Interesting observations on the effects of roads on trade

[Juggler_Bob]

Originally posted by arii
I posted about this about 6-8 months ago. Apparently the computer recognizes only 1 path between 2 cities. The path recognized between city A and B is different from the 1 from B and A. From my personal experience it is the same path for RR. A trick to know the recognized paths between 2 cities if you don't already have roads or no river between the 2 cities is to put a warrior in each city and order them to go to the other city.

And I was curious as to whether this applied to other calculations, like corruption. If so, it could be used as a sabotage technique against an enemy city. Cut the optimal path (pillage) to the capitol... Would the bribery cost be reduced due to increased corruption?

Just a thought...

-Bob

PS - This post just bumped me to chieftain!

PPS - I know, I'm not supposed to care about such things...

[Scouse Gits]

I clearly recall arii's post, but have just spent half an hour in fruitless searches of the archives - could it be that this thread did not make it to the archive? Ming? Any ideas?

[Paul]

The archives have not yet been imported into the new format. But the thread you're looking for is still active. http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...&threadid=2449

[Scouse Gits]

Thnks, Paul - it never occurred to me to search the active fora ... duh!

[Gastrifitis]

Definite that airbases, by themselves, do not contribute to trade connections. They don't hurt, either, you just have to have roads and railroads on the square too. The Trans-Siberian Railway doesn't generally help, either. The key seems to be, as arii mentioned, the Goto command. If there is so much water in the way that the Goto command fails, the computer will never recognize a completed route.

Sometimes, when testing for the shortest route with the Goto command, I will have a railroad going in the right general direction without following the rules for the shortest route. Often the test unit will take the railroad in that occasion. (Go figure. When I want them to take the railroad, they don't.) Just after running the route, if I check back in the source city, the trade route value has increased! It's only a phantom increase, however. If I look back in the city 2 seconds later, it's gone. But it does show how closely the Goto command is tied in.

[Quantum Satis]

Here is a way to find out if a trade route has the road or railroad bonus. Change workers in the city to Entertainers and look at how the value of the trade route change. These values are for foreign trade routes:

No con: 0,1,2,3,4,5,6
Road: 0,1,3,4,6,7,9
Rail: 0,2,4,6,8,10,12

With Superhighways the patterns are different:

No con: 0,1,3,4,6,7,9,10,12,13,15,16
Road: 0,2,4,6,8,10,12,14,16,18,20,22
Rail: 0,2,5,7,10,12,15,17,20,22,25,27

If the routes are domestic their values increases by one regardless of whether the cities are connected or not. The exception is when a city has the Superhighways and is connected to the other city by railroad:

Rail: 0,1,2,3,5,6,7,8,10,11,12,13,15,16,17,18,20...43
(4, 9, 14, 19...39 are missing)

If the distance between two trading cities exceeds 22 squares, or the path between the two cities is too complicated then you don't get the road and railroad bonuses. Diagonal distances are the same as others.

[Quantum Satis]

Deleted

[Quantum Satis]

(Trying again to attach a file)
Here is a picture showing where to build roads so that the trade routes receive the road bonus. The center square is the receiving city. The picture is made with the assumptions that there is no water blocking the way, and that the date line is not crossed. Only distances up to 10 squares are shown but the road bonus can be collected for trade routes up to 22 squares long.

[La Fayette]

Picasso? Miro? Chagall?
Those people did not play civ2, I suppose.
And that is why your image is somewhat nicer looking than anything they painted.
Congratulations,QS!

(this guy is La Fayette, willing to be able to do the same)

(La Fayette, knowing that this never happens)
( perhaps another day I have a try at checking whether this is really the way it works, but today is the french '4th of July' and my only wish is to go to bed with such a beautiful image in the back of my eyes)

[Adam Smith]

Quantum:

Very interesting. What was your methodology for developing this pattern??
I notice that the pattern is not symmetric on the right side of the southwest quadrant. This means that the pattern is not invariant with respect to rotation. (I.e., if you rotate the grid by 90 degrees the path for these squares will be different than it was.) Is this possibly an error?

[Rasputin]

hmm m completely lost me with that pic of the roads system ... what are you trying to see, build roads everywhere >?>>

[Quantum Satis]

La Fayette - Thank you, I'm glad someone liked the picture. Unfortunately I cannot claim any credit for it since all I did was to plot down the outcome of the GoTo-routine, so all credit goes to the person who wrote that routine.


Adam Smith - I made a map containing a continent with a size of 21 x 21 squares. A game was started and Rome was built on the center square. The Extra Land unit had been changed so that it was like an Explorer but with 16 movement points. One such unit was placed on each of the 80 outermost squares of the continent and sent to Rome, with their choice of route noted down . Some more of those units were sent from selected squares to find out the finer details of the pattern. I assume that the game checks the path of a trade route with the GoTo-routine and, as DaveV pointed out in another thread, it is likely that the programmer reused the GoTo-routine rather than writing a new for this function. So far this theory seems to be correct. The asymmetry in the pattern that you mentioned is intentional, that is, by me at least.

Rasputin - The picture shows where to build a road between two cities, the receiving city is the center square, the city sending out the caravan is any of the other squares and the road should be built following the line connecting those two squares. The picture shows only the forward route, if you want the bonus for the return route you have to place the other city in the center and see if more roads are needed. Did this make the picture any clearer?

There is another use for the picture. When a city is connected to the capital, waste (loss of shield production) in that city is reduced. A city that can produce 4 shields without waste in despotism, can then produce 6 shields without waste. This connection needs only to be built in one direction, towards the capital.

[Blaupanzer]

Quantam Satis, very impressive; thank you. Any thoughts, anyone, on why one quadrant would be assymmetric to the other three?

[SlowThinker]

bump.

Originally posted by Blaupanzer
Any thoughts, anyone, on why one quadrant would be assymmetric to the other three?

Is the down-left quadrant an error?

Did anybody verify the picture?

[DrSpike]

to SlowThinker for bumping this thread. That diagram above is the most useful thing I've seen in months.............all those occasions swearing due to no bonus..........I hope it turns out to be accurate.