Setting up a Caravan network is needless busywork. It's also a complete interface cludge that's just really, really unpleasant to deal with.
Think it's fine in your little empire? Try ensuring every one of your cities is connected on a larger map, in the midgame, on a higher difficulty, when cities are rapidly changing hands and routes are getting broken or ravaged by monsters. It sucks.
I don't have any issue with attacking on-map caravans (though again, visuals get in the way of this, unless you zoom out to cloth view, caravans are not easy to spot), but the process of building, evicting, and targeting every caravan - then trying to confirm if it arrived at the right city, then discovering 20 turns later that you have a caravan idling in a city, or arrived at the wrong city - not one bit of it is fun or interesting.
Handle it through a special UI panel, handle it through a Trade window on the kingdom interface, handle it through a Trade tab on the city, whatever, just don't handle it through the unit movement ui.
Simplest way to make trade/caravans better than WoM would be to just bring back a limit of 3 caravans per city. They really have improved caravans a lot in FE by making the ones that haven't set up routes yet show on the left side of the screen, by showing the trade-to city or "none" in the tool-tip, and by making caravans re-spawn after they are "destroyed" by monsters. Caravan management would be ok with those changes if there weren't so many more caravans.
And the WoM caravans & road system had some advantage over an automatic system in that it added depth by letting us choose where we wanted roads, and having tradeoffs between road location and maximizing wealth by having as many caravans as possible to a few of our richest cities. (BTW, I wouldn't hate to see some documentation on the formula for caravan income in FE).
Better summary screens and lists would help, as suggested above. But with fewer caravans that would be less important.
It would be a shame to waste the work they have put in to a promising system.
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That said, I don't hate the idea of trade buildings and automatic trade routes like in Rome Total War.
I agree that limiting the number of caravans can help, and this number could be modified by city size, techs, buildings, etc. however, without a good UI for trade, the main problem wouldremain, especially for large empires and large maps.
as long as i don't have to refill the caravans or escorts
I wouldn't mind a Civ roald builder.
Is there a way to make the roads darker? I can barely see them on the maps.
I also like this suggestion so a +1 from me - I always forget so send caravans somewhere etc. and all the scrolling is really a big pain.
Agree with OP! Give us a trade screen or limit the micro needed in another way. I hate that the roads take the shortest computed path as well, last game that meant going right through a drake lair. Obviously few caravans survived until later in the game.
Agree 100% with the OP point on removing Caravans from Unit move UI; worst part of the otherwise excellent Beta UI update IMO. At least give them their own, separate collapsible category on the tree.
I actually would like a combination of automated caravans that build roads and a dedicated Roadbuilder unit / ability. This represents the profit motive making "natural roads" and gives the economic side while also the sovereign being able to say "I want a road for the army HERE".
This solution is the most elegant. Put a limit to the number of trade routes a city can have (based on it's level) and allow the player to change these routes in a 'caravan' user interface. The system should work as follows:
1. Limit should start at city level 2 and increase by 1 each successive level to a max of 4
2. The caravan the city was sent from recieves the full bonus from the trade based on the road level
3. The trade route recieves the -lowest- of the available road levels (if it passes through another routed city for example)
4. The caravan the city was sent -to- recieves 1/2 the bonus up to it's trade route limit.
5. The above bonus will be replaced if the adjoining city sends it's own caravan out and the new bonus is higher.
This solves the problem of being forced to preplan routes that a caravan limit would impose, illiminates needless micromanagement and also prevents stupidly rediculous exponential gains.
By the way @Bill, roads are more visible as they upgrade. The initial road could use a wider graphic though.
I am in favor of a list of cities popping up upon completion of a caravan. You can send it to any city you do not already have trade with. I would think a small amount of gold should be invested to build the initial road.
I agree also, Caravans are a pain-in-the-ass micromangement feature. I could live with the freighters in GCII, but caravans are just boring.
