Thanks! So the upshot is: buying trade from other empires is now a bad idea for luxury items that increase Money. And for other resources, it is only worth it if you 1. have a lot of money, and 2. desperately need it.

Becauseif if it cost me that much to import from a country that's right next door, then it's just not worth it!

The cost will be lower as the game progress.

And it should not be too high if it's from neighborhood.

But I didn't play enough with the update to be aware about the balance about gold related luxury bonus.

Also worth pointing out: The benefits of luxury resources (e.g. +5 gold per city) are generally shown in the tooltips of the affected city yield or the affected district, not in your empire summary. That's why the empire income will only show you an upkeep cost for trade, even if the resources you buy might be a net benefit.

Yeah, in the early game you can actually place yourself in the red by buying too many/distant resources without being able to support the routes, even if they're money resources.  A bit later in the game they become more break-even and buyable.  And once you have some trade routes in place, I think adding new resources to existing routes becomes cheaper as well, so you can ease into more purchases.

DJVANCE wrote:

Thanks! So the upshot is: buying trade from other empires is now a bad idea for luxury items that increase Money. And for other resources, it is only worth it if you 1. have a lot of money, and 2. desperately need it.

Becauseif if it cost me that much to import from a country that's right next door, then it's just not worth it!

It will become worth it to purchase luxury resources that increase money. Around the middle ages you get some techs that reduce the cost and by purchasing LR's that increase your money you can actually increase your money per turn by a significant amount.

The-Cat-o-Nine-Tales wrote:

RedSirus wrote:
And once you have some trade routes in place, I think adding new resources to existing routes becomes cheaper as well, so you can ease into more purchases.

Adding more resources that are already being traded on that route will not cost any extra upkeep. Adding additional new resources types will increase the cost, and the curve is polynomial, so the increase gets bigger the more different resources are already being traded on that specific route. If you want to buy a resource you're not trading for yet, opening new markets with another player might be cheaper than expanding existing trade. (In fact, the first two resource types get a small discount compared to base price, 3 or more cost extra.)

Thanks for the clarifications!  It feels a bit weird (based on real world) that more resources on a route would increase the cost on a polynomial curve, but I get that it makes sense for game purposes.

Now that I think of it, in the new system, the maintenance/turn paid on routes is going to become important than the initial purchase price of a resource; I wonder if the UI should show that number as well on the resources-for-trade screen instead of just the initial price.

Thanks!

RedSirus wrote:

The-Cat-o-Nine-Tales wrote:

RedSirus wrote:
And once you have some trade routes in place, I think adding new resources to existing routes becomes cheaper as well, so you can ease into more purchases.

Adding more resources that are already being traded on that route will not cost any extra upkeep. Adding additional new resources types will increase the cost, and the curve is polynomial, so the increase gets bigger the more different resources are already being traded on that specific route. If you want to buy a resource you're not trading for yet, opening new markets with another player might be cheaper than expanding existing trade. (In fact, the first two resource types get a small discount compared to base price, 3 or more cost extra.)

Thanks for the clarifications!  It feels a bit weird (based on real world) that more resources on a route would increase the cost on a polynomial curve, but I get that it makes sense for game purposes.

Now that I think of it, in the new system, the maintenance/turn paid on routes is going to become important than the initial purchase price of a resource; I wonder if the UI should show that number as well on the resources-for-trade screen instead of just the initial price.

Thanks!

My impression was that the UI already does show the ongoing price? Although it seemed odd that it was 24 -> 36 GPT for a very early-stage new game and mid-stage pre-beta game. For all resources I looked at. Surely, those costs must vary by trading partner, distance, and with technology.

The other thing: a preview of what effects the resource would have on our current economy would be helpful. Similar to the preview for infrastructure yields. Just to give us the right tools to decide whether a particular transaction is worth it at that time.