Why Save The Camel: A game perspective.

[Matthew]

In SMAC trade pretty much works like this. You build your cities, improve terrain for energy(the equivalent of trade arrows in civ), and make peace with other factions. Your cities are each paired with a city from the other faction, and trade between the pairs is determined automatically, depending mostly on size or trade output I guess. I'm not sure which, and I really don't care, cause there's not much you can do about it anyway.This is continued until one of you has no more cities. The process is repeated for each faction you are at peace with, and a single city can be trading with all other factions. Trade is doubled if you are allied (pact brother).

In CtP it is a bit more involved. you do build caravan like units, but there's no moving it. The route is automatically established, and I'm not even sure you can decide who with. I think you can improve routes by cornering a market, but there is no initial bonus, or no need for infrastructure to move these commodities around. No one even needs to build a boat.

The reason I prefer the way it is done in civ 2 is because it can be a much more integral part of a strategy, gives you the option of going for a quick, near by route or a big bonus, and gives a peaceful reason for boats, airports, and railroads to exist late in the game.

Granted, the micromanagement involved can be immense. As one who often builds more caravans than anything else, then tries to move them all over the map, I know. But this can certainly be remedied.

Camels, as they are now, provide an entirely new aspect to a game. They provide an entirely different strategy focus, for example. Instead of focusing on happy wonders, Super Science City wonders, or military wonders, one can focus instead on wonders that make trade routes better and easier to establish. Lighthouse can allow one to take advantage of the early trade route bonus to distant places, and Magellans later on allows you to get the product to a distant land much faster, before the commodity changes or someone closer by fills the demand. A civ without the happy wonders, and therefore unable to celebrate to greatness much, can still compete with civs that were able to get their cities much larger by simply sending caravans to those big cities. In short, it adds an area of focus that allows other ways to win. And this is always a good thing. In the CtP style anyone can take utmost advantage of a caravan with little risk simply by building it, with no additional resources getting it to the target. The bigger civs again will always win.

[red_jon]

I don't think camels should be used for trade....

I think they should be a tile resource so you can EAT THEM!

Bwa ha ha ha

------------------
...And if the British Commonwealth and its people live for a thousand years, man will still say "this was their finest hour"- Winston Churchill.

[rremus]

No, kill the camel!
With the current model you have to wait centuries for a caravan to reach some far away part of the map!
Traders have a strong motivation, greed, and should move fast across the map. They should bring you news about other civs progress and act much as the Great Library wonder.
If the caravan remains an unit, as in current game, then I would like to be able to use other civs ships as well to travel. If they have space available on board, I could pay them to take my caravan along with them.

I don't like the caravans in either civ2 or CTP. There must be a better way. Like rremus said, the civ2 caravans take forever to reach their destinations. Ctp caravans establish routes too easily, but the routes are far too vulnerable. There should be something in between. Maybe more movement points than in civ2, the ability to board ships. But allow for some kind of piracy of the trade route (but not as easily as in Ctp)

[Ralf]

I see your point, Matthew.

Building them was pretty strenuous, but they really DID force the civilized/perfectionist player amongst us, out of our self-absorbed isolation, into actively exploring the rest of the world.
I must admit that i missed that economical drive-to-explore somewhat in SMAC. If i remember it correctly one only had to establish peaceful contacts with one single city from each of the forreign factions - there after everything was handled automatically. Often, not even that was needed - you traded trade-contacts (!) with any faction more quickly.

Pretty lame.

But why does it necessarily *have* to be the camel/freight unit that initiates the trade-contact? As far as im concerned ANY unit could automatically initiate (only initiate, however) such a trade-contacts.

If you for example, have discovered 3 foreign cities early on, busy uncovering the map with your triremes, warrior-scouts or explorers; then these 3 forreign cities is automatically available on a trade-screen "back home" so to speak. You could then choose to select any your own marketplace-equipped cities in the left-pane of your trade-screen, and permanently "establish" the route by selecting one of the 3 newly discovered forreign cities in the right pane. No need for camels/frights moving in ships. The bright idea about this solution is that you can rearrange your growing trade-route list to more profitable ones later on in the game, simply by point-and-click.

This way one *still* have that economical drive to explore the whole map (that was so sadly missing in SMAC) - yet, avoiding that strenuous work of navigating perhaps 15 cities x 3 camels = 45 camels around the world.

