I'm playing the Roving Clans. I researched roads and harbors, have built Right of Way in my cities, and have peace treaties with 3 other factions. Yet trade routes have not sprung up. I thought they were automatic once the conditions were met. I even made a trade agreement with the Drakkons, but that doesn't seem to help. What am I missing?

If all your cities have Right of the Way improvement and the regions are next to each other that sounds like a bug.

So the regions have to be next to each other? That explains it. In my game, everyone is starting on their own island. But wouldn't harbors allow trade from one island to the next?

The AI also need to build the harbor.

Yeah as far as I understand it, cities will only trade with neighbouring provinces - And apparently both sides need the improvement (Which I personally find a bit off given the wording and visual representation of the roads)

Yeah, so it works like this:



1. Both regions need to be adjacent.

2. The cities in both regions have to have the Right of Way improvement built.

3. If the regions are two separate factions, they must have a peace or alliance agreement)

(Exception: There is a roving clans hero/governor skill that will create trade routes during cold war/war)

4. Cargo Docks create invisible "roads" across the water to serve as trade routes. They do not, however, create additional trade routes, so if you've got active road trade routes, docks won't bring in additional dust/science. It is also not clear what the range is for trade routes from docks, often because AI factions don't build them or build near the water.



You can create trade routes between your own cities though, so even if the other factions are being jerks to you or aren't nearby, you can still get dust and science boosts all by your lonesome. Therefore, trade routes encourage you to build wide empires. The more cities you have, the more you can trade internally.



Also, if there are nearby factions that haven't built roads, don't be afraid to just gift them the right of way technology if they don't already have it (you have to have a peace agreement though). You will benefit from them building it so it's not like you are giving up an advantage.



After playing around with trade routes ever since they were activated, I think I might start a thread about them in the guides section, or maybe make a guide on Steam.

So far the only trade routes that don't work for me are the sea trade routes. On land, they are incredibly useful especially if you have a lot of provinces.



It would be nice to see a visual representation of how the sea routes extend from the Cargo Dock... or at least see an example of how they work. I tried searching in the Let's Plays on youtube, but all of them play on Pangea, so they almost never experiment with ocean gameplay.

1. Regions need to be touching to trade, same goes for neighboring factions.

2. If you're on islands you need to build a harbor for each of your cities islands in order for them to trade, also trade harbors with factions you want to do trading with and hopefully they'll build a couple.



Are you seeing roads sprout up in your controlled regions after researching right of way? They should pop up regardless as they make traveling in your regions much faster.

The trade AI certainly needs an upgrade, so that it makes use of trade routes and considers peacing / trading with neighboring empires a strategy.



I would also like to see one way trade routes, if you build a trade route building but your neighboring province/empire does not. Probably with a penalty.

KrimsonVagus wrote:
So far the only trade routes that don't work for me are the sea trade routes. On land, they are incredibly useful especially if you have a lot of provinces.



It would be nice to see a visual representation of how the sea routes extend from the Cargo Dock... or at least see an example of how they work. I tried searching in the Let's Plays on youtube, but all of them play on Pangea, so they almost never experiment with ocean gameplay.

I tried to experiment with cargo docks about a month ago on an island map but I was frustrated with AI factions not building near the water let alone building docks. That particular patch had the issue of AI's not actually building up their own cities the way they should.

Larcent wrote:
Yeah, so it works like this:



1. Both regions need to be adjacent.

2. The cities in both regions have to have the Right of Way improvement built.

3. If the regions are two separate factions, they must have a peace or alliance agreement)

(Exception: There is a roving clans hero/governor skill that will create trade routes during cold war/war)

4. Cargo Docks create invisible "roads" across the water to serve as trade routes. They do not, however, create additional trade routes, so if you've got active road trade routes, docks won't bring in additional dust/science. It is also not clear what the range is for trade routes from docks, often because AI factions don't build them or build near the water.



You can create trade routes between your own cities though, so even if the other factions are being jerks to you or aren't nearby, you can still get dust and science boosts all by your lonesome. Therefore, trade routes encourage you to build wide empires. The more cities you have, the more you can trade internally.



Also, if there are nearby factions that haven't built roads, don't be afraid to just gift them the right of way technology if they don't already have it (you have to have a peace agreement though). You will benefit from them building it so it's not like you are giving up an advantage.



After playing around with trade routes ever since they were activated, I think I might start a thread about them in the guides section, or maybe make a guide on Steam.

Very helpful. Thank you.

Just posted a guide to trade routes on Steam. Despite being able to rake in huge amounts of dust and science with them, there's still certain things about them I don't actually know, but I was about as thorough as can be.



Read up here.