New foreign trade system (user suggestion)

[HusKatten]

Preview of the post to CA
"Dynamic Trade Routes"
This Feature aims to replace the current Trade Node System.

What is This?

1.1 What is This?

Iberian Sea Thyrrhenian Sea Adriatic Sea Aegean Sea Dark Sea Levantine Sea North African Coast The whole system is built upon regions which are separated by colour. These regions are made up of a number of provinces. In this example you can cleary see there are seven regions.

1.2 What Is This?

- - - Trade Route O Route Stop/City In this picture we’ve added Trade Routes and Route Stops. As you can see there is only one Route Stop in each Region. These Route Stops are Cities who has the honour to claim the Stop. These stops are very favourable for a city to have, and since only one city in each region can possess it, there will be competition. Basically it’s the most developed city in its Region that will claim the Route Stop, though there are other ways to claim it.

1.3 What is this?

If you compare this picture to the earlier one you can see that the Trade Route and the Route Stops has changed their locations. This is because I call this feature Dynamic Trade Routes - since thats what it is. Competition over the Route Stops have occured and I will explain how the competition played out. -We start from the east, and as you can see the city of Sidon has managed to maintain its supremacy in its region, thus keeping the Route Stop. -In the North African region the Route Stop has changed its owner from Kart-Hadast (Carthage) to Alexandreia. This particular competition went on peacefully. Alexandreia seems to have developed its cities roads, ports and marketplaces more than the city of Kart-Hadast has, thus gained a more economical attractive city and therefore also aquired the Route Stop. - In the Iberian Sea the former Route Stop holder was Mastia, but due to a resent sacking of the city its infrastrucutre was damaged and the Route Stop passed on to the regions next most developed city - Tingris. -In the thyrrhenian sea the city of Rome has, like Sidon, successfully maintained its dominance in its region, thus keeps the Route Stop. -In the Adriatic Sea a war has been ongoing between the Roman Empire and Epirus. Epirus has made an advance on the city of Taras since they wanted access to its prosperous Route Stop. Something went wrong during the siege of the city and Epirus destroyed more buildings than planned with their catapults. The citys infrastructure got heavily damaged and even though Epirus won the siege and claimed Taras, the Route Stop moved to the regions new most developed city - which due to the damage on Taras, now is Arpi. -In the Aegean Sea there is a great economical conflict due to the Trade Route, the Greek peninsula wants the Route Stop on their side of the sea, and the Anatolian factions wants it on their side. This has led to a naval war between two factions. The city of Sardis has blockaded the port of Athens for a X number of turns. This makes the Route Stop change its destination to a more prosperous and un-blockaded city in the region. The city of Sardis knew their city was well developed and thought they had the luck to be the regions next most developed city after Athens. They where right and their blockade of Athens granted them the Route Stop. -In the Dark Sea region the city of Chersonesos have been pillaged by steppe people, thus losing its grasp on the Route Stop. The city of Kallatis is the new owner of the Route Stop.

In-Game Effect

2.1 In-Game Effect

- - - Local Trading Cities that are not in a region that has access to the Dynamic Trade Route can still get involed and gets effected by the Trade Routes course. We can here see the good old Local Trading put into effect. If a city don’t have access to the Trade Route, or simply isn’t in the Dynamic Trade Route Region, it can get trade rights with the factions that holds the current Route Stops. This trade right will create a local trading with the faction and it will prioritze to trade with the city that holds the Route Stop. This is benefitial for both parties. The faction that owns the Route Stop gets a direct income bonus of 600 gold, and when it connects to other cities through local trading it will get an extra +50 gold for every city it connects to. And the cities that trades with the Route Stop City will in turn gain a +100 gold income.

