New foreign trade system (user suggestion)

[Ichon]

Sincerely in terms of coding this shouldnt be hard to implement, and since that you are still going to try to build everything you can in certain cities, for the player this is kind of an easy grasp, build more things = more money. The problem would be the AI to go for it, however due to the AI going for the trade nodes, they could apply parts of the code to that.

I want to crumble my enemies economy!

But that is part of what makes this concept work so well. AI will naturally compete just developing cities and higher levels of difficulty will naturally have most AI cities more developed than players and thus more difficult to compete with. Probably the only campaign AI coding change would be for AI to consider if it has a chance of gaining trade route by going to war or an embargo, otherwise sucking up to the faction with the nearest trade stop to gain greater income from trade pacts.

[karamazovmm]

its basically a routine that should make when finishing a turn:

if city has curia + resource + X money
build invisible building trade node in X turns
else check the building completing
else do nothing

do this check every end turn.

however if you are going to go for a competitive AI this should make it more harder to code, since AI coding in itself is limited by the coder and the language. Basically for a competitive AI, it should realize that it benefits from that trade, and t should thrive to maintain, while the AI looks for strategic provinces already, this also shouldnt be too hard. However Im not a coder of AI.

But yes the concept is simple and we can believe that it should be easy to implement, for modders however this is completely a different matter.

However one thing crossed my mind, If I crumble my enemy economy without a cheat console, Im sincerely disliking this idea, in RTW I used to give large amounts of money to the enemy, so that it can still be competent in the battlefield.

[Ichon]

But yes the concept is simple and we can believe that it should be easy to implement, for modders however this is completely a different matter.

However one thing crossed my mind, If I crumble my enemy economy without a cheat console, Im sincerely disliking this idea, in RTW I used to give large amounts of money to the enemy, so that it can still be competent in the battlefield.

Well simple concept is at least easier to try and implement usually than something complex but I understand what you mean.

Trade stops change to a competitor shouldn't crumble economy though it certainly might impact it. Also there would be events outside of players control that could remove trade stop from their cities as well or even blockading enemy ports to change which city controlled trade stop might not end up in the city anticipated if another faction had a better city.

[HusKatten]

its basically a routine that should make when finishing a turn:

if city has curia + resource + X money
build invisible building trade node in X turns
else check the building completing
else do nothing

do this check every end turn.

however if you are going to go for a competitive AI this should make it more harder to code, since AI coding in itself is limited by the coder and the language. Basically for a competitive AI, it should realize that it benefits from that trade, and t should thrive to maintain, while the AI looks for strategic provinces already, this also shouldnt be too hard. However Im not a coder of AI.

But yes the concept is simple and we can believe that it should be easy to implement, for modders however this is completely a different matter.

However one thing crossed my mind, If I crumble my enemy economy without a cheat console, Im sincerely disliking this idea, in RTW I used to give large amounts of money to the enemy, so that it can still be competent in the battlefield.

The Trade Stops are supposed to be rare. There are only 6 in the whole of Mediterranean Sea (Dark Sea inkl.). So by not having a trade stop is nothing critical, just a bonus. So you can't cripple your enemies by taking away their Trade Stops. The local trading, production and taxes is still the biggest part of a factions economy. And as already said. This competition is natural since the AI will develop better cities by default. And this idea with regions and AI's striking important provninces fits greatly with the formula that Rome 2 will be focusing on.

[karamazovmm]

The Trade Stops are supposed to be rare. There are only 6 in the whole of Mediterranean Sea (Dark Sea inkl.). So by not having a trade stop is nothing critical, just a bonus. So you can't cripple your enemies by taking away their Trade Stops. The local trading, production and taxes is still the biggest part of a factions economy. And as already said. This competition is natural since the AI will develop better cities by default. And this idea with regions and AI's striking important provninces fits greatly with the formula that Rome 2 will be focusing on.

so you are only going for the silk road? no amber? incense? via maris? trans saharan? just to name a few

As I have pointed out, it can be easy, I dont know the amount of work that this should take, unless you know the code, you never will know what it takes to change, but it should be simple.

[HusKatten]

I'm putting together an pdf A1 at this very moment, and i need your help this get all the information through. What pictures do you think we need to describe it all?

[Rorarii]

I'm putting together an pdf A1 at this very moment, and i need your help this get all the information through. What pictures do you think we need to describe it all?

The ones you already showed us, they were easy to follow.

