1792 - 1814 AD New City and Caravel

[MrWhereItsAt]

So what is so objectionable about it? Would it be considered dodgy if we wanted to establish a trade route between a particular large AI city and one of our own larger cities, but the good was not supplied by any of our large cities, so we rehomed the right Caravan as supplied by a smaller city in order to get more cash?

Horrible run-on sentence there, but I think it's understandable.

In this case then, if we are just establishing a trade route with Apolytonia anyway, there is no difference. Mind you, that also makes the whole exercise pointless, if rjm is right...

I will make a poll on this anyway. My time is up now, but I promise to have as many polls as I can up this time tomorrow - Monday evenings are slow.

[rjmatsleepers]

The reason that re-homing caravans is not allowed in most Apolyton games is that if you attempt to re-home using the orders menu you get a message saying re-homing of trade units is not allowed. Of course the city menu permits re-homing, but this is assumed to be a bug.

I believe the Civ Fanatics site allows it in its games. It is a matter of choice, but for me, the fact that there is a specific message saying that it is not allowed is an indication of the game designers intentions.

RJM at Sleeper's

[MrWhereItsAt]

Save downloaded: 1:22 am....

By the way, I am still puzzled by the rehoming. WHY would you do it? Would it be to have the trade route established from the largest city possible, thus maximising the returns? And why is it considered a cheat if the game allows it?

Secondly, why do you think it would be beneficial in this situation, cavebear, if you are going to establish a route between the same two cities anyway?

Once I fully understand the issues I can poll on this.

[cavebear]

First, about rehoming in general, I thought the objection to it was in person-to-person games or when score counted. It didn't think it would be wrong in a game like this. But I should have at least asked first.

Second, since people always refer to the value of sending Caravans FROM outlying cities TO the Capital, I thought there was some difference in benefits to that direction. I never tested it personally, just thought others had.

[rjmatsleepers]

There is a dramatic benefit (in terms of the delivery bonus) in rehoming a caravan to your SSC and then delivering to another city. Once you have a railroad network and ship chain in place you could potentially rush build a van in every city; re-home it and deliver it for a cash bonus that exceeded the cost of building - all in one turn. This would give you lots of gold and speed up research. This is the reason (IIRC) it was not allowed in early landing games.

The delivery bonus and trade value formulas (as posted in the strategy section) are symmetrical as far as the cities are concerned. They mainly depend on the sum of the trade arrows in the two cities and the distances involved. I believe a difference could arise if the two cities are on the same continent and the "direct route" from A to B is different from the B to A route and one route is completely roaded and the other isn't. But for most purposes, delivery from A to B produces the same results as delivery from B to A. (That is my interpretation of the formulae; I've not tested it.)

I think that the reason people talk about vans going to the capital is that (if the capital is the SSC) the biggest available bonus for a van in a colony is usually by trading with the SSC - particularly for a demanded good. Sending the van to the SSC can also be helpful in unblocking supply in the SSC. A van built in the SSC is likely to have a much bigger bonus from trading with a large AI city. Hence the SSC vans are not usually sent to the colony.

In our situation I can't see any benefit in building a van in the capital, re-homing it in a colony and sending it back to the capital - it just delays the bonus and clogs up the shipping lanes.

RJM at Sleeper's

[rjmatsleepers]

I have just conducted a quick and non-rigorous test. This confirms that differences can arise between A->B and B->A if the direct routes differ. Where they are the same or equivalent, delivery bonus and on-going route value appear to be the same in either direction.

RJM at Sleeper's

[MrWhereItsAt]

Ah yes, the whole different route idea... something I don't really understand. Is there an easy to understand thread somewhere in the Strat forum that could help me with that?

[Bloody Monk]

The question of whether to allow rehoming of vans has been debated for years. One of the negative arguements already mentioned, that it is an unintended bug because it is not allowed from the orders menu, could just as easily go the other way. That is to say, the code allowing it from the city screen was a late addition and they forgot to change the orders menu. But that is a minority view. There are also positive arguements that deal with real life situations where a product gets repackaged and distributed from a central hub.

The winning arguement, usually, is that it is a crutch/cheat because of the bigger bonus payouts if the van is homed to a city with more trade arrows. The human player should not be able to game the system against the very lame AI. One could say that disallowing rehoming is the high road, the higher standard of integrity. But, folk can agree to do about anything.

The better question here is why do anything other than deliver this van to the AI to get the extra bonus?? Cash the van in Killdear or Giza, I say.

Monk

[rjmatsleepers]

Originally posted by MrWhereItsAt
Ah yes, the whole different route idea... something I don't really understand. Is there an easy to understand thread somewhere in the Strat forum that could help me with that?

There was a post recently (ie within my lifetime) that gave a chart that enabled you to calculate the "go to" route. I think this is it http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...357#post374357
but if not I believe it can be reached via the second Great Library index.

RJM at Sleeper's

[Bloody Monk]

That chart is a work of art!!

Assuming there is no across the dateline problem, you can use the go-to function each way to reveal the 'right' path. Alternatively, you can place another city at the edge of each's radius, and road/rail all the tiles between those neighbors. This will create "Station Cities" which effectively make any road/rail connection between the neighbors work for the bonus. This bonus is for deliveries to cities 22 clicks, or less distant, and on the same land mass.

Hope this helps. There are many threads in the strat forum dealing with this.

Monk

[rjmatsleepers]

Originally posted by Bloody Monk
Assuming there is no across the dateline problem, you can use the go-to function each way to reveal the 'right' path. Alternatively, you can place another city at the edge of each's radius, and road/rail all the tiles between those neighbors. This will create "Station Cities" which effectively make any road/rail connection between the neighbors work for the bonus. This bonus is for deliveries to cities 22 clicks, or less distant, and on the same land mass.

Monk

But IIRC you must use the goto before building any roads. The idiot savant AI will sometimes use roads and thus not follow the "goto" route. :shrug:

The "station" city is very useful - particularly since it stops the route being blocked by AI units. But presumably there can be a situation where you need 2 "stations" - 1 for the route in each direction.

RJM at Sleeper's

[Bloody Monk]

@RJM

Yes to both your points!!

That's what I meant when I mentioned both..."you can place another city at the edge of each's radius". Sorry, I was not clear about that.

All of this is far from being critical in this game though. It matters more when your SSC/central city shares a land mass with an AI and is w/in 22 clicks. Trade routes of +35 to 40 are then possible after laying in the rails.

Monk

[rjmatsleepers]

Originally posted by Bloody Monk
All of this is far from being critical in this game though. It matters more when your SSC/central city shares a land mass with an AI and is w/in 22 clicks. Trade routes of +35 to 40 are then possible after laying in the rails.

Monk

As you say, not critical in this game, but undoubtedly one of the reasons that in the EL games my SSC seems to produce a lot less beakers than people such as yourself and Solo.

RJM at Sleeper's

PS I'd forgotten that the 2 stations would be at the edge of 2 different cities so that you're not attempting to build 2 cities on adjacent tiles which was the difficulty I had in mind.

[Bloody Monk]

Just to make sure this is clear...

SSC=source for the van
D=Destination for the van
S1=Station for SSC
S2=Station for D

SSC...S1...............S2...D

Where the stations are at the edge of "their" cities.

Monk

[cavebear]

I always move my Caravans manually; the computer NEVER* does what I want it to do.