Attention CA: Trade Disruption Bug!!?

[Quietus]

I did a some study of the Trade Disruption Feature of RTW ( the so-called “blinking icons”)

I after scouring around looking to eliminating rebel, I found one along the road between Condate Redonum and Alesia. I have a Diplomat nearby so I made a test.
(Farms and Taxes remained the same and were not a factor; Tax Level Low (constant; Taken from the trade details parchment. This is not the net income of the province)

Trade Test Result for bribing a rebel stack** to disperse (850d). (Trade Summary; Sorry, I pasted from Word and I don't know how to tab here. Think: graph with 4 columns.

C.Redonum Trade Income (Before bribe) (After bribe) (Change) (%Change)
Land Trade:
Samarobriva* - (120) (120) (0) (0)
Alesia - (85) (172) (87) (102.3)
Lemonium - (191) (191) (0) (0)
Sea Import:
Londonium - (133) (133) (0) (0)
Deva* - (30) (30) (0) (0)
Sea Exports:
Londonium - (449) (680) (231) (51.4)
Batavodurum* - (208) (315) (107) (51.4)

Deva* - (159) (240) (81) (50.9)

Total Trade Income: (1375) (1881) (506) (36.8)

C. Redomum:
# of Blinking Icons (3) (4) (1) (33.3)
# of Bold Icons (4) (5) (1) (25)
# of Gray Icons (0) (0) (0) (0)
# of Total Icons (7) (9) (2) (28.6)
Undisrupted Trade (814) (1070) (256) (31.4)
Trade Disruption ((-)561) ((-)811) (250) (44.6)
%Total of T.D. (40.8) (43.1) (2.3) (5.6)

Alesia:
# of Blinking Icons (0) (0) (0) (0)
# of Bold Icons (3) (3) (0) (0)
# of Gray Icons (1) (1) (0) (0)

% Total of T.D. is calculated as (Trade Disruption/Total Trade Income) x100%

This doesn’t make sense. The income and trade disruption BOTH increased!!! Trade disruption percentage increased from 40.7% to 43.1%!! The number of blinking icons also increased!! Income should increase while the trade disruption should decrease.

Also, the Sea Exports are affected by rebels right smack in the middle of Alesia and C. Redonum, while the road to the port is up forks up north and not remotely accessible to the rebels. There is something very wrong here. Any CA Developers reading this please comment and/or take note for Patch consideration

The computer adjusts the income but I think the effect of the rebels weren’t removed, although they are gone in the strategic map and dispersed away to the field. I’ll do another test as soon as I find more rebels.

*- Foreign Provinces
**- 1 Warband(120) and 1 Swordsmen(80)

[Dorkus]

how do you know the blinking icons are trade disruption?

[Quietus]

Sorry, I havent been clear.

1. I attacked a rebel stack and I got an empire-wide increase of 10k the next turn and some blinking icons are reduced back to bold on a lot of provinces.

2. Today, I was going to test it again, however, my army garrison can't reach the rebel in 1 turn and I had a diplomat close. So I just bribed them.

I got an increase in trade in C. Redonum immediately(see the "graph" up there), but the percentage of trade disruption is still there with a slight increase.

So my hypothesis is: The computer adjusts the affected provinces' trade income, however the rebel's effect still remain although they are already dispersed and not visible in the map. If you look, the trade exports to londonium, deva and batavodurum increased by at least 50% (last column). This happened immediately without hitting end-of-turn (after the bribe).

I wrote down the numbers before and after the bribe. That's from the trade detail parchment.

[Tamur]

I've noticed quite a number of situations where I clear out rebels from my trade routes, then go back to the town two turns later. There are no rebels in sight, but there is trade disruption hijacking HALF of my trade income! Eeek, I say, and look around for clues. No luck. It's as if the rebels were still there, but there are so many factors that COULD be involved, I haven't been able to nail anything down.

Some light on this would be very helpful.

[andrewt]

Actually, the blinking doesn't seem to be trade disruption. If you add the blinking to income, that's the income displayed by the game in your city stat sheet.

[Quietus]

Andrew, yeah it does seem like the blinking may not have anything to do with trade at all.

