Some techs also have an effect.Not sure about all of em but Invention and Navigation decrease bonuses.

Distance between the 2 cities.The farther apart the better.2 seperate continents are even better.

Foreign or domestic city.Foreign routes tend to be more lucrative but early domestic routes are better than nothing.And you get both sides of the routes.

Demanded or not.

You get a gold bonus but you also get an equivilant amount of science beakers as well as trade routes which add arrows to the city longterm.

You could generate ALL your research by just delivering caravans if you so chose.

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Scouse Git[1]

Early caravans are "food" for wonder building, however I try and stick a couple for trade on a trireme as early as possible. This is usually in the BC years. If you like trading early then MPE is useful as you can locate where civs are situated. Always try and trade with those powers which have gone to republic early - as they have more arrows.

Trade Revenue = ((combined trade of both cities + 4) / 16) * Modifiers

Transport Modifier is the best ONE of the following three:

quote: Originally posted by William Keenan on 07-09-2000 08:17 PM I have been working on the formula for trade lately, in preparation for a tip on the topic.

Various people have posted formulae for trade benefits, most of which cause my eyes to cross and my brain to scream "General Protection Fault!"

(Though I've never considered it a fault to protect my Generals. But that's beside the point.)

However, I go along on my nice non-mathematical way, trying to get stuff to (a) the foreign city that requested it, (b) some foreign city in the same country as the requesting city, (c) some other foreign city, (d) one of my own cities that has requested the item, or (d) one of my own cities that I think might appreciate it.

I'm not one of the super-greats of the Civ-2 World, and I think I may have graduated from the rank of super-loser, but I agree with all those who say Trade is Very Important Stuff.

At the very simplest, think of it like this: Trade brings in more cash to be spent on all those neat gew-gaws like Riflemen, Heavy Armour, and First Class seats on the Alpha Centauri Flight.

quote: Originally posted by Jim W on 07-09-2000 10:14 PM At the very simplest, think of it like this: Trade brings in more cash to be spent on all those neat gew-gaws like Riflemen, Heavy Armour, and First Class seats on the Alpha Centauri Flight.

If I could expand that slightly and say it can also bring in a science bonus - essentially reducing the number of science turns - in Fundy, everytime your caravan/freight reaches its destination city. It seemed to me the central strategy to overcome the science handicap in Fundy-based OCC12.

quote: Perhaps the science-bonus component could also be included in your analysis, WK?

I'm currently working on that part of the formula. It is very complex. There are actually two formulas an no less than sixteen variables. I'm not altogether sure that I can crack this one.

Normally I don't post partial findings, but this part of the formula is very interesting.

quote: Originally posted by William Keenan on 07-10-2000 10:38 PM Cargo Modifier x100% Any cargo not in demand

So any undemanded cargo is equivalent? Does that apply to initial bonus only, or to ongoing trade benefits?

My impression (not based on any facts) was that the more prestigious cargos gave greater benefits, even if not demanded.

quote: Originally posted by Campo on 07-11-2000 12:19 PM So any undemanded cargo is equivalent? Does that apply to initial bonus only, or to ongoing trade benefits?

If you go by the Lancaster formula reproduced in the forum thread I cited above, then it only applies to the one-off bonus not the ongoing trade.

quote: My impression (not based on any facts) was that the more prestigious cargos gave greater benefits, even if not demanded.

Factor of 1:
Hides, Dye, Copper...

Factor of 1.25:
Cloth, Wine, Coal, Silver

Factor of 1.5:
Silk, Gold, Spice, Gems

Factor of 1.75: Oil

Factor of 2: Uranium

The results are independent of distance between the two cities and the amout of existing trade. I find the factors given by Lancaster a bit hard to follow. What the factors I use here imply is that if you get 100 gold bonus with Dye, you would get 125 gold with Wine, 150 gold with Gems and so on (all demanded). I note too that Coal is not in the Silver-Cloth-Wine group of Lancaster's.

Also to confirm that

1. For UNdemanded commodities there is no difference in both the bonus and the trade.

2. The trade generated by the established route seems independent of the commodity whether demanded or not.

On the science bonus issue, it would be helpful to get some confirmation on what applies eg currently there seems to be two schools of thought about it in Fundy. One is represented by Xin Yu who assumes that you only get 50% of the gold equivalent and the other thinks it is 100%.

What about poxy wool and cloth! I have usually suffered from a couple of cities that can produce these caravans, but that only have 2 small "customer" cities. To add insult to injury, they usually stop demanding wool by the time I turn up with my god forsaken caravan.

