Trade: Rome vs. Medieval

[HicRic]

MTW Trade

• -Ports from exporting provinces
• -Merchant buildings
• -A large fleet to control sea zones

Very expensive! Any sudden dispute of sea zones (i.e. one ship turning up in them) leads to trade suffering cutoffs. Also need most/all zones lots of trade going on-but profit is good!

RTW Trade

• -Build ports
• -Build trade buildings

Not nearly as expensive to set up. Doesn't need many ports. Individual ports must be blockaded to cut off trade-which the AI hardly does. Massive profit.

My main points and conclusions:

Trade in RTW seems easier and cheaper to set up, less subject to being stopped by AI, and larger profits resulting. In MTW I only ever got about 300-400K as my highest bank balance (although there were people getting much more than that!) but in Rome, with rather less effort and with only a handful of ports, I'm rolling in cash. It didn't take all that long for me to go past the 1 million denarii mark-and that's with no cheats, and a very small navy. Although it's worth pointing out this was done on Normal difficulty-is it harder to make money on H/VH?

Anyone else find that it's even easier to make money in Rome? Could that be one reason why the game is easier? All thoughts are welcome, especially related to making money on RTW on VH-I haven't had time to even finish my first game yet, on normal.

[Ldvs]

I much prefer the RTW trade system mainly because of what you mentioned above, but also because your provinces trade with one another.
If I remember well, CBR inquired about the income and found out that H and VH settings give you "income penalties". I think you only receive 94 % of the normal income on H and 89% on VH. In the study he carried out it was about tax income so I don't know whether it also applies to trade.

[zhuge]

Campaign difficulty influences Farming and Tax incomes.
For details see: https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=37831
It has no effect on Mining or Trade incomes.
As Admin income is derived from all the above incomes, it is also marginally affected.

[Simetrical]

Trade routes really aren't easy enough to disrupt . . . an enemy fleet anywhere on the route should hurt its profitability. Any chokepoint should be blockadable, too (that strait between the Mediterranean and Black is a good example).

-Simetrical

[Simetrical]

Er . . . that would be the Black and Aegean. Can't seem to find the Edit button . . .

-Simetrical

[HicRic]

Hmm, doesn't sound like those income penalties on higher difficulties are very damaging.

Sees kind of odd that between MTW and RTW trade has almost totally swung around-in MTW, there were few ships, but it was easy to blockade trade, but in RTW there are loads of ships, but it's hard to blockade trade!

How remarkable. Of course, if the AI did blockade as many ports as it could with it's huge navy, I'm sure my trade income could be counted on one hand...so I guess I should be thankful.

[master of the puppets]

true but this also a matter of location you probably know this but don't see the relevance, on my greek campaign (VH) it took three seiges to byzantium. i did'nt know whynthe thracians wanted it so bad (then again i don't know why i wasted three armies getting it. when i finally did i knew why, i had already owned all the areas around byzantium and right off the bat i was making 6k off of that city. The little tiny trade route dotted lines indicating boats was completely full of ships and had strands goin to half the mediteranian greece, what i own in africa, kydonia, rhodes, where egypt used to be (in this match i took the liberty of annihilating the egyptians as quick as possible) so byzantium had really good dock i could build Quinqirum and had really good trade. it only took a few turns for me to drive it into poverty. thats my biggest problem, keeping income at the end of my scipii campaign i had to beat and sack a town every turn to stay out of bancruptcy oh well its not like its that easy...

[Red Harvest]

I prefer RTW's trade engine, particularly because of the self trade aspect. There have been a couple of issues noted with trade (and lack of blockades and chokepoints.) Wouldn't mind seeing these addressed.

[dismal]

The MTW trade model was too feast or famine, I think.

You spent a ton of time and money buiding it up, it was enormously profitable for a while, but then you'd get attacked and it would go negative - pretty much for the rest of the game.

In RTW trade is much more proportional to territory. When your empire gets to be a certain size, money just isn't a problem anymore. I consider this a plus because I don't want to micromanage economics after a certain point.

The only thing I miss, I guess, about the MTW way was that it was pretty straightforward to understand the cost/benefits of building trade routes and it was another decision that added to the strategic richness of the campaign map.

RTW is mainly a land grab.

[LordKhaine]

I prefer the RTW system. As fun as it was in MTW to rule every sea location and make insane amounts of money. And who can forget sending thousands of men from egypt to finland in a single turn?

[Red Harvest]

I prefer the RTW system. As fun as it was in MTW to rule every sea location and make insane amounts of money. And who can forget sending thousands of men from egypt to finland in a single turn?

