Trade in 1650 AD

cavebear · November 13, 2002, 20:50

There is nothing useful that I can see to poll about this session. There are 7 Caravans of low-value items (hides, beads, gold, wool) nearing or intended for CAPITOL for use in building the next Wonders (and there are 3 there waiting). Most other Caravans are aboard our fine new Caravel fleet and heading for cities which greatly desire the goods they are carrying (silk, dye, gems, and coal).

Nine of our cities are now able to trade silk or spice, which will make excellent trade goods when Caravans can be built in those cities (4 of which are starting to do so).

There are 2 Wine Caravans waiting to be transported, for which Leptis Parva appears to be the best target (both can arrive there at the same time, being close together near Granada).

So, the future looks bright for our trading network.

The previous Caravan poll decided that about half our Caravans should go for Trade and half for building Wonders, so I will let that stand for now. We can re-evaluate that after the next session.

The floor is open for discussion...

BruceTheStupid · November 13, 2002, 21:03

Quote:

The previous Caravan poll decided that about half our Caravans should go for Trade and half for building Wonders, so I will let that stand for now. We can re-evaluate that after the next session.

Seems reasonable until we're closer to Hoover.

cavebear · November 13, 2002, 21:57

I should mention that we have 18 active Caravans and 9 in production. As Minister of Trade, I can hardly object to that, but there are city structures that increase the value of existing trade, and it wouldn't hurt to have more of those either. I am not convinced we can win an A/C game based on "medieval era" trade only.

Should we continue to have so many cities producing Caravans (valuable as they are) ? Nine of 23 cities are building Caravans.

AHA, a subject for a poll!

H Tower · November 13, 2002, 23:48

i think that after 2 trade routes from a city, it should build a marketplace

that was just a random thought though, the trade minister might want to look at our cities and the build queues that he has in mind of whether that would be a good idea.

Hydey · November 14, 2002, 06:02

whitegoods such as markets and banks can be paid for by the $ gained from caravans

atawa · November 14, 2002, 14:41

How does our trademinister propose we ship our caravans after Demo?

Imho we should halt caravan production and delivery in the period between turning demo and getting Magnetism. Focussing on building improvements

cavebear · November 14, 2002, 14:48

Quote:

Originally posted by atawa
How does our trademinister propose we ship our caravans after Demo?

Is there some reason our Caravels will be unsuited to the task?

atawa · November 14, 2002, 14:51

Yes, they will make 2 citizens unhappy in their homecity

BruceTheStupid · November 14, 2002, 15:50

Quote:

Originally posted by atawa
Yes, they will make 2 citizens unhappy in their homecity

A trick I like to use (and I'm sure others must do to) between Rep & Demo is to have a settler build a city on a coastal Plains square with 1 or 2 defenders from a different city. Then I build a Caravel as the first build item then "rush buy" (or bring in a Caravel from another city and change it's home to here) before the city's food supply passes the halfway mark. Once the trireme is built, convert the only citizen to Elvis, and hey presto, you have a city size 1 with static population, and no production (it's only supported unit is the Caravel). Elvis keeps the city from disorder.

It can be relatively costly in terms of units/waste of a settler to have a static size 1 city and defend it, but it's sometimes worth it to have a Caravel you can use to your hearts desire, moving units and setting up trade routes. With a smaller civ though, the cost can outweigh the benefits.

I set up this city during Republic, whilst defenders can be moved in easily without unhappiness.

atawa · November 14, 2002, 16:17

Good point

I forgot about that one sonce I seldom play 1x1x deity anymore.

-Jrabbit · November 14, 2002, 16:17

I've never tried this, but it sounds like a great way around the happiness problems. Plus, we have plenty of city sites, so all we need is to repurpose a few settlers.

We can call it the Stupid Strategy.

mrboo123 · November 14, 2002, 17:32

Ya, great name, but a better name is the Bruce Srategy!

cavebear · November 15, 2002, 09:27

Quote:

Originally posted by atawa
Yes, they will make 2 citizens unhappy in their homecity

Many of the Caravels are far away from a port they can harbor in to avoid unhappiness problems. It will be at least 23 turns (minus whatever trading beaker benefits we get) before we can get Magnetism and they upgrade to Galleons (solving the unhappiness problem). Surely we do not want to stop trading for that long?

I expected we would need to wait to become a Democracy until we could handle the resulting unhappiness from Caravel use or overcome the unhappiness in specific cities with colliseums, etc.

-Jrabbit · November 15, 2002, 09:53

Can we get a survey of our existing fleet? It would help to know where they're homed, where they are, etc. It may actually prove smart to disband a couple distant boats that are non-contributing (except for red faces).

It's generally understood that, to trade while in Demo, you need to distribute your fleet, no more than one boat homed per city. Rushing coliseums is a definite option.

With intelligent planning, I see no reason we can't transition to Demo pretty quickly. We'll need to boost Luxuries and hire a few Elvi to handle boats at sea, but that shouldn't stop us. WLTCD growth won't happen in cities with boats (initially), but our other cities will do fine.

City Planner, Imperial Expansion Minister, and/or Hydey, can we address these issues and start work on our TRANSITION TO DEMOCRACY PLAN, please?

Hydey · November 15, 2002, 17:11

no city has more than 1 boat supported by it

atawa · November 15, 2002, 23:36

But can those city's survive a stray boat in Demo?

Our gouverment will fall if any city is unhappy for more then 1 turn in Demo

And I dont expect uor president wanting to mass shift workers every turn.

We need to adress this problem asap

BruceTheStupid · November 16, 2002, 04:43

Quote:

Originally posted by cavebear

Many of the Caravels are far away from a port they can harbor in to avoid unhappiness problems. It will be at least 23 turns (minus whatever trading beaker benefits we get) before we can get Magnetism and they upgrade to Galleons (solving the unhappiness problem). Surely we do not want to stop trading for that long?

******
Originally posted by -Jrabbit

I've never tried this, but it sounds like a great way around the happiness problems. Plus, we have plenty of city sites, so all we need is to repurpose a few settlers.
We can call it the Stupid Strategy.

It depends what we want to pursue in research. If we can make do with caravels for a while (limited cargo space and fewer moves) because we have limited numbers of Caravans to send/limited distances to send them, rather than research Magnetism, we may want to focus on something else.

The more turns it would take to get to Magnetism, the more advantageous devoting a size 1 city to Caravel support becomes. We could wait for someone else to discover Magnetism and trade for it if we then don't really "need" it.

I always believed I played with a Stupid Strategy, I just never specified any particular part of it as Stupid before....