Trade is *not* essential!

[jpk]

Carolus Rex, thank you for your comments about rapid city building yielding more science. Cities that are of size two can not grow through We Love The President Days.

Early on that approach will yield a lot of science. Often a single caravan yields as much science as all of my cities yield in several turns. The science from cities, other than the science city, becomes relatively unimportant. I think I do better by going to Republic and then Democracy, build as many happiness wonders (other than the Oracle) as I can and set my luxury rate to 40% so that my cities can rapidly grow without wasting time or money building many improvements. Because I am not building improvements I can use a 10% tax rate prior to Adam Smith. That leaves 50% for science.

In my opinion the purpose of improvements is to push the city into We Love The President Day so that it can grow even bigger. Bigger cities means the caravans are worth more. Of course aqueducts and sewers have to be built at the appropriate times.

It should be noted that I play on 10,000 square multicontinent worlds. Being able to deliver caravans to a distant continents increases the science bonus significantly.

[Sten Sture]

You definately don't need trade, but it really depends on the government you want to play. An ICS approach in commie or fundy will provide plenty of resources to do whatever you want. But a perfectionist style in early republic with no trade ain't all that great.

I hate the trade interface too, but I usually don't use it - I pick one or two cities to deliver all of my trade routes based on that city's terrain, size, government, and perfectionist tendencies. Against the AI in single player, a decent science capital and ICS shield approach seems to work very smoothly, I would think a similar approach would have its benefits in MP as well.

No matter what style of game I am playing, I build the three trade caravans in my capital right away, but don't build that many more unless I have some second tier cities that I want to develope into minor science cities. A caravan for a city with three or four raw trade arrows is pretty much a waste unless you want to WLT_D grow it very soon.

If you can get to commie/fundy fast then you have no major need for the additional trade advantages of caravans.

That being said I hate the city interface of 100+ cities a lot more than I hate the trade interface. And actually the trade interface wouldn't be so bad if the damn Go To command worked. I just find the game more enjoyable with less than 10 cities to worry about - so I use caravans and WLT_D to get to critical mass.


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I wrote this in 5 or 6 different segments so if it doesn't make any sense - just ignore it!

[Smash]

I'll agree that trade is not essential.I would also agree that nothing is really essential.Cept maybe at least 1 settler.No settler=no game.

It does make the game much easier.Very helpful for representative governments.A trade route is basically an unsabotagable city improvement.

[Carolus Rex]

jpk, don't get me wrong. I'm all with you on the trade thing (within the proper strategical framework I might add after SS's post ).

I like to trade and somewhere I have the feeling it MUST BE better than having a thousand small cities!!!

But I feel that the burden of proof currently is on the trade side. I don't recall the details but didn't DaveV (1595 AD) and Arii (in the 11th century?) use sleazy approaches to get to AC as fast as possible? I have never landed that early...

But still, let's turn the problem around. Suppose that a freight delivers 1500 beakers. To reproduce that a sleazer would need 500 size 1 cities assuming they all yield three beakers after corruption (if any) is deduced.

Even with a science capitol and size two cities it's difficult to see how. If the size two cities produce five beakers each on the average (net of corruption), then 250 cities add up to 1250 beakers leaving 250 for the capitol.

The "shields first"-strategy may be better in the early game. But when each science needs 1000+ beakers a good freight leaves "shields over arrows" way behind IMVHO.

The problem is how to survive the early game against a sleazer and get the game going into "the long run"?

Any advice?

Carolus

[This message has been edited by Carolus Rex (edited August 15, 2000).]

[Smash]

harass them early and build The Gardens before they do.

[rah]

In a game i was in recently my capital was a above average trade city, I did build a market there but not in my other cities yet. trade routes from or to the capital were producing 100-150 gold and the equiv beakers were giving me a free tech almost every time.

With just less than 125 gold i can rush incremental buy a caravan. So there was really no shield loss. It was like a perpetual motion machine. So for those that say you pay a high cost for infrastructure improvements to make it pay off, I SAY BUNK.

I used the extra techs to get feud, built the war acadamy, and sat back to wait for all those vet crusaders to come and destroy themselves against my cities with vet pike. And then I took the extra money and rushed GW, Game, set, match for the first couple of thousand years. It was quite a while before i had to worry about upgrading defenses.

Please feel free to ignore trade when you play games with me.

RAH

[kcbob]

As far as the interface goes, I had forgotten about the AI's penchant for changing "demands" while your carvan is en route. AAARRRGGGHHH!!!

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Frodo lives!

Better dead than "Red"... or green... or blue... or yellow... or orange... or purple... or white.

[Diety Dude]

I have this discussion/argument with a friend of mine all the time and I agree with you. TRADE is definitely not necessary in order to win and I very seldom use it. On top of the other issues you mentioned about trade, lets not forget the trade unit is basically defenseless and early in the game has a movement rate of only 1, thus it quite often gets destroyed on its way to its destination. This is not the case for Wonders, and City Improvements and is less likely with military units that have defensive and offensive capabilities. I do use them quite often to build wonders and I will quite often horde up about 10 or 15 of them so I can build a Wonder as soon as it becomes available

[rah]

I will agree that it is "not necessary" to win, but if used properly it can be a potent weapon and shouldn't be ignored. Some games I use it more than others. As always, it depends on the situation. But I enjoy reading that there are some people that just ignore it. Anyone that disregards any viable strategy is easier to predict and easier to beat.

Heck I hate ICS but there are times (few for me anyway) that it is the best strategy for the situation.

RAH

[Civ-wrecked]

My 2c:

1) It's not correct to compare the shield cost in building Lib+Market+caravans vs. Dragoons/Crusaders. Since the game is turn-based it would be more correct to compare the number of turns it takes to build those units/improvements in the same city. If, after building the defenders for a city and 7 crusaders, there's only one shield left then it will take 40 turns to produce the 8th crusader (faster if some of the previously-built crusaders get killed) whereas a Marketplace can be bought fairly cheaply and it pays for itself so an 80-shield improvement can take a lot less turns to "build" than a 40-shield units.

2) I suppose you would want to add a barrack in all cities where you want to build attacking units. That puts a drain on the treasury as well so unless your neighbor happens to be the richest and most developed civ then you can attack him and get the gold/advances. If the biggest civ is on a far-away continent then by the time you build enough triremes and troops to launch an attack you have already been left far behind in tech. [BTW, you will need to add the shield cost to build and maintain the triremes to the formula too].

3) Trade-based strategy is complementary with city expansion since you can irrigate and adding roads to the same grassland square (adding WLTxDs and you can get huge cities which provide even more trades and more shields). You can't irrigate a forest square or a mined hills on which you get the shields to support all the attacking units and so the city size will be much smaller, given the same number of turns.

Against the AI, everybody agrees that it's easy to win, and even OCC or nomad win is possible so nothing is "essential" as DaveV said. But, against real opponents who really try to win and not just drag out the game and allow you to win anyway, then winning a few battles with your neighbor(s) does not mean that you're the strongest civ on the map. You might just commit a kamikaze by slugging it out with your neighbors, allowing a stronger civ on another continent to leave you far behind in the dust. That's probably what rah meant by "depending on the situation".

BTW, a wealthy civ can simply buy back any cities you just take from him with your dragoons/crusaders at half cost. If you can sabotage his city with diplos then he can also buy your city with diplos .

[SCG]

quote: Originally posted by Civ-wrecked on 08-16-2000 07:32 PM BTW, a wealthy civ can simply buy back any cities you just take from him with your dragoons/crusaders at half cost. If you can sabotage his city with diplos then he can also buy your city with diplos .

Or even bribe the other's diplomats in the first place (my personal favorite ) Against the AI I've always found that far better than expelling them - the AI is even more onetrack minded with diplomats than with other units it seems. If it has one, reguardless of where it is, it beelines for one of your cities, over and over again. Buying them stops it, and gives you another which can then be used to stop more diplomats. And they really do foil sabotage attempts from time to time, even if its only 20%, not to mention mess up ZoC if you can find a single unit somewhere and bribe it when there is an invasion force around. It costs the other player units and movement to clear the problem.

[Ming]

Again, against the AI, nothing is critical

However, as powerful as vet crusaders or dragoons can be... nothing is as powerful as money. Money can bribe units and cities. Money can rush build those attacking units far faster than you can build them. You can rush buy city improvements. You can rush build caravans to build wonders, or just buy wonders. A high bank account can make it more difficult for other civs to bribe your units and cities.

Money is power! And trade routes is one of the best ways to get it! Granted, against the AI, tribute can generate tons of money, but that doesn't work against human opponents... (unless they are stupid)

[DaveV]

Wow. I guess attacking one of the Civ "sacred cows" can still get people excited .

I started this thread as a counterpoint against people who say you *have* to trade to win, which I still contend is not true. I don't think I said anywhere that trade is not a powerful tool, nor that I wouldn't use trade under any circumstances. It takes time to set up a civ for profitable trading; a militaristic neighbor may not give you that time.

Edited to correct a typo.
[This message has been edited by DaveV (edited August 17, 2000).]

[rah]

DaveV, if you go back and read all the posts in this thread, I believe you will notice that every single person agreed with you.

It isn't "essential", but it can be a powerful tool. And if the people really got excited, there would have been more posts.

RAH

[Scouse Gits]

jpk - as soon as I find that I share my continent with another civ, I build my defenses along the frontier towns and at choke points. I kill and bribe at my leisure. I sometimes try for an alliance to buy time if I have sleazed quickly with little defence. Perhaps others will tell us what they do in this situation.
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SG (2)