The camel/freight unit itself should be reduced to internal speed-building and food-emergensys, if anything.

[This message has been edited by Ralf (edited October 25, 2000).]

[Matthew]

quote: Originally posted by rremus on 10-23-2000 08:24 AM No, kill the camel! With the current model you have to wait centuries for a caravan to reach some far away part of the map! Traders have a strong motivation, greed, and should move fast across the map. They should bring you news about other civs progress and act much as the Great Library wonder. If the caravan remains an unit, as in current game, then I would like to be able to use other civs ships as well to travel. If they have space available on board, I could pay them to take my caravan along with them.

This isn't necessarily so. If you only want the route, and don't care about the bonus, just send the camel to the nearest forign city. Distance and demand are irrelevant to trade routes. Only being off continent, and a forign city matter, aside from total trade.

As far as taking centuries to get a caravan to its location, the same can be said for an invading Army. Granted, the game should be made in such a way that you don't need to move your military units to fight either. Just build the units, and click the city you want to attack. Presto, instant attack, half way around the world. But that would be pretty lame.

And by the way, one can move a caravan half way around the world, even early on, if you are willing to expend the resources on ships.

For people who don't like to move their own caravans, an option could be included to establish the trade route automatically once you build the caravan. Just build the Camel, click on the second party shipping option, click on the destination city, and presto, the caravan disapears. A a few turns later, or more, the caravan arrives (most of the time. there should still be some risk). You get the trade route, but no initial bonus.

Somehow I think that many people have never found that they can consistently get 200 to 600 gold from trade route bonuses, even early on. (Thousands later). I think that's why you, too, do not love the Camel.

Surely there is a way to do this to make both Camel lovers and Camel haters happy.



------------------
The camel is not a part of civ.

THE CAMEL IS CIV !!!!

SAVE THE CAMEL !!!!!!

[rremus]

I agree in the sense that the importance of trade is underestimated in CIV. But there is too much effort invested in building caravans and sending them unprotected across the world.
A medium city spends around 10 turns to build a caravan. It takes another 10-15 turns (granted you have at least a Caravel available!) until the caravn it reaches some far part of the world. By then, the destination city that demanded your good probably found another suplier...
I think the whole process should take 3-5 turns!
If they decide to keep the Camel in the game (I sincerely doubt that...) it should at least move like the Explorer.
Also, shields caravans should be available, functioning similar like the food caravans.
And the ideea of getting advances from trade contacts is also important. Think only at advances that come from Asia via the Silk Road!
Regards,
Remus

[Father Beast]

quote: Originally posted by Matthew on 10-22-2000 11:28 PM Camels, as they are now, provide an entirely new aspect to a game. They provide an entirely different strategy focus, for example. Instead of focusing on happy wonders, Super Science City wonders, or military wonders, one can focus instead on wonders that make trade routes better and easier to establish. Lighthouse can allow one to take advantage of the early trade route bonus to distant places, and Magellans later on allows you to get the product to a distant land much faster, before the commodity changes or someone closer by fills the demand.

Matthew, I have recently learned to use my camels and trucks effectively, such as when I conquer an enemy city with 2 piddling routes, and getting them the good routes puts it into almost permanent WLTPday from having a couple of unhappy heads. I must say it has become a fun and engrossing part of the game.

on the wonders side, I once suggested a "Wall Street" wonder which would allow the city to have 10 - 15 trade routes. I can see you drooling now!!

[Frugal_Gourmet]

I agree: camel stays.

If they drop the camel, they must add a pack animal of equal or greater coolness to the game.

[Ralf]

In Civ-3 they *must* get rid of that tedious "move around camels in caravels" thing, but at the same time, they *must* implement some economical motivation to visit as many forreign AI-cities as possible (with any unit).

I want it both ways! By the way: sending of camel-units with the send-to command isnt a solution. Any AI:s pathfinding ability is horrible.

[Tiberius]

First of all, I'd like to say that I think (almost) everybody around here agree that trade must have a more important role in Civ3 that had in Civ2, with or without camels.

In the camel issue, I'm with Matthew. For those people who don't like camels, his idea is the best way:

quote: For people who don't like to move their own caravans, an option could be included to establish the trade route automatically once you build the caravan. Just build the Camel, click on the second party shipping option, click on the destination city, and presto, the caravan disapears. A a few turns later, or more, the caravan arrives (most of the time. there should still be some risk).