Trade Routes

What affects the profit I get from trade routes.
And how EXACTLY it affects.

Tnx

[Smash]

The amount of trade ARROWS being generated in the 2 cities concerned.This is controlled by city size,location,improvements,government type etc.

Some techs also have an effect.Not sure about all of em but Invention and Navigation decrease bonuses.

Distance between the 2 cities.The farther apart the better.2 seperate continents are even better.

Foreign or domestic city.Foreign routes tend to be more lucrative but early domestic routes are better than nothing.And you get both sides of the routes.

Demanded or not.

You get a gold bonus but you also get an equivilant amount of science beakers as well as trade routes which add arrows to the city longterm.

You could generate ALL your research by just delivering caravans if you so chose.

There are many interesting Trade threads.Go back to show topics from last year or the archives.

[Scouse Gits]

Scrolls of Wisdom


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Scouse Git[1]

"CARTAGO DELENDA EST" - Cato the Censor

[Oldman]

Damn, i was going to say that?!?!?
but, erm... like Scouse says!!

[tonic]

Yes! And I have reproduced this for the benefit of Apolytoners in the thread http://apolyton.net/forums/Forum3/HT...tml?date=12:18

[patriot]

When we are talking about trade and expansion going hand in hand, can anyone elaborate on a balance between them? Maybe a fictional timeline...like building 1 caravan, then settler, then 2nd caravan, ...

Any ideas? How many cities does everyone typically have by the time they have their first caravan built?

[Scouse Gits]

The conditions of the game dictate when the first caravan arrives. Even on a large map you can find yourself on a small continent sharing it with the Mongols. If this is the case, then the elimination of the neighbours takes priority!

Early caravans are "food" for wonder building, however I try and stick a couple for trade on a trireme as early as possible. This is usually in the BC years. If you like trading early then MPE is useful as you can locate where civs are situated. Always try and trade with those powers which have gone to republic early - as they have more arrows.

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SG (2)

[William Keenan]

I have been working on the formula for trade lately, in preparation for a tip on the topic.

Trade Revenue = ((combined trade of both cities + 4) / 16) * Modifiers

Transport Modifier is the best ONE of the following three:[*]x150% if both cities have Airports[*]x150% if both cities are connected by roads[*]x200% if both cities are connected by railroad

Superhighway Modifier
x150% if city has Superhighways (effects only the city with the improvement)

Foreign Trade Modifier
x200% Trade is with another civilization

The formula for the Trade Revenue done by Robert Lancaster, which can be found in the scrolls of wisdom link above, was pretty close to accurate and formed the basis of my work on the topic.

His Trade Payoff formula is not accurate, however. In fact, there are two ratically different formulas for the Payoff. One for small trade routes (under 255 gold) and another for large Payoffs (over 255 gold).

[Jim W]

quote: Originally posted by William Keenan on 07-09-2000 08:17 PM I have been working on the formula for trade lately, in preparation for a tip on the topic.

Various people have posted formulae for trade benefits, most of which cause my eyes to cross and my brain to scream "General Protection Fault!"

(Though I've never considered it a fault to protect my Generals. But that's beside the point.)

However, I go along on my nice non-mathematical way, trying to get stuff to (a) the foreign city that requested it, (b) some foreign city in the same country as the requesting city, (c) some other foreign city, (d) one of my own cities that has requested the item, or (d) one of my own cities that I think might appreciate it.

I'm not one of the super-greats of the Civ-2 World, and I think I may have graduated from the rank of super-loser, but I agree with all those who say Trade is Very Important Stuff.

At the very simplest, think of it like this: Trade brings in more cash to be spent on all those neat gew-gaws like Riflemen, Heavy Armour, and First Class seats on the Alpha Centauri Flight.

Jim W

[tonic]

quote: Originally posted by Jim W on 07-09-2000 10:14 PM At the very simplest, think of it like this: Trade brings in more cash to be spent on all those neat gew-gaws like Riflemen, Heavy Armour, and First Class seats on the Alpha Centauri Flight.

If I could expand that slightly and say it can also bring in a science bonus - essentially reducing the number of science turns - in Fundy, everytime your caravan/freight reaches its destination city. It seemed to me the central strategy to overcome the science handicap in Fundy-based OCC12.

Perhaps the science-bonus component could also be included in your analysis, WK?

[William Keenan]

quote: Perhaps the science-bonus component could also be included in your analysis, WK?

I'm currently working on that part of the formula. It is very complex. There are actually two formulas an no less than sixteen variables. I'm not altogether sure that I can crack this one.

Normally I don't post partial findings, but this part of the formula is very interesting.

