quote: The perfect timing for these caravans, is when an expansionist civ is racing for Mike's Chapel in a 1x1x diety game.

hmmm.....this sounds very familiar suas.....

Most of the "you got enough caravans, build some more" posts are in the context of stockpiling caravans for fast wonder building. This is a worthwhile strategy only because the wonders are so valuable.

I assume you are refering to multiplayer games because in single player not the greeks, the mongols, the japonese or whoever else that is aggresive has been able even to make my perfectionist civ blink.

Consider that when you are building more and more combat units you are at the same time lacking far behind in technology. You of course have to have a governement that fits your warlike instincts.

All that a perfectionist civ (rep or demo) has to do is keep you at bay and contain you - which is extremely easy given the right terrain (and you can make alterations to the defence value of the terrain at the very beggining) - while it gains advances and is able to build more and more technologically advanced units. Before you know you are hit by modern warfare and the game will end for you very soon.

Even if you manage to capture some cities and gain some tech. advances you still can't compete with a civ that gains a new advance every 3 turns.

Plus in a perfectionist civ it is extremely difficult to capture ANY city because it is hugeley and very easily protected because cities are not that many and resources are plenty and very well utilised.

Even if you coherse other civs in giving you techs you will eventually be left behind because of the alliances that other make or because of your rep which will eventually suffer if you like to keep expanding aggresively.

Of course the only multiplayer game I have ever played only lasted 2 hours - everybody left because of extreme bordome - so maybe in MP games things are somewhat different. But still the principles of rapid tech. advances and extremely well defended perfectionist cities apply.

On the camel issue, I have to say that it is a real dangerous mission. You have to built it, and built nothing else during that, you have to board a ship travel the damn half world to deliver it you have to protect it through miles and miles of very often unfriendly teritorry and still you are not sure whether it will all end in disaster.
If you just move it to the next closest enemy city the bonuses are very few.

quote: Originally posted by Dino the Dinosore on 12-28-2000 08:21 PM 2790 is my record for a trade bonus (demanded Uranium of course) but I think others have done even better.

My personal record was 3200 (New York to Alexandria
in the WWII scenario included with CivII).

The easiest way to temper the effect of freight trade bonuses is to not allow Superhighways. I haven't done a detailed study, but based on a *lot* of CivII games, they appear to increase the bonus by 50%. This is cumulative if both cities have superhighways. Cut the Superhighways and freight becomes valuable, but not overpowering.

The wonder value of freight is quite low. You almost always get more than a 200 gold/science bonus for a foriegn trade route (if you have superhighways) even if the commodity isn't in demand. As a Democracy you can generally exceed 200 gold with domestic trade routes (especially between cities on two different continents).

Caravans and freight are worth 200 gold (and no science ) when added directly to a Wonder. (50 shields x 4 gold per shield for a Wonder).

Given their alternative use (cash and tech) I don't think it's unreasonable to allow the full shield value of caravans/freight to be added to a wonder.

The British empire was built on trade. The US' power is built on the capability of its businesses, manufacturing and otherwise.

Apart from the camel/freight, Civ2 only has the factory and the Stock Exchange. The Caravan rightly reflects the importance of economic power as well as, as was pointed out earlier, the importance of trade in spreading knowledge before the modern era.

The science bonus is not documented in the manuals.