Attacking Trade routes.(yes its possible)

[markusf]

Time to share more secrets

If civ A and Civ B have a trade route between city A and B if you place any kind of unit(ie caravan, pikemen etc) Anywhere along the optimal path between those 2 cities the trade routes will be cut in half(road railroad bonus's are droped). This means with a size 50 route it will turn into size 25 or less.

How ever if there is another city on the optimal path, it gets a little more complicated. If a rome route is going to babalyon and Veii happens to be in between then only way to interupt that trade route is to put a unit between veii and rome.

[markusf]

A good example of this is if someone has an SSC. you land with 5 engineers and 3 vet alpine troops... Land the ski troops first, fortify on the optimal path... one engineer then builds a fort and the other 4 build a forest on 1 turn... If you send in diplomats on the same turn you can destroy all the improvements in the city... All trade routes to all cities connected to the SSC are cut by 50% by your troops + whatever workers the guy has to take off to keep the SSC from rebelling. Since many people send all trade routes to the SSC, you could cut total output of the civ by at least 50-70%....

[Marquis de Sodaq]

I've always enjoyed pillaging, so the latter idea sounds like fun! Tearing up roads and collapsing mines - then waiting for the repair crew to show up to die has always given me a cruel laugh. Partisans are good cuz they get a x8 attack bonus against non-combat units.

I knew about cutting the trade route between two cities, but not about the situation with the 3rd city in between. That could come in handy sometime.

[Sarxis]

So basically what you are saying is that the trade routes are actually there on the map, but invisible?

Hmm, too bad I didn't know about this a couple years ago...

[Messer Niccolò]

Originally posted by markusf
you could cut total output of the civ by at least 50-70%....

.. and in a single turn...
Very, very very nasty