Cargo Modifier
x100% Any cargo not in demand
x200% Hides, Wool, Beads, Salt, Copper, or Dye in demand
x250% Cloth, Coal, Wine, Silver in demand
x300% Silk, Spice, Gems, Gold in demand
x350% Oil in demand
x400% Uranium in demand

[William Keenan]

Tonic, the amount of science "beakers" you get is the same as the amount of gold you get.

[tonic]

WK, thanks that makes sense. It's just that in Fundy eg in my OCC12 game several hundred beakers were equivalent to a paltry 12 turns for science, so that when I got the equivalent of say 124 gold it hardly make an impact on the progress bar at F6!

[tonic]

quote: Originally posted by Campo on 07-11-2000 12:19 PM So any undemanded cargo is equivalent? Does that apply to initial bonus only, or to ongoing trade benefits?

If you go by the Lancaster formula reproduced in the forum thread I cited above, then it only applies to the one-off bonus not the ongoing trade.

quote: My impression (not based on any facts) was that the more prestigious cargos gave greater benefits, even if not demanded.

My own experience tends to confirm the Lancaster formula again, in that only certain commodities especially oil and uranium have an effect. In any case, try it out empirically by using the Cheat Menu.

[William Keenan]

Campo, it's kind of complex because there are multiple formula for the trade payoff. In the first formula hides delivered to a city that demands is worth twice as much as a uranium shipment to a city that does not demand it.

Demand is not a factor in Trade Revenue. In other words, a trade route produces no more trade arrows because the item is in demand than if it is not in demand.

[debeest]

Hey! I was just about to post my observation that the widely accepted formula for trade payoffs was wrong, and here's somebody already working on the problem. Is this the best website in the world, or what? Thanks, Mr. Keenan! Keep us informed.

[Campo]

quote: Originally posted by William Keenan on 07-10-2000 10:38 PM Cargo Modifier x100% Any cargo not in demand

So any undemanded cargo is equivalent? Does that apply to initial bonus only, or to ongoing trade benefits?

My impression (not based on any facts) was that the more prestigious cargos gave greater benefits, even if not demanded.

[tonic]

I have done a quick run for the one-off trade bonus with freight commodity demanded as variable and have come up with the following results. It appears there are 4 broad groups. So Campo may not be that far off:

Factor of 1:
Hides, Dye, Copper...

Factor of 1.25:
Cloth, Wine, Coal, Silver

Factor of 1.5:
Silk, Gold, Spice, Gems

Factor of 1.75: Oil

Factor of 2: Uranium

The results are independent of distance between the two cities and the amout of existing trade. I find the factors given by Lancaster a bit hard to follow. What the factors I use here imply is that if you get 100 gold bonus with Dye, you would get 125 gold with Wine, 150 gold with Gems and so on (all demanded). I note too that Coal is not in the Silver-Cloth-Wine group of Lancaster's.

Also to confirm that

1. For UNdemanded commodities there is no difference in both the bonus and the trade.

2. The trade generated by the established route seems independent of the commodity whether demanded or not.

3. The type of transport link (no roads, roads, or railroad) between the two cities has no effect on either bonus or trade ie the Lancaster formula is awry on this factor as well (This link factor had previous been pointed out in a thread in the archives).

[geofelt]

In a recent game, I was disappointed to lose colossus to the chinese. As it turned out, the city was on a nearby continent. I established a city on that continent, but did not capture the colossus city, instead, I sent caravans from most of my cities to that one location and got an incredible amount of bonuses and continuing trade.

[William Keenan]

Tonic, don't fall into the same pitfall that Robert Lancaster did in his research. That pit fall is to assume that a particular component (such as the cities being connected by roads) is not part of the formula just because in one particular test it made no difference to the outcome. The trade formula is allot more complex then it seems. There are conditions when things like the cities being connected by roads factor into the formula and other times when they do not. For example, when calculating the cash/science payoff 50% is added to the total if both cities are connected by roads but only if they do not both have airports.

Similarly, if a cash/science payoff exceeds 210 gold a different formula is used to calculate it's value then for payoffs below 210.

[tonic]

WK, although I used one scenario/game I did test the transport link hypothesis for at least three city-pairs with the same negative results. I'm a firm believer in the empirical approach and this is one which can be done given the time.

On the science bonus issue, it would be helpful to get some confirmation on what applies eg currently there seems to be two schools of thought about it in Fundy. One is represented by Xin Yu who assumes that you only get 50% of the gold equivalent and the other thinks it is 100%.

As I implied in my last post here, it certainly seems worthwhile to put out a more accurate version of the trade formula. Just on the one-off trade bonus, the factors given by Lancaster seem awry.