At the .Com, someone posted about port-types. If you have Shipwright to Dockyard, you automatically get the blinking. If you have just a port, no blinking.
It checked out for me except for 1 of my port that is being upgraded to shipwright. It seems now that building a shipwright triggers the trade icon blinking. One other mystery is the management icon is blinking too, I don't have any governors at all in a lot of my towns.

What I don't understand now is why isnt' it corollary to Land Disruption? Clearly, if you eliminate rebels sitting at your route, you will see a verifiable trade increase.

If it is completely separate, what in world is its purpose? Any CA Devs lurking around , have an explanation???

[Soulflame]

I did some testing as well last night, and found some promising (but also some very awkward) results.

You should go to the trade screen and look how much trade income you COULD get. For instance, at my town of Sardis, this was listed as about 2100, this should match the number which is displayed when you hover over the blinking icons, since hovering over the blinking icons gives you the total of what you have + what you COULD have. Now look at how much trade income you REALLY get (thus the static, icons). This is how much you really get. In my case of Sardis, this was about 1400
Now not down the difference, which in my case was 700. Go back to the detailed screen. There is one (or two combined or three etc) which match this EXACT amount. For me, this was Athens. Thus somehow the trade between Athens and Sardis was blocked.
I checked this with a different town, which revealed that that town had blocked trade with Jerusalem, which again matched to the number.

So I set out with my ships, and saw 2 fleets on the sea route. One was the Macedonians, and the other the Egyptians. Both of which I was Neutral with, but the Macedonians had Athens, so it would be weird if they blocked their own trade. Nevertheless, I couldn't check it, since both fleets were a lot bigger then me. But I suspect the Egyptians of the block (note that on the map there were still tiny whips going from Sardis to Athens, but the trade just didn't occur). Note that neither of the two ports were blockaded

Another strange thing I noticed yesterday is that I had a city which would get a DECREASE in trade income if I upgraded my port into a Shipwright. I honestly have no idea why this is, but I still have to finish the Shipwright and will post results after.

[Jambo]

Interesting findings Soulflame.

So it would appear that trade income can be blocked either by blockading the port or by a ship sitting on the actual trade lines (marked by movement of the tiny ships)?

With regards to the shipwright, maybe it disrupts trade because it's effectively utilising the port?

[Soulflame]

Done some more testing...

Checking other towns I'm now 99% sure that the blinking icons are trades which are listed on the detailed trade screen, that somehow don't occur.

The city I mentioned earlier was Pergamum (once I grew bored of Greek Cities, I tried this faction. I like it very much). Now Perganum has a Shipwright, and thus can make 2 sea exports. It has one with Byzantium, and one with Athene. The one with Byzantium gives about 500, and the trade is for textiles, wine and another thing (can't remember). The one with Athene is for about 700 and is for textiles, wine and timber. This one is mysteriously causing the blinking icons. Now checking, Athene does trade (without blinking icons) with Helicarnassus (can't remember which goods), for about 500, and there is a greek boat directly on the sea route. I'm at war with Greece, so you can't block sea trade with boats along the line (contrary what I believed in my last post).
Now I also built the Shipwright in Nicomedia, which I said earlier, should give me a loss, instead of a profit. Indeed, when it was built, I made less money. Looking at the trade screen, I found a shocking finding; When Nicomedia had only a port, it traded for about 700 with Byzantium. Now that the Shipwright was finished, it traded for 700 with Byzantium, and for 500 with Tylis. BUT the trade with Byzantium is BLINKING NOW, thus not happening (and giving me a net 200 loss a turn for building the Shipwright).

Now at first I thought it might be because you are neutral to some factions and allies with other. Tylis was from Thrace, and Byzantium is owned by Macedon. I am neutral to both, but they are at war.. so I figured, maybe the Macedonians don't want to trade with me because I rtade with Thrace too?
That wasn't the case, as Pergamum as I said a bit up, traded with Byzantium and Athens, which were both from Macedon. Then I noticed that both exports from Nicomedia were from Wine. Recalling that Pergamum also exported 2 out of 3 the same goods to 2 cities, I think that's the cause.

My latest guess is that the econmic system is A LOT more complex then we thought, and it also involves trading through countries. So that when I sell wine to Byzantium, Byzantium can trade it to Athens so they don't need me to supply both towns. And since they want the lowest price, they want to deal only with Byzantium.
Building a trade road (or whatever it is called, the small silk road), didn't work (it said incrase in tradable goods, but it doesn't increase the amount of already traded goods it seems).