I'd like to hear if you get any response, when i send emails, they usually call the police ..

R

[HusKatten]

ok, so ill keep up with that style. the thing now is to get it ALL down in text. i Will send a preview later for those who are interested.

[HusKatten]

Yes, i will give four examples. Silk Road (Both in the Eastern and on the Mediterranean Sea), Amber Road, Incense and probably Trans Saharan. Only problem is how should i depict the Incense Road considering it was going both in the Arabian peninsula and in East Africa, and the Red Sea is in the middle of them both? These four Routes should probably balance it all out.

[HusKatten]

Ops, Trans Saharan is not in. I miscounted everything. And CA will probably not cover the map further south into Africa anyway. The Routes i will take in account will be: Amber Route in North Europe, Silk Route in the Eastern, Silk Route in the Mediterranean, and Incense Route in Arabia/East Africa. But the problem remains of how I am going to depict the Incense Trade Route. Do anyone want to make a suggestion? Use paint or whatever to illustrate.

[Ichon]

Ops, Trans Saharan is not in. I miscounted everything. And CA will probably not cover the map further south into Africa anyway. The Routes i will take in account will be: Amber Route in North Europe, Silk Route in the Eastern, Silk Route in the Mediterranean, and Incense Route in Arabia/East Africa. But the problem remains of how I am going to depict the Incense Trade Route. Do anyone want to make a suggestion? Use paint or whatever to illustrate.

Do you mean a symbol for that route or what are you asking? Incense route was from both Oman-Yemen regions of Arabia and Horn of Africa but it might make sense to combined spice/incense together as they were traded along same routes. So the first stop on the route would be somewhere between those places were either originated- the next stop would be a competition between Egypt and Levant/Nabatea, probably Persia/India as well with a split route depending how far east map extends.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...hraean_Sea.jpg

North of those routes would be the Silk Road route and competition could begin either as far west as Rome or more likely somewhere between Greece, Anatolia, Levant, Egypt while the eastern side would begin north of India somewhere in Scythia then go to Persia, Bactria, Caucuses, Chersonesos, etc.

I don't know if this would help you or not http://orbis.stanford.edu/# but it is fun to play with a bit.

For the Mediterranean perhaps Metals/Grain/Slaves are the routes to use as example? Amber would be northern Europe for sure. Grain and Metals were the most important to most peoples but Slave trading became very important for later eras of Rome.

[karamazovmm]

My fear is that iberia, south of gaul and northeast africa would be left without a cut of the trade, thus giving them less money. That was my argument for you to put a more decentralized system, still basing on the trade routes that existed, but using some less known that existed in those far away areas.

Im at the beach right now, without a good internet connection, otherwise I could help you firing some maps with arrows using photoshop

[Punic Hoplite]

You could use the old Phoenician trade route to get stuff to Iberia and North Africa.

Here's a shotty map I made.

Black represents the basic trade routes of the Med.
Green represents trade going from East to West (Right to left), but only in the Western Med.
Blue represents trade going from West to East (Left to right), again, only in the Western Med.


What you could do is have the the base sea trade, but then have the Ports of Trade, which would stay static the entire game, or that's how I would do it. For this example, Tyre would be the PoT for the Levant, Rhodes for Asia Minor (not sure of any other major ports by there, sorry), Sparta/Athens/Crete for Greece, Syracuse/Malta for Eastern Sicily, Lilybaeum for Western Sicily, moving on to Nora/Caralis in Sardinia, Ibiza/Palma in the Balaerics, ending with Gadir in Spain.

Going back, we'd stop at Carthage for Africa, stopping next at Leptis Magna, then Cyrene, ending with Alexandria. All of these PoT would get access to the silk and spice/incense of the Roads, with them trading those resources locally as has been described before concerning the regional trade.

[HusKatten]

The Silk Road
Changed the Regions slightly so that Samarkand is included. I also disincluded some parts in Iran.


The Mediterranean Trade
Added Iberian Sea Region and cut the Route loose from the Levant and made it continuous instead.


The Incense Road
Added The Incense Road


The Amber Road
Added The Amber Road

tell me what you think, and compare it with the older versions.

Punics picture made me realise that what we probably want to depict is the trade in Mediterranian Sea, not neccesarliy only the Silk Roads continuation. So maybe i should cut loose the path that leads from the levant to the Mediterranean Trade Route and make that Route independent. I just make a continous Trade Route in Mediterranean and include the Iberian Sea (the two most western North African provinces will be included in this Sea Region). This is both historical and more fairer/funnier gameplay-wise.


