Make world trade important

[Grier]

Talk of this nature has been going on in a number of threads so I thought I would take the oppertunity to give it its own thread.

For a long time foreign trade has been the life blood of many countries, with political and physical battles taking place over profitable trade routes. Yet in civ2 foreign trade is almost irrelevant.

So IMO firaxis should make world trade very relevant in Civ3.

Any comments anyone?

[UltraSonix]

Have I got comments! I know most of them aren't related to world trade, but I think stey're still worth a read:

1.) In whatever way it's done, the Global trade model should facilitate a "trade war" option. An example model could involve trade bringing lucrative financial benefits, but then another civ temporarily stopping the trading would cause sever repercussions in your cities (as well as the other civ's). Cities would perhaps even loose extra money for a few turns (not just the beneficial amount the trade route brings).
Trade wars should be able to be initiated reguardless of diplomatic status, since it would also cause the instigator damage. But of course the other civ would get rather annoyed by it.

2.) I'm not sure if this is in CTP - But perhaps there should be a physical manifestation of trade routes so that neutral units can be seen (if desired) travelling to and fro. This would be only for asthetics only. Look at the caravan go!

3.) Another trade model (or it could be added to the existing city-city one) could be civ-civ trade. In this model, only the size of the respective trading civs determines the income. This would be far less messier to do than the current caravan micromanagement method of trading.

4.) How about trading scientific knowledge? So it would be a representation of scientists working together, and simply result in each civ getting more science arrows. The only requirement would be the civs should be discovering similar (not neccessarily same) techs. This is different to simply trading techs.

5.) I mentioned somewhere once that perhaps a city has to have uranium to be able to build a nuke. So this makes uranium trading vital and profitable (if the other civ is dumb or desparate enough to do sell it). This would make uranium-rich areas extremely desired. For those that can't get access to uranium and need to build a plant or nuke, maybe they can pay a large excess of money to "buy it off the black market" (a bit like North Korea, Isreal, or Iraq). This black market won't exist in the game, it's just an excuse to balance the game a little.

That's all from me, for now - I'll have lot more to say later , because I think Civ2 should have its non-military stuff improved greatly. And if the AI can't handle it, then make it available during multiplay only.

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No, in Australia we don't live with kangaroos and koalas in our backyards...
[This message has been edited by UltraSonix (edited June 30, 2000).]

I think trade should tie in with knowledge. Advancement through trade has been a very important part of history. I propose the tech tree is incredibly harder and longer in the game so that isolated Civs work slower than civs can trade and communicate. For example - Europe was the place of many small civs, yet they were all far more advanced than isolated Civs like the ones of the south pacific. The more trade you do, the faster you should reach certain science goals.

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~~~I am who I am, who I am - but who am I?~~~
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[Grier]

I certainly agree with that, foreign trade routes should either give lightbulbs as well as coins, or alternativly a random chance of discovering an advance that the other civ has that you dont. Personally I would prefer the lightbulbs.

[phunny pharmer]

UltraSonix: I like the idea very much. However, I don't think that Uranium should be the only 'crucial' improvement. I think that COAL should also be important, because of the amount that was needed to industrialize. Another equally important commodity is OIL and NATURAL GAS. Why else are the Arab states so rich? What was the main motive for the American intervention in Kuwait? These are two crucial commodities.

I think that these materials should be required to get certain advances, or at least trade routes should be established in order to advance. For instance, I think that a civilization needs at least three trade routs or two sources of a certain commodity to advance. This list is not all-inclusive:

IRON should be necessary for IRON WORKING (or the civ3 equivalent). After all, if you don't have anything to forge iron weapons with, how will you make them?

COAL should be necessary for INDUSTRIALIZATION. This represents the large amounts of energy needed to manufacture goods at rapid rates.

STEEL should become a trade good after the technological advance STEEL. STEEL should also be a prerequisite of the internal combustion engine. For this case, having one source of coal and one source of iron could represent the manufacture of one steel.

OIL should become a trade good with the discovery of INTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINE. Only then should oil sources appear on the map. This will represent the increased drilling and prospecting to find this resource. Furthermore, two developed sources of oil should be a prerequisite for the advance AUTOMOBILE. This represents the increased use of oil by a civilization.

Finally, as UltraSonix suggested, URANIUM should become a prerequisite of NUCLEAR FISSION. This shows the necessary amounts of preparation to build a bomb. URANIUM should be found on the map after the advance ATOMIC THEORY or whatever. This shows the level of technological advancement necessary to find Uranium. Finally, there should be one source of uranium for every two nuclear missiles or nuclear power plants that a civ owns, to make Uranium more valuable.

This is just a rough sketch of what I think should be implanted in Civ3. The Civ2 resource scattering and bonus ideas were very lacking, especially since oil was available in 4000BC, and furs and pheasants were ultra-valuable in the year 2000 AD. There need to be more resources, more different types of resources, and they need to be put 1 to every 3 squares, so that a city can harvest lots of resources.

