EC3 New Idea #25 - Improved Trade

[korn469]

by Imran Siddiqui

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</font>Well then Improved Trade like in Imperialism, but tailored for Civ.
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[Imran Siddiqui]

Hey, My idea!

As can be seen by the world today and some times in the past (Holland v. England in the 1600s), trade plays a huge part! I think a kind of (KIND OF, not exactly) Imperialism style should be used. Like there is a supply and demand for certain goods because they are needed. So your caravans (or merchant ships) will get tons more money if your good is in demand in the city you are delivering to. Demand is based on geographical area of the city. A city/empire on the shore areas will ask for timber or ore, etc. Cities/Empires in the interior will ask for whale oil, etc.

Cities will produce goods based on their location as well. A city surrounded by forest will make a lot of timber that can be sold to a city in the desert. I also think some aspects of the CTP trade system should be usurped.

Ok, so maybe it isn't like Imperialism! Sue me!

<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by Imran Siddiqui (edited February 20, 2000).]</font>

[Imran Siddiqui]

True, but My idea, I think mitigates micromanagement by having the computer pick what your city makes and desires based on the geography. Then, if you produce a caravan based on what a certain city needs, you could gain 100% in extra gold if they get it before someone else provides it to them..

It'd add some great economic ways to improve your empire. If a city REALLY needed something. Say they were on the shore and got their first oil in 1990, they might give you a gift for that, or something.

[Frank Johnson]

Face it, since when has a ruler been able to order all their merchants around like chess pieces? Never, the leader just wants them to be prosperous so they can tax them.

The only way a leader can help trade is by improving infastructure, discovering and opening new markets to trade in, and manipulating tariff rates.

Supply and demand should play a greater role however. Civ2's limited resources just arent enough.

For example, exotic foods/spices would be a great trade item early for both sides. Try getting Chinese Food in 1400 AD , but demand would deminish with time, today if I want Chinese food, I walk to the corner for all I can eat.

Tools would bring a pretty price if yours are superior to the civ you are trading with, say you have iron working and the other civ only bronze. Later in the game this could turn to steel, then computers and software that people want/need.

[Matthevv]

I think this would be an excellent addition to the game. It needs to be carefully handled though, because it could result in excessive micromanagement.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Great idea! Have the Supply and Demand change over time to have your trade routes diminish in prosperity. So you can't just leave your trade routes and expect the same amount of money.

[korn469]

Imran Siddiqui

if asked why out of the five things to put on the new ideas thread why would this idea belong? what are the greatest strength in adding this idea? and what if any weaknesses or exploits does this idea have?

after seeing the new ideas emerge from this thread how would you change your idea? how would you intergrate some of these new ideas into your orignal idea?

[Imran Siddiqui]

Good questions, korn (nice band, btw ).

I think this idea deserves to be put into Civ3, because the one thing that no other game has really delved into, which has had a HUGE impact on the world is the economy. Trade has usually been extreamly simple. What this would do is to add a huge component to the game. It would add a piece that has been existant in the real world (especially in the present day). And of course add a new victory condition.

Any weaknesses? Well, it might be a little too complex for the computer to do all these things and it might result in micromanagement, but I think it can be mitigated.

I think I'd add a new idea of changing of supply and demand goods over time. In the 20th Century, oil should be more in demand and cities that have oil deposits around them, would make a TON of money in the 20th Century! Cities that have coal mines would get the most money in the 19th Century and then the money would decline as oil is starting to be used instead of coal.

[Pythagoras]

I proposed a trade system a long while ago, it involved:

Trade routes are automatically set up with citys that supply a comodity and citys that demand a comodity within the explored territory of that caravans home civ (sorta like smac, but with commodities) using autopathfinding (pathfinding in SMAC was superb and up to this task) these routes are displayed as lines on the map, and with blocking such lines with a military unit you could either pirate or block all together. This coupled with new units: sea, air, and land caravans, will make trade more powerful with a lot less micromanagement. There is still a maximum number of trade routes your city can support, but as technology progresses you can support more and more routes. (making trade more important in your economy towards the endgame). Also as in SMAC, your amount of trade is proportional to the relationship with that civ. Another thing, the screen could get messy with this idea, but by default, in my opinion, these trade routes would be off, you could toggle them on and off with a hotkey or in preferences (much like city support lines in SMAC/CivII).

