Caravans and Wonders

[Drago Sinio]

Havent played CIV2 in a while, a bit rusty. The AI just beat the hell out of me in a game! Cool.

Question: Is it generally considered better to send your caravan(s) to the city building a wonder and cash it in that way, or to send the caravan/freight to a distant city that demands the trade goods, so you get the science beakers, and use the gold to buy the wonder?

Maybe keep some caravans "warehoused" in case the AI is about to build it before you have enough gold saved up?

It seems to me it must be better to get the extra science, but like I say the AI is smarter than I am, so..?

[solo]

Since deliveries can take a while, this probably depends on how badly you need the wonder. If you can afford to wait and are fairly sure of a safe delivery, and are able to make over 200 gold by trade, I think it is smarter to go that route, since you boost science, build up more trade arrows, and end up with more gold than it would have cost to buy the equivalent number of shields needed to construct the wonder.

[Drago Sinio]

Its hard to figure out how much trade you will get for a particular caravan, though, it seems to vary wildly. And I just hate it when you travel a distance to a particular city, and by the time you get there- they are no longer interested in your goods. But if it were easy to figure out- it would not be so much fun.

[solo]

For costs see Samson's post. He has figured it all out and has conveniently presented his results in a new post today.

I commiserate and agree that chasing demand can often be frustrating. It always seems to change just when I'm one turn away from making a big delivery, too! I'm just salivating over all the gold I'm expecting, and then it happens again! Too often, I believe, to just be a coincidence. Grrr!

[rah]

I had the worst one. I was moving a caravan to my stc. on the road network and as I was passing through the last city in line before the stc, it said that the commodity was demanded. I thought "what the heck, that city could use a route" it still had 2/3 movement left so I moved the caravan out of the city to move it back in and now it wasn't demanded. Oh well.

Rich

[Messer Niccolò]

Originally posted by rah
....I thought "what the heck, that city could use a route" it still had 2/3 movement left so I moved the caravan out of the city to move it back in and now it wasn't demanded. Oh well.

Rich

... greedy man...

[rah]

Yes, I've had them change many times the turn before delivering, but never the same turn. Since I didn't do anything else between, denying delivery must obviously be able to change demand. I might be able to put that to use. I've tested it a few other times, without results.

Rich

[-Jrabbit]

Now that's just a bit weird. I always assumed that any changes HAD to be between turns. Very interesting tidbit, Rich...

[Scouse Gits]

I sometimes feel that the Trade Advisor is a liar!

SG[1]

[Scouse Gits]

...yes he tells many porkies, especially where uranium is concerned. In every game where a spaceship is involved F5 will occasionally show one or two cities that supply the stuff. So you open the city windows to rush build freights only to find no uranium supply. Back to F5 and the guy on the desk says ... "Nah, nobody supplies that stuff guv"

-------------------------

SG(2)

[solo]

Another fiendish AI trick is to block the direct path of your caravan when it has just enough movement points to reach a city demanding its goods. Next turn, the demand for your cargo disappears!

[debeest]

RAH, the case you describe may be similar to what we were discussing here recently. I noted that when I saved a game and then reopened it, there were lots of cities demanding dye, according to the trade advisor; but each time I looked at the city itself, it didn't demand dye, and then the trade advisor didn't list it as demanding dye either. In your case, as you passed through, the city may have invited you to deliver your cargo, based on the trade advisor reading, but then when you tried to deliver it, the re"calculation" said no. Yet another reason to arrow-cycle through all your cities at the beginning of each turn.

[rah]

I don't think it's the same, since I got the popup saying it was demanded the first pass through. It wasn't from the trade advisor screen.

[debeest]

I was thinking that passing through might trigger a look only at the trade adviser, producing a popup, but it didn't look at actual demand until you tried to deliver.

[Elephant]

That would be pretty sick of Sid and his team, to give us a Trade Advisor that lies...