A question that remains is why Pergamum doesn't simply choose another city to trade with, but instead let's the icons blink for unfinished trade with Athens.


If anyone else can confirm my findings that when you have blinking icons that a) the amount is exactly the same as the sea export of one of the listed cities b) the trade is probably not working because you try to sell your goods to multiple buyers (you are exporting the same good to more then one city).

[SirGrotius]

Soulflame your analysis, if correct, is brilliant. No offense intended, but I'd be surprised if CA would implement such a layered approach to trade. If your findings are accurate, I think players would benefit from some more detailed graphs or rollovers. Would it be ahistorical to have some information on an foreign faction's trade functions? Maybe spies could offer some of this information if they infilitrate a non-allied faction's city.

[Jambo]

Man, this whole aspect of trade seems rather convoluted. Why your trade income should decrease when you build a shipwright makes no sense whatsover, especially when a shipwright allows an extra trade route to be established. I wonder what will happen when you get to a dockyard?

Are you sure that Greek ship which you are a war with, isn't in some way blocking the trade route. I know that the route the Greek ship is on is from the city you're trading with to another AI city, but maybe there's a relation in there!?

By the way, how are you able to analyse the whole map and see where the enemy AI ships are, and how can you tell what the AI cities are trading and who they're trading with?

[Soulflame]

Jambo: Well the question comes down wether the city is an optimum seeking entity or not. If the town the AI has knows that it can get it's goods cheaper from another city to which you are exporting, it might not want to buy from you anymore. On the other hand, your city might not want to sell to the other town anymore, but it seems that it still does.

I'm sure the greeks didn't block it. It was on the sea route from Helicarnassus to Athens, and it was directly on my trade route, but I still got 500 trade money from athens (no blinking icons). I was also at war with Greece, so this is the worst case scenario and I still got trade income. Therefor I think you can only block sea trade by blocking ports.

I can't analyze the whole map, nor see all the ships. However, I can see the trade routes I mentioned, since they are very small and 1 ship can cover the entire trade route in one turn. I don't know which cities trade between them in the AI, that's just speculation. However I can see which cities I trade with, and make assumptions from that (as in, one city trades normally with Athens, the other has the blinking icons, what could be the difference between my two cities etc).


Okay, some more info (I should really go play beyond 244 BC but I keep reloading and testing )

War definately has an impact on your trade screen, and can dillute it a bit:
If you take the situation I mentioned in my previous post. Pergamum trades with 2 Macedonian cities (Athens and Byzantium). Now if I go to war (I just built a ship and attacked their ship) I trade with two non-Macedonian cities instead. Once again, there are lots of blinking icons, but this time, the total amount mentioned for trade is 1300 (the blinking icons), was unexplained by the trade screen.
Instead, you have to look at the trade screen itself.. there it showed 1000 trade. I had 650 trade (the normal static icons) and when I checked back, one of the two cities I now traded with (my own city Halicarnassus) should give me that exact amount. Checking the two cities, they once again both desire Wine and Textile from Pergamum.
Thus I am really beginning to think that you can sell your goods to only one oversea port (unless they demand different things).

Second, like I said, the blinking icons do not match the trade screen total (even the ones I don't earn). Therefor I think the blinking icons indicate 'the maximum possible income', thus if you are at peace with everyone, have trade-rights with everyone, and no port is blockaded. And have unlimited resources.
I don't know how to affect that last (resources), but it's odd that it would list it as the blinking icons if you could do nothing about them.

So:
*One thing I'm aboslutely positive off is that the non-blinking (static) icons are always the same amount of the trade screen total, minus the amount settlements that don't trade could give.
*I'm not 100% sure, but it seems that you can't trade your goods to 2 cities. Maybe there is a way to negate this (well there should be, otherwise the blinking icons are nice, but other then providing info, are just useless)
*War lowers the chance you get the maximum profit you could earn, and this is represented with blinking icons too.

[Tamur]

This is a great thread, thanks for doing so much research Soulflame & Quietus

[Soulflame]

Nothing like trashing ones own theories eh? Apparently, I was wrong (again).
I upgraded my port in Halicarnassus into a Shipwright. It used to trade with Athene for textile only, giving me about 600 income a turn.
When I upgraded it, I went trading with another town (Larissa) for Olive oil. But the original Athene route is now not giving money anymore (and blinking). So it is not based on resources, since these are different resources, and it were the only resources that the ciy exported.