Here's the Route Overview. It seems well balanced. The numbers beside each Route marks the number of Stops the Route has. I think its pretty balanced with Mediterranean having the most and Arabia the least. This makes up for 22 possible stops. So basically, 50% of the factions (if there will be 50) can own a Stop. Is this problematic?

Another thing i found was pretty problematic was that the Regions of different Trade Routes will conflict with each other. Do you think it's possible that a City can have two Stop of two different Trade Routes? Whats your oppinion? As the regions are now the Province above Sinai can have a total of three stops, making it a very powerful city. That province is a member of the Incense Trade Region, the Mediterranean Trade Region and the Silk Road Region.

Since you guys are more cunning in the historial part than me, could you name the most important cities in all of these trade routes, considering which regions we have. So that we can have the most important cities as default at the start. This idea will probably have the greatest effect if we make as much as possible by our selves, such as the main research.

[HusKatten]

19* stops. Pardon me.

[karamazovmm]

given that these existed and sincerely those cities were richer and some even existed just to be those nodes I dont see the problem.

However for balance issues we could only use the main outline for those routes, connecting the routes thus making the overlap disappear. Go for all history is good, but it creates balance problems, sometimes serious balance problems.

I still think that inevitably the dominion of those trade routes should lead you to have economic dominance, I remember how to acquire 50% of the trade nodes in ETW made me a cash cow, enough to support multiple fleets and armies, making it easier to maintain several theaters of war/colonization

and extreme great work! You made me wait for 5 min to finish loading the thread!

will rep again when I can

[Landil]

First of all, I suggest that instead of the term Trade Route Stop we could use the shorter and more accurate word Emporium (literally: 'A market place or trading centre, particularly of an ancient city.'), which is the Latin form of the Greek Emporion (literally: 'trading station').

I have taken some time off from the map research I do for Dominion of the Sword to make a map, based like those of the OP on the EB map. I've done so with my knowledge on the subject of Historical Geography and the sources readily available to me. Here you go:

Spoiler for Map: 

As you can see, I've divided the map into more socio-economic regions than the OP has (each with a different colour), and on the map are also visible all the trade routes of rare resources (white lines), the types of resources the routes represent, and the (major) Emporia as they were in the period of 350-250 BC as far as I'm concerned. The routes are based on actual trade routes as they appear to have been in this period.

Now I shall attempt to explain how I would suggest implementing this system:

As you can see, I opt for more socio-economic regions and therefore more Emporia. I think that perhaps the best way to represent the Emporium is by making it a building for which you have to reach certain requirements before you can build it. When a city has an Emporium, this should present in a menu, either a separate one special for the Emporium or in the overview menu of the city (not sure which would be better). As I envision it, the overview of the Emporium would show all resources that the Emporium receives and the amount of revenue they generate (each resource represented by its own icon), as well as the importance of the Emporium. This importance is determined by the demand there is for luxury goods compared to other Emporia in the area, which is in turn determined by the wealth and demographical (population) size of the region.

Each socio-economic region can have as many Emporia as there are cities in it, but only the one with the largest demand (which therefore attracts the largest amount of merchants), will become part of the trade route system. If the region in which a new Emporium is built had no Emporia previous to that, then any trade route that passes through it, will automatically connect to the new Emporium, and any trade routes connected to an Emporium in an adjacent socio-economic region will automatically extend to include the new Emporium.

On my map, none of the more 'tribal' factions have Emporia, simply because their style of living does not allow them to build the structure at the start of the game (assuming that it starts in the period between 350- and 250 BC), but through certain 'advancements' they will be able to. This solves my previous fears of a far off region not being able to connect, as even if you built an Emporium in far off Scotland, you will be able to connect to any trade route and all trade routes connected to it as long as there's also an Emporium in England or another adjacent region.

Ichon pointed out that the further a good travels from its point of origin, the more valuable it becomes. This goes together with the rule that for every Emporium that a trade route passes, part of the total amount of goods is consumed by local demand. So for every Emporium that is passed, the amount of goods decreases but the value increases. So taking the silk route as an example and assume a very easy scenario where the amount of goods and their value constantly balance each other out, so that there's always the same value of goods travelling the route. Now, let's assume the total value of the silk traded is 6,000 denarii (the revenue derived from that for the controller of the Emporium is determined by the tax rate set for that city) at the start. Up to Tyre in Phoenicia, this value remains the same, but there the route splits up, 3,000 denarii of silk going to Alexandria and 3,000 to Tarsus. From Alexandria, 1,000 denarii of silk go to Syracuse, from where 250 denarii of silk goes to Rome.