2.2 In-Game Effect

- - - Army/Navy Movement X Attack White Colour represents a faction If you are too far away from a Dynamic Trade Route Region, or to far away from the current Stop Holder in order to benefit from a trade agreement (Local Trade Routes doesn’t cover too long distances). If you want to get involved with the Dynamic Trade Route then you can do as the two following examples: 1. The eastern Army movement describes how the Faction sends an army to take a province in the Adriatic Sea Region to be able to compete directly over the Dynamic Trade Route. 2. The western army movement describes how the factions sends a navy to colonize a province that is close to a Dynamic Trade Route Region who can benefit from a trade agreement with the current Stop Holder

2.3 In-Game Effect

If a Faction, like the above, manages to control all of the provinces that makes up a Dynamic Trade Route Region, then that faction gets the Monopoly-Bonus. Since that region only belongs to the same one faction, there is no international competition over that regions’ Dynamic Trade Route. In the above example the faction has monopoly in the Dark Sea Region. If a faction then also manages to conquer all the coastal regions of the mediterranean that faction gets the Mediterranean Conqueror-Bonus. It’s an historical ambition to own whole seas, this feature will make it worthwhile also in-game.

Trade Route Example

3.1 Trade Route Example - Silk Road

3.2 Trade Route Example - Incense Road

3.3 Trade Route Example - Amber Road

3.4 Trade Route Example - Foreign Trade

How does this fit with the Rome 2 formula?
Rome 2 is aiming for fewer but more decisive battles, so what will happen during peace time?
This feature may cause reasons for declaring war, but it’s just as possible to achieve success by peaceful actions.
An implementation will make peace time more interesting.

Will this mean frustrating hours of adapting the AI to this system?
I’m not an AI-programmer, but I’d say this will not be hard to implement. Despite the vast feature explanation that
has been done, it all comes down to own the most developed City within a Dynamic Trade Route Region.
That developement is already a basic feature for the AI. The AI is naturally competing over the Route Stop.
It has been mentioned that Rome 2’s AI will have set ambitions that will explain their actions on the Campaign map.
Adding this feature will provide solid reasons for trading empires like Carthage and Greek States to attack or seek
to claim the Trade Route Stops throughout Mediterranea.

What about the players that are not into trading?
The Dynamic Trade Route is not a vital thing to own for a player. All it does is providing your empire with bonus
income and better/worse diplomatic relations. The feature is all automatic, therefore you can choose to be consious
about its developement just as like you don’t have to be aware of it at all.

Does this small, yet great, feature add something to the replay-ability?
You can choose to play your R2 game just as you have played the other TW-games and don’t mind about trading.
And you can also center your campaign around these Trade Route Regions and profit from it. This will add great
replay-ability to the game.

Yet again, less battles and more decisive such.
The Trade Node System that this feature seeks to replace is all about spamming trade ship after trade ship just to
re-occupy that Trade Node for the tenth time. With this feature it’s no more, everything is automatic and the trade comes to you, not you to them. This goes well together with the R2 Formula.

CA is already working with a region and province system.
Maybe this region/province system is the key to implement this Dynamic Trade Route System. The whole Dynamic Trade can merely be represented by a trait or building in the city or it can be depicted on the campaign map like a trade route slightly bigger than the normal local trade routes. However a map showing the Trade Routes course in a "trade map tab", like my own pictures, would be the best way to illustrate its current state and help new players to understand.

If you want to support this idea please post a reply in the official Rome 2 forum also: Link to thread in Rome 2 Total War Forum

Download link to the actual posters:http://speedy.sh/jFjVM/Dynamic-Trade-Routes.pdf

Note that the depicted routes, incomes, regions etc are only examples used to explain the feature. If CA wants to implement this idea i'm sure they will balance everything and make everything correct.

The following preview is the first preview made for this idea. The following post also gives the feature historical validation (At the end of the post):

