...or not in the Auriga.





Seriously, why the sea trade road can only bypass one sea region?





I usually playing 2 continent map, but almost all the time, there's 2 or more 'sea region' blocks my way to further neighbors





Come on, we can make gigantic golems, and floating magical architectures, but can't make a ship strong enough to open Exploration age?







Is there any mod or method to contact our beloved oversea friends? Am I missing something? Should I lower water proportion or increase islands?

It's arbitrary, yes, but a lot of game rules are arbitrary. There needed to be some restriction on how many water regions a sea route could cross or we'd have ended up with routes wrapping all around the world in strange and unsightly ways.



edit: "arbitrary" isn't the right word - I meant that it's not "realistic". There is always a reason for these things though.

... we'd have ended up with routes wrapping all around the world in strange and unsightly ways :/

So? I highly doubt actual trade routes were defined by their aesthetic appeal on a map, but rather than by the winds and currents. In this case, it would simply follow the shortest path, would it not? How would that be unsightly? I have to side with the OP on this, especially when the quoted reason makes no sense.

wilbefast wrote:
It's arbitrary, yes, but a lot of game rules are arbitrary. There needed to be some restriction on how many water regions a sea route could cross or we'd have ended up with routes wrapping all around the world in strange and unsightly ways :/



We hope you understand.

Thank you for respond. I got your point, but still only 1 region bypassing is too limiting I think.



Maybe setting sea road can bypass 2 sea region will be good, I guess. Not making trade route mess, but can connect 2 continents.



I hope you consider this Sorry for bad Engrish XD

Rather an artificial restriction, especially with an explanation like that. Sea trade routes should be more viable, then they are currently. I don't recall I've ever seen a sea trade route in my games, even though I've built cargo docs in few cities on more then one occasion.

Like, the whole idea of sea trade should be to defy land borders, why are there sea ones?

Increasing the restriction to 2 ocean regions could be a good start to check if it's a good way.

JIntegrity wrote:
So? I highly doubt actual trade routes were defined by their aesthetic appeal on a map, but rather than by the winds and currents. In this case, it would simply follow the shortest path, would it not? How would that be unsightly? I have to side with the OP on this, especially when the quoted reason makes no sense.

It seems that what I meant didn't come across the right way, allow me to explain



The rules of the game state that a trade route will always choose the path that maximises the potential gain in dust and science. This gain is defined, in part, by the length of the trade route. Were there no restriction on the number of regions a sea route could traverse the sea trade routes would wrap themselves around the map in order to maximise their gain by maximising their length. Not only would this make sea trade over-powered, but it would be very difficult for players to predict in advance where their routes would go. We chose to impose a simple rule that would be easy to understand, with easily predictable results.

rodanoS wrote:
Thank you for respond. I got your point, but still only 1 region bypassing is too limiting I think.



Maybe setting sea road can bypass 2 sea region will be good, I guess. Not making trade route mess, but can connect 2 continents.



I hope you consider this Sorry for bad Engrish XD

The world generator does merge sea regions together to make big oceans, but I think the strait between Ararak and Waredda stopped this particular region from being merged with the ocean between Aldineche and Ararak. This makes sense from a gameplay point of view too, as it means colonising Ararak is important. The generation is not always 100% perfect I'm afraid, but it generally does a decent job.



And your English is fine

wilbefast wrote:




The world generator does merge sea regions together to make big oceans, but I think the strait between Ararak and Waredda stopped this particular region from being merged with the ocean between Aldineche and Ararak. This makes sense from a gameplay point of view too, as it means colonising Ararak is important. The generation is not always 100% perfect I'm afraid, but it generally does a decent job.



And your English is fine

B-b-but... it still blocked! D:



Well, I should lower water portion and increase island rate next game. Thank you for concern

I'm not sure it's blocked. Looks like Selamont-Aranak is just less profitable, then your current route.

I guess the region you want to connect for sea trade route doesn't have technology and/or building they need to connect... it's not possible to have that kind of trade route, if the other region lacks of it...

