Civ Duel Zone - View Single Post

Shabbaman · 04-06-2013, 13:26

Well, Domenico didn't die after all. At the time I was warring on Pisa, the tradepost of Malta specifically. The major factor in these wars is whether you manage to occupy whatever it is you're declared war for, and in the case of a tradepost... well, apparently you can't capture tradeposts unless they're in a city owned by your enemy. And if you can't capture your target, your opponent gets free warscore which increases over time. In other words: I couldn't win that war, even if I took all his cities. So I backtracked to the point before I declared war, and lo and behold, Domenico lived another 10 years. In this time I managed to expand the venetian trade zone all the way to the levant:

Costly tradepost is costly.

And not only because of the investment itself: to expand the tradezone this far I had to extend my tradepost limit. Expand the palace, get more family members (who eat money) at court. Expanding the palace is worthwhile, I found some upgrades even have stat upgrades:

Although there's no way (because it's not documented in the game and nobody bothers to put the info in the wiki) to tell what the other tier 2 upgrades do, I suspect they're upgrading the other stats. I think this is a new feature, as I hadn't noticed it before the patch. What patch? Oh yes, there's a new patch including the Old Gods DLC (and BEARDS). One of the features is revamped tech research: you can now add funds to a specific research pool (much like EU3). And apparently there are new techs, yay.

Well, yay...

One of the techs is trade practices: at tier 1, you get a 100% penalty to your tradepost limit. For 2000g (or ten million years of research) you get to tier 2, where you get only a 50% penalty and +2 tradepost. At tier 3 you get no penalty and more tradeposts. So what does this mean? This means I can't build the two tradeposts I had left towards my tradepost limit. At least, not until I waste 2000g. Why is this relevant? From above picture you might've seen the income from some tradeposts is below 10g/year. Basically this means that the family member I have to feed costs more money than the tradepost gives in revenue. This might not be the end of all things, were it not that in the meanwhile I asked around why I wasn't already swimming in gold like I was supposed to as a Doge. The answer is twofold:
-the city trade zone means crap, it only looks nice on the map but it doesn't do anything: only a family trade zone connected to the capital will significantly increase income
-the major factor in trade zone income is the number of cities you own in that family trade zone

Besides all that, you still earn a lot more from those cities (your demesne, basically) than from your tradeposts. The sane thing to do is to use your tradeposts to get CB's and claim cities. I've found that republican CB's are a bit buggy: for most of my tradeposts I don't get a CB. This could be because the primary holding in the county is a city, or because the holding is the capital of another nation, or something completely random. This is annoying the hell out of me.

But that was not the reason I quit with this save (yes, you're reading that correctly). At a certain point Pisa declares war on me over the city of Zara (but why I can't declare war on them over the city of, say, Naples is beyond me, and still annoying the hell out of me). Go ahead, a good way to get some money in war reperations out of Pisa. Or so I thought. Pisa showed up with a mercenary army, so I hired a nice army of 6300 men. The mercenary army instantly arrived in Venice.

So.

Did you know Venice is an island?

I found that to move an army of 6300 men you need 63 galleys. I have 60 galleys.

So.

Did you know you can't split a mercenary army?

Sometimes this game just sucks.

04-06-2013, 13:26	#2
Shabbaman Administrator Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Costa La Haya Posts: 8,493	Well, Domenico didn't die after all. At the time I was warring on Pisa, the tradepost of Malta specifically. The major factor in these wars is whether you manage to occupy whatever it is you're declared war for, and in the case of a tradepost... well, apparently you can't capture tradeposts unless they're in a city owned by your enemy. And if you can't capture your target, your opponent gets free warscore which increases over time. In other words: I couldn't win that war, even if I took all his cities. So I backtracked to the point before I declared war, and lo and behold, Domenico lived another 10 years. In this time I managed to expand the venetian trade zone all the way to the levant: Costly tradepost is costly. And not only because of the investment itself: to expand the tradezone this far I had to extend my tradepost limit. Expand the palace, get more family members (who eat money) at court. Expanding the palace is worthwhile, I found some upgrades even have stat upgrades: Although there's no way (because it's not documented in the game and nobody bothers to put the info in the wiki) to tell what the other tier 2 upgrades do, I suspect they're upgrading the other stats. I think this is a new feature, as I hadn't noticed it before the patch. What patch? Oh yes, there's a new patch including the Old Gods DLC (and BEARDS). One of the features is revamped tech research: you can now add funds to a specific research pool (much like EU3). And apparently there are new techs, yay. Well, yay... One of the techs is trade practices: at tier 1, you get a 100% penalty to your tradepost limit. For 2000g (or ten million years of research) you get to tier 2, where you get only a 50% penalty and +2 tradepost. At tier 3 you get no penalty and more tradeposts. So what does this mean? This means I can't build the two tradeposts I had left towards my tradepost limit. At least, not until I waste 2000g. Why is this relevant? From above picture you might've seen the income from some tradeposts is below 10g/year. Basically this means that the family member I have to feed costs more money than the tradepost gives in revenue. This might not be the end of all things, were it not that in the meanwhile I asked around why I wasn't already swimming in gold like I was supposed to as a Doge. The answer is twofold: -the city trade zone means crap, it only looks nice on the map but it doesn't do anything: only a family trade zone connected to the capital will significantly increase income -the major factor in trade zone income is the number of cities you own in that family trade zone Besides all that, you still earn a lot more from those cities (your demesne, basically) than from your tradeposts. The sane thing to do is to use your tradeposts to get CB's and claim cities. I've found that republican CB's are a bit buggy: for most of my tradeposts I don't get a CB. This could be because the primary holding in the county is a city, or because the holding is the capital of another nation, or something completely random. This is annoying the hell out of me. But that was not the reason I quit with this save (yes, you're reading that correctly). At a certain point Pisa declares war on me over the city of Zara (but why I can't declare war on them over the city of, say, Naples is beyond me, and still annoying the hell out of me). Go ahead, a good way to get some money in war reperations out of Pisa. Or so I thought. Pisa showed up with a mercenary army, so I hired a nice army of 6300 men. The mercenary army instantly arrived in Venice. So. Did you know Venice is an island? I found that to move an army of 6300 men you need 63 galleys. I have 60 galleys. So. Did you know you can't split a mercenary army? Sometimes this game just sucks. __________________ "Our spam is backed with COMETS!"