Trade - GL paper wanted!

[cpemma]

I'd like some thoughts on trading that go beyond the manual but maybe not as deep as the few strategies already in the library - for the newbie who's wanting to get better

Picking a city to send stuff to? Is the "Supply & Demand" list order relevant?

Sending from large cities or sending from small cities - would it affect your choice of target city?

Should you deliver to a city more than 3 times - if so, when? If it's foreign?

What to do with goods nobody wants? Export?

[Smash]

If its going to be a trade route caravan then I seek the highest trade site or potential site(ai).I look for the stuff the ai likes.Lots of FOOD and specials.Rivers also.Capitols.
Then see how easy it is to actually deliver.Is it coastal?Is there a coastal river leading to it?How many ships to reach it? etc.
Supply and demand means nothing at this point.I am more interested in getting the best routes.If it is demanded,great,but I will not spend extra turns getting to a demander.I will waste some beakers in favor of quick establishment at this point.

Once I am happy with the route situation then I will seek out demanding cities more.But generally I ship chain everything to 1 ai city or a group of 2-4 cities.I only want to fill it(science box) to the point I can finish it myself.
I most definitely look for repeat commodity cities.Capitols are often repeaters.No big strategy here.If a repeater wants silk,then silk they get.Over and over.

I want many routes while giving few.I trade with 1 civ and only a few cities.

I try to keep from having commodity caravans sitting around.Often, delivering will free up a commodity in the supporting city.

or just trade internally sending everything to your cap or SSC and maybe a few others.Find the right squares for road and RR connecting and you can do very well on your own.Bonus isn't as good but you can make it up in volume and both ends of a trade route.I usually have at least 2 internal routes to my capitol and a few others before I'm ready to send abroad.

I put high priority on Trade against the ai and pursue it right after Monarchy...usually.

Mp is basically the same cept I will trade alot more internally and wholesale with an ally.Trying to get all our cities routed up.And Trade may have to wait a few techs while a military tech is done first.

[Rasputin]

Re: Trade - GL paper wanted!

Originally posted by cpemma
Picking a city to send stuff to? Is the "Supply & Demand" list order relevant?

Yes i often wondered this myself, what if any credance should i pay to the Demands list ??

[Marquis de Sodaq]

Altho I've never run endless tests to verify, you get more return for the trade if it is demanded. More gold/arrows/science, thus. If your city already has 3 good trade routes, an undemanded caravan might still be worth delivering, particularly to a large city.

[Marquis de Sodaq]

BTW, trade was one of the first Info: threads I called for in the GL discussion. I haven't seen our leading trade wiz (East Street Trader) post for a long time, tho. I was even willing to do mind-numbing tests to figure out how supply and demand shift around the map. Maybe he'll return with the definitive trade info... At this point, we might not get it done until Civ3 is out.

[Rasputin]

could we get markusf to post on his Super Trade Strategy... I just checked the Great Library and none of the strategys there seem to explain how markusf gets to develop his trade so well....

[solo]

cpemma,

One could make a career out of trying to understand all the details and aspects of Trade in this game. I will try to answer your specific questions first and then try to add some of the most important things I have learned about trade that are not covered in the manual.

Supply and Demand - If a commodity is delivered to a city where it is in demand, you will receive extra gold for delivering it there. This extra amount is called the “demand bonus”, and can often be quite substantial, well worth the extra work of finding a demanding city. The things to look for to increase your payoffs, (and the “demand bonus” added to them) are:

1) The type of commodity being delivered. There are detailed tables players have worked out, but when you look at the “supply and demand” list in the game, the further down the list you go, the more lucrative the commodity will be. Thus your payoffs are much less for Hides, which starts the list, and than for Uranium, which ends it.

2) Whether the city is foreign or domestic. All other factors being equal, foreign cities pay twice as well, yet there is a risk of losing a caravan or freight when trading with the AI.

3) Whether the city is on another continent. Trading overseas doubles the payoff, whether the city is foreign or one of your own.

4) How far away the target city is from the source. The farther away it is, the bigger the payoff and bonus.

5) Caravan vs. Freight. Freights pay twice as well as caravans.

6) Connecting roads, railroads or airports are other multipliers.

7) The size, location and trade history of the target city. The bigger the target city the better. A city located on terrain favoring trade (such as rivers or oceans) is better, especially locations with good trade specials such as gold, spice, wine, silk, etc. A city with established trade routes is better.

The bigger the potential demand bonus, the more sense it makes to seek out a demanding city. To give you some idea, just one Oil freight delivered to a large demanding foreign city on another continent that is far away could net you well over 1500 gold, while a local delivery of a Hides caravan to a demanding city can yield less than 50 gold. To give you an idea of how much better you can do by seeking out the demand bonus, in a recent game I delivered coal to Kaupang for 734 gold. The same cargo delivered to a nearby Viking city of the same size which was not demanding coal would have brought in only 399 gold. Also consider that a lucrative commodity delivered to a huge undemanding city with well developed trade will yield a better payoff than to a nearby demanding neighbor that is just starting to grow.


