Trade Routes Guide

Trade Routes Guide Trade Routes Guide

Trade Route Guide

"It's a positive aspect of the industry and I think the world is being stirred together." -Isabelle Hoving

introduction

Merchants and trade routes have always been an important part of the Civilization game, and with the release of Civilization 6, there has been some confusion and misinformation. That's why I created this guide so that the community and I can find and contribute to it and hopefully get accurate information.

List of all topics:

basic

What is a trader's route?

Why do you need them?

How to create/start a trader route?

Is there a limit to the number of trade routes I can currently have?

How do I determine my trade routes?

Advanced information

What changed my trade route yield?

How do I increase my trade route capacity?

What are trade routes?

What is a transactional post? How do transactional posts work?

How many turns will my trading route require?

How does game speed and distance affect the number of turns my route completes?

How can I see the turns required to complete a trade route?

Other important things to know:

Base

What is a trader's route?

As Wikipedia defines it - "A trade route is a logistics network identified as a series of paths and stops used for the commercial transportation of goods. The term may also be used to refer to trade on water bodies."

Why do you need them?

All trade routes have yields. This can be food, production, gold, and sometimes culture, science, and faith. Get these yields every turn while the trade route is running. In addition to these basic yields, trade routes are available in the following ways:

Traders also build roads for you, which are essential for the mobility of your military and civilian units. The road is built from the original city to the destination city.

Transaction routes provide visibility bonuses (visible on the Transaction Overview screen with a little eye icon). Diplomacy visibility should get its own guide, but in short it lets you know what the player is currently doing (like building wonders, buildings, areas).

Trade Routes also provide travel bonuses for players you trade with (visible on the Trade Overview screen with a small suitcase icon). This bonus starts at +25% but rises to +50% using policy cards in online communities. This travel bonus helps you gain cultural victories and is almost essential for highly civilized civilizations.

How to create/start a trader route?

After researching citizen foreign trade, you will gain the ability to create traders. Traders can start a route from their current city. Once a trader is selected, you can see an action with a trade route icon in the unit panel (two arrows in a circle).

If you click this action, the Open Trade Routes panel will open. From there, select the destination you want to trade to and click "Start Route."

Once the trade route is completed, the trader will return to the original city and can be sent via another trade route.

Is there a limit to the number of trade routes I can currently have?

Indeed, there is. On the top bar you should see two numbers with the Trade Route symbol on them.

The number to the left of the "/" is the number of trade routes currently running, and the number to the right is the capacity of trader routes you can run.

Once this limit is reached, no more traders can be created, nor can new trading routes be started. A common example is if you choose the Government Merchant Republic it will grant you the +2 trade route ability. If you advance or change to any other government, you will no longer receive this bonus. However, if you maximize trade routes before doing the government conversion, you will exceed the limit of 2 and your two traders will not be able to start trade routes.

How do I determine my trade routes?

It depends on what you want your trade routes to do.

If you want to grow and develop a city, you may want to send domestic trade with the highest food and production routes from that city.

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