Current state of merchant agents?

[Lord God Jinnai]

I was using the slightly broader term economics to cover this. Like mechanics and architecture commerce is simply and branch of this that could be considered too detailed. Also the tech "Theory of Economics" should also increase the capasity of merchants alot and allow for more than triangular trade routes if their's a lot of profit to be made that couldn't otherwise.

[shimmin]

I had a list of possible modes of transport and a few features thereof in the reply box, but the browser froze when I hit submit.

Anyway, rather than reproduce the list, let me just report the two main aspects in which I'm not entirely satisfied with it.

1) At several points, it features "quantum leaps" in transport ability at certain technologies, some of which really were historical. For the most part, I'd like to use the basic techs to make some of the progress more gradual. Problem is, from reading the tech threads, I can't get any consensus about how these work, or even what they are! I see a percentage system that several weren't entirely satisfied with, but I also see a few alternate ideas that met with some approval, but nothing definite. Have any decisions been made here?

2) Today, "merchants" have become more of a shipping industry than the ones who actually take the risks of trade upon themselves -- they're hired by stuff's owner simply to move it rather than take any interest in how the stuff sells once it gets there. Is this something we want to address?

[Mark_Everson]

1) Remember the Leaps look immediate looking back, but before you can get that railroad bonus you need to build a Lot of infrastructure. I would prefer to have the merchants use the best infra available when they're pathfinding, and then have mods, as you suggest, for Commerce level and Land or Sea Transport level. I'm not sure I've talked LGJ into these, but you can go to the tech 2 thread and put in a bid for them if you agree with me . As to percents vs levels etc. why don't you figure what you really need and then post your opinion on tech 2... IMO what you're doing can work with either case anyway with only small modification.

2) Personally I don't really want to address that distinction, but since you're writing it up, propose whatever you think is best and then we'll talk it over if there's disagreement...

Cya,

Mark

[Lord God Jinnai]

Merchants didn't travel to unknown regions, with a few exceptions (Marco Polo and Christopher Columbus are 2 famous ones). In any event these people had reasons for taking the risks, profit from a direct source instead of going through the middleman (arabs or venitians example). This means as things such as silk pass from place to place it becomes more expensive and the profit is less.

Also on a related note there should be about 50 common items throughout time periods and about 20 rare items that change through time and may become common in later periods or obsolete. This would greatly enhance the merchant aspect since a country producing silk in medivial times could make a fortune, but in modern times, though they could still profit, it would be far less.

[shimmin]

Another frozen browser. Yech.

Anyway, here's my "transportation through the ages" list. I've based it on LGJ's tech tree, although in browsing the tech tree to make this list, I have a couple comments that I'll put in the tech thread.

General format:
Transport (required tech). Speed (arbitrary) / Capacity (arbitrary) / Range (squares between resupplies) (% speed lost if moving beyond range -- foraging penalty). Terrain restrictions.

General notes: if a foraging penalty isn't listed, the transport can't forage, and so cannot move beyond its range. Many sea / air units don't have terrain restrictions per se, but do require certain infrastructure in the provinces they service.

LAND
Porter (none). 1/1/3 (20%). Any land.
Pack animal (Domestication). 1/8/3 (50%). Any land.
Courier (Animal riding). 2/2/4 (50%). Any land.
Cart (Animal-drawn carts). 1/20/4 (50%). Clear land or roads.
Wagon (Wagons). 1/100/5 (50%). Clear land or roads.
Steam rail (Railroad). 10/1000/10. Rails.
Deisel rail (Combustion engine). 16/2000/20. Rails.
Truck (Automobile). 16/750/10. Roads.
Solar truck (Solar power). 10/750/none. Roads.
Solar rail (Solar power). 10/2000/none. Rails.
High-speed rail (Superconductor). 70/1000/15. Rails.

