Global Economy / Network
Ok, I am the type of player who likes to beat down my rival civs through culture and economics. Simply put, I like to isolate cities and absorb them.
That said, I have found a severe weakness in the way the game handles trade networks for the various civs that frankly blows my mind away. Please excuse if this has already been discussed.
We all know that in order for a civ to perform internal trade or external trade, you need a network of roads, harbours and airports. Fair enough. What I do NOT like however is a city that has no direct contact to it's home civ being able to use MY trade network for it's personal use. As an example, I had my small 1 tile hole on my main continent that the AI settled on. I wasn't paying attention, but didn't care as I was going to absorb it.
Once built, I figured it would have NO resources or luxeries from the mother civ but lo and behold, it's building units that need special resources and it HAS no special resources in it's city square/radius. I check it out more and discover that it is getting Saltpeter, Horses, Iron, Coal and various luxeries by it's trade network. How I wondered.
Turns out that the computer uses MY harbours to send it's stuff overseas and MY roads to bring it to it's city. Am I the ONLY one here with a problem with that? If the AI wants to use MY infrastructures to support it's cities, should it not 1> ASK to use them and 2> Pay a duty or tariff to move it's goods through MY territory as it is logical?
The only way to cut it off is to 1> Go to war with the civ (then why absorb it with culture when I can conquer it in minutes) or 2> Cut MY roads around it's sphere of influence.
This is blatantly wrong and even though I can use it to my own advantage, it is something that should be looked into and fixed in the next or future patch.
So much potential for this game, so little implementation.
Cavalier
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