trade

[Juggler]

Thanks to some interesting posts I've discovered all benefits of trading.
But my question is this: Is it better to make long trade routes trading with distant cities or to trade with bigger cities (with more population)?

[Laertes]

There is a fairly long running dispute about how trade is calculated exactly, which is probably well documented in the Great Library thread in the strategy section. I am going to try and by-pass that for you:

A size 22 city on the next nearest continent will probably provide a much bigger trade bonus than a size 8 on the other size of the world, for the same commodity, demanded by both.

Where the exact trade off is - who knows?

(there, that was not much use, was it)

For me, half the fun is getting there to deliver the caravan (before the bloody demand changes or the customer declares war on you!) and getting a pleasantly surprising bonus.

[Scouse Gits]

As Fergus has said, the jury is still out as to how the bonusses are calculated, but, for my own rule of thumb -- a different continent is immeasurably preferable to the same continent a light year away -- on a different continent the distance factor is probably ignorable -- the on-going trade bonus is not effected by the commodity traded and whether or not it was demanded.
Hope this helps ...

[DaveV]

There's a tradeoff here between the one-time bonus and the ongoing trade route value. There is a 100% bonus for the former if you trade overseas; the latter receives 50% bonuses for road and railroad (and no overseas bonus). So a route on your continent can potentially pay twice as much per turn as an intercontinental route, although you will sacrifice a good bit of the delivery bonus. In the rare cases where I can psych myself to play a trade game, I usually try to send all the caravans to my SSC, figuring that I can generate more than twice as many trade arrows as the AI.

[Scouse Gits]

The early governments of Republic or Monarchy can kill the benefits of the ongoing trade routes through corruption. It is worthwhile having a policy of selective trade overseas for demanded goods. These big research/gold bonuses speed progress to acquire a corruption free civ - Democracy, Communism or Fundamentalism.

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SG(2)

[Marquis de Sodaq]

There are several situations that will garner a bonus for trade - overseas, road connection, foreign city, etc. In general, you will reap the most gold by delivering to a sizeable foreign city with many trade arrows. Look for large coastal cities or those on rivers (ideally both), as they will have the most arrows, which means a larger return for you. Switch your supply city's workers to max arrows just before you deliver - this can make a big difference in the amount of gold returned.

Of course, the obvious solution in single player is caravan saturation! Deliver demanded goods to every city you can reach, whether near or far, big or small. There's no need to worry about bonuses then, as you are part of almost every trade route in existence. Build a few ships whose sole job is camel delivery for the entire game, et voila! You are wealthy and wise.

[Lefty Scaevola]

I go for nearby larger cities for two reasons. Size (measured by trade arrows) of the two cities increases the value of the trade, and thew trade routes get establish quicker, stating the income sooner.

[Lefty Scaevola]

Later on with railroads or airports to distant "merchant outpost" cities that I have extablisn next to allies or far flung parts of my empire, then I counsciously try to increase the distance of routes.