City size - City size is certainly a key factor, but what you are really looking for is the number of trade arrows that a city is generating. A small city with workers on four trade specials that has built the Colossus and has established 3 trade routes may be better for trading cargos than one nearby that is twice its size. Certainly a general rule is that the larger and better developed a city seems to be, the better candidate it will be for good payoffs. This applies to both the source and destination cities. Cities having the most trade arrows contribute the most to your cause by engaging in trade. Caravans from smaller and trade-poor cities are more profitably put to use in building wonders.


Multiple deliveries - Certainly keep delivering to partners that give good payoffs, especially when they are demanding the cargos you have.


Goods that no one wants - Demand is nice to get, but not necessary. My general rule of thumb is that if you believe you can get over 200 gold by making a trade, go trade it, because 200 gold is what a caravan or freight are worth in the production of a wonder.


Other key things to know about trade:

1) Each trade nets a gold payoff PLUS an equivalent number of science beakers, which are credited towards what you are currently trying to research. It is worth timing deliveries just AFTER you have learned something new to get the benefit of all of the free beakers netted by the trade. Early in the game profitable and timely trades can cut many turns off research times speeding up your progress through the tech tree. It is this DOUBLE benefit of trade, of gold and beakers, that makes trading such a good deal.

2) Each trade route (up to 3 per city) establishes a continuing trade bonus, giving substantial extra trade arrows to boost your science, taxes and luxuries. So establish 3 trade routes for each of your best cities as soon as possible. The continuing trade bonuses are shown on the lower part of the city screen. Ways of increasing these are:

a) Building roads and getting the Superhighways improvement as soon as Automobile is discovered. Make sure roads are built on any trade specials in the city radius, too.
b) Trading to a nearby city connected by road doubles this bonus.
c) Bonus b) above is doubled again by adding a connecting railroad.
d) Connections b) and c) are doubled again by having the connection to a foreign city.
e) For b,c and d to work, the route has to be the shortest, and sometimes this is tricky to determine, but the benefits are so huge, it’s worth learning the details.

3) Once Invention and Navigation have both been discovered, payoffs for caravans are cut in half. It may be better to wait until freights are available to continue trade.

4) The discovery of Flight cuts payoffs by 1/3, and the discovery of Space Flight cuts off another 1/3.

5) To get the most out of each delivery, temporarily set the workers of the source city in positions that generate the most trade arrows (oceans, rivers, trade specials). Then deliver the cargo and collect a little extra gold. Finally, do not forget to reset the source city’s workers when the trade is complete.

6) There is much more, but maybe this will give you a good start. Have fun.

[cpemma]

Some good stuff, thanks.

I also found Samson's Formula:

TradeFromRoute = ( (SourceTrade + DestinationTrade + 4 ) / 8 ) x Modifiers

in "How Do I get Rid of a Trade Route" which is just the sort of thing I'm looking for.

So would people agree, in the mid-game, use small city freights for building Wonders, big city for cash & routes?

[Rasputin]

3) Once Invention and Navigation have both been discovered, payoffs for caravans are cut in half. It may be better to wait until freights are available to continue trade.

4) The discovery of Flight cuts payoffs by 1/3, and the discovery of Space Flight cuts off another 1/3.

now that information i didnt know and explains a lot of problems i hav ehad.. thanks

[Scouse Gits]

solo - good summary:

Two Questions:

1) Does the discovery of Railroad have a reduction on bonuses?
2) You say "A city with established trade routes is better. "
Why? I thought extra trade gained by a city through routes didn't make any difference to the bonus.

One thing is worth noting. Towards the end of the game (assuming your intention is AC) the trade routes of your cities can dry up. A few new cities often supply the very commodities the larger ones need. A Uranium freight to a SSC is always worth delivering - especially if those extra beakers are required for Fusion Power!

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Below is a recent discussion on Trade between samson and DaveV. I don't have the link to hand but copied the details from my Civ folder.

Trade route basics.

The formula for the number of arrows a trade route provides is:

TradeFromRoute = ( (SourceTrade + DestinationTrade + 4 ) / 8 ) x Modifiers

where SourceTrade and DestinationTrade are the two cities' worker-generated arrows (WGA) minus corruption. Existing trade routes in neither city affect the amount of trade generated by the new route. Trade route modifiers are:

Road: +50%

Railroad: +50% cummulative with Road for 100% total.

Airport: +50% Both cities must have an airport. If either a road or railroad bonus exists, airports have no effect.

Superhighways: +50% in the city with the SH improvement only. Note that the SH also increases the worker-generated arrows, so its influence on trade routes is twofold.

Same Civ: -50% If both cities belong to the same civ, the trade route is halved. Thus, a railroad bonus between two cities of the same civ is equivalent to a non-bonus route between cities of different civs.

Distance between cities has NO effect on trade route calculations. Being on different continents has NO effect. Commodity type and Demand status have NO effect. Technological discoveries have NO direct effect on trade route calculations. All of these things affect delivery bonuses only.

