EC3 New Idea #25 - Improved Trade

[Ekmek]

Resource management may become micromanaging but only if you want to. By this I mean, if you are seeking an economic victory then you would deal with this trade issue heavily, it may only be a part of civ but it could be the cornerstone of your strategy. If your going for military conquest to hell with trade take over the civilizations that occupy the resources you need for your war machine.

Also a limited resources option would make economic sanctions a possibility (where as in civ2 you could last forever without trade). I maybe wrong but i haven't seen too many posts where people want a model that could support sanctions, embargoes, and boycotts.

I figure the deeper you go into any field will depend on your own goals.

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"An army that doesn't use profanity can't fight its way out of a piss-soaked paperbag" - GEN Patton

[Pythagoras]

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</font><font size=1>Originally posted by E on 02-26-2000 04:49 PM</font>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!

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check out my thread on Trade+Diplomacy

[Imran Siddiqui]

Final Draft

Of all of the great aspects of Civilization 2, the one that was most lacking was a realistic trade function. We feel that trade should be addressed in Civ3 more deeply, and for this, we submit this idea.

The tried and true economic standard berrer of supply and demand should be included in the game. The supply and demand should depend on the terran of the city radius. For example, a coastal city would have a supply of fish (food), and a demand for animal pelts (clothing). This would play into the game, by increased payoffs for supplying a demand. If you sent a shipment of animal pelts to this coastal city, instead of say... meat, then your trade route could be worth 100% more.

Also the supply and demand could change over time. After the invention of the automobile, petroleum should be factored into the model, but not that much before. Supply and Demand should be based on the time period.

Furthurmore, in war time, the supply of goods in your cities should decrease, resulting in less money being garnered in trade routes. There should be a chance in a REALLY long war that supply of one good is totally wasted and cannot be recovered until the era of peace (this last sentance is an optional part of the idea).

We feel that Civ3 should allow trade to be in th forefront. Throughout history trade has played a great part and that should be modeled in this great game designed to simulate history. Thank you.

[Pythagoras]

This is with only reading Imran and my threads, but I'm gonna get on Daves in a sec.

DaveV/Imran/Everyone else-> see how you like this for an overarching trade final draft:

!!PROPOSED!! For Discussion till midnight
Tuesday.

FINAL DRAFT

New Trade Model
Trade routes are automatically set up with cities that supply a comodity and cities that demand a comodity within the explored territory of that caravan's home civilization (similar to Alpha Centauri's system, but with commodities) using autopathfinding (pathfinding in Alpha Centauri 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. There is still a maximum number of trade routes your city can support, but as technology progresses and/or your city size increases you can support more and more routes. Also as in Alpha Centauri, your amount of trade is proportional to the relationship with that civilization. The screen could get messy with this idea, but by default these trade routes would be off and viewed only in the city view. You could toggle them on and off with a hotkey or in preferences (much like city support lines in SMAC/CivII), or perhaps just show a city's routes one city at a time.

There is a downside to this that I believe can be solved easily. Implementing this in the game could take up a lot of memory if one stores every map location that every trade route goes through. However, simply invoking the auto pathfinding function each time someone wants to view a route (calculating the path of the caravans instead of loading the positions from memory) not only solves this memory problem, but provides more realism. Auto pathfinding should only work on explored territory, so as you explore more and more, your civ will find ways to shorten the travelling distance between two trading cities.

With this model, trade and diplomacy would be interelated. First of all, the more trade routes one has with a civ, the better each's attitudes towards each other. And vice versa, better diplomatic relations would provide for more lucrative trade. It doesnt matter really which one starts first (economic or diplomatic relations). Perhaps the option to allow players to establish trade routes "the old way" could be included, but by default 'auto trading' is on. Also if autopathfiding fails, or if a civilization wants to define its own path to take, a waypoint trade route path defining system would be included.


