I'm finding the theft of trade routes to be more and more inviting as I get better at the utilization of trade routes.

In multiplayer do you check with your allies first before trying to steal a trade route?

The only city that even has a chance of equaling the science of one delivered caravan is a super science city.

Trade routes are important for getting and sustaining We Love The President Days. When you get to the point that you need a thousand beakers for an advance, a beaker or two doesn't usually make a whole lot of difference.

It sounds like you are trying to discuss the value of long-term trade vs the immediate gold and science bonus. It would be difficult to evaluate that quantitatively.

My guess is that you will do better going for the immediate science and gold bonus *and* the increased long-term trade value of going on to the larger and more distant city.

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I was looking more at the potential for trashing the opposition's trade and research capabilities on a somewhat long term basis. Trade routes last around 15 turns or so.

Granted, there are a number of unknowns at work here.
1) Will I eliminate the existing trade route in favor of one established with me? Or, will I just collect a reduced bonus and get no trade route established?
2) What is the distant city in the existing route?
3) Is the route internal or with an opponent Civ?
4) How much trade is the existing route creating? Have I just raised the trade benefit for the connecting Civ?
5) If I am successful in rehoming the trade route to me (theft worked) how much did the distant city lose and is it enough to do significant damage?

If I cause long term damage to taxes, luxuries, and research then I think the reduced initial bonus was a worthwhile investment. Especially since if it takes very long to make your delivery you have no assurance that the item will still be in demand when you arrive.

I've gotten so that I build caravans whether anyone needs the goods or not and just troll them around until I find a route to steal.

Ken

Surely if cities A and B have a trade route worth x arrows/turn and now you with a caravan from C turn up at city A and establish a trade route for y>x arrows/turn which removes B from the list in city A it is my belief that city B retains its x a/t

This is based upon sending many caravans to the SSC (which of course can only have 3 routes) but all the other cities still benefitting from the on-going trade...

It would depend on how many additional turns it would take to get to Vienna. If it were a few more turns I would go for it.

I was thinking in terms of stumbling upon Vienna while on your way to Stockholm either overland or via ship. If I should happen to find Vienna with another unit that is not traveling with the caravan then as you indicate the detour may not be worth the effort of getting there.

What I found seems to happen, particularly with AI trade routes is, that once the routes have been changed, either because city A no longer demands the item or because the delivering city has changed, then the secondary routes established to city A from B, C, D, etc. tend dry up about 5 to 6 turns later. I haven't been able to check this constantly during a game, but the 6 or 7 times that I managed to check trade routes using a spy or diplomat it seems to work that way.

I've also noticed that, like you indicate for your SSC, you can send serveral caravans to a city just to get the bonus on cash & science and if I do that for items not in demand then the routes to Vienna, in my example, hold up like normal. However, if my theft of the trade route fails, particularly if the caravan is from a low trade city, then the route either never forms or is not very long lasting.

Whether I'm seeing coincidental effects or true game workings I'm not sure, but I have been trying it for a while and I think it is working. I was interested in whether anyone else does this on a regular or frequent basis and how they thought it did for them. Most of the regular posters here, such as yourself, seem to be more dedicated and advance players than I am.

Trade routes don't dry up for one city when the other gets a new route and has the old route dropped from its list.