I also liked SMAC's idea of major groups of resources, and I would like to see that in Civ3. I would prefer not to see the special names though.

I would also like to have resources bought and sold. This could be in the manner of Imperialism 2 (for those people who haven't played it, there is a gigantic market where players can bid on certain commodities).

Or, this system could work with constant trade routs, but prices (on commodities paid by the buyer to the seller) based on supply and demand. The buyer can say what they want to offer, and the first one to build a trade route to the area gets the goods.

Would this system work in civ3? Would people actively buy and sell resources (as opposed to setting up caravans). Should the resources be required for advancement, as I have proposed? Tell me what you think.

[Az]

I prefer the instant discovery , actually .the discovery is a thing that takes time ( OK this is not always correct ... ) but a transfer of knowledge doesn't take that much time . in aquiring knowledge by research that proccess is much much longer.

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Prepare to Land !

[UltraSonix]

Dalgetti, if I'm correct, I think you've misinterpreted the suggetions here - what I mean by trading and science is not simply swapping techs. It is more akin to scientists working together to discover related things. Hence the increase in lightbulbs (or whatever), but not the instantaneous gaining of techs.



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No, in Australia we don't live with kangaroos and koalas in our backyards...

[Ubersandwich]

Good ideas guys.
Trade should be stopped between civ who are at war with one another and trade should inprove relations with between nations (at least if there is a lot of trade going on)

[Napoleon I]

Some of the ideas expressed in this site are truly great. However, I think that I should play devil's advocate here for a little bit and bring forth the question of micromanagement. If all of the suggestions here are implemented the game will truly become a nightmare. Every turn you would have to keep an eye at how many resources you have, plan out any deals with buying and selling them, see if you need to transfer some uranium to your capital to build a nuke, etc.

Furthermore, if we really decide to strive for maximum accuracy, there really is no telling where to stop. I mean that if Phunny Pharmer argues that oil should be developed in order to research Automobile, someone else could argue that a factory would need to exist in a city in order to make steel, or that two cities must have airports in order to transfer resources.

Therefore, my suggestion is to avoid bringing in all of the minor details and improvements, and instead to focus on new concepts that we want to incorporate in a game. An example of such concept would be (this is merely a collection of different ideas in this thread):

1. Some resource bonuses, such as oil will start yielding their bonus only after a discovery of a certain advance. Also these resources will only appear on the map after the discovery of this advance.

By my comments I do not intend to offend anyone who offered their ideas here and I don't want to say that those ideas should not be heard. All I want to do is to try to make a point that it is better to focus on the major concepts and leave the details up to the people at Firaxis.


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Napoleon I

[phunny pharmer]

Napoleon I: I agree that everything that I suggested would create micromanagement hell. However, I know that Firaxis knows this too. And, since I expect that Firaxis will tone down all suggestions (if they even take any), I will suggest stuff like crazy. Then, Firaxis may keep the basis of the idea and implant that in the game.

I also don't want to be misunderstood on this issue. I don't want micromanagement, and I think that too much micromanagement will be the fall of Civ3. However, I think that the materials/shields/minerals system of the civ-genre is way too bland. If there could be a separate 'hoard box' for materials like steel, uranium, oil, etc, I think that there wouldn't be that much micro involved.

I also want to reiterate that all trades should be on a nation-to-nation, empire-to-empire scale in Civ3. City-to-city would create too much micromanagement. However, there would have to be a new screen created.

Let's (for hypothetical reasons only) call it the 'offer' screen. Here, you can see the production levels of all things in your city. However, you can 'remove' some production in a certain category (lets use oil) and move it to a holding tank. This material can never be used by your empire, but it can now be traded. Only oil held in this holding tank can be traded. There could be several features on this screen:

1) Don't sell to such and such empire- to allow boycotts.

2) Subsides- help out an ally, or get on an empires good side.

3) Don't sell until price is such and such- if it's not profitable, why trade?

4) Let such and such empire have these resources only- if an ally is out of oil and you want to transfer some to him/her.

Now, what should happen when you buy stuff using this screen? I'm completely open to suggestions here. You have a city-based construction screen, and an empire-based trade screen. How do you distribute goods to specific cities? Which cities should get trade bonuses: the buyers? receivers? producers? middlemen? (whoever they are)? the center of your empire?

What do you think of this system, which could be implemented along with the one that I mentioned earlier?

[Par4]

Edit: Ok trade should be sent to an empire, the empire itself can send the goods to the city. Just make your city say buy raw materials on domestic market or tell a city to send raw materials to LA. Cities should be major central cities and not too many of them. Maybe like 15 for the US in a civ2 game.

1. Trade Ports has anyone meantioned these? I would like to see nations in a good central position or along big trade routes to make a lot of money and some tech advances from traders stopping there. Trade ports should also be able to charge entry which would generate money and not just jobs, if no jobs in game, which would be bad, then just money.