The first feature preview of the Dynamic Trade Routes

1 Introduction Hello, I've got to think about a new feature for foreign trades which has been the same both in E:TW and S:TW. So to trade with distant countries you are suppost to capture trade nodes with your ships, and by sending trade ships to those nodes, you get access to that specific goods and gets a bonus in wealth. If another faction has already seized control over that node, then you have to wage war to capture it for your own faction. I'm very much into trading and diplomacy in the TW-Games and i feel that the current foreign trading system could need a boost and a more peaceful solution. I hope to be able to bring you a funnier and deeper kind of foreign trading-system and hopefully even better historical accuracy. As i said; In the earlier TW-games you have to go to the trading nodes and capture them, whilst my idea is about the opposite; The trade nodes are coming to you. 2 FEATURE: Dynamic trade routes This feature only influence the foreign trading. By that i mean long distance trading with countries outside of the campaign map. Ordinary trade routes between factions doesn't get affected by this feature. I used EB's campaign map to illustrate my thoughts. This picture shows the eastern provinces divided into five different regions (different colour and striped filling). All the cities within the same region is able to compete over where the important stops of the Silk Road will be. The current route is represented by the black path, and the important stops is represented by the black circles. You can see that each region only has one important stop. The stops are as follows from the right to the left: Baktra-Parthyaia-Ekbatana-Seleukea-Sidon. The cities that hold these stops will get a great income bonus and other bonuses. This picture shows how the Trading Route is Dynamic, becoming a Dynamic Trading Route. We can see that Baktria has managed to maintain its stop from the trade route. Parthyaia has just been sacked and many of its buildings where destroyed in a pillage. Persis who now is the most dominant city in the teal region takes over the stop from Parthyaia, thus changing the trade route. Ekbatana has just like Baktria managed to maintain its superiority in its region. Seleukea and Charsus are cities that belongs to different factions, but the trade route has peacefully gone from Seleukea to the city of Charsus. This can be because of Charsus having a bigger harbor, better road connections, bigger population or a better market than those of Seleukea. Sidon was once the end of the Silk road on land, but Tarsus has now got the responsibility. This is becuase Sidons' port has been blockaded for a long time and therefore little profit has been made of the Silk from the trade route. Tarsus being the enemy of Sidon and is also the province that sended the blockading fleet thought this blockade was a stragecially good idea since it now has aquired the Silk Road stop from Sidon. These Dynamic Trade Routes can also be applied to the continued sea trade from the Silk Road, and also to the incense trade route from southern arabia. The Seas can be divided into regions just like on land. These regions can be: North Africa Syrian and Southern Anatolian shoreline Aegean Sea Adriatic Ocean Thyrrhenian Sea Black Sea I think a simple feature like this can really improve the gameplay and increase the aspects of how you can become a great empire. A great empire is not just about claiming land, but to control trade routes and lay them under your command. It ables you to do much more than just waging war all the time and you can keep yourself occupied during peace time. By replacing the current Capture-Trade-Nodes with these Dynamic Trade Routes you don't need to recruit trading ships no more, since they are automatic just like the ordinary trade routes between factions. You no longer have to fight pointless sea battles over trade routes, just maintain your cities supremacy in its region. CA has aldready announced that they want lesser but more decisive battles, my idea supports this. This will add another depth to having great cities focused on commercial buildings. Also the routes can either have positive or negative effects on diplomacy. If you own a trading route stop some factions may be jealous and try to steal it from you, whilst others who owns a trade route stop also wants to trade with you and becoming a closer friend with your faction. 3 Dynamic trade routes throughout the history I'd like to call this feature "Dynamic Trade Routes". Since thats what it's all about. I'll give a short history lesson to back up my feature with. 90% of you do already know what i'm going to say, but just to sum it all up and get as few misunderstandings as possible i'll still include this. 3.1 This is the silk road about 200 BC. This is the silk road about 100 BC. You can see slight differences in the two routes. This is a roughly drawn map of the silk road. Cities either prospered or was deserted due to which route the silk road had. This i want to depict and make dynamic in-game. You should be able to steal the route from enemy cities by making your city the more attractive one, thus taking away a vital income from the enemy faction. 3.2 Here's a historical example of when the Nabatean city of Petra suffered from the "Dynamic Trade Route" which had gone through their big city but was now redirected to Palmyra: "The Nabateans profited for a while from their incorporation into the trade routes of the Roman Near East, and Petra may have grown to house 20,000-30,000 people during its heyday. However, commerce became less profitable to the Nabateans with the shift of trade routes to Palmyra in Syria and the expansion of seaborne trade around the Arabian peninsula. Sometime probably during the fourth century CE, the Nabateans left their capital at Petra. No one really knows why. It seems that the withdrawal was an unhurried and organized process, as very few silver coins or valuable possessions have been unearthed at Petra." Source: http://www.kinghussein.gov.jo/his_nabateans.html There is another less detailed copy of this post in the "Features you want to see in Rome 2"-thread. But it seems there are none who reads that thread anymore, just spamming their wishes. I didn't want to make my own thread since that's often seen as bad manner in forums when you got relevant other threads to put your post in. But as i said, since i didn't get any feedback i thought i could try to make a thread. What do you guys think? Can we develop it further or does this idea stink?