Trade routes are dynamic. If you shift workers, substantially reducing or increasing the number of arrows they generate, the trade routes change. It takes 8 worker-generated arrows to increase a trade route by 1 arrow. If the railroad bonus is in effect, 8 WGAs will increase each route by 2 arrows. If you have Superhighways in addition to the railroad bonus, increasing WGAs by 8 will bump the trade routes by 2 or 3 arrows on alternating increases in WGA arrows. Road and railroad bonuses can be lost temporarily if the road/rail connection between cities is interdicted by a non-allied foreign unit. When the foreign unit is removed, the bonus is restored.

As for your original question, Rufus, yes, there is a way to replace an existing low-paying route. Generally speaking, higher paying routes replace lower paying ones with the road and rail bonuses being factored in. However, it appears that the same-civ penalty is not considered when a replacement route is compared to an existing one. This is unfortunate as it means that high paying foreign routes can be displaced by mediocre domestic ones. The foreign city must be able to beat out the domestic one in the amount of the arrows it contributes to the route calculation.

The trick to doing this is to remove all workers from trade producing squares in the domestic city whose route in your source city you want to replace just prior to delivering the new freight to the foreign city. This will reduce the value of the existing trade route to its minimum. If the domestic city is benefitting from a road/rail bonus, you may even want to cut that connection for a turn by pillaging your own rail.

Also remember that multiple routes into the same city require different commodities. If you send Copper to a foreign city which already has a "(Copper)" route established with your source city, it won't create a new route.

Hope this helps,

samson
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Samson - a very well written and comprehensive explanation. One minor quibble - when running lots of caravans into my capital, I've had (for example) 6-arrow routes replaced by 4-arrow routes. So I think the road/rail bonus may not be factored in (or maybe it is checked in the originating rather than the destination city).

DaveV,
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Thanks.

What you are describing is the problem - the loss of higher paying routes to lower paying ones. This is often caused by inbound freight. The remedy requires an outbound freight. Road/rail bonuses do seem to be checked correctly on outbound freight. I've had freights to foreign cities not replace domestic routes w/o a road bonus, but when the road bonus is in effect (all other factors the same) the foreign route does replace it.

However, on inbound freights it may be that none of the bonuses are checked as to how they affect the destination city. In any event, the solution is the same: reduce the trade arrows of the source city (temporarily) to prevent it from replacing an existing route. Unfortunately this will also reduce the delivery bonus. But in the case of small source cities delivering freights to an SSC the loss shouldn't be too much.

samson

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SG(2)

[Smash]

A city with routes will be generating more arrows than 1 without, so bonus will be higher.

[Scouse Gits]

Originally posted by Smash
A city with routes will be generating more arrows than 1 without, so bonus will be higher.

Are you sure the established routes count? I thought it was only "raw" trade gained from terrain/improvements/wonders.

On many occasions I have traded half way across a large world to a resonable AI city. Say this city has a repeating Silk demand, and I have two such caravans to deliver from two of my cities with equal trade arrows. Now there is a reasonable prospect that the first caravan will give say 600g and will increase the trade route value of that city. However, the second caravan always gives the same amount, suggesting no change from the first one boosting the routes.

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SG(2)

[EOL]

Originally posted by Smash
A city with routes will be generating more arrows than 1 without, so bonus will be higher.

The arrows from trade routes have no direct effect on the pay-off/continuing route value. They may help a city by allowing it to use fewer specialists or grow using WLTPD days but that's it.

The Worker generated arrows above are the only ones which count, these are arrows which you can count on the worker screen in each city and which are not lost to corruption. If you have trade routes in a city with corruption deciding how many of these WGA are lost to corruption can be difficult. It may be that the trade route arrows can decrease this (if trade route arrows are preferentially lost to corruption over the WGA). In a democracy the WGA are it.


As far as techs which hurt your payoffs go:

Either NAV or INV or 1740AD (turn 200, Deity) => 50% reduction
(It may be a different year at lower levels).
Flight => 2/3 reduction.
Railroad => 2/3 reduction.

I don't remember that space flight changed it but I could be wrong on that.

Freight's get 50% more than caravans.

I did have a formula which could get the pay-offs to within 2 gold or better. Maybe I'll work on it again.

[Adam Smith]

Demand bonuses are not exactly in the order they are listed in the supply and demand list, or in the manual or guide books. I have the bonuses by commodity worked out at home. I will try to post the list this evening.

[Adam Smith]

Bonuses for Fulfilling Demand, By Commody

Here are the bonuses for fulfilling demand at a destination city. The bonuses are expressed as a multiple of the bonus for fulfilling a demand for hides. For example, if a route from A to B demanding hides resulted in a bonus of 100, a route from A to B at the same time demanding beads would result in a bonus of 200.

I determined the multiples by creating a caravan in the Cheat menu (v 2.42), completing a route to a given city, reloading, and then completing another route to the same city using a different commodity. These multiples apply to the one-time bonus for completing a route, not to the continuing income from trade. While the values of the commodities are generally in the order listed in the Supply and Demand window, there are several exceptions such as coal and cloth.

1x: Hides, Salt

2x: Beads, Copper, Dye, Wool

2.5x: Cloth, Coal, Silver, Wine

3x: Gems, Gold, Silk, Spice

3.5x: Oil

4x: Uranium

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