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[Ribannah]

Originally posted by samson
Ribannah,

The problem with the road/rail bonus is that you can't just connect the two cities anywhichway.
There seems to be a particular route that must be used.

It wouldn't surprise me if that route would be the route chosen by the GoTo command ... if so, one of the things to test is what happens if the two cities are on opposite sides of the 0-meridian.

[EOL]

Originally posted by Ribannah


It wouldn't surprise me if that route would be the route chosen by the GoTo command ... if so, one of the things to test is what happens if the two cities are on opposite sides of the 0-meridian.

Indeed, in this case the road has to go all the way around the world even if the cities are just 2 squares apart.

[samson]

More info on trade routes and the road/rail modifier:

First, trade routes are not boosted when a city is located on another continent, nor does distance matter.
A trade route with a foreign city at the far end of the earth on a different continent
will produce the same number of arrows as one three squares away
if they have the same internal trade (worker generated arrows).
There is no two-continent boost for trade routes, only for delivery bonuses.
So the road and railroad route boosts (50% each) offer a significant advantage to local trade.

Second, if the road or rail is "blockaded" by another civ's unit (i.e. if they squat on the line)
the trade routes drop to the unboosted value. For example, if I have a unit on the rail route to a city
of a civ I am not alligned with - the trade route in my city gets full bonus
but the foreign city's trade route gets cut in half. If a third civ's unit squats on the line
we both lose the road/rail bonus. If you are aligned with the civ whose unit cuts the line,
you don't lose your bonus. This offers some tactical opportunities, trade-wise.
It also means you need to patrol and secure your trade route lines.

As to the question of the route being the GOTO route.
There is the further question of which one?
Units with different movement points take different paths when given the GOTO command.
Would it be the route taken by caravans and freights?
Or the one used by the settlers and engineers who build the roads?
Also, a unit may take a different path depending on which city it starts in.

Marquis - thanks.
The helper cities were size 3 with a temple the only improvement.
They built caravans - that was their life.

samson

[samson]

Still more info on trade routes.

The route.

The route required for the road/rail trade modifier is NOT the same as the route of the GOTO command. It seems that it must be the most direct route (as the crow flies) whereas units under the GOTO will take the fastest route, using rivers or other roads. In one case I tested between two same-civ cities sharing a trade route, the rail route required to boost the trade was different for each city. That is, one railroad boosted the route value of one city, but a second railroad was required to boost the other city's trade. However, only a single road was needed to the get the road boost.

Superhighways.

A superhighways improvement has a twofold effect on trade routes. First, it increases by 50% (rounded down) the trade of any city square which has a road in it. Thus, if all squares have roads and an even number of arrows, it is possible to increase the worker-generated trade by up to 50%.

This new value of generated trade is then used to calculate a new BASE value of each of the city's trade routes. If the trade increase was 50% then the base value of the trade routes could be increased by as much as 50%. In addition, Superhighways are a trade route modifier of 50% cummulative with the road and railroad modifiers, for a total of 150%.

For example, say a trade route with a foreign city has an initial base value of +8. If the two cities are connected by railroad along the correct route, this trade is boosted to +16 by the effect of two 50% modifiers. If Superhighways are added in the home city (a super-city contributing nearly all the trade to route's base value) and a 50% increase in trade occurs, the base route value is increased to +12. This is then boosted by 150% (road+rail+SH) resulting in a trade route of +30. The 50% Superhighways modifier only applies to trade routes of the city in which it is built. However, that city's trading partners gain the benefit of the increase in base value which the SH also creates.

Airports.

Airports act like a road, they provide a 50% modifier to trade routes. In order to obtain that increase, BOTH cities involved must build airports. If the two cities already have a road or railroad route, airports have NO EFFECT on their trade routes.


samson
(let me know if this is old stuff, or if I'm boring you.)

[Adam Smith]

Samson:
Thanks for the additional info.
You can find many of the basics you mention (eg., superhighways, airports) in the Two Continents Trade Strategy thread in the Great Library.

[samson]

Adam,

I've read that article and the Repeated Commodities strategy article, both are mainly about the delivery bonus of caravans and freights, not the ongoing trade routes. I've not seen one about the strategy of optimizing trade routes per se.

Getting three +40 routes from one small foreign city was a real eye-opener for me in this game and made a significant difference in the outcome. Without that, I would have landed perhaps 20-25 turns later (400-500 years).

samson

[Bohlen]

Excellent work! I wish I had that kind of patience to be that perfect. Well done!

[Jaguar]

Sorry if I'm wrong, but with three 40 trade routes, wouldn't the science count for the routes be:

120 from routes
240 with copes
360 with library
540 with university
810 with ike's
1215 with research lab


I think these trade routes helped you by a lot more than 20 - 25 turns.

[Jaguar]

Oh, and I forgot to add. If you send hides from city a to city b with repeating commodities, it only gives you the trade bonus of one route.

[Ecthy]

Well, that is definitely a great approach! Well done!

I for myself have never achieved an AC landing before 1750

[samson]

Bohlen, Ecthelion - thanks for the "well dones".

Dragon,

Without the road and rail connections those trade routes would have maxed out at about +20 in trade, which is what I usually get in an SSC. This would have meant getting 1 turn/tech
only once or twice instead of a string of 27 techs in a row (from 300BC to 300AD). That's what I meant when I said those +40 routes saved me 25 turns.