SEA
Raft (Rafts). 2/20/none. Rivers, downstream.
Riverboat (Riverboats). 2/100/none. Rivers.
Galley (Seafaring). 2/500/6 (70%). Rivers, coastal waters.
Cog (Sails). 2/2000/10 (70%). River, ocean.
Caravel (Navigation). 3/3000/80 (70%). Ocean.
Galleon (Clocks). 4/10.000/120 (70%). Ocean, needs port facilities.
Packet ship (Factory production). 5/40.000/180 (70%). Ocean, needs port facilities.
Clipper (Factory production). 7/20.000/180 (70%). Ocean, needs port facilities.
Steamer (Steamships). 6/200.000/180. Ocean, needs port facilities.
Freighter (Steel ships) 10/1.000.000/250. Ocean, needs port facilities.
Hydrofoil (Jets). 16/20.000/10. Ocean.
Nuclear freighter (Fission power). 12/1.000.000/none. Ocean, needs port facilities.
Solar freighter (Solar power). 8/1.000.000/none. Ocean, needs port facilities.

AIR
Dirigible (Pressure containment). 16/3000/200. Needs landing facilities.
Air transport (Flight). 70/100/20. Needs landing facilities.
Jet transport (Jets). 180/5000/120. Needs landing facilities.
Solar airship (Solar power). 12/3000/none. Needs landing facilities.
Hypersonic transport (Space shuttle). 2000/3000/300. Needs landing facilities.

For these, I was thinking about aircraft more or less equivalent to the Zeppelin / DC-3 / Boeing 747 / (no example) / NASP (a temporarily suspended NASA project, designed to do New York to Tokyo in 30 minutes, flights leaving twice daily), respectively.

[Mark_Everson]

LGJ:

Agree about merchants generally not being explorers. Where was that said?

50 common / 20 rare strikes me as too many. At that number you're starting to simulate a Real economy. I think it will take too many clock cycles that the player will derive no benfit from. However, we can just try out your idea in playtesting and see.

shimmin:

Great list! I haven't looked it over in detail, but it looks quite good on cursory inspection. I assume the quality of the infrastructure should affect the speed and/or range as the model gets more developed... and the basic tech level involved when we figure that out ;-) Also culture should be in there in some way. FE when moving through a very corrupt country you'll need to pay every local bureaucrat...

This is gonna be a fun model!

[alms66]

Would it be possible to actually show the merchant walk/sail/fly along the trade route(without actually showing the route on the map, too ugly!) This would allow pirating by other civs(and possibly start a war, although the "pirate" should have an option to stay concealed, maybe?)
Also if we did this merchants could be the "suppliers" to an army, if the merchant was destroyed so too would be the supply line!!! Can we say "Starvation?"

[rentgen]

One comment about pirating. I was really annoyed by this feature in Civ:CTP because you had to assign the routes over and over again.

I think it would be useful to provide possibility to accompany the merchants with military units. In fact, this is the only way it works in war times! Nobody sends suppliances on their own they are always under protection of some military units (convoy ships etc)

-- Anton

[Mark_Everson]

Toubabo_Koomi:

On showing merchants walking on the map: I don't think we want to do that. It would be Really busy. There are going to be merchants going all over the place. I don't know what shimmin thinks, but my general take is that we would allow the player to call up a map with merchant routes marked on it, but generally merchant routes wouldn't show at all. I had envisioned not actually moving the merchants square-by-square. They would just calculate their best route, then be assumed to be somewhere on it. Remember, they're not individual merchants, more like guilds or trading companies. So they wouldn't necessarily have a specific location on the map anyway.

Great idea on using the merchants as quartermasters for the army. In fact it's such a great idea, we've already thought of it

Piracy will certainly be possible. Increasing intelligence about the exact route, and the merchant's timing (figured abstractly) will make success in piracy more likely.


rentgen:

So in CTP you need to re-assign merchant routes every time they are attacked? Ugh. In Clash, the merchants will figure their own routes. This will include what they know about hostile activities going from war, to piracy, to corrupt bureaucrats that demand large bribes. If the player owns the merchant, I guess we would allow the player to specify a general route. But hopefully that won't be necessary except for micromanagement freaks...