[Novi Nomad]

Has anyone else had a trade route disappear? I established a route in the early portion of a game, and was getting something like +3 trade arrows for it. When I was doing something in that city later in the game, the commidity was still used up, but the +3 trade arrows were no longer there...

[Tom DeMille]

Novi, Perhaps the city you were trading with was destroyed.

[Novi Nomad]

D'oh! Didn't think about that. I guess that might explain the disappearing arrows...

[Laertes]

From a Slow Learner:

What about poxy wool and cloth! I have usually suffered from a couple of cities that can produce these caravans, but that only have 2 small "customer" cities. To add insult to injury, they usually stop demanding wool by the time I turn up with my god forsaken caravan.

In my current game at deity, wool is a plague! I have at least 12-15 cities where wool is one of the available commodities, and I cannot find any takers!

Any tips?

Fergus

[SCG]

I'd send out the caravans anyway Just find a nice big city to send them to. The more trade routes per city, the better. And eventually the commodities will change to something you can get big trade from, and you have the extra trade in the mean time. The other thing I do is try and build a 'great road' between my civ and the AI I am most likely to trade with. It doesn't affect the size of the trade bonus (contrary to most of the posts here), but it gets your camels there a heck of a lot quicker. Also, that road can facilitate the building of more cities as well

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April Cantor: Sire, in order to expand further we must first gain favor of the King

SCG: darn, I've never really got the hang of that tribute thing, guess it will be a long time until i make prince

*goes off and starts gifting gold and techs*

[tonic]

quote: <font size=1>Originally posted by SCG on 07-26-2000 07:33 AM</font> The other thing I do is try and build a 'great road' between my civ and the AI I am most likely to trade with. It doesn't affect the size of the trade bonus (contrary to most of the posts here),...

Well in my earlier posts here I thought so too but spurred on by Xin Yu's contrary views I did some more tests with a different scenario and found that the original Lancaster formula holds in some cases ie

Roads increase the bonus by 50%
Railroad by 100%

The ongoing trade between the two cities is also increased proportionately.

At this stage (I am still running more tests) all I can say is that I can see no rule or pattern. The increase may apply to one city-pair, but not to others in the same scenario. Others may wish to do the tests as well, using different stages of civ development.
[This message has been edited by tonic (edited July 26, 2000).]

[SCG]

well, there certainly are some odd occurances with trade routes. The one I'm most puzzled about is under what conditions does the trade route itself roughly double. (ie instead of getting 8 trade arrows like every other city nearby, you get 16 arrows in city info). I used to think it had to do with proximity to the city you were trading with, but I've had too many examples to the contrary. And I'll try and see if there is any corrilation between the road/railroad bonus and the increased trade arrows.

Edit: I should point out that _all_ of my cities are connected by railroad, and I built a railroad to the doorstep of the capitol of a civ i reduced to 1 city. As a test, I took a saved game and pillaged first the railroad and then _all_ roads surrounding the city and there was no change in the cost in the same caravan in each reload. Also, I should add that a majority of the cities with doubled trade routes arrows are within 20 or so tiles of the trade city, but there are exceptions to that. And it doesn't seem to be related to which civ founded the city either.

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April Cantor: Sire, in order to expand further we must first gain favor of the King

SCG: darn, I've never really got the hang of that tribute thing, guess it will be a long time until i make prince

*goes off and starts gifting gold and techs*
[This message has been edited by SCG (edited July 27, 2000).]

[Matthew]

Fergus:


Often as soon as you establish a trade route with that wool caravan another commodity will become availible. Even if it isn't immediate, it's likely that a commodity will change faster once it has been used up. I've even noticed that using a food caravan from a city to build a wonder can change commodities. So if you really hate wool, try using a caravan or 2 from that city to help build a wonder.

What really sucks is in the endgame, you are trying to get to AC ASAP, and you have 4 or 5 enourmous cities supplying oil, you gave every civ in the world the Automobile as soon as you got it, yet none of them ever demand oil, and all your cities are justtoo darn close to make self trade all that lucrative.

I try to build roads to facilitate trade also. They are generally made of Magellan boosted boats. It's nice to know that the commodity in demand in the forign city on a continent half way around the world will not change before your caravan gets there because it will get there on the same turn it is built.
[This message has been edited by Matthew (edited July 27, 2000).]

[William Keenan]

Matthew, your right to assume that a city's demand for oil is connected to the Automobile tech, but the tech by itself is not enough to create the demand. A city has to build super highways first.

BTW it is Industrialization that creates the oil supply.