As for holding trade routes hostage, a troop on a trade route could disrupt trade. Would help to make mundane troops a little more valuable.
May require more oomph to take out Gildar's trade routes.
Why make it harder than it is? Not to put any suggestions down, but there is no reason to change the mechanic for traveling caravans. They move on the map, they can get destroyed, and your trade routes disrupted.
All that needs to be changed is the way trade routes are established. If, for some reason, your automatic caravans never reach the intended city, you can either let the game keep wasting your money on new caravans, or cancel the proposed trade route. Caravans and trade routes are good, it's only micromanaging that's in the way.
I'd like to see a separate ledger page for caravans.
Also, it should cost some money to initially setup the trade route. After all, roads shouldn't come free.
Finally, I'd like to see the ability to build roads to outposts.
I currently hate the idea of caravans. Not only should they be automated, but they should not be able to be attacked by creatures. The AI nations should absolutely be able to attack them...but having to haul my army around because some spiders destroyed my caravan is annoying. Plus I think roads need their own technology and should be upgradable in a noticeable way. Being able to customize where your roads are build is kind of important for civilizations in the real world. As it is now I fell a dirt road that doesn't even go where you want it isn't worth the trouble to continuously build caravans.
AGREE AGREE AGREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
/signed.
REALLY agree with Thormodr, too. Hate that spiders will always destroy my caravans. Other factions? Yeah, sure, that's a strategic target. Spiders, wolves and trolls? Please, god, stoopppppppppppppppppppppppp!
You agreed with the wrong person . And I think caravan crews are super tasty! You should try some!
Seriously though it's not a big issue. They get rebuilt from the affected city, so it's just a matter of clearing the enemies out of the area, which you should want to do anyway. Unless you are traveling through uncivilized land.. in which case building roads should be more dangerous and time consuming.
I actually do like the idea someone brought up of having monsters occasionally 'camp out' on caravan routes. Should probably only be 'intelligent' monsters, but I could see a drake wanting to get fat on a trade route too
I agree. Stick a trade tab in the menu, to auto-construct caravans. The current system is a small step backwards from the GalCiv system, except unlimited routes means it needs a big step forward.
Xehlwan's plan is pretty good too, but It seems to lack depth. Depends on how much Stardock wants to put into it, really.
Yeah I guess I misrepresented myself there. I definitely do not want workers building roads.
I definitely like the idea of a more automated system instead of this micromanagement hell that is caravans.
I do like the idea of roads between cities giving bonuses, but would definitely prefer if they were automatically created as part of some trade interface or even a simple "this city and this city have trade opportunities so a road will be built over X seasons" type mechanic.
I like the idea that there could be a building to enhance, or required for, trade routes and roads. I like the idea that some roads could be upgraded above other roads giving higher or more varied bonuses. Whether through an interface or upgraded trade buildings I wouldn't mind.
Having an interface gives more control to the player, but it also adds complexity that might not be needed. Relying on a set of buildings or even a single building that gets upgrades through research is a much simpler solution but then that takes control away from the player. I'm sure there's a good compromise that could be created.
I'd like to see a road/improvement/outpost builder unit.
Then you just build roads between your cities, and once you connect 2 cities you can produce X (1 per city level?) number of caravans in each city and they'll just randomly crawl along your network of interconnected cities dropping off a profit when reaching a town and then pick one of the other cities connected to that town to head to next.
I like building my empire's infrastructure.. I dislike having to fiddle around with each individual caravan.
No builders, ewwww. As much as I hate caravans, I hate builders more, and I'm glad FE only has pioneers and outposts.
I'd be ok with 'pay gold, paint road', but not 'build engineer, micro engineers all game building roads'
Yes I agree... or at least have something like Gal Civ 2 where we can assign caravans to go different places using a map. That map would show what routes currently exist and allow us to create a new routes.
Idea:
Maybe add an option to the details on caravans to auto-send to a city you've founded or set a trade route to already? A caravan screen so to speak.
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