Trade

[Wallace]

Is trade useful? Who should you trade with - your own or other civs? Does it matter if the good is in demand?

Any help gratefully appreciated.

[Jarouik]

Wow, it is great Civ 2 is still getting new players, five years after it came out... I take it you are new to Civ 2 since I haven't seen basic questions like that asked here for a long time - no offence intended
(I am new to these boards myself - this is my fourth post, but I have played Civ 2 for years.)

In answer to your question: it seems at least here that people are of various opinions as regards whether trade is useful and whether you should build lots of Caravans or not. I myself haven't traded much, but have rather expanded my empire so that I can win even without it, but others find it completely essential to winning the game at all - it depends on your playing style. It is always better to trade with other civs than your own, if possible, since the revenues from establishing a trade route are higher, and if the good is in demand, you will get much more money. In addition, the size and distance of the two cities affect the profit earned, and if the target city is on a different continent than yours, you will also get more gold. In short, sending a caravan from a large city of yours to a large city of another civilization on another continent on the other side of the world with goods that that city demands will give you huge amounts of gold, whereas establishing trade routes between two of your own small cities that are close to each other, while easier, will not give you much profit. It should also be remembered that whenever you get gold from establishing a trade route, the same amount of beakers is immediately added to your research towards the next discovery, so trading boosts your science as well.

If anyone has some more specific information or personal views on trading, please comment. I know stuff like this can be found in the manual, but it is nice to help out new people playing Civ.

[East Street Trader]

Yes, it is. If you play in a perfectionist style (that is spacing your cities out to allow them to grow and building improvements) it is vital.

The bonus in gold and beakers which you get when a carravan/freight arrives is larger if the city is foreign (and producing a comparable number of arrows per turn) than if it is your own (and larger also in either case if the target city is on a different landmass). The value (in arrows per turn) of the route established is also greater for a foreign route.

This does not mean that it is always wrong to trade with your own cities. One particular advantage of a local route is that both your cities get the value of that local route each turn. Establishing the route is likely to take less time - sometimes much less - and to be safer. Early on, especially, trade between your own cities is not at all a bad idea. I have noticed that a route with your capital is always worth one trade arrow per turn right from the outset so establishing three routes to that city is certainly worth considering. Furthermore you will give a higher priority to improving the arrow count in your cities (by locating well, growing fast working trade specials and land improvements) so local trading with your own high arrow cities may be as good as trading with a foreign city that is small and which is likely to have few arrows (no river, few roads, no fish/whale, no Collosus).

Whether the commodity is in demand or not makes no difference to the long term value of the route but makes a very substantial difference to the up front gold/beaker bonus. You should aim to deliver your high value commodities (those in the collumn on the right) to foreign cities on a different landmass where the goods are in demand. And in an ideal world you deliver each when there is still a goodish way to go in beaker count to get to your next tech advance (the beaker bonus is influenced in some measure by that factor - press F6 before delivering). But this is easier said than done.
[This message has been edited by East Street Trader (edited April 23, 2001).]

[Wallace]

I always trade a lot, usually as you suggest with other civs' big cities. But I recently read another opinion suggesting that the mutual civ-wide benefits from, trading with your own cities was greater than that of foreign trade (i.e. saves you building caravans in both cities if you can build in one and just send it over).

I know that the initial payment is less for your own cities, but do people think that the overall benefit in increased trade is worth it?

I realise now that I should perhaps have asked a less 'basic' question, but I just wanted a general debate on whether others bother to trade as caravans et al are expensive.

[Laertes]

If you are building a Super Science City, the amount of trade beakers it is producing can be so high that you can generate decent amounts of gold and beakers.

The upsides of DIY trade:

- you can complete the transaction much quicker, and even 20-50 one-off gold and beakers, and 2 arrows every turn, can be really valuable early on
- it can be difficult to get your trade to the foreign city if you do not know where it is, and are trying to find it with a trireme. Lots of resources tied up for a long time, and at risk of being shot down
- your own cities might be connected by roads, which earns a bonus according to the manual
- you can fiddle with the worker allocation of both cities to maximise the trade payoff

The downsides are the much smaller bonuses and the difficulty of matching the commodities.

[East Street Trader]

Well, I think there are strategic considerations at work.

I have certainly played whole games where I (virtually) traded only with my own cities (a sort of isolationism). This can fit well with a strategy which aims at producing a slow but very secure win either by AC or through gradual well planned conquest.

You do not entail the risks of foreign trade, do not need to give so high a priority to exploration, developing speedy communications nor to diplomacy. The modest arrow count provided by the local routes is well enough to allow you to continue steady expansion in Monarchy and to keep your cities productive despite the increasing effect of corruption. You have no interference with the conduct of your military campaigns and three maintenance free units per city keeps your usable shield production very high. Your cities grow naturally, not through WLT-Ds.

If you can find effective ways to cripple one A1 civ after the other you need not fear them keeping up with you in the tech race. You certainly know that you are not gifting them lots of arrows/beakers turn by turn by establishing routes for them with your higher arrow count cities.

An alternative extreme lies in the strat I have been playing in my last few games. After Monarchy go Mapmaking, Pottery, Seafaring then on to Navigation. That allows speedy early exploration. Next go for Trade and start building caravans. Then go early Republic. Use accumulated cash to rush build harbours and temples. Turn up luxuries and celebrate. Deliver caravans in best foreign ports (good exploration plus trading maps allows you to plan well for this).

The point of the strat has been to make your trading very productive. You will typically get bonuses up in the high two hundreds and were you to pull off a gold delivery from your capital 400 is attainable.

Now you can go various ways - another round of city building and repeat the cycle is a possible; use the sudden, trade based tech acquisition to get a military window (the super-Ironclad beckons); or go hell for leather towards a space ship, OCC style.

This is altogether riskier. The wheels can come off in half a hundred ways.

I find both extremes fun - and lots of intermediate strategies too.

So, I fear, that adds up to the horny old non-answer that starts "Well, it all depends ...".