We hadn't gotten that far, but you are right, you need to be able to escort supplies. I don't think it will be a big problem to put that in.

[roquijad]

This thread looks like forgotten. Will anybody see the following post?

About blockades and piracy:
Suppose you have a merchant trading from city A to B. You have 2 options:
a) The route from A to B was defined and stored in memory when the trade was started by the merchant finding the cheapest route and avoiding known enemy presence.
b) The route is computed looking for the cheapest route and avoiding enemy presence every N game turns.

Every turn of play the computer checks enemy presence in every map square that the route uses. (If the route was just created, no enemies will be there since the route was in such way created. But, as game advances, troops may move into map squares used by the route) If enemy is there, a probability is calculated for cargo to be intecepted mod by enemy tech and strenght. If cargo is intercepted, merchant loses some $ and re-evaluates trade between A and B considering new routes (in fact merchant does what he did in the first place). If danger is high enough, merchant will prefer trade between some other cities.
Now consider you control the above enemy civ. The question is how you make your troops intercept the civ cargos. You should be able to ask the computer to tell you what's the best route form A to B using a dialogue box. The computer shows you this on the map for a few seconds and then you send your troops there. Notice that this best route is not necessarily the one used, for computer uses your map knowledge and not you're enemy's which was used to create the real route. Maybe, given some inteligence reports, you could be able to know the precise routes.
Pirates may do the same as you do trying to intercept routes.
A civ can protect a route by two ways. It moves their troops to destroy enemy presence or it can assign troops to the route, in which case the troops no longer stays in a particular map square nor can be used normaly as any other task force. The probability of enemies intercepting the cargo should be mod by this guard.
The biggest problem I foresee here is that the computer has to check for enemy presence every game turn which is expensive.

A comment on options a) and b) above:
Using a) routes can't adjust according to terrain development and the merchant uses always the same route regardless of tech advance. But it saves a lot of computer resorces since you only have to store the trading cities.
Using b) can make merchant sensitive to road/railroad/etc developments, but it uses more computer resources since best routes need to be found, for every existent route, every N turns.

Rodrigo

[Lord God Jinnai]

This has some good ideas, though haven't read too much, just skimmed. I perfer option b. It shouldn't take up too much more since new merchants will continuously be created and old ones die without heirs for a dynasty or aren't part of orgainiszation. I'd like to have further discussion put int the Character/Dynasty topic (If its alright with Mark) since merchants and pirates will be taken up via me if that's alright since it will make coding much easier imo.

[shimmin]

Rodrigo

Regarding computational expense of checking for enemy presence every turn.

There's a cheaper way of doing it. Consider the trade route like just another terrain feature. When units move, they have to check the terrain to see if it has any effects on their movement (a land unit can't move across the ocean, roads speed movement, etc.). The reverse (and equally inexpensive) process is checking the terrain to see if the unit has any effect on it.

Enemy presence checks need only be made when military force moves into a previously unoccupied square.

[Mark_Everson]

Rodrigo:

Merchants will regularly examine potential new trade routes, and better routes for existing trades.

LGJ:

IMO merchants belong as a sub-class of the economic model. Besides, Shimmin is working in this area, he just had a busy patch of real life. Pirates would be a toss-up between Military and Characters. If you want to make specific proposals about Pirates, be my guest .

Shimmin:

Good to see you again

[roquijad]

shimmin: so that means you have to store in a terrain element the routes passing trhough it?... A military unit moves into an unocuppied square, the computer see a list of routes passing through it (previously recorded when the merchat first started the trade) and then calcs a % of intercepting some of them.... is that what you mean? If it is, I think is fine if having stored that info attached to map squares isn't expensive...

Rodrigo

[shimmin]

Rodrigo

That's what I had in mind. I'm not an expert in coding, but I suspect that when dealing with the inherent slowness of Java (an especially considering the quality of AI people are envisioning), using more memory to gain speed will often be a trade worth making.

Paul, other map people -- would the map's code permit the storing of trade routes as some sort of terrain enhancement? (Could trade routes inherit much of the same data structure of roads or somesuch?)