[Punic Hoplite]

I actually love this idea. Now warfare will have an economic toll on trade! +rep!

[rude dude]

I think this is a great idea, it adds another layer into the way in which to develop your empire and to develop cites.
I can see this being very challenging in a campaign (and also quite annoying), but enjoyable once this centres are developed and it's a great way to keep the fun alive in a total war games even after you've conquered the know world as changes in trade resources and natural disasters (plagues, earthquakes...)force you to rethink the route you've laid out.
And this feature adds a new competitive element to game.

By the way, that's a great post. Nicely put together and its got pictures! I like posts with pictures

[HusKatten]

Thank you guys! I've always found it a bit funny with the static silk trade route of Medieval 2 total war. Even if you destroy Baghdad to the tiniest stone, the caravans will still go through Baghdad even if they got other more prosperous cities to go through

[bartozer]

All of those trade routes were actually in the XC mod for Rome I. Just saying.

[HusKatten]

You should probably re-read my post. Its not the trade routes that are missing or that i'm affraid would not be implemented. But this feature focuses on the route being dynamic and "adding another layer into the way in which to develop your empire and to develop cites", as Rude Rude would have put it

[Lansa]

I'd love to see this implemented. It would recreate very realistically the struggles for trade monopolies between the Greeks and the Phoenicians etc. I'd really like to see this in the game.

[Ichon]

Best idea I have seen proposed for RTW2 yet!

The ships on trade nodes works for 16th centuries and later but before going south around Africa and other passages were open this idea works very well. It also creates quite complex gameplay but is very simple idea. Extending this into the north of Europe also works very well at different scales- IE if the cities in the north are all a bit smaller they can still compete and especially within their own regions. It would be nice especially if controlling a trade route in a certain region gave more than just money bonus- for example allowing to recruit mercenaries from further away than normal or in emergency to impress some of the ships and sailors on the sea routes to make transports or auxillary fleets.

I particularly like the bit of randomness that might enter into the game where if another AI goes to war with the AI which controls the current trade route a 3rd party could benefit without having to do anything. Makes choosing alliances even more important as well as the ability to pay another faction to get into a war with the faction that currently controls a trade route or provide support for one side in an ongoing war to keep the trade routes suppressed in one area of the map to benefit your own faction.

[karamazovmm]

Best idea I have seen proposed for RTW2 yet!

I have to simply agree this is the single best idea that I have ever seen in the series.

Its a mix of how the markets work in EU3 with more spice to it.

[HusKatten]

It also increases the importance of capturing and securing each region so that other factions are unable to capture a Trading Route Stop from you, unless they ofcourse take over a province in the region. If you for example hold all of the shoreline-provinces of the Dark Sea, then you control that sea region (gray region in the pictures above) and no province can compete with you over the Dark Sea Trade Route Stop, since that region is all yours. It never really meant anything when you captured whole seas before, but with this feature it accually means something - monopoly.

[Rasic]

I like it. Things like this would do well to break up the monotony of the game.

[Grimbold]

No amber trade route?

[HusKatten]

No amber trade route?

These are just example of what the feature "Dynamic Trade Route" is all about. Either you can have multiple goods in one trade route, or have many trade routs for diversity. It's all a question of balance. Its just for show that i used the Silk Road as an example of what the feature could be like since its both on land and at sea.

[Princeps]

Sure, why not.

But what needs to be better modeled is the agricultural economy and basic grain trade. It was much more important to ancient economies and the states than luxury goods exchange. even though that trade brought in a lot of gold, but food was more important.