Using this method shows that as routes split up, the total value goes down for individual Emporia, but because there are many routes that are all connected, some places like Rome will still generate a lot of revenue from the Emporium because all the different goods that end of up there add up to a large value.
Of course, the Emporium system is also a positive boon for the cities of the Middle East, which are often in rather unproductive areas, but receive the larger revenues through the Emporia than most other cities, which balances them out (at least somewhat) against cities like Rome which are in very productive regions.

Now lastly, what happens when an Emporium is disturbed in any way? I would think that if the city with the Emporium is sacked, the Emporium becomes 'Abandoned' and perhaps the Emporium section on the City Overview screen is greyed out. This 'Abandoned' state will last for several turns, but by then the city will have received a great economical set-back and if there were any competitive cities in the region, one of those will by then have taken its position. If there aren't other cities with Emporia in the same socio-economic region, the trade route will shift to an adjacent region with an Emporium or simply pass through the region without giving any benefit to the region. Similarly, when for example the port of a city with an Emporium is blockaded, the Emporium is abandoned if the blockade is not lifted after a certain amount of time (not sure how many turns). A route can also be raided by a faction at a section that leads to an Emporium controlled by an enemy faction. As with the 'blockade' situation, the Emporium is abandoned after the raiding has continued for several turns and the route will shift to the nearest competitor.

That is it for now, as I don't have the time to give you more examples and such right now. Also, HusKatten, if you wish, use the trade routes I used on my map in yours if you like, they are pretty much correct as far as my research can tell. Having done studies in historical geography for 3 years now, I think I know a little about it

[Ichon]

There should be a metals route starting in British isles or Gaul and going to Hispania/Germania, and then Dacia/Dalmatia so 3-4 stops split into western and northern routes to give something on that part of the map crossing the amber route. Lead, copper, tin, gold, and silver were the main reasons Carthage colonized Hispania initially though other trade goods were also important while Celts and later Germans traded extensively through central Europe along the rivers down into Greece and even to the steppes. Celtic metals good were acknowledged to be superior products for a long time and they dominated trade along rivers of Europe for a couple hundred years just prior to the era of RTW2 start.

Having a single city on more than 1 trade route I think is possible but probably no city should be on more than 2 trade route unless using Landil's idea where the further the route spreads from origin the goods spread out but become less valuable but due to more connections the cities further from origin might get similar income.

The Incense route could start in Horn of Africa/India as the previews mentioned Egypt/N Africa extending further south so 4 stops rather than 3.

The Silk Road you have shown is about what I would have put.

Mare Nostrum being a single trade route maybe but historically it was usually divided up due to the prevailing winds/seasonal storms. This was more how I envisioned the routes...

The above map by Landil is much better and more accurate with only the caveat of Celtic trade east/west along the rivers of central Europe not being represented.

[Landil]

The Celtic trade route, even though I know that the trade on rivers like the Meuse, Rhine, Rhone and Seine was very important, was mostly based on common goods rather than luxury goods as far as I know, which is why I excluded it. Also, I excluded Iron, Copper and Lead as they were more common than Gold, Silver and Tin and often occur together with those metals.

[HusKatten]

Landil, your version is indeed very tempting, but I think it might be too complex for CA to pick up the idea of the Dynamic Trade Routes. The version that has been discussed here is a bit simpler and probably more newbie-friendly. I don't want the Trade Routes to cover all provinces, and the Stops are suppost the be something attractive to acquire, and therefore i don't want too many of those either. I think that the four routes i displayed will be the ones I'll send to CA with some modification thanks to your maps. Also I will have some thinking done with the profit of the Stops going down depending in the distance from the routes origin. It's probably the next step of the dynamic trade route you are bringing up Landil, where everyone can connect to the route regardless of position only as long as they have an adjacent province with a route to connect to. My version is more static, but that i believe is a good thing if we want CA to grasp this idea, it's slightly more easy to understand. I'm working on the PDF to get a smart design, simultaneously as i work with improved maps and balancing/function-issues. So there may not be any new pictures up today. But I think the PDF will be ready within 1-2 days.

I just want you all to know that everyone is a part of this work, and i thank all of you who supports this idea (which seems to be pretty much everybody ).