2. Rare energy, or oil and uranium. These would be very important later and could be a serious bargainer. Trade prices, see 3, could be extremely important in this and diplomacy.

Say japan has lots of uranium be is being screwed over by Zulu because Zulu's traders are charging a lot for silk because they know that Japan can only trade with them for it. Zulu has the threat of American nukes looming over and they need to buy uranium to build nukes too to counter US and possibly get them to get off the Zulu border. So japan says you have to make your traders sell for much less, which hurts the Zulu free trade nation a lot but they need it.

3. Trade prices, for all goods which would be fairy small just because I wouldn't want to have all types of goods in Civ3 it would be way too complicated. This is not Europa Universialis! Trade prices would always be very high if the civ was a free market because the people set there own prices, in a government controlled market, the government would set prices in just catergories like moderate, high and so that prices would be different in different regions. Say everyone always pays more in europe for goods than they do in asia so high would yeld more in europe.

Energy- Oil
Everyone should be able to find coal or wood or whatever somewhere in there country.

Fissionables- Uranium
Needed for fission nuclear weapons, necessary for the construction and developement but once Fusion is discovered it is not needed because fusion uses hydrogen and its isotopes.

That could bring espionage into the light, steal there nuke plans and then put all developement into fusion and get thermonuclear weapons so you aren't strangled in the fission department.

Raw materials/Refined materials- Needed for a city to build units and grow. This would mean like Phoenix, it imports wood and metal to construct its buildings. Refined materials are better quality and sell for more and needed to build stealth or really high tech units.

Goods/Manufactured goods- These are like the furniture and consumables of the world, they come from raw materials and the people want them so if they cannot produce them for some reason they will trade for a lot. Manufactured are a higher quality/ tech of goods so its like electronics etc.

Food/ processed food- Obvious cities that cannot produce enough food buy it. Later in the modern times people want processed food for the middle and upper class. This ties into jobs and well we need a jobs thread.

4. Trade and diplomacy. Pretty obvious if you have a big undelevoped or service industry country you are going to want to establish better relations with them before your rival producer nation does. Later in modern times as all goods become available to everyone and service industry takes over produce nation wars would be more geared towards the countries buying from you mainly and not selling rare goods etc. Also good diplomacy will allow to you say, boycott japan with me etc.

5. War is expensive. Reap the benefits of your enemies war, make units expensive to build so they will need the extra raw materials to build those tanks or the fissionables for more nukes.

6. Economic growth, obviously if the civ experiences a big up turn in the market and everyone is building construction will hurt the supplies of raw materials or energy etc. Short times of lots of consumers will to buy buy buy.

7. Stuff on the big scale. Building, expanding everything needs to be expensive and trading for those things you do not have needs to be important. As well as immigration, automobiles, economic growth etc will strain your supplies and you will need to find a trade partner{s}.

That's about all I can think of, I hope its not too complicated I want Civ3 to have depth and not be the same game but be simple too. Not europa universialis where there is like 30 goods and mass micro management I've heard.

I'm back

How do I get smilies to work in my sig if I click edit they do but not when I first post it.

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[This message has been edited by Par4 (edited July 11, 2000).]

[Grier]

I think that a good way to have world trade at its simplest level might be as follows.

Each civ would have an amount of trade available each turn (the bigger the civ and the more trade goods the bigger the amount).
This trade would be distributed between foreign civs and your own civ (internal trade and the amount of foreign trade comming in would affect the level of happiness in your civ).
The more trade that you do with a civ the more they like you, you could give subsidys to foreign civs to make them like you even more.
Your civs income would be derived from the level of taxation on incomming trade (civs may dislike you if you have a high tax on their goods), also the income would be gained from your tax rate on internal trade (this could be the same as your overall tax rate), not forgeting the tax your citizens pay you.
The money you recive from selling goods would depend on the level of tax by the civ that you are selling to.

Example of trade table.

Civ............Trade Amount.......Tax/Subsidy
------------------------------------------
Americans..........Boycot..........none
Romans.............25%..........25% Subsidy
French.............30%..........10% Import tax
...

Internal trade 45%
Internal tax 17%

Any comments?
[This message has been edited by Grier (edited July 12, 2000).]
[This message has been edited by Grier (edited July 13, 2000).]
[This message has been edited by Grier (edited July 13, 2000).]
[This message has been edited by Grier (edited July 13, 2000).]

[UltraSonix]

OK I'll do what Napoleon said above, and distill what I have to say about this into a few lines.

*World trade must be important.
*Trade can give money AND lightbulbs.
*Trade in certain commodities are very important - big 3 - uranium, coal, oil.
*Amount of benefit from trade directly related to civ size / civ relations / tech level / amount of trade related stuff in each civ (eg sea ports/markets/airports)

If I may dare say so, that's it!

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No, in Australia we don't live with kangaroos and koalas in our backyards...