So although once again the totals add up like I described before, I again have no facts about why some trade is blinking and not giving money.
The only thing I can now think of is that a town needs a certain population to manage another trade route, and it uses labour from the lowest income giving up. This would mean that once a town is grown, the blinking should stop (unless the demand for the product rises with the same amount). This would explain why upgrading a port sometimes give blinking trade immediately, and lower incomes (since the lower gets preferred, and there is not enough labour, you'll loose some income) But I can't really test this, and it seems a bit silly to me.

Other then that, I have no idea what it could be. I'm going to continue with my campaign, and maybe later in the game (when I have more towns) try to figure it out with some more experiments.

[motorhead]

@soulflame - read most of your posts, didn't have time to read each of them in-depth. I ran similiar tests, and at first it looked like enemy fleets and armies (enemies to my trading partners that is) that were in potentially threatening positions might be the cause of the blinkers.

However, I found one internal city, no overseas trade, all sea trade was with my own cities, yet it had the blinks. Dispersed my nearby fleets and troops, just to make sure A) no possible enemy/rebel nearby and B) it wasn't the "fog of war" along sea routes that caused blinking. Nope, clear as could be. Since the blinking was between CityA and CityB, i checked CityB - no blinks. No sense, how could CityA's sea route be threatened, but CityB's route is fine? Then, someone over at .com said it looked like cities with Shipwrights and above always get the blinks. So, I checked out every single city and sure enough, that was the case. Shipwright and above - always blinking, Ports are always fine. Total trade income in these cases was always the full (blinked) amount every turn.

But, sometimes, blinking is correct - if you just attacked a faction you trade with (or they attacked you), that turn you'll see blinking but in this case, it's for real

edit: forgot to mention, when i was running my tests I was only at war with the Gauls who had no navy, so there wasn't a single boat in the Med that was a direct threat to me, except for the rare rebel ship I've seen once.

[Jambo]

Well, using my trusty calculator and adding up the values on the settlement scroll, the blinking icons are counted in the income. So it looks like it's just one of Rome TW's little idiosyncracies.

Devastation (the little fire symbol) on the other hand doesn't seem to be factored into the final value....?! Does anyone know where the effects of devastation are fitted into the equation?

Jambo

[Quietus]

That's what Andrew was saying earlier (thx Andrew).

@Soulflame, I'll read more on your posts later and check out your findings. I just want to make a few quick statements.

1) I was going to reiterate what Jambo just said. Thus, we don't even have to worry about that anymore!

2) Again, building a shipwright Triggers the blinking icon. Thus, if you put them on build queue, you get the automatic blinking. If you remove them, you get no blinking at all.

3) Rebels do indicate trade fluctuations but the blinking icons are no way an indicator of a trade fluctuation itself (unless CA has something to say about this). Thus, it is difficult just by looking if trade is being disrupted because they are invisible until you chance upon them.

[Soulflame]

Okay now this is just weird. Jambo (& Quietus & Andrew) you are right.. it is added to the income and devastation is left out. This could be because devastation is an abnormal loss and as such directly substracted from your total (as in rebuild of the land or something?)

I have checked, and it is even more narrow:
Apparantly the lowest of the sea trade exports are NOT blinking, the others (if any) ARE. Thus, if you have a shipwright, the lowest income providing export has normal icons, the other one is blinking. If you have a dockyard, the combined income of the two highest is blinking, the lowest one is again not blinking.

I checked this with my old Scipii campaign and it was true for all that I checked.

The question still remains as to WHY those are blinking.. why isn't the lower one blinking? And why does Victoria say it's a loss?

And secondly, why is it possible that I get the exact same amount of trade after making a shipwright? In my experiment save game I have a Trade income 1088 in Nicomedia, with just a port. If I build a Shipwright, I get flashing icons up until 1088 and until 835 I have normal icons. This is true until the building is complete, then the flashing icons suddenly jump up to 1500. The 700 difference with the 800 of normal icons is now once again the trade of the highest sea export (to Byzantine).
So what's up in the time that I make the shipwright?

