Interesting idea for a second Chinese SU

[Urban Ranger]

It's called the Silkroad Merchant. This is how it works. When a unit is created, the player can assign a paricular resource to the unit. The resource assigned will not be available for other purposes.

The unit then must travel to another city at least 10 turns away. If it makes the trip, a trade route is estabished. The player gets a number of trade arrows in the city where the Merchant originated. Futhermore, a number of bonus points equal to the number of trade arrows are generated, which are to be split evenly between culture and science to simulate the exchange of ideas and culture between two distant cities.

The culture points are accumlated by the city where the Merchant originated as if it has an additional source for culture. The science points can be accumlated over the turns and used for civ advance researches.

If the Merchant is destroyed before it reaches a proper destination, the resource assigned to it becomes available for other uses.

[jsw363]

Just to clarify, is this merchant within your own civ or does he travel to other civs? Isn't this just creating micromanagement for the trade system that is already in place automatically between a civ's cities? Aren't all cities connected by roads part of this network? And as for foreign cities, does this replace the diplomacy screen where you sell resources? Please explain the differences.
Otherwise sounds like a really cool unit concept. Excellent name as well.

[Grim Legacy]

Oh like a Caravan in Civ2.

I don't think Firaxis is keen to mix up the old stuff with the newtrade system, which is supposedly quite different.

[aaglo]

I think that this unit could easilly overbalance the game in favour for the Chinese. I mean if a city starts pumping out those merchants like mad, the increase in trade could go skyrocket. Or didn't I understand the idea... hmmm.
Did you mean that the trade route is permanent (the arrows are eternal) or what
The idea is , though

[d_dudy]

i think it's just a bad idea

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by aaglo
I think that this unit could easilly overbalance the game in favour for the Chinese. I mean if a city starts pumping out those merchants like mad, the increase in trade could go skyrocket. Or didn't I understand the idea... hmmm.
Did you mean that the trade route is permanent (the arrows are eternal) or what
The idea is , though

It's permanent just like what you would get from normal trading of resources.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by jsw363
Just to clarify, is this merchant within your own civ or does he travel to other civs? Isn't this just creating micromanagement for the trade system that is already in place automatically between a civ's cities? Aren't all cities connected by roads part of this network? And as for foreign cities, does this replace the diplomacy screen where you sell resources? Please explain the differences.
Otherwise sounds like a really cool unit concept. Excellent name as well.

1. The Merchant has to travel to another civ. Sorry about the omission.

2. It's a special unit, so it does something special

3. It works similarly to the caravan of older Civ's, but with the new resources and has a nice bonus.

[jdd2007]

i will be blunt about this

the chinese having some sort of trade bonus considering the silk road is good, but the system you suggeseted is "obselete" and SUCKS. caravans are gone ....