FIRAXIS: Trade Tweaks

[Inverse Icarus]

i have a few tweaks for the diplomacy / trading screen, probably too late but what the hell.

Being able to "minimize" the trade window and look all over the map would be great, especially for trading cities. sure you could exit out and go right back, but with human players it would get annoying.

Being able to trade units is essential (stated before).

Beig Able to trade multiples of the same resource would be wonderful. it would also lead to alliances to get around embargos, and middle men to trades. imagine being the first civ to navigation, and becomming a "merchant" civ. buying luxuries from one side of the world and selling them to the other side, for a smell markup of course. quite realistic of anciet times too

theres more and im sure the community will chime in. later

[Dimorier Maximus]

I'd like the foreign adviser screen and the the lists (such as the "Toynbee wrote in his book the following: The largest civilizations") to show SIXTEEN civs instead of just 8 at a time. And if we can play with more than 16 civs in a single game, then the number should be increased. I hate having to shift + click on the foreign advisor screen (even if they made it two screens like the tech tree, it would be better), and I would like to be able to see how all the civs in the game rank in advancement, power, or size when those lists pop up instead of just the top 8.

[zulu9812]

I'd like to see trade routes visible on the map so that they can be pirated and blockaded, thus fulfilling the actual function of pre-industrial naval conflict. But that was in CTP2, so Firaxis'll never use it...

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

I have long argued for clear trade routes to be marked-out on the map in Civ3! This was, along with stacked combat, one of the few things about CtP that I liked. I particularly enjoyed going off and pirating the trade routes of a rival nation!
Such a feature would be simple to implement, and would make such things as submarines and pirates more realistic, as well as making embargoes easier to implement!
With such a system, you'd have to have a few extra unit flags, such as:

1) Break trade route: This is what you need for an embargo. This could be done without sparking a war. Obviously the flag could apply to both naval and ground units!

2) Pirate Trade route: This would give your nation a financial bonus, as well as having a chance of breaking the trade route. This could spark a war UNLESS the unit commiting the Piracy had the "no-nation" flag.

3) Attack Trade Route: This could be used to simulate a Wolf-Pack attack. It would be like 1), except that it is a clear declaration of war!

I also think that, though the caravan and freight should NOT come back, you should need to build both improvements and immobile units to enable trade agreements, again a la CtP. For example, say you want to trade oil to England and incence to the Romans, you'd need two trade units in order to both. You couldn't make the second trade until you build the second unit! There would also be different versions of this unit with new enabling technologies. These more advanced units would have features like: improved range, improved defense strength (and possibly attack strength) which reflects the "strength" of a trade route, and thus it's ability to resist "subversion", an ability to form multiple trade routes per units etc! You should also be able to "rebase" a trade unit if you have an appropriate, trade-related, improvement.
Anyway, that's my $0.02c on this issue! I just hope they will turn our dream into reality!

Yours,
The_Aussie_Lurker.

[WarpStorm]

You can blockade trade routes as it is now. I've done it. It can be hard to do as every possible way between the source of the resource (either a resource square or another empire's capital) and the city in question must be blockaded. This includes other ports on the same road net and any neighboring civs' that they are friendly with (not just those with an ROP), too. Once they get airports it is nearly impossible.

Showing all of the possible paths that trade could be going over may be a bit unwieldy.

Raiding would be cool though.

[Taso_84]

Aussie lurker your right, they should have included stacked attack. I also reckon they should have adopted the public works concept and at least have advanced mines and irrigation.

[Coracle]

Originally posted by Taso_84
Aussie lurker your right, they should have included stacked attack. I also reckon they should have adopted the public works concept and at least have advanced mines and irrigation.

I've said for months STACKED ATTACK - STACK COMBAT -
is needed in Civ 3. That includes stacked defense, too.

Why?

LESS TEDIUM in fighting battles.

More accuracy and realism.

Possibility for realtime action and tactics.

Will Firaxis do it? Of course not - people here are ready to buy PTW so they don't have to do a thing.

[Oerdin]

The more people play Civ3 the more they ask for CTP2 features. I love it.

[Harovan]

I would not like stacked combat. It is dumb and in CtP2 poorly executed, because you have no control, in what order the units hit. As we all know, this matters very much, for leader generation. Civ3 combat depends much more on the experience level of the units. I can't understand, why people complain about the stuporous automated workers and at the same time demand automated combat.

[HazieDaVampire]

yeah uber, you could sell your allie 2 crystel, and he could sell one of them to a person who is trying to starve you, so you end up getting what you want anyway!

[Spiffor]

I agree with Uber : buying and selling sevral goods of the same type rather than one would be fabulous, asp. for evil capitalistic merchant builders like me

I heard unit-trading is on the wishlist, which means we won't see it in PtW, but maybe in the next expansion, another patch. Firaxians at last agreed unit-trading is a good idea.

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

Hi Guys,

I think that some might have misunderstood my earlier post. I liked stacked combat in CtP but, as Sir Ralph mentioned, it was poorly executed! It should be pointed out that, at the very least, PtW will have stacked movement! So I feel quite content with that. I still would like to see a trade system in which you can , if you choose, see trade routes! A possible way to avoid the clutter this might cause would be to either
a) Have trade routes only appear on a seperate trade screen.

b) Only be able to see trade routes belonging to your Civ and allied civs! Non-Allied trade routes might be like Subs in that, they are invisible until you are on top of them! Of course, if this were the case, then you might have certain units which can "detect" trade routes from 2-3 squares away (in the way that destoyers can detect Subs!)

Personally, I think a combination of both a) and b) would work well! However it might be implemented, though, I would like trade to work this way!!

Yours,
The_Aussie_Lurker.