It seems that what I meant didn't come across the right way, allow me to explain



The rules of the game state that a trade route will always choose the path that maximises the potential gain in dust and science. This gain is defined, in part, by the length of the trade route. Were there no restriction on the number of regions a sea route could traverse the sea trade routes would wrap themselves around the map in order to maximise their gain by maximising their length. Not only would this make sea trade over-powered, but it would be very difficult for players to predict in advance where their routes would go. We chose to impose a simple rule that would be easy to understand, with easily predictable results.

Thanks for the explanation. That reasoning makes much more sense. That being said, couldn't you force it to only calculate the route based on the shortest path between two points? This still makes distant trade routes both more lucrative and riskier, while avoiding the odd results listed above. What you've described, if I understand correctly, would be like going west from Paris to reach Reims by circumnavigating the globe, or worse going west, hitting the north and south pole for each step I take westward, and eventually reaching Reims that way: it makes no sense.

JIntegrity wrote:
Thanks for the explanation. That reasoning makes much more sense. That being said, couldn't you force it to only calculate the route based on the shortest path between two points? This still makes distant trade routes both more lucrative and riskier, while avoiding the odd results listed above. What you've described, if I understand correctly, would be like going west from Paris to reach Reims by circumnavigating the globe, or worse going west, hitting the north and south pole for each step I take westward, and eventually reaching Reims that way: it makes no sense.

The sea routes aren't locked-in though, they're just a way of connecting two cities. The two cities in question may not even have cargo docks: the route may travel through various other regions on its way from way to the other, as well as crossing the sea. It's the entire route that is made as long as possible. It's difficult to impose sea routes being as short as possible when they are part of an overall route that we're trying to make a long as possible: suddenly we're doing multi-objective optimisation. The way trade works has gone through a number of iterations and it may still not be perfect, but the rule "route maximise their gains but are subject to hard constraints on how they can connect" is relatively simple to implement and, more importantly it is simple to intellectualise as a player. I know may routes will always give me as much as they can.



edit: hmm... a thought though: we could perhaps for every pair of cities with cargo docks store the shortest way they can be connected via the sea and then use these sea routes when trying to form our empire-wide routes. Will need to think about this.

rodanoS wrote:


B-b-but... it still blocked! D:

Hmm... I'd like to have a closer look at your world generation and trade network - is there any chance I could have a save game? The forum lets you attach them to your posts.

wilbefast wrote:
Hmm... I'd like to have a closer look at your world generation and trade network - is there any chance I could have a save game? The forum lets you attach them to your posts.

Sure! But I don't know how to attatch my save OTL so I uploaded to my google drive. Link below.





https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B_g1KAK2qwjbVUxHY0J0cl9Vams





Already beat the game, 2 continent., huge, hard difficulty.



As you can see, there are at least 2 water regions between continents(and islands). So I only could trade with Roving Clan. After I beat them up -> Forever alone D:

Groo wrote:
I guess the region you want to connect for sea trade route doesn't have technology and/or building they need to connect... it's not possible to have that kind of trade route, if the other region lacks of it...

It's almost end game screenshot. You can see there are Cargo docks in each land

The sea routes aren't locked-in though, they're just a way of connecting two cities. The two cities in question may not even have cargo docks: the route may travel through various other regions on its way from way to the other, as well as crossing the sea. It's the entire route that is made as long as possible. It's difficult to impose sea routes being as short as possible when they are part of an overall route that we're trying to make a long as possible: suddenly we're doing multi-objective optimisation. The way trade works has gone through a number of iterations and it may still not be perfect, but the rule "route maximise their gains but are subject to hard constraints on how they can connect" is relatively simple to implement and, more importantly it is simple to intellectualise as a player. I know may routes will always give me as much as they can.



edit: hmm... a thought though: we could perhaps for every pair of cities with cargo docks store the shortest way they can be connected via the sea and then use these sea routes when trying to form our empire-wide routes. Will need to think about this.

Thanks again for the reply. I'd be curious to see how the idea proposed in your edit works. Keep bein' awesome.