How Do I get Rid of a Trade Route?

[Rufus T. Firefly]

I've read Xin Yu's trade thread in the GL, but it doesn't seem to address this -- or if it does, I'm too thick to get it. Here's the situation:

I've got a big SSC that's cranking out caravans; I'm sending them all over the globe for big trade bonuses. But my ongoing trade routes listed in the city window are awful! They appear to be the first routes I ever set up, and nothing has dislodged them. Having a size-30 city in the modern era that still had a +5 Wool route is frustrating and embarrassing. What do I have to do to get it out of there and make way for good routes?

[Laertes]

Rufus, at least you got to deliver the Wool. The demand always disappears as soon as I build a Wool caravan.

[EOL]

I believe Samson and Solo spent some time discussing this on one of the early landing threads. Basically the things which effect the ongoing bonus are the total trade of the two cities (not including arrows from trade routes/ lost to corruption), whether its delivered to a foreign civ or not, any road/rail/airport modifier. Superhighways increases the value of routes by increasing the number of arrows the city produces as well as an intrinsic bonus for trade routes. The distance of the city and whether the commodity is in demand doesn't affect the ongoing bonus just the one-time pay-off.

The best routes go to large, foreign cities with a railroad connection (has to be along the correct route). If you set a more lucrative route than those that already exist then it should replace the least profitable route, although I've found in some games that a newer route sometimes can replace a more profitable one (not late in the game though).

EOL

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by EOL
The best routes go to large, foreign cities with a railroad connection (has to be along the correct route). If you set a more lucrative route than those that already exist then it should replace the least profitable route, although I've found in some games that a newer route sometimes can replace a more profitable one (not late in the game though).

EOL

Yes, this is what I'm talking about. Sometime shortly after I got trade, when the empire was small and even the capital was a mere village, I sent a wool caravan to the only city that demanded it -- one of my own, maybe 5 squares away. I probably got 12 gold or so as a bonus and got the +1 route for the SSC -- all well and good for an early caravan. But as the centuries wore on, I traded more aggressively -- aided by MPE, Magellan's and map-swapping -- delivering caravans to the biggest, farthest, demandingest, trans-oceanic-est foreign cities I can find (culminating in my first trade bonus of more than 1000g). But I still have the %&*^ wool route! Isn't there any way to change that?

[Marquis de Sodaq]

Another trade discovery is that more distant is not always going to produce more arrows. Altho you get more gold for the delivery, it may not produce more arrows than your wool trade route. I suspect it does not get changed if it is worth the same number of arrows as an existing route.

I've also seen original routes retained for the remainder of the game. I suspect this happens because your city produces more trade with each new trade route - a portion of which goes toward the original route, making it more valuable. Change your city workers to minimize and then maximize arrow production, and observe how established trade routes lower and raise in value - they reflect a portion of your city's trade. First routes may simply gain enough over time to retain primacy.

I think you should only be concerned if the wool route retained its original one arrow value. This has increased to 5 arrows! Not bad, really. You sheared some sheep in 2000bc, then reap hundreds of arrows over the centuries in return.

[Caesar the Great]

No idea..... maybe it has something to do with rehoming caravans or making a food caravan......

[samson]

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

[DaveV]

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).

[samson]

DaveV,

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.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Thanks to all, but especially to samson. That kind of info should be a GL entry!

[La Fayette]

Originally posted by Rufus T. Firefly
Thanks to all, but especially to samson. That kind of info should be a GL entry!

Perhaps I've got a solution?
Appoint samson hostess in the GL

(I must have a talk with my friends, the SGs, when they recover from their last magnum of Vouvray )