Caravans

[Zulu Elephant]

Just wondering if anyone knows (I'll probably check later)

What happens if you move a food caravan into an enemy city? Does it establish a food route as if it was one of yours?

If you change the rules.txt so that a caravan takes more than 50 shields to build, does the game add the new number of shields to wonder production
i.e. if a caravan takes 70 shields, does it add 70 shields to wonder production instead of 50

[DrFell]

Just tested it out in tot (as the Romans I sent a food caravan to the Aztecs and cheated to see the results). Apparently the food caravans do work for other civ's cities, and have the same effect they would have on yours (i.e. the food bonus, and 1 food being transferred from source to destination city).

[Zulu Elephant]

Yeah, just checked out the wonder thing and it does transfer the new amount of the shields (and the message changed to "70 shields added to production)

[ZoboZeWarrior]

Yes trading with an enemy nation is generaly economicaly interesting (more money, I think, than a neutral nation). But a little hasardeous.

Personnanaly I seldom used caravan for trading. Trade are not very important in Civ2 (of course you may not agree) and quite unlogical. But building quickly certain wonders is very important if you play at high level, because in Civ2 Wonders are quite unbalanced!

I was always gathering a lot of caravans in foresee of building a wonder (2 caravan/city is not so expensive and give a boost of 100 shield / city ).

The main weakness of a caravan, they are too slow and to expensive to build.

Zobo.

[Edward]

quote: Originally posted by ZoboZeWarrior on 03-15-2001 06:07 AM Personnanaly I seldom used caravan for trading. Trade are not very important in Civ2 (of course you may not agree)

ZoboZeWarrior,

Before I stumbled upon this board, I didn't realize that whenever you setup a trade route, you not only get that bonus gold - you also get an equal amount of science beakers! Now I'm a big-time trade route supporter. It's incredible how much you can boost your research rate by setting up routes often.

quote: Originally posted by ZoboZeWarrior on 03-15-2001 06:07 AM ...and quite unlogical.

By that I assume you mean twisted and arcane - not unrealistic. In that case I agree. There's a lot of room for improvement. But even if you ignore supplies, demands, modifiers, etc. - they can give your game a big boost.

quote: Originally posted by ZoboZeWarrior on 03-15-2001 06:07 AM But building quickly certain wonders is very important if you play at high level, because in Civ2 Wonders are quite unbalanced!

Much agreed. They overshadow other aspects of the game. My games often turn into races for the next wonder.

quote: Originally posted by ZoboZeWarrior on 03-15-2001 06:07 AM The main weakness of a caravan, they are too slow and to expensive to build.

Once you've seen their power, you can live with those qualities. You might try setting up a good road network inside your civilization. Even trade between your cities can be quite beneficial.

Also you can ship those slow caravans by water to nearby coastal cities - thus cutting down transit time.

If you start mass producing caravans they become like a line of ants. While each ant moves slowly, their destination sees a steady stream of them coming in.


If you generally play for a peaceful shoot for Alpha Centari, I suggest giving trade routes a try. You might be pleased with the research (and financial) results.