what gives?

I'd appreciate any help!

Thanks,
Steve

[Lord Silvi]

Harbors and Trade

You also need to have the technology to travel to the nations you want to trade with.
Galleys wont leave the coast.
Carvels travel the sea, but not the ocean. This ships may reach some neighbors but not all.
The Lighthouse will be of great use in this situation.

[quinalla]

For your first question, if you can sail your "best" boat (ie, the one that can sail on the deepest square with no risk of sinking), from you harbor to their's, then you can trade with them. For example, if you can only build galleys and you don't have the Great Lighthouse, there has to be a path of coatal squares from your city with a harbor to their city with a harbor. Oh, and don't forget that the harbor cities have to be connected to the capital too.

I haven't gotten a good handle on the corruption/waste, but whenever I switch from depostism to republic, my money goes up. One nice thing about switching out of depostism to any government is that irrigation is much more effective so you are able to mine more squares and this can help. Hopefully someone with more knowledge of how corruption works can help.

-quinalla

[Jezz]

What map size? 25 cities on a standard map will cause rampant corruption. The increase in corruption you saw when you switched was because republic reaps more shields/trade from each city square. But you lost it all to corruption. My advice, go into the editor, and change the max number of cities before corruption is rampant, you'll have lots more fun.

And yes, you need the techs that allow travel over seas and/or oceans before the harbor allows trade. Unless the two cities are connected by coast.

[MrWhereItsAt]

Yeah, if you look at the Civilopedia entries for things like Mapmaking, Navigation and Magnetism, you'll see that getting certain advances allows sea trade between harbours using first coast, then seas, then oceans.

As for the corruption increase in Republic, it's possible that the percentage of your total trade that was lost to corruption decreased from Despotism to Republic, yet because your cities weren't optimized for the Republic's trade bonus, the trade increase was more than offset by the increase in losses due to corruption and unit maintenance (primarily).

Personally, I have never used Republic, preferring to go straight from Monarchy to Democracy, and I have fiddled with the rules so that corruption is present but basically miniscule compared with previously. Hey. at least I'm in the running for some of these games!