Argument
This model is prefered because it requires little to no micromanagement and gives trade importance within your economy without having to deal with cumbersome caravans. International trade also becomes more important as time goes along with this model as more technology and more population allows citys to expand into new trading ventures. The so called ICS (infinite city sprawl) problem can also be averted if trade is linked to city size. Large citys become meccas of trade, their income and attitudes with other civs growing exponentially as there population increases. Many small cities become unpreffered since they would not provide these great benefits. Also, since these larger citys become dependant on lucrative trade, pirating and tarrifing trade routes (by putting a unit over the route) becomes a viable options for poorer civs and barbarians. To sum up, this model provides a way for intercity commodity based trade to highly effect diplomacy, warfare and the 'royal coffers' without the cumbersome usage of caravan units and without the unwanted micromanagement of a game like colonization.

Imran seems to like this idea, let me know DaveV/Imran if you want to modify this idea at all. My ICQ# should be up in my profile.


<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by Pythagoras (edited March 06, 2000).]</font>
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by Pythagoras (edited March 06, 2000).]</font>
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by Pythagoras (edited March 06, 2000).]</font>

[Pythagoras]

Yo, Imran, we need to agree on a final draft...!

[don Don]

I really think the Fix should be separated from the New Idea(s). That way we get a measure of how much people want trade to change. As is, it will be a straight up or down vote on a potentially wide range of ideas, so if anyone has a strong dislike for one idea they might decide not to vote it in.

[Pythagoras]

I agree.. fix implies keep it the same, but something is needed to make it better, new idea implies totally new idea...

[Pythagoras]

ok, this one is sort and sweet w/o specific model proposed, speaks more generally and expands on what Imran was talking about..
!!PROPOSED!! discussion till midnight..
FINAL DRAFT

Idea
The majority of Apolytoners *DEMAND* a new trade system that meets the following criteria.
1. Involves a Supply/Demand system like Civ II.
2. Affects/Is Affected either implictly or explicitly by diplomacy.
3. Allows larger citys and more modern (higer tech) citys to become meccas of trade, and maybe even somewhat dependant on it.
4. Allows routes to be blocked/pirated/raided/etc.
5. Requires little/no micromanagement, but still play an important role in gameplay.

Argument
We feel that these requests make trade a much more powerful aspect of gameplay without giving it center stage. Allowing more trade routes for larger and/or more modern citys allows more accurate modeling of history (as seen in miedeval italy and modern day metropolis). Also we feel that
implicit forms of 'alternative warfare' can be integrated into gameplay through being able to block and/or pirate trade routes. This coupled with strong trade routes being complementary to strong diplomacy can make for some interesting gameplay based around trade.

Is this jivn with everyones wants for a new trade system?

[Seeker]

"Involves a supply and demand system like Imperialism"
-I thought that the general consensus was that Civ 2 didn't really even have supply and demand. look at the very first post in this thread. Imperialism DID have supply and demand, as did colonization. like THAT, not like Civ 2.

[MidKnight Lament]

Seeker - I was thinking the same thing...

[The Mad Viking]

I'm a little confused.

My v2.42 Civ2 does the following:

In early times, things like hides, wool and dye are in demand. Late in the game they all but disappear, and are in demand in very small newly founded cities, or not at all.

Oil is supplied before there is any demand; when demand first appears, it is industrial cities that demand it. Uranium only becomes in demand late in the game when nuclear power is found. Other examples of trade items changing over time are exhibited, eg spice is more valuable early but kicks around as a minor item for a long time.

Cities that have Wine supply wine. Cities with mines supply minerals. Cities never (that I've noticed) demand what their terrain supplies.

Aren't these a lot of the things you're asking for? Doesn't everyone's game work as I described above?

The limitations I see are that all cities arbitrarily supply and demand exactly 3 things, in exactly the same quantity. Some or all of these things are random an unrelated to terrain. You can trade stuff for which there is no demand, albeit at a reduced value.
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by The Mad Viking (edited March 08, 2000).]</font>

[Imran Siddiqui]

Hmmm...

Well, I don't think that trade routes should be set up immediatly, I think that you should build a caravan and then you can negotiate a trade route. More trade routes, more caravans.