Caravan pack -- PLEASE !

from Elemental Forums

1:  So I got tired of monsters eating my caravans in the forests and decided to give them a surprise.  Went to the unit design screen to create a unit with master heavy plate defenses, a high-level ax (more appropriate for forests than swords or bow, considering what I would like to do to those forests anyway :) ), and surprise, I could equip scouts pack, messenger's pack, ranger's pack, medical pack and pioneer's pack, but no caravan / trader pack.  Ouch!

What I wanted was the equivalent of the custom armed trading ships I used to make in GalCiv 2 to fight off pirates etc, but we need them more in Elemental than in GC2 unless/until they do something about the monsters spawning deep within our territory. 

Currently, caravans don't even show in the unit design screen as units we can upgrade.  That would be a good place to start.

 

2:  While I'm at it, I notice that when I build plain-old caravans the "party" option is greyed-out.  I wouldn't mind being able to build parties or even squads of caravans for bigger trade bonuses, and also better defense when/if they permit custom armed caravans.  (Then for balance reasons they might slightly reduce the effect of single caravans).

3:  Also, could they please tweak the caravan-got-killed messages to tell us where it happened and which cities it was going between.  I know this has been requested before, but its worth nagging about.  Maybe even give us a little notification on the right side mentioning the cities so we can keep it there until we get a replacement started.

4:  I tried an alternate way to automagically protect my caravans -- have an armed unit travel with them.  But when they got to the target city, they just sat there an garrisoned it, no trade route.  Back to my first request.

5,439 views 5 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

I tend to agree here. I'd especially like to be able to "attach" a unit to a caravan for protection. Heck, the whole trade system could use a little upgrade if at all possible. I really liked GalCiv2 trading too.

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

I completely agree. I found it to be rather irritating when my caravans would be destroyed (their location, be it in my own lands or not is irrelevant imo) by roaming creatures with a threat rating of only 5...To be able to assign a patrol to go with the caravans would be a nifty little feature, and perhaps a screen to show which caravans were destroyed. I've had several different routes leading to one of my larger cities, and some of the roads were shared with other caravans, and when one or two would be destroyed, it took longer than I'd like to figure out which city I needed to send the newly built caravan towards.

Sins of a Solar Empire II
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

We agree but we took a different view of the solution.

The problem is, why are monsters spawning in your territory? What's the point of civilizing the world if monsters are being pumped out wherever?

In the final game, the monsters spawn only in unowned tiles.

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

Well, I'd kind of like having a "Caravan Master/Caravan Guard" ... for a normal caravan its just a citizen, but can be upgraded to larger numbers/better equipment.

Then, the Icon for the Caravan Master still looks just like a Caravan, and you order it to a trade route like normal. You can also order a Caravan into a city (also if a Caravan is in one of your cities) to upgrade its caravan master.

a non-upgraded caravan master wouldn't change the price of building the caravan ... but you could seep some military resources into Caravan Masters if you wanted a more robust economic defense.

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Rath3130, reply 2
I completely agree. I found it to be rather irritating when my caravans would be destroyed (their location, be it in my own lands or not is irrelevant imo) by roaming creatures with a threat rating of only 5...To be able to assign a patrol to go with the caravans would be a nifty little feature, and perhaps a screen to show which caravans were destroyed. I've had several different routes leading to one of my larger cities, and some of the roads were shared with other caravans, and when one or two would be destroyed, it took longer than I'd like to figure out which city I needed to send the newly built caravan towards.
End of Rath3130's quote

That's coo'. A good idea would also be to have an alert when they're near your territory?