DESIGN/PLAYTEST: Trade & Caravans

[Flinx]

DESIGN/PLAYTEST: Trade & Caravans

With the implementation of freight costs based on terrain type, the number of caravans needed to form a trade route has increased so much to be practically prohibitive.

What was done:
Before the CalcTerrainFreightCost function returned the value of 5
Now the CalcTerrainFreightCost function returns the freight cost from terrain.txt or tileimp.txt

The freight costs range from 10 for Maglevs and Undersea Tunnels to 600 for Mountains.

I played around with a with my savegame and the data files and have come up with a set of values which I am going to playtest

Const.txt
CARAVAN_COEF 0.04 > 0.02

Tileimp.txt
TILEIMP_ROAD 33 > 28
TILEIMP_RAILROAD 20 > 17
TILEIMP_MAGLEV 10 > 6
TILEIMP_UNDERSEA_TUNNEL 10 > 3

Terrain.txt
EnvRiver 50 > 25
TERRAIN_WATER_DEEP 33 > 11
TERRAIN_WATER_VOLCANO 33 > 11
TERRAIN_WATER_SHELF 33 > 22
TERRAIN_WATER_TRENCH 33 > 11
TERRAIN_WATER_RIFT 33 > 11

Why did I choose these numbers?

Changing the CARAVAN_COEF results in half as many caravans being needed.

Undersea Tunnels are not available until near the end of the game, so trade routes over oceans continue to require large numbers of caravans for most of the game so I reduced the deep-water tiles to have a value just above what they would have had before (11*.02 vs 5*.04). I did not change the shallow-water tiles because I thought that would have resulted in most trade being along the coast and not by road/rail.

I lowered undersea tunnels to make sure trade followed them (versus the new deep-water value).

I lowered the Maglev value below the original freight cost (6*.02 vs 5*.04) since the values for road and rail are now higher.


Please playtest my values if you would like and/or suggest different ones

[Edit] I fixed my 'what was done' link

[Lui2]

The trade costs need surely adjustment.

I used your changed options with the result shown in the picture.

Above the costs before the change.
Further down the new ccosts.

It's approximately halving the costs. But imho still too expansive to use.

[Ekmek]

I'll test it when I can, but I just had a thought if we lowered the caravan production cost instead of number of caravans could that have helped?

[Flinx]

Lui2 looking at your numbers, I am guessing it is early in the game and you only have a few roads. As you build a complete road network followed by rail and finally maglevs, the number of caravans needed will continue to decrease.

[The Big Mc]

E that wont work say your have two cities and need 45 caravans to create a rout this would take 23 turns min to build all the caravans, (less for fraight) needed but if we reduce the number of caravans we reduce the minimum weighting time.

[Flinx]

Originally posted by The Big Mc
weighting time.

I think you mean waiting time

[Martin Gühmann]

I thought we already talked about:

[QUOTE]Originally posted by J Bytheway in the first Playtest thread
Well, assuming the poposed explanation was correct then the new system will give the same values as the old system if there are maglevs present. So, if you want to adjust it to give the same behaviour as the old system if there are roads present, rather than maglevs, you need to multiply CARAVAN_COEFF by 5/33.[SIZE=1]

Well that would be a CARAVAN_COEFF 0.06 maybe I should add this factor to the source code so that it is not so low in the text file.

-Martin

[Flinx]

CARAVAN_COEFF 0.04*5/33 = 0.00606

This would result in a trade route over roads needing the same number of caravans in the original game and in the current playtest however when you upgrade to railroads you will need 39% fewer and maglevs would require 70% fewer caravans (than over roads). This makes trade routes ridiculously cheep.

CARAVAN_COEFF 0.04*5/20 = 0.01

This would result in trade routes over railroads in the playtest would be the same as over roads in the original. Trade routes over roads would require 65% more caravans and trade routes over maglevs would require 50% less versus the original game.

The issue with just changing the CARAVAN_COEFF is that foreign trade often travels over water and so will always require more caravans until undersea tunnels are researched.


Using CARAVAN_COEFF=0.01 and giving ocean tiles a freight cost of 20 would make the number of caravans needed for a trade route in the railroad era same as the original game. With only roads more caravans will be needed, with maglevs, fewer.

[The Big Mc]

Originally posted by Flinx

I think you mean waiting time

************************************************** ************************************************** microdoft spell checkeeer

[Flinx]

Well if we want it exactly the same as before all we need to do is set the freight costs for ALL tiles and ALL tile improvements (well just roads, railroads, maglevs, and undersea tunnels) to 5 and leave CARAVAN_COEFF=0.04

People can then adjust the values in mods if the want to.

[Flinx]

With these files trade should be back to how it was in the original game.

[EPW]

Since trade is essentially useless right now I see no reason to make it more expensive to trade. When something is done to improve trade then I can see increasing the costs for crossing various terrain and such.

[Kuciwalker]

Undersea Tunnels are not available until near the end of the game, so trade routes over oceans continue to require large numbers of caravans for most of the game so I reduced the deep-water tiles to have a value just above what they would have had before (11*.02 vs 5*.04). I did not change the shallow-water tiles because I thought that would have resulted in most trade being along the coast and not by road/rail.

Like in reality?

[Tamerlin]

Originally posted by Flinx
With these files trade should be back to how it was in the original game.

Thanks Flinx, I would have preferred to use a file designed for the latest Playtest build but as it seems that the current values will not be changed I will revert back to the original ones.

[BureauBert]

List of trade routes

Found a bug - actually I already noticed it in the previous playtest but I forgot to report:

Say there are four cities: City_1, City_2, City_3, City_4 and two Goods: SomeGood_1 and SomeGood_2. When I open the trade window, I get the list offering possible trade routes from

SomeGood_1 from City_1 to City_2
SomeGood_2 from City_3 to City_4

The "trade advisor" suggests the creation of a trade route:

SomeGood_1 from City_1 to City_2

I follow the advice and create this trade route. As soon as this route is established (and on the map it seems established / is displayed correctly) the list in the trade window tells me I am running a trade route:

SomeGood_1 from City_1 to City_4

and the entire list changes to offering different trade routes than at the beginning. I am still able to continue establishing trade routes as suggested by the modified list, but the list consequently gets screwed up each time.