Guess:
It seems it is partly a measure to see how much the port upgrade will deliver to you, but in a VERY awkward way. You see, you will always begin with the most profitable trade route... so let's say the first route gives you 500 income. Now you upgrade into a Shipwright. When you click build, you may see static icons now until 300, and flashing up to 500. This indicates that you have a trade route of 500 in place, but the new trade route will give you an additional [static icons]=300. Total after the building is complet: 800 (of which the top 500 will be flashing, since those are not from the lowest producing sea export).

Other put:

Before
500 income on the trade screen, nothing fancy happening.

During build
500 income on the trade screen. on the settlement screen, up to 300 normal trade, 200 extra blinking (so it says 500 when you go over the blinking icons)
=> indicates next trade route will give you 300 income

After build
800 income on trade screen. on settlement screen, 300 normal trade, 500 extra blinking (so it says 800 when you go over the blinking icons)
=> indicates that the lowest sea export gives 300, the others combined (in this case only one other) 500.



If this is indeed how they meant to use this, it is a VERY poor system, since it is really not intuitive. I'll try confirm this, so I'll be back later tonight.



@Motorhead: it's perfectly possible that City A has blinking Icons and City B doesn't, since it only seems to affect sea exports, and city B doesn't necessarily have to export to city A. And what we just found, if city B has only a Port, it should have no blinking icons.

[Jambo]

Can anyone figure how devastation is calculated into the equation. As far as I can see, there's no accounting for devastation at all?! :(

[Soulflame]

I have reconstructed 3 scenario's and my guess seems to work out so far. It works with Shipwrights and Dockyards. I forgot to say you need to substract any landbased travel if they are present. So here once again my (probably not so good) attempt to share what I found:


If you upgrade your port into Shipwright or Shipwright into Dockyard, here's what you do:

You have static icons until 1000. You add the building to the queue. This should cause some icons that were static to go blinking. Now hover over your now non-blinking icons. (example, it says 800). If you hover over your blinking icons you should have the original amount that was first static, so in this example, 1000. This is the income you still get until the upgrade is finished.
Now goto the specified trade screen and substract ALL LAND income from it. Say land income is 500, then finishing the upgrade on the port/shipright will install a new trade route which will give you [amount of non-blinking icons noted before] - [land trade] = income from new route. In the example: 800-500 = 300.

{{This works with upgrading Shipwrights into Dockyards the same way, since it will always add a slightly lower profitable sea export (it always goes for the best export first, so the port gives you the best trade route, the Shipwright adds the second best, and the Dockyard the third best traderoute) and the lowest is always given static}}

EDIT: Sidenote. If you see nothing happening to the icons if you add an upgrade to the queue, the city can't make another trade route (maybe because you have no trade rights, or there are no ports in the vacinity etc). So upgrading your building then gives you NOTHING extra. I tested this as well.


Now that this mystery is solved (although it's still a very stupid way to give this information IMO) we need to ask why Devastation isn't taken into account in the total income of a settlement on the settlement scroll....

[Quietus]

Jambo, I'll try to check for trends on Devastation.

EDIT: Sidenote. If you see nothing happening to the icons if you add an upgrade to the queue, the city can't make another trade route (maybe because you have no trade rights, or there are no ports in the vacinity

Are you saying you have shipwrights that have no blinking icons?

[Soulflame]

I'm saying I have a Dockyard with as many blinking icons as when I had a Shipwright. lookinh in the specified trade screen, I only have 2 established sea exports. Probably because it's at the black sea and not alot of ports are there.

So no, I don't have a Shipwright without blinking icons, but it's very well possible I think.

[therother]

This is an area I'm interested in but haven't quite got round to investigating properly. But can I suggest using the "toggle_fog" RomeShell command to remove the fog of war from your game. This should help you identify any bandits, ships, etc. affecting your trade.

Also, devastation seems to be a factor that only affects farming (and perhaps mining, harder to check) income. Although it doesn't seem to be subtracted from my income either, at least in any straightforward way.

[therother]

All right, I couldn't resist. No willpower evidently.

I also get the top two of my Sea trade routes blinking. Here's the figures taken from 6 turns of Tarentum.

