Trade and Supply Routes for Civ4

[johncmcleod]

Trade routes seriously need to be added. They have been extremely important throughout history, and many nations have struggled to gain control of them. The Persians held the trade routes to the east and became very rich because of it. Maybe a civ in contact with another civ should have trade routes with that civ. They'd go across roads and whatever type of water allowed. Anyway, if a road is more frequently traveled upon it by those routes it would generate more commerce. For example, if France's and Britain's only trade route was through a small group of roads owned by Persia, Persia would get a lot of extra cash. Also, if one nation's only trade routes go through another country, the country owning those routes could tax the other nation.

Trade routes could also be out on the sea. Shipping really needs to be added also. The system could be like this: if England is at war with Germany, and England has 5 trade routes going across the sea to island America and is trading with America, and Germany has a ship on one of those five trade routes, Germany has a 20% chance of intercepting the ship carrying the supplies. When a supply ship is intercepted, neither England or America get what the trade was for 1 turn (ie no oil or gold for 1 turn) and Germany gets whatever was in the ship. If the ship was oil for England and 2gpt for America, than Germany gets oil for that turn and two gold.

Intercepting a trade ship can only happen if you are at war with at least one of the two parties. If one of those parties is not at war with you it will hurt their attitude towards you. Also, you can set the shipping for a certain route. For example, you could put one of your ships on each square of one of the trade routes and tell the trade to happen along that route and they couldn't intercept your ship, unless of course they sink a ship and move a ship on that route. If this happens the enemy ship on that trade route would have a certain percent chance of intercepting the trade ship. I haven't decided how that could be determined. Keep in mind that the trade ship isn't a real unit. When it is intercepted you don't see it sink or anything, the effects just happen.

Another thing that needs to be added is supply routes. They are very important in real life. Cutting off the enemies supplies has been a very vital part to many military campaigns in real life. The system would be very simple. If there is a route with no enemies on any of its squares from a city to a unit (the route can be across water), the unit gets supply. If there isn't such a route, the unit doesn't. After the unit goes 3 turns without supply, it loses one hitpoint per turn until it does get supply. It can die if it has one hitpoint left and goes another turn without supply.

Of course it isn't perfectly realistic, for example Patton had a supply route during the liberation of France but he didn't get supplies because he advanced so fast. But my system is way more realistic than having no supply lines at all.

[johncmcleod]

Oh come on. I want some feedback!!!!

[vmxa1]

I can only say I was not fond of trade routes in CTP, nor caravans in CivII, so it would need a very good implementation.

[johncmcleod]

Well what do you think of my implementation? Anyway, it needs to be in the game somehow.

[bongo]

There are trade routes already, sort of. But they are invisible. Your trade network can only go in own, friendly or neutral territory. It can be blocked by enemy units or barbarians, and it needs roads, airports, harbours and certain techs to allow cities an civ to be connected. In fact I think the current system is very good. If I were to change anything I would make it easier to perform a blockade of the trade lanes. And maybe make the trade network visible in a way.

[stonewall]

I think your suggestions are realistic, but for gameplay they may be too much micromanagement. Imagine having to worry about supply lines for your 80 units in enemy territory...is there a clear line here, how many turns has this unit been without supplies.....

[johncmcleod]

I don't think it would be too much micromanagement. You'd just have to make sure the enemy wasn't at your rear and make sure you weren't surrounded. If you had 80 units, it would be hard for them to surround you. And as for trade routes, you'd just try to clear the seas.

Another great reason for trade routes would be that it would make naval units much more powerful, as powerful as real life.

[johncmcleod]

is there a clear line here, how many turns has this unit been without supplies.....

How about when you select a unit, it says how many turns without supply in the box in the lower right hand corner.

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

Hi there JM,

First chance I've had, so far, to give my 'input' to this topic!! First of all, on the face of it, your ideas look excellent, though I would say that most of them should not have to wait until Civ4, as I feel they are do-able within the framework of the current Civ3 game engine!! I'd also like to add these suggestions:

Trade Routes:

1) Internal trade, on the same land mass, occurs automatically given the appropriate infrastructure (roads etc). Trade between empires requires either a trading post (tp), if over land and a TP and harbour if overseas. Internal trade between seperate land masses requires a harbour.

2) The number of relevent improvements determines the maximum # of active trades you can have between empires. eg if you have 6 TP's and 6 harbours, then you can have a total of 6 OL trades and 6 OS trades at once!

3) When you make a trade with an empire, you should get a pop-up box asking you what 'strength' you want the route to be. The 'stronger' you make the trade route, the more it costs to initiate and maintain it, and the more difficult it is to successfully interdict or pirate. Also, the stronger it is, the easier it is to see. This 'Strength' represents assigning escorts to your 'trading' vessels.

4) An enemy can, if he sees the trade route, choose to either interdict it, or pirate it. You don't need to be at war with the Civ, but an attack on an allies or Trade partners trade routes would be a decleration of hostility (if they know it was you who did it ).

5) The chance of seeing an enemy trade route is based on it's strength, distance of route (all trade routes would be the shortest points between the trading Civs respective cities) and the distance of the unit from the trade route. Subs and Privateers would get a bonus to seeing enemy trade routes!!

6) Interdicting or pirating a trade route is like a standard attack. If your unit loses, it dies (but it can retreat) if it wins then it either breaks the trade route permanently, or it breaks it for one turn, with the attacker recieving the benefit of the resource and/or gold for 1 turn! Again, privateers and subs get bonuses to these kinds of attacks.