[Imran Siddiqui]

Ah, pretty good ideas there.

Glostakarov, I like the idea, but can it be implimented correctly. I mean will the computer AI be able to deal with it? I'm not so sure.

Pythagoras, I like, I like! Trade routes should have the ability to be pirated (a la CTP) but it should only take away a fraction of the trade (after all, not all ships are pirated) and they'd have to stay on that spot every year that they wished to pirate or block trade. Trade gets more important in the modern era, but trade can play a huge part in earlier times, so that you can fund a last minute army, etc.

[Glostakarov]

This isn't really the same topic, but I've put one up already, and my other idea kind of fits here: Intraempire Trade/Resource Trade.

In the "real world" most cities do not produce everything they need. Taking the example of the USA, all of the major cities import food from an area much larger than is represented in the games so far. In some cases, the city itself covers that ground and brings in food from hundreds or thousands of miles away. The midwest of the country produce so much food that under the model of civ2 or CTP there would be exponential city growth there. Instead, they export their food to the cities and stay relatively small.

This would be a huge change to the city model, but would add a great deal of realism to the game. Technological advances in farming could allow a single unit of population to work two farm tiles. Most of that food could then be transported to the big cities that need it. A slider could be set up to adjust how much of the rural city's excess food would be exported, or the extra micromanagement could be avoided in favor of an empire-wide slider that regulated the excess food of any cities using such farming methods.

This would allow cities to concentrate on production and gold. They would still be able to grow, as long as they are getting enough food shipped in.

Now the questions. One of the big strengths of adding this would be the prevention of having 20 virtually identical cities. With terraforming each city (under the current models) grows up to large size, large production, and large gold, with only minor variance between them. There is currently nothing good about a small town. With this idea a small town would probably never have huge production rates, but the cities would. This could actually provide a solution to ICS. Yes you'd still have a bunch of cities all over the place, but not as many real producers. The "best" cities would be the large ones with a developed network of surrounding small towns supporting them. ICS wouldn't be a effective a tactic, because if each city were trying to grow large on its own, it would have to produce its own food, which would take people away from production and gold. ICS would produce several mediocre cities rather than a few great cities.

Weaknesses/exploits: Well it would have to be set up carefully to create a balance. A worker farming more than one tile would get ONLY food from those tiles, and not other resources on them. Otherwise people could just split their workers and have heavy prodicing cities in a heartbeat. Another weakness is that this would really only be a patch on ICS. Heavy expansion of farming towns could balloon the cities up to vast sizes in short order. Tacking on a transportation cost relative to distance the food is moved might limit this, though, or at least help to find a balance.

Hmm, I really should have posted this as a new topic idea. Oh well.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Anyone else got ideas for this?

[Ekmek]

Only other I'd add is a little from Age of Empires. Unlimited resources is nice but when resources get exhausted war breaks out. And that affects diplomacy. You could trade for resources and the more exhausted one would rise in price. You should be able to negotiate trade deals as well. It shoud be an option at the beginning (limited or unlimited) but I'd like to see a limited resources one just to play out a scenario where there is no oil left!

The other option is inked to technology besides resource trading (based on the terrain and special squares) how about product trading? Like cars when the automobile is descovered etc. This way certain technology that doesn't yield a new unit or improvement could yield a new trade product.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Interesting idea, but I think the micromanagement involved in that would be horrendus! You have to try not to deal too long in one thing or else it would be worth more and people would get angry at me... After all, trade is only a small part of civ. I just want to make it a bit more important.

[Seeker]

Remember in Imperialism that resources changed in value because of supply and demand.

Example, during peace-time arms are cheap, and so is coal and iron, but if lots of wars break out watch the value of that arms/steel/coal that you "bought low" skyrocket...

An example of resource scarcity in Imperialism was in the Naval Conference scenario, where only Bulgaria has oil, so if you conquer it you can withold it from bidding until the price goes up...