Attention CA: Trade Disruption Bug!!?

[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).