To get a large amount of trade arrows in one city: Find a spot near some good trade specials (grapes, spice, gold, silk are mighty nice; whales are good too). If the spot has rivers, you hit the jackpot. Build a city there. Build the Colossus wonder and Shakespeare's Theatre wonder. Build roads in every square in the city radius; irrigate every plain and grassland square. Change to Republic; Use WLT*D to grow the city to max size. Be sure to build farmland later on to grow even more. Send caravans to the largest AI cities you can find.

Trade routes generate more arrows when the cities involved generate more arrows, so the more trade you get, the more you get. Just like life, huh! A route that is only worth 5 arrows at first will be worth many more as the city grows.

By now your city should be the tradingest town on the map, but there's still more you can do. 1) delay discovery of flight as long as possible; 2) go for automobile; 3) build superhighways. Wow, look what happened:

1. Republic or Democracy gives extra trade arrow wherever at least one already exists;
2. Colossus gives extra trade arrow wherever at least one already exists;
3. Superhighway gives 50% more arrows to aquares with roads;
4. 3 trade routes should bring in ca. 20 arrows each by now

However, I agree with the originator of this thread -- I'm not getting anywhere near the kinds of gold and trade bonuses that people on this board routinely refer to. From a size 16 city with a good trade item, to a size 8 AI city (largest available) on a different continent, I might get 250 gold.

I do build a science city with the key wonders. However I send out caravans from that one early, to start generating trade early. At that point in the game it's only size 4 to 8, and the AI cities even smaller. Should I be waiting until later to start my science city caravans? (But then I'd lose the early benefit.)

How the heck are you getting a thousand or more gold from your non-science cities?

One way trade routes help is that they make it easier to get We Love the ? Days. If you have a Republic or Democratic government your city can grow and that seems to make the trade route even more valuable. Also, when you deliver a caravan try to deliver it to a city with lots of roads, whales, and fish. You will want the destination city to have a lot of trade as well. It will help if the destination city needs the commodity you are delivering.

Before you actually deliver the caravan zoom into the source city and alter the location of all workers so that you have the maximum trade possible. Don't worry about food or shields. If the destination city is one of yours, do the same for that city. Before you end the turn MAKE SURE YOU RESET THE WORKERS. If you don't you will likely leave your city undefended.

From time to time cities change the trade goods they produce. If you build three caravans so that your city can no longer produce anything but food, build something else. Generally, in a short time your city will be able to trade some new commodity.

What really speeds the aquisition of new sciences is the delivery of caravans. Build lots of caravans. If you don't have a good reason to build something other than a caravan, build a caravan. It is my opinion that the one time bonuses are more important for the aquisition of new sciences than the science you get from the trade route. If you get 500 science beakers from the delivery of a caravan and a trade route of size 5 then it will take about 100 turns for the trade route to generate the same amount of science as the delivery of a caravan. The exact number of turns will depend upon your science rate and whether you have a library, university, or research lab. Other than in my science city, I rarely build libraries or universities. I find caravans are more effective ways of generating science.

Another one: is it better to spread a product around? If for example 4 cities "demand hides", is it better to vary the destination or should I always send hides to the city with the largest number shown? Which is what I tend to do.

ii) Close the science advisor and send in the camel.

iii) Go back to the science chief and rejoice!

This procedure has become an addiction in itself to me. I just have to know, every time, in every game...

Even though the bonus is lower in the early game, trading is still important. The reason is the smaller amount of beakers you need for each advance. A 250 gold bonus might almost fill the box in one turn, whereas a 1300 gold bonus later in the game maybe "only" fills, say, half.

Caravans rule!

Also, supplying a commodity in demand makes a huge difference. If you build it, and noone demands it, save it till someone does or use it for a wonder.

If the AI or human city you are trading with doesn't have much trade (sometimes the AI's will avoid working a trade square like the plague) that will also mean less bonus.

The figures for the units only apply if you use incremental buying, however. That is, instead of buying, say, a settler outright, you generate a few shields towards a warrior, buy the warrior, change to horsemen, buy that and so on. It's cheeper than buying the unit you're really after outright.

To all Micromanagers and Trade Route Sceptics!