In my current game at deity, wool is a plague! I have at least 12-15 cities where wool is one of the available commodities, and I cannot find any takers!

Any tips?

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April Cantor: Sire, in order to expand further we must first gain favor of the King

SCG: darn, I've never really got the hang of that tribute thing, guess it will be a long time until i make prince

quote: <font size=1>Originally posted by SCG on 07-26-2000 07:33 AM</font> The other thing I do is try and build a 'great road' between my civ and the AI I am most likely to trade with. It doesn't affect the size of the trade bonus (contrary to most of the posts here),...

Well in my earlier posts here I thought so too but spurred on by Xin Yu's contrary views I did some more tests with a different scenario and found that the original Lancaster formula holds in some cases ie

Roads increase the bonus by 50%
Railroad by 100%

The ongoing trade between the two cities is also increased proportionately.

Edit: I should point out that _all_ of my cities are connected by railroad, and I built a railroad to the doorstep of the capitol of a civ i reduced to 1 city. As a test, I took a saved game and pillaged first the railroad and then _all_ roads surrounding the city and there was no change in the cost in the same caravan in each reload. Also, I should add that a majority of the cities with doubled trade routes arrows are within 20 or so tiles of the trade city, but there are exceptions to that. And it doesn't seem to be related to which civ founded the city either.

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April Cantor: Sire, in order to expand further we must first gain favor of the King

SCG: darn, I've never really got the hang of that tribute thing, guess it will be a long time until i make prince

Often as soon as you establish a trade route with that wool caravan another commodity will become availible. Even if it isn't immediate, it's likely that a commodity will change faster once it has been used up. I've even noticed that using a food caravan from a city to build a wonder can change commodities. So if you really hate wool, try using a caravan or 2 from that city to help build a wonder.

What really sucks is in the endgame, you are trying to get to AC ASAP, and you have 4 or 5 enourmous cities supplying oil, you gave every civ in the world the Automobile as soon as you got it, yet none of them ever demand oil, and all your cities are justtoo darn close to make self trade all that lucrative.

William Keenan:
I would agree that achieveing the industrialization tech generally causes cities to supply oil. However, I have alos seen cities which supply oil well before 0AD. While this could be part of the initial allocation of traded commodities among cities, there is, of course, no demand for oil at that time. Interesting idea about superhighways though. Any other thought on what begins or ends the supplyor demand for certain commodities?

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SandMonkey

"Shut up brain or I'll stab you with a qtip"
-Homer Simpson

"Ecky ecky ecky!"
"It's just a flesh wound!"
- Monty Python and the Holy Grail

quote: Originally posted by Adam Smith on 07-31-2000 08:17 AM William Keenan: I would agree that achieving the industrialization tech generally causes cities to supply oil. However, I have also seen cities which supply oil well before 0AD. While this could be part of the initial allocation of traded commodities among cities, there is, of course, no demand for oil at that time. Interesting idea about superhighways though. Any other thought on what begins or ends the suppler demand for certain commodities?

Yes Adam Smith, I have seen cities that supply oil before 0 AD as well. This of course is not something you want to have happen since no cities demand oil and without demand you don't get oil's value bonus of 350%.

I have done extensive research to discover other trigger technologies and trigger improvements. The only other one that I have found is for Uranium. Nuclear Fission causes the supply and demand for it.

quote: Originally posted by Scouse Gits on 07-31-2000 07:15 PM In my experience the demand for oil seems to have little relationship to superhighways. I think it might have more to do with the discovery of the Corporation - those trucks are around before the automobile - and they need oil. -------- SG (2)

What size of world did you use for your tests?

It may be that nuclear fission is necessary for cities to supply and demand uranium. It is not sufficient.

I am a compulsive micromanager checking every city every turn and, with some games, I have been deep into future technologies before I ever had a chance to build a unranium freight unit.

To be sure there were always many cities that demanded uranium.

quote: Originally posted by Novi Nomad on 07-18-2000 09:10 AM D'oh! Didn't think about that. I guess that might explain the disappearing arrows...

It is possible for trade routes to dissappear, without the sending city was destroyed. This happened to me with self-trading cities (cities that trade with ... themselves). Under certain circumstances not yet understood, cities can trade with themselves. If a city does this during an extended nr of turns, trade routes can suddenly disappear. Why? No idea.

If a trade square, i.e. gold, is being used in the city management screen will that allow you to have more than one trade route with that commodity?(That's happened to me before but I'm not sure if it was a bug in my early version.)

Also, do certain terrain squares produce different supplies?

Thanks for being a brave soul digging into this tricky topic!

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What if the Hokey-Pokey is really what its all about?