Anyone considered reducing the impact of trade?

[+DOC+]

I've noticed that it is now possible to reduce the impact of trade by tinkering in the startpos files. Each campaign text file contains information on the value of each trade good and it appears these are now moddable http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

For those wishing a frugal campaign game, where money is tighter and trade has less of an impact than it currently does, one could simply lower these values. My guess is that by doing so, the difficulty level of the standard MTW campaign would increase, as it's still blatantly obvious that the AI isn't as good at setting up trade routes as the human player. Therefore, by reducing the impact of trade it's conceivable one would get a tighter and tougher campaign game, with more manageable stacks of troops?

This might help remove some of the tedium of turns which consist of large battle after large battle, whcihc an take anywhere up to 2 hours to play out. Repeat that for 10 or more turns and the game can become very monotonous.

I notice that the VI campaign is hardly based on trade at all and as result seems to be far more difficult than the MTW campaign.

What ya think?

Doc

[monkian]

I really struggle to get trade working- the AI never seems to setup trade routes, any tips would be much appreciated.

[Jagger]

Another alternative way to reduce trade is to increase the building times of ships. Taking longer to build ships means a longer time required to build a trade empire. And it does make the game more challenging.

[+DOC+]

I suppose, however, that really only slows the setting up of tradse networks and doesn't alter the fact that the human player will still benefit more from trade than the AI. Furthrmore, the AI quite often builds more ships than the human, but just places them more poorly around the sea-lanes, and this might actually end up penalising the AI more....?

By halving the the income you get from trade it would make improving the land a more viable alternative, something which the AI seems to do very well. This would bring trade more into line with land improvements and thus equal it all out a little more. One could also half the cost of ships so as not to penalise the AI for building so many of them. Thus the ship to trade payoff wouldn't change very much, but the trade versus land improvement balance would

[Sir Robin]

A capital idea. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

The biggest advantage, economically, that the player faction has is the ability to set up trade routes.

This provides alot of extra income and allows for larger and more advanced armies.

Reducing the income generated by trade would definately increase the challenge.

[Brutal DLX]

I don't know whether this is such a good idea. As I stated in another poll, I think the AI improved a lot at setting up trade lanes and spreading out across the sea zones in VI. Reducing the trade will penalise the AI more than the player. Rather, I suggest the human player should restrict himself to smaller trade networks, possibly North Sea to Portugal, Cordoba to Sicily, Venice to Black Sea and Eastern Mediterranean to Sicily/Venice.

[Magraev]

I'd love a campaign with fewer armies, but lack of funds will probably mean that most ai-factions will go into debt. They don't have the financial understanding that we do http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smokin.gif

It would unbalance the game to reduce trade only. You'd have to reduce farming income correspondingly, or the trading nations (Denmark, Italy and others) will have a harsh time.

[+DOC+]

Possibly, but not necessarily.

You see, if i were to half the income received from trade, but then also half the support costs and price of ships as well as halving the cost of merchants, then no-one is unduly hindered when setting up trade networks (human or AI). The relative cost is smaller and the relative income is smaller, but both are still proportionately relative to each other.

However, the ability for the human player and even sometimes an AI faction to be rolling in 20K+ a turn would be lessened considerably. In one of my games, i was bringing in 15K+ profit each turn and at my richest i had a balance of 130K florins. The AI just cannot compete under these circumstances and isn't good enough to get the most out of trade. Therefore they'll always be at a distinct disadvantage as long as trade can be so lucrative.

At these points in a game, money is no longer an objective strategy as one can't feasibly spend the money as quickly as one is earning it. These means no thought is being used to purchase units, maintain an economy and tech up objectively in provinces. One can simply fill your production queues with anything.

With trade halved, this will no longer be quite so apparent, and the result may be that one may have to think strategically what to purchase, even with well worked trade networks.

One of the clever things about VI, is that money is always an issue and therefore careful province upgrading and unit building is always part of the strategy. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif