Extensive Port Upgrades

[Tiberius Aurelius Cotta]

who uses them?

i thought i'd never touch them, but in my Romani campaign, my withdrawal (and sacking) of Atiqa, Kart-Hadast, and Adrumeto meant i have a HUGE amount of money, and they are the only way to spend all that cash...

Who else uses them, and are they really worth it?

[johnhughthom]

I use them for the exact same reason, to soak up cash. I also like to have something being built everywhere and eventually they are all thats left. I often wonder how many turns it would take to break even with them though, all they do is give an extra trade fleet.

[Swordmaster]

In some places, that extra fleet can yield 500 mnai/turn, which means that if your upgrade cost 36,000, it'll take 72 turns to return the investment, which is only 18 years. Not very much IMHO, so I build them when I got most other important buildings constructed.

[QuintusSertorius]

I always put them in when a settlement is almost completely developed, and I need somewhere to sink money.

I also use them in my building queues when I'm awash with cash to simply tie up funds and prevent my treasury growing too large.

[Cambyses]

From my experience:

Some of the factions with more limited economic opportunities (ie Lusotannan) find the upgrades to be really useful to help raise their quarterly income.

People like Romans with such a large build tree tend to build them only much later on when the economy is massive already and they are less necessary.

[kingsword]

They certainly do. As pointed out above, you'll be getting your investment 10 times over the course of the game. As naval trade always makes the most money in TW games, what better to invest in anyway?

[QuintusSertorius]

They certainly do. As pointed out above, you'll be getting your investment 10 times over the course of the game. As naval trade always makes the most money in TW games, what better to invest in anyway?

Personally, the issue of investment is not the cost of building, but the 20-40 turns they take. That's a very long time not being able to build anything else, and also a long time of not being able to soak up cash through new buildings.

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

The port upgrades are somewhat bugged.
As it turns out, RTW ports and their trade fleets are hardcoded. The first level (clearance) will give you one trade fleet. The second level (which says it is the first level to give trade fleets) will give you two trade fleets. And the third level will give you three trade fleets. Since some of the extensive port upgrades are level four or five of ports, they actually end up giving no benefits. Though, the small trade port upgrade ends up being level three for some towns, meaning it will give benefits.

For the most part, I just role-play extensive port upgrades. I'll just ignore the bug and build them for role-playing purposes even if I know they have no benefit.

[abou]

Didn't we change things around in the internal build by giving more trade bonuses after the third fleet is added? I think that was how we got around that limitation.

[kingsword]

Personally, the issue of investment is not the cost of building, but the 20-40 turns they take. That's a very long time not being able to build anything else, and also a long time of not being able to soak up cash through new buildings.

I don't build them till I place everything I want, surely they should be left alone till then.

As for soaking cash, buildings don't help much for that after a certain point. Lots of army stacks are there for that reason. :)

[General Appo]

As most people do, I only build them when there´s nothing else left to build in a city. I don´t do the soaking up cash though, usually when I´ve gotten so much money that I need to lose some I´ve got a big empire, and so a little corruption and decadence is only fitting. Though I´ll admit, having 250+ corrupted fatsos and -2 competent FM´s in my Romani campaign is a bit annoying.
Besides, the whole thing with creating huge armies that you don´t need is just to much a bother. Instead I made the Vallia Aurelia (or something like that), an extensive series of forts covering every single crossing of the Rhine and Danube all garrisoned with a single legion (3 Marian Legionaries, 1 Antesignani and 1 local auxiliary cavalry) plus the Vallia Appia after Caivs Appivs Cotta, a series of forts covering many strategic positions in eastern Anatolia and the Levant, garrisoned in a similar manner. To add to this, a full stack is never more than 3 turns marches away. Now that´s a stable frontier.

[QuintusSertorius]

As most people do, I only build them when there´s nothing else left to build in a city. I don´t do the soaking up cash though, usually when I´ve gotten so much money that I need to lose some I´ve got a big empire, and so a little corruption and decadence is only fitting. Though I´ll admit, having 250+ corrupted fatsos and -2 competent FM´s in my Romani campaign is a bit annoying.
Besides, the whole thing with creating huge armies that you don´t need is just to much a bother. Instead I made the Vallia Aurelia (or something like that), an extensive series of forts covering every single crossing of the Rhine and Danube all garrisoned with a single legion (3 Marian Legionaries, 1 Antesignani and 1 local auxiliary cavalry) plus the Vallia Appia after Caivs Appivs Cotta, a series of forts covering many strategic positions in eastern Anatolia and the Levant, garrisoned in a similar manner. To add to this, a full stack is never more than 3 turns marches away. Now that´s a stable frontier.

How many games have you got on the go at once?

[konny]

Didn't we change things around in the internal build by giving more trade bonuses after the third fleet is added? I think that was how we got around that limitation.

I am not sure if that limit really exists. Before changing the bonus of the extensive port, I always had hughe amount of extra trade income after building these, what shouldn't be possible when adding new trade fleets to the three existing. May be, only three fleets are displayed on the detailed screen but more can be used.

[jhhowell]

I am not sure if that limit really exists. Before changing the bonus of the extensive port, I always had hughe amount of extra trade income after building these, what shouldn't be possible when adding new trade fleets to the three existing. May be, only three fleets are displayed on the detailed screen but more can be used.

Nope. An easy way to see - look at a city which is nominally running four or six trade fleets (might have to be 1.0 or earlier, wasn't 1.1 supposed to fix this?). You'll see a nice chunk of new trade income projected for "next turn". Hit end turn, look at the city again, and you'll see that the current and projected future trade numbers are exactly the same as they were before. That fourth (or more) trade fleet is forever one turn away from actually trading...

As an alternate test, you could use the console to instantly complete a large port upgrade (nominally four fleets upgraded to six) and see if your trade income changes. I guarantee that it won't.

[General Appo]

How many games have you got on the go at once?

You mean campaigns? Well, I have my AAR one, a Qart-Hadast one at about 240, a Aedui one at about 250, a Romani 1.0 (the one with all the forts) at about 190, a Sauromatae at 230, a Baktrian one at about 230 and a Romani 1.1 at 250. And that´s just the ones play regulary.
Amongst the ones I wish to play and would if I had the time are my KH, Sweboz, Saba, Casse, Pontos, Saka-Rauka and Hayasdan, all from 1.0. I´ve promised myself to play those one day.

[bovi]

Didn't we change things around in the internal build by giving more trade bonuses after the third fleet is added? I think that was how we got around that limitation.

Yes, except it's not only in the internal build. From the 1.1 release post:

Gameplay changes
* Reduced the trading ports where there were more than 3 export fleets. Replaced some of it with trade bonus instead.

I don't know what 5-6 levels of bonus to trade means in actual mnai though.

[abou]

That's why Bovi is the man. If you could list three people in EB who deserve sacrifices of 100 bulls in their honor, Bovi easily counts as one of them.

[Celtic_Punk]

You mean campaigns? Well, I have my AAR one, a Qart-Hadast one at about 240, a Aedui one at about 250, a Romani 1.0 (the one with all the forts) at about 190, a Sauromatae at 230, a Baktrian one at about 230 and a Romani 1.1 at 250. And that´s just the ones play regulary.
Amongst the ones I wish to play and would if I had the time are my KH, Sweboz, Saba, Casse, Pontos, Saka-Rauka and Hayasdan, all from 1.0. I´ve promised myself to play those one day.

lol play the KH definately, at first they are a challenge but the novelty of taking a city garrisoned with only spartans and your general, facing a force over double your own is way too damn fun.

[Grim Fiddler]

I'm embarrassed to say I don't know what the answer was to the original question. Are the upgrades worth it in 1.1?

Also I can't imagine having so much money that I need to find ways to spend it. I never have enough. Is it true that too much money adds to corruption? I could swear I've read here that it does not.

[johnhughthom]

I'm embarrassed to say I don't know what the answer was to the original question. Are the upgrades worth it in 1.1?

Also I can't imagine having so much money that I need to find ways to spend it. I never have enough. Is it true that too much money adds to corruption? I could swear I've read here that it does not.

It did in vanilla RTW, the traits have been totally overhauled in EB so there is no need to worry about too much money.

[jhhowell]

It did in vanilla RTW, the traits have been totally overhauled in EB so there is no need to worry about too much money.

As of 0.8 the thresholds were 50K, 100K, and 150K - if your treasury was above those levels you'd start getting bad traits with increasing probability. And I know such traits still exist in 1.0, though I haven't dug in to see what the monetary thresholds are (they can't have changed much). I'd be very surprised if they took those out in 1.1...

Or are you saying that there's no need to worry because the traits you get aren't bad enough to be worth manipulating your treasury to avoid? There's surely a case to be made there, though personally I'm a perfectionist with my FMs.

[bovi]

I think wealth still encourages vices in EB.

[Tellos Athenaios]

I think wealth still encourages vices in EB.

Ok, no 100 Bovi for you then!