The 3 routes were established with unique commodities. Washington did have repeats on the stuff demanded by Memphis, but in going back over the game files to write up the log, I found that my late game cash caravans came into Washington from the helpers. My original statement about getting 400gold for them was in error. I guess my memory isn't that great, or I missed them when I sifted through the files to write the log. That's possible, too, I guess. I know I ended up with an engineer, yet I don't see that in the log anywhere.

But the freight bonuses weren't the key in this game, it was the ongoing trade routes.

Getting a foreign city built close enough to the SSC to build roads to, was a bit of a fluke. The SSC (which was my capitol) was way off to one side of my territory. All my expansion was in the other direction. It was a happy chance to ally with the Egyptians and have them move in so close to the SSC. I don't expect to see that happen often.

samson

[solo]

samson,

I just got back from chopping wood in New Hampshire, so apologize for the delay in replying to this post.

First of all, a terrific effort here! You picked right up on the importance of how railroads can give that extra boost to the continuing trade arrows and those handy 1-turn advances +40 routes deliver. +22 is about the best I've ever seen before, too. A very nice piece of work!

How important to your result, was the role of Memphis? Have you had a chance to compare its effectiveness with a similar plan using just your helper cities?

If the continuing trade level you got in this game is repeatable in a timely way without a "Memphis", then building production and income is probably the next step. Once the +40 routes are in operation, your SSC is all set, isn't it? Once 1-turn advances are secured, is there a necessity to keep all subsequent trade between the SSC and its railroaded partner(s)? Bigger bonuses, if available elsewhere, may better help finance the spaceship. Is there enough time to try this?

I'm itching to try a game using my former approach with one big modification. In my games, my SSC was the last core city established and its growth and science improvements came quite late. I'd like to try another game, where I work on the SSC first and bring in overseas trade a bit later, just to see how it would compare to what you have done here.

I'm still looking for a good start though. In many tries, it seems to me that random starts rarely provide SSC sites with 2 gold and 2 other trade specials. In fact, random starts with just 1 usuable gold are pretty infrequent, too! I envy you and some others who have lucked into these golden sites, and wish I hadn't already used my previous best starts in other games. For early landings, I believe any start that has produced a great game should be available for all who wish to give it a try, as in the OCC comparison games. Enough whining, solo!

[Xin Yu]

For the road/railroad bonus, I suspect that only certain tiles are checked. I once got a bonus with a foreign city, only half way RR, the other half were road only. I got the same bonus after finishing RR all the way.

[samson]

Hey solo! Welcome back and thanks.

Memphis was the thing that pushed me over the top. Remember how we had all those discussions about how to squeeze out another 300 beakers to get 1 turn advances? Well, Memphis did it. Fact is, at one point I was getting 1 turn advances running at 60% science and piling up cash.

Local trade routes with railroads was my original plan until the Egyptians helped me out. Locals would have meant only +20 routes in SSC, but also in the helper cities. It may have worked out the same. I don't believe you can get +40 routes without a "Memphis" - it's the railroads that doubled the usual trade value. They took a long time to build, too. If the foreign city is farther away, you can't get the roads built soon enough.

Again, cash was a problem for me, but really only cost me 3 turns this game. I had Fusion Power in 300AD, so that's the earliest I could have launched. Of course, with enough caravans I could have built Darwin's and picked up another two turns.

Time is the killer in the early landing game. There aren't enough turns to build anything extraneous. Rome was size 8 and demanded one of my SSC commodities at the end. It would have paid a big bonus, but I counted the turns for a freight to arrive and it wouldn't have made it before my launch date -- a lot of rough terrain, no water route.

Building the SSC first is the way to go, I think. I understand your logic in building it last in your previous attempts -- to use the helper cities to top off the research bin. But you can get the same effect with a capitol SSC by flushing a few caravans down the pipe and pushing the SSC's beakers onto the next advance. Once you prime the pump, it works the way you want it to. Unless, of course, you mess up the beaker counts and have to prime it again.

I counted every damn beaker in that whole game and hit every tech at minimum cost and minimum time. I got a few techs from huts, some good early trades and a few late ones, too. [The Egyptians hung in there with all the trade from Memphis, another benefit of foreign trade.] The science machine hummed. But I still need to work on boosting my production in helper cities. And city placement, too -- my helpers were way too spread out.

I understand your frustration with getting good random starts, it's a pain.
The next good one I get, I'll let you have BEFORE I play it out. In this one, the Egyptians will always build Memphis in the same spot early on. It wouldn't be a challenge for you -- just a scripted game. Feel free to nag me about it, though. Might be a character flaw on my part, I dunno.

samson

[samson]

For the road/railroad bonus, I suspect that only certain tiles are checked. I once got a bonus with a foreign city, only half way RR, the other half were road only. I got the same bonus after finishing RR all the way.

Xin Yu,

No, the entire route needs to be in place to get the bonus. The reason the bonus didn't change when you finished the RR was because the route needed to get the RAIL bonus is not always the same as the one needed for the ROAD bonus. You never got the RR bonus, just the road. Not only that, but if both cities are yours you might need TWO routes in order to get the bonus in both places. Very weird stuff.

Furthermore, the bonus route is a dynamic entity. I had a Mongol diplomat squat on one of the tiles of my railroad to Memphis and the bonus disappeared. I expelled him and it came back.

samson