[Architeuthis]

An excellent idea which would provide some extra strategic depth! Would love to see such a mechanic included.

[Jazx]

Very good idea man!! I hope CA sees this and put this into Rome II

[Black_Watch42]

this is an awesome idea, i hope ca will really consider adding way more strategic depth this time around

[Landil]

This is a very good idea and I would love to see it implemented!

To build further upon this: I do see a possible flaw, which is that because this trade being limited to certain regions (which is realistic, don't get me wrong), factions far removed from a certain trade route cannot acquire the goods provided by that route because they are not on it, even if they have great demand for that resource. I would think that a way to remedy this is to introduce a new type of agent based on the Merchant from M2TW. This agent would be capable of entering a city of a neutral or allied faction that is on such a trade route and generate a small amount of that resource for the faction the agent belongs to. This would represent the investment of a state in this trade, they have no means to control the trade but they do profit from it in a small way. Of course, the placement of these merchants is not without risk, because they can fall prey to enemy agents and risk death when the city they are in is captured by a faction you are at war with. Obviously, there is also the risk of the city losing its function in the trade route through any kind of disaster, which would render your merchant useless until you move him to another city with a trade function. What do you guys think, viable or not?

[HusKatten]

This is a very good idea and I would love to see it implemented!

To build further upon this: I do see a possible flaw, which is that because this trade being limited to certain regions (which is realistic, don't get me wrong), factions far removed from a certain trade route cannot acquire the goods provided by that route because they are not on it, even if they have great demand for that resource. I would think that a way to remedy this is to introduce a new type of agent based on the Merchant from M2TW. This agent would be capable of entering a city of a neutral or allied faction that is on such a trade route and generate a small amount of that resource for the faction the agent belongs to. This would represent the investment of a state in this trade, they have no means to control the trade but they do profit from it in a small way. Of course, the placement of these merchants is not without risk, because they can fall prey to enemy agents and risk death when the city they are in is captured by a faction you are at war with. Obviously, there is also the risk of the city losing its function in the trade route through any kind of disaster, which would render your merchant useless until you move him to another city with a trade function. What do you guys think, viable or not?

Yes, it is limited to geographical regions. Maybe you could even stretch the trade route to Iberia.
About the factions that still are not close to these regions can simply open a trade agreement with a faction that owns a Trade Route Stop, thus having access to its goods. So if you are a northern tribe in either Europe or Russia you should try to get trade agreements with factions that owns these stops. This is another tactical aspect of this feature; If you are a nothern faction then you'd do best to keep good relations with coastal trading factions and not wage war to everyone, because that can hurt your economy bad. Just to not make it all to complicated with additional agents to keep track of. Agents are very annoying to keep track on in the later part of the game (especially massed out merchants). And also recruiting new ones is a pain when they die or you cant find them. The same goes for trading ships. Its just annoying to re-recruit those vast amount of trading ships just to re-take that trading node 100 miles away. With this feature all you have to do is to defeat the dominant factions naval army and blockade its port, or simply develop your city so thats its more attractive than the other cities.

Imagine owning two or three of these Trade Route Stops, you'll probably be a popular (or impopular?) faction pure diplomatic.

[Ichon]

There shouldn't be any resources required to build something. This isn't WWII with rare strategic goods. Almost everything needed could be produced locally, it was more about cost and demand- did Romans need fancy ceramics? Not really when local ceramics would be fine but people wanted something nicer and were willing to pay. I can't think of any strategic level goods in Roman era so making a certain good required to produce something is absurd. Better would be simply income and happiness/diplomacy. More trade routes you control the happier your people offsetting some of the penalties of controlling a large Empire while also giving income and making other factions less likely to antagonize you as they also benefit from the trade income, just to a lesser amount. The closest to strategic level goods I can think of were slaves and knowledge of engineering. Slaves can be taken anywhere but some Empires built on slavery like Rome require an immense amount and eventually the number of wars to get more slaves would impose heavy costs but without slaves the entire economy of the Rome would have to change imposing massive happiness/unrest penalties while knowledge really can't be made a trade good in any realistic way.