	ShipW	Dock	Rebels	NoRebs	CrotReb	Roads
Land
Arim	96	98	98	98	98	197
Capua	115	117	117	117	117	234
Croton	122	124	124	124	0	46
LandTot	333	339	339	339	215	477

Imports						

Mess	70	78	78	78	78	78
Syra	50	52	51	51	51	51
Thermon	45	56	94	94	94	38
Corith	0	0	38	38	39	56
ImpTot	165	186	223	223	223	167

Exports						

Syra	263	271	270	409	409	409
Mess	233	240	239	362	362	362
Ther	0	171	170	258	258	267
ExpTot	496	682	679	1029	1029	1038
						
Overall	994	1207	1241	1591	1467	1682

Solid	731	904	974	1162	1162	911
Blink	994	1207	1241	1591	1467	1682

Blink/
Diff	263	303	267	429	305	771
Top two	496	511	509	771	771	771

ShipW: Shipwright
Dock: Dockyard Build
Rebels: Rebels on road to Ariminum
NoRebs: Bribed Rebels
CrotReb:Croton Rebels
Roads: Completed Paved roads


Edit: I was just thinking. Could the blinking for the top two route be that the computer is going to attempt to move those routes the next turn, so that it is a possible loss? Only it usually isn't as it either find those two again, or two better. It would be an odd thing to do, to be sure, but it's possible.

[Soulflame]

Hmm interesting results.
I presume you took 6 turns not directly behind eachother? Or do you have a mod that allows buildings to be made in one turn?

In my savegame, I was (am) playing Pontus. They can only make the default roads, and I didn't alter the setting (as in: I didn't make or detroy them) to investigate it's effect during my experiment.

At least the first turn and the last turn have the expected result as I thought they would have, using my thumb of rule.
It would be nice (if you have the savegame) to see a turn between the 1 and 2 you have now given, one with the dockyard in the queue. That would give confirmation if I'm correct about how to calculate the profits of the new sea export (the new static icons amount minus the land trade).

Turns 2 to 5 seem not to follow the rule of thumb I gave, so we need to look into those further to see what else (and how those other things) influence the blinks.
I will try looking into the numbers and maybe start a new experiment of my own.

Last questions: Did you see all the things in effect? (have a wide view radius around each city). Was it pure coincidence that there were rebels or did you add them with a mod or something?

Edit: About your edit (). Why would it then only blink the top 2, and not the lowest? Why wouldn't it search for a different route for the last route as well? That makes no sense IMO.

[motorhead]

The continuous flashing of trade icons has been acknowledged as a bug to be fixed in the next patch. Down near the bottom of the thread you'll find a post by MikeB (CA type) "Fixed in the patch. " : http://p223.ezboard.com/fshoguntotal...ID=11002.topic

[Jambo]

Has anyone managed to figure out if devastation actually works as intended?

[therother]

The continuous flashing of trade icons has been acknowledged as a bug to be fixed in the next patch. Down near the bottom of the thread you'll find a post by MikeB (CA type) "Fixed in the patch. " : http://p223.ezboard.com/fshoguntotal...ID=11002.topic

Good to know. Thanks muchly!

Hmm interesting results. I presume you took 6 turns not directly behind eachother? Or do you have a mod that allows buildings to be made in one turn?

It was actually only 5 consecutive turns. My mistake. The before/after bribing rebels was the same turn. No mod on this info. The first turn mentioned was just before I built the Dockyard. The paved roads take 3 turns.

Turns 2 to 5 seem not to follow the rule of thumb I gave

I put that down to rebel interference. But given what motorhead has just brought to our attention, I don't think it's worthwhile continuing the investigation until the patch is out!

Edit: About your edit (). Why would it then only blink the top 2, and not the lowest? Why wouldn't it search for a different route for the last route as well? That makes no sense IMO.

I didn't think it made much sense either, but then nothing really did!

[Soulflame]

Aha! So it was a bug. I'm curious how exactly they will change it, since part of it, as I explained, can be used to determine the earnings of a future trade route if you decided to upgrade your port/shipwright. So how will it be displayed now?
Anyway, it seems a bit pointless to experiment any further before the patch (especially since it's now confirmed as a bug and might mess up with other things we'd like to investigate), but after the patch, it'll be nice to bring out the little researcher in ourselves again

[therother]

Has anyone managed to figure out if devastation actually works as intended?

Not as yet, but I'm tracking it's effect on farming income as I type, hopefully to see if it has any effect at all, or if it is another bug.

PS I've just worked out what your name means. Yes, I am a little slow.