7) Internal trade between land masses works like inter-Civ trade, in that it produces a trade route which can be attacked. On the trade advisor screen, you would be able to adjust the strength of the trade route (default=0) at a cost, of course!!

8) Supply routes should work on the principle of unit 'range'. All units should have a range, outside of friendly territory, which they can operate in (editable of course). If they stray from this, then the next turn they take damage-according to how many tiles they are outside of their range. The only way to increase range is to capture cities and base the units there (once they are stabilised, they count as friendly territory for range purposes) or build forts, attached to a road which connects back to a city in friendly territory!! Your units range is then calculated based on the fort (aka resupply base). Spec-op units like Guerillas and Paratroopers would obviously have very long range, as would settlers and workers. Units on ships would count as being in friendly territory, and the transport would count as a fort for any invasion attempts. The ship, itself, would have it's own range-using the same principles.

9) If a unit destroys or captures a fort or the road connecting it back to a friendly city, then it no longer counts as 'friendly' territory!! This would be a great range of destroying a strong attacker, by stranding them deep in enemy territory-far outside their range (and suffering damage each turn!!) Also, it makes guarding you supply lines that much more IMPORTANT, and adds a new element to combat!!

Anyway, I hope you like ALL of my ideas. Any feedback would be appreciated .

Yours,
The_Aussie_Lurker.

[SpencerH]

I've been *****ing about trade routes/supply for years. I always felt that in previous incarnations they were a micromanagement pain. But that was playing SP where I am a peaceable type person who just wants to build a spaceship! The MP/PBEM game is much more combat oriented and requires a more complex trade/supply system. Wouldnt it be nice to have a reason to build a navy? Wouldnt it be interesting to have a real reason to build privateers? How about the new land-based stealth units, is there anyone who questions the value of partisans or special forces destroying supplies? I realize that this wont work for the SP game because of the AI trade-off but that doesnt mean there couldnt be a seperate implementation for MP games. We just take our pick, simple or complex.

[Insigna]

I had an idea similar to this just the other day. I was thinking that instead of having workers build roads they would automaticly apear somehow. There would be less roads and Rail Roads like one to conect each city to every other city. This would make cutting the roads off more of an option. Also deffeding lines of transportation would be more important taking away some of that feel that the civ is just a collection of citys that many players dislike.

Also not to go too far off topic I think Civ 4 should have religion implemented somehow.

Ok well those are just some ideas I had come up with and they are sort of on the same line of thinking as John's ideas.

[Patroklos]

Hey All,

I actually liked the CtP type trade routs with a few exceptions....

1) They could be very erratic, i.e you could not determine where it would run hence you could have your most important routes running over the territory of a semi-belligerent, who, when you do go to war with will instantly sever them.

2) they ould normally cut over water and land, conviniently at small ismuthes (sp) so your naval/land units could never follow them all the way.

------

I would say we use the CtP concept with a few exceptions.

1) You could pick where the routes lay. This way you can have your routes go around a particular belligerent (most countries change their routes to avoid hostiles). However, there is a one time cost to establishing a route, based on how long it is (lets say 5 gold per tile) so only wealthy nations could support truly worldwide trade and players would be discouraged from creating excessivly long routes.

2) when it gets pirated by an enemy or unknown unit, the route isn't destroyed, but merely interrupted for a turn deniying either party the traded resource of that turn.

3) Internal country trade within the same landmass would contine as before.

4) Industrial level trade (i.e. most of the resources and luxuiries in civ) would not be allowed through airports, as even in this day and age 90% of frieght moves over the sea.

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

I couldn't agree with you more, Patroklos !! Now, if only the people at Firaxis/Atari would implement the idea, we would be set .

Yours,
The_Aussie_Lurker.

[GhengisFarb™]

I like the caravans in Civ 2 and the trade routes in various other games. I was very suprised they eliminated that aspect in Civ3. I just assume its because they couldn't figure out how to program it.

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by johncmcleod
I don't think it would be too much micromanagement. You'd just have to make sure the enemy wasn't at your rear and make sure you weren't surrounded. If you had 80 units, it would be hard for them to surround you. And as for trade routes, you'd just try to clear the seas.

Another great reason for trade routes would be that it would make naval units much more powerful, as powerful as real life.

I aspect is the impact on the game itself. I mean the amount of cpu needed to handle tracking/calculating supplies. If you have played on a really huge map wiht max civ, you will not want anything that will make the processing takes longer.
The game has a hard time now with trade, when a city is added or lost.

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

That's why I feel that supply lines should be simply represented by forts connected to roads, and have units with operational ranges!! It will require little micromanagement-but still make long combat engagements MORE strategic in nature!!

Yours,
The_Aussie_Lurker.

[johncmcleod]

Another thing that needs to be added-when a unit travels on a railroad, that is the end of the turn for it. It is loaded up onto the train and can travel a very long way in one turn but it can't fight.

It is kind of dumb that a unit halfway across the world is teleported and then fights on the front.

I totally agree about

There would be less roads and Rail Roads like one to conect each city to every other city. This would make cutting the roads off more of an option. Also deffeding lines of transportation would be more important taking away some of that feel that the civ is just a collection of citys that many players dislike.

In real life, there isn't a railroad going in every direction. Battles were fought at important transportation locations (ie The First Battle of Bull Run was fought at Manassas Junction because it was an important rail location).

[vmxa1]

Remember the animation of the railroad having a train engine? Anyway I understand that the RR is hardcoded in the game. so not much is going to happen to it.

[Sheik]

The current system is very good. Though maybe when a road is damaged the roads around it could also have a chance of being ruined.