True, now it takes more turns, but fewer ships, 1 to be exact (vs. the whole string required for the sea zone chain)...they still have a bit farther to go before the naval part is sensible. I'm still of the opinion that it should be 1 army unit per ship unit, except for cav, which should take at least 2 ships per unit. Cav was very difficult to transport by sea.

[KiOwA]

That might make it obscenely impratical to transport large amounts of forces, at least until mid-game or so. Having to pay upkeep for all those ships who are not fighting, just giving the landlubbers a piggyback... I agree with the basic idea, but perhaps we could scale down the formula abit.

[Red Harvest]

That might make it obscenely impratical to transport large amounts of forces, at least until mid-game or so. Having to pay upkeep for all those ships who are not fighting, just giving the landlubbers a piggyback... I agree with the basic idea, but perhaps we could scale down the formula abit.

Naval invasions should be difficult, and it should take some sort of stack of ships to manage an invasion--so making it "obscenely impractical" is part of the thrust of the idea. Hannibal attacked overland for several reasons, one of them being that Carthage no longer had a navy to match Rome. Yes, it will take far longer to build up the forces, and be costly to maintain. One should have to maintain some local naval superiority for an invasion to succeed. This is one thing that will help the strategic AI, since it is a ship builder and is likely to gain naval superiority. If the human wants to mount seaborne attacks, he/she will have to build a real fleet too. Right now I only need 3 or 4 individual ships spread about to do all the naval activities I want, blockades and invasions.

Right now we have many stacks of AI ships doing nothing. Combine this with more decisive naval battles, and reasonable autocalc, and we would have some entertaining naval strategy I think. (I also propose requiring blockades to take a number/level of ships that corresponds to the port level in some way, and have an AI that actually blockades aggressively vs. enemies. These factors are somewhat offsetting, so that gnat sized "nuisance blockades" are not possible.)

[lancer63]

RTW trade system is clearly an improvement over MTW. It was annoying to have provinces where you had spent tons of time and money improving trade buildings which were producing zit just because they were landlocked and surounded by your own provinces. Naval trade was laughable and impractical. And now you can even block land trade for your enemies by just stationing forces along the enemie's roads, your land forces can block ports by landing on them and now can trade with most everyone just by asking. I like it.

[eire1130]

RTW trade is preferable to MTW, however, that doesn't mean it is "good". Of the two major things I do not like about any of the total war series is the Naval aspect (I was in the navy 6 years so it is near and dear) and the economy / trade (I am an econ major).

If CA were to develop "add-ons" for a trade mod or a naval battle mod I would be completly thrilled. I personally liked the trade system in a game called Merchant of Venice, but the TW system wouldn't need to work like that for it to be good. I think most people would be willing to pay 20 dollars or so for a well crafted add-on. In terms of cost/production the full game costs between 40 and 50 depending on when you bought it. For something which is (i'm guessing) 1/10th the size of the total game this makes sense from a real world buisness model point of view.

[King Yngvar]

I prefer the simplicity of RTW trade, as I care more about the warfare than the economy. However I would like a better focus on loot as a base of income.

The fact that navy battles are not included bothers me. I am the leader of a mod project, Viking Age: Total War. It would greatly improve the mod if we could have longship boarding battles.

[The Stranger]

MTW Trade

• -Ports from exporting provinces
• -Merchant buildings
• -A large fleet to control sea zones

Very expensive! Any sudden dispute of sea zones (i.e. one ship turning up in them) leads to trade suffering cutoffs. Also need most/all zones lots of trade going on-but profit is good!

RTW Trade

• -Build ports
• -Build trade buildings

Not nearly as expensive to set up. Doesn't need many ports. Individual ports must be blockaded to cut off trade-which the AI hardly does. Massive profit.

My main points and conclusions:

Trade in RTW seems easier and cheaper to set up, less subject to being stopped by AI, and larger profits resulting. In MTW I only ever got about 300-400K as my highest bank balance (although there were people getting much more than that!) but in Rome, with rather less effort and with only a handful of ports, I'm rolling in cash. It didn't take all that long for me to go past the 1 million denarii mark-and that's with no cheats, and a very small navy. Although it's worth pointing out this was done on Normal difficulty-is it harder to make money on H/VH?

Anyone else find that it's even easier to make money in Rome? Could that be one reason why the game is easier? All thoughts are welcome, especially related to making money on RTW on VH-I haven't had time to even finish my first game yet, on normal.

i once made a 100,000 a year with only 15 provinces but only for a short period it mostly balanced on 90,000 a jear/turn this was with maintainigcost and other things i had to pay for

[KiOwA]

Naval movement should have its rate increased, it's ridiculous that ships can only move that much in 6 months of sailing.