Caravans and Wonders

Drago Sinio · October 16, 2002, 13:41

Havent played CIV2 in a while, a bit rusty. The AI just beat the hell out of me in a game! Cool.

Question: Is it generally considered better to send your caravan(s) to the city building a wonder and cash it in that way, or to send the caravan/freight to a distant city that demands the trade goods, so you get the science beakers, and use the gold to buy the wonder?

Maybe keep some caravans "warehoused" in case the AI is about to build it before you have enough gold saved up?

It seems to me it must be better to get the extra science, but like I say the AI is smarter than I am, so..?

solo · October 16, 2002, 13:58

Since deliveries can take a while, this probably depends on how badly you need the wonder. If you can afford to wait and are fairly sure of a safe delivery, and are able to make over 200 gold by trade, I think it is smarter to go that route, since you boost science, build up more trade arrows, and end up with more gold than it would have cost to buy the equivalent number of shields needed to construct the wonder.

Drago Sinio · October 16, 2002, 14:07

Its hard to figure out how much trade you will get for a particular caravan, though, it seems to vary wildly. And I just hate it when you travel a distance to a particular city, and by the time you get there- they are no longer interested in your goods. But if it were easy to figure out- it would not be so much fun.

solo · October 16, 2002, 19:22

For costs see Samson's post. He has figured it all out and has conveniently presented his results in a new post today.

I commiserate and agree that chasing demand can often be frustrating. It always seems to change just when I'm one turn away from making a big delivery, too! I'm just salivating over all the gold I'm expecting, and then it happens again! Too often, I believe, to just be a coincidence. Grrr!

rah · October 17, 2002, 08:31

I had the worst one. I was moving a caravan to my stc. on the road network and as I was passing through the last city in line before the stc, it said that the commodity was demanded. I thought "what the heck, that city could use a route" it still had 2/3 movement left so I moved the caravan out of the city to move it back in and now it wasn't demanded. Oh well.

Rich

Messer Niccolò · October 17, 2002, 10:01

Quote:

Originally posted by rah
....I thought "what the heck, that city could use a route" it still had 2/3 movement left so I moved the caravan out of the city to move it back in and now it wasn't demanded. Oh well.

Rich

... greedy man...

rah · October 17, 2002, 13:44

Yes, I've had them change many times the turn before delivering, but never the same turn. Since I didn't do anything else between, denying delivery must obviously be able to change demand. I might be able to put that to use. I've tested it a few other times, without results.

Rich

-Jrabbit · October 17, 2002, 15:25

Now that's just a bit weird. I always assumed that any changes HAD to be between turns. Very interesting tidbit, Rich...

Scouse Gits · October 18, 2002, 06:45

I sometimes feel that the Trade Advisor is a liar!

SG[1]

Scouse Gits · October 18, 2002, 07:10

...yes he tells many porkies, especially where uranium is concerned. In every game where a spaceship is involved F5 will occasionally show one or two cities that supply the stuff. So you open the city windows to rush build freights only to find no uranium supply. Back to F5 and the guy on the desk says ... "Nah, nobody supplies that stuff guv"

-------------------------

SG(2)

solo · October 19, 2002, 15:00

Another fiendish AI trick is to block the direct path of your caravan when it has just enough movement points to reach a city demanding its goods. Next turn, the demand for your cargo disappears!

debeest · October 22, 2002, 22:22

RAH, the case you describe may be similar to what we were discussing here recently. I noted that when I saved a game and then reopened it, there were lots of cities demanding dye, according to the trade advisor; but each time I looked at the city itself, it didn't demand dye, and then the trade advisor didn't list it as demanding dye either. In your case, as you passed through, the city may have invited you to deliver your cargo, based on the trade advisor reading, but then when you tried to deliver it, the re"calculation" said no. Yet another reason to arrow-cycle through all your cities at the beginning of each turn.

rah · October 23, 2002, 09:45

I don't think it's the same, since I got the popup saying it was demanded the first pass through. It wasn't from the trade advisor screen.

debeest · October 23, 2002, 13:24

I was thinking that passing through might trigger a look only at the trade adviser, producing a popup, but it didn't look at actual demand until you tried to deliver.

Elephant · October 23, 2002, 14:11

That would be pretty sick of Sid and his team, to give us a Trade Advisor that lies...

rah · October 23, 2002, 14:47

Quote:

Originally posted by debeest
I was thinking that passing through might trigger a look only at the trade adviser, producing a popup, but it didn't look at actual demand until you tried to deliver.

If that was the case, then when i tried to redeliver it to the city I would have gotten the same popup, which I did not. ?????

I did nothing in between. Moved into city (using keep moving option) moving one square out and one square back and got a different popup. hmmmmm So it's reasonable to expect that choosing "keep moving" played a role in the change. We play no alliance games/with no tech trading, so no one could have been trading techs at the time. Since it was my turn, no one could have been stealing techs or experiencing city growth. The only other possiblility is that someone else was checking out the trade advisor. Hmmmmmm. I'd hate to think that just looking at it creates change. I'd rather buy that it hasn't refreshed yet.

Straybow · October 25, 2002, 01:10

Yeah, I've often thought that some perverse programmer put something in there to detect approaching caravans and left-click commodity checks…

Scouse Gits · October 25, 2002, 05:32

Quote:

Originally posted by debeest
I was thinking that passing through might trigger a look only at the trade adviser, producing a popup, but it didn't look at actual demand until you tried to deliver.

However unlikely this may sound - it could be correct -- I have sometimes observed that despite the pop-up saying "this commodity is demanded" the pay-off has belied the statement - mayhap one needs to click on the city prior to delivery in order to refresh whatever source is being used for this 'data'

SG[1]

rah · October 25, 2002, 09:28

I'm more likely to believe that. I've seen some crappy pays when it was demanded when I expected much better.

-Jrabbit · October 25, 2002, 09:30

Definitely a ditto to that, rah.

solo · October 25, 2002, 09:49

I agree with SG, about clicking on a city to refresh its current (and actual) demands, and suspect that this information is not updated until that is done. I suspect the trade advisor is only updated in between turns, so it's possible for it to show what used to be in demand.

There are times when odd changes to supply and demand occur after building some city improvements, especially aqueducts, which appear when you use "zoom to city" right after building. Afterwards, if you investigate that city again, it has returned to "normal", with the original (actual) supply and demands returning to where they were before.

War4ever · November 9, 2002, 15:51

i believe the discovery of tech plays a role in supply and demands as well.....i can't prove it, but so often when i discover tech, or a wonder is built, payoffs, and commodities change......

and i know there are certain techs which trigger this, that has been discussed before, i just wonder if tech plays a bigger role than we think