Building roads for trade.

[Jim W]

This is generally for people who play against the AI; I think the situation in MP would be different.

Having discovered the vast difference in economic benefit between trading with your own cities as against trading with foreign cities, I then come up with the problem of how to get to those cities.

If they're not located on or near a coastline, I can't just send my Caravan/Freight by ship. An overland route at one square per turn takes up a lot of time.

So I've been building a lot of roads and even railroads into forewign territory, soetimes right to the cities in question.

I realize that this gives them a bit of advantage, since they don't have to build these sections of roads themselves. But I personally, at least in the game I'm presently doing, have found it very much worth the trade-off.

Any other opinions?

Jim W

[AkwaticDudeCity]

Jim
please check this post: http://apolyton.net/forums/Forum1/HTML/001139.html

I myself try to max out the per-turn value of traderoutes. I do this by establishing traderoutes with the biggest foregin city with most 'raw' trade-arrows per turn.
A prime trading city would be a foreign coastal city on another continent or island with the Collosus and situated on a river.
I send all my caravans to just one city. If the respective civ is my ally i'll send in foodcaravans to max out its size too. The -1 food can be eliminated by replacing the food-route with a regular traderoute.
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ugh crud, why won't they fall prey to my Machiavellian schemes?

[This message has been edited by AkwaticDudeCity (edited April 13, 2000).]

[Jim W]

I'm not sure I understand this. If two or three cities are demanding gems, for instance, what would be the point of sending a Caravan of gems to a city that wasn't demanding them? Surely you wouldn't get the same amount as you would from a city that _was_ demanding them?

Or have I missed sometning?

Jim W

[Canadian War Beaver]

very large trading cities give nice bonuses for caravans regardless of the demanded commodities...... now the amount isn't as big as the cities demanding it of course but if it is a major player, then you can reap huge rewards anyways...... especially if the city is on a different continent, ie multicontinent trading.

Best bet is always the city that demands it but if you have repeat commodities, send them somwhere big and the money is more than worth it

[Jim W]

Actually, the original question was whether or not it was a good idea to build roads into foreign territory to facilitate your own trade.

However, this is an interesting thought,, which I will keep in mind.

Thanks,

Jim W

[AkwaticDudeCity]

Well... no, i don't think building roads into enemy territory to facilitate you own trade is a good idea. It'll cost you time and resources to build the road while for the same, probably less, you could build transports and ship the caravans to other continents making even more gold w/o aiding the enemy by building them roads.
About cities not demanding goods, i don't give a rat's arse i'll establish the traderoute anyway. I didn't do any calculations about this but i did notice cities on the same continent demanding a good very often 'pay' less than a far off big city on another continent which does not demand the good. Besides, to me the per-turn value of a traderoute is slightly more important than the immediate pay-off. It also makes for easy micro managing to send all your caravans to just one big city on another continent. No more messing with the trade advisor who tells you when a caravan is produced that city X demands good Y, but by the time the caravan gets there city X no longer demands good Y, but good Z.

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ugh crud, why won't they fall prey to my Machiavellian schemes?

[Bohlen]

It never fails that the demand disappears from a city. If it takes 10 turns to get a gold caravan to a city and then they no longer demand gold, they get it anyway. Wasting time is the same as wasting money & beakers. Instead of building roads, use the settler for road building and irrigation around your cities and target coastal cities and "non-hazardous" landing areas on foreign and hostile continents for your sea travelling caravans.

[MyOlde]

This notion of sending to just one large trading city is quite a revelation. Wish I'd known of it before.

Can you clarify one thing: how do you judge "large" -- population is easy but were you alluding to some other criterion?

Thanks

[Scouse Gits]

The formula for evaluating exactly how much you extract from establishing a trade route can be found at http://ltswww.epfl.ch/~winkler/civ2.html

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the SGs in concert
[This message has been edited by Scouse Gits (edited April 14, 2000).]

[Jim W]

This is fine, if you've got the Lighthouse and all, or you have caravels. If you're still in the trireme stage, though, you have to go around the coastlines, and by the time you get there, it's very late.

Yes, I trade to other continents when I can, but for a long time it's more immediately profitable to trade with a foreign cities on the same land-mass. It also seems to me to be smart to build roads; sure, the Bad Guys get some benefit from your work, but unless things go badly against you in the random numbers inside the puter, enough of the benefit is on your side.

My biggest problem is that games take so long that by the time I get into another game, I've forgotten a lot of lessons I learned the last time. SLE has fogged my memory a bit.

Jim W

[Eddy]

A question about trade routes....

I've watched the AI and its trade routes [captured cities or just investigated cities] and most of the time when a city has more than one trade route they are all established with different civs...

i.e. 1 trade with Romans, another with English and the last with Egyptians.

Is the benefit of trade routes more if you trade with different civs than solely one?

Eddy

[DaveV]

The SGs in concert? Is that available on CD?

[Ming]

Eddy, it doesn't matter as long as it is a different civ. A lot of things are figured into the equation, and you do get credit for trading with a civ besides your own. So don't worry, if you can find one civ that demands your goods... go for it.

[Scouse Gits]

Dave V - Available at all good audio stores now! We formed the duo when the Spice Girls fired us
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SG (2) - solo

[geofelt]

To answer the question: no, I don't think it is good tactics to build a road into AI territory to speed up trade. Often a settler deep in AI land is picked on to start a war. Build roads and improve your own territior instead of helping the AI. Early on, trade routes do not generate much(if any) trade for small cities. If I have collossus and a science city, I work hard to deliver three caravans from that city to an AI city. (on a different continent if possible)