caravans

So the caravans are magically protected and can't be attacked? Some "super" caravan?

No.

Agree, or at the very least allow you to assign a retinue of guards for it.

As it stands now I simply refuse to build them because it is so tedious.  Not fun at all.

They would be a better option if you could arm and armor them.  I don't mind auto-calcing the combat, but at least allow me to give them a fighting chance especially against weak creatures.

I don't think it is a good idea. I like the fact that the caravan can be attacked in route by both the other factions and wondering monsters.

What they should add is the ability to stack armies/heros to the caraven to guard it. The attached units will then just travel with the caravan until such time when the player unattaches the unit.

+1 to the guarding of caravans with some type of troop/unit or upgrade.

Have the caravan respawn like 5 turns later or something after its destroyed. the route is still there.

Have "Caravan" as a special equipment. Then you could design the unit, wich would act as an escort. The hardest part is that the caravan equipment shouldn't scale it's cost with the size of the unit....

Add a basic defense bonus to caravans. Adventure research could boost defense against creatures.

My workaround has been to post units to remove fog of war from the route.   Ideally, some sort of optional escort that acompanies / built into caravanb(s) is 'historical' model.   Wish we could assign units to 'patrol' as well.

You pay next to nothing for a caravan & they bring in a lot of benefit, making them "super" would be overpowered. There should be some more base cost to a caravan, I feel they're overpowerd in the game as it. Monster kills a caravan?? ... just immediately replace it. Every single turn I lose a caravan or two once I have more than 30 cities, just replace 'em, don't even bother covering them unless there just happens to be a strong enough group nearby.

I used to have this problem with caravans, where spawning monster would stroll out and kill my caravans. However, I soon realized that is was due to the fact that I was sending caravans on incredibly long journeys into unprotected lands. Mainly, this was a lack of oversight on my part and after a couple of times of this happening, I started picking safer routes and sending troops to nearby forests to watch for pesky spawns. I think alot of people are spreading their kingdoms very wide and hoping that a single caravan can traverse the great distances without fear. To allow caravans to respawn or some how become invulnerable to attack would make them way OP and make have a significant effect on the player when trying to take out a rivals trade network. I think that being able to add guard attachments to caravans is a decent idea, though I think significant limitations would be required to prevent caravan guard units from becoming super armies themselves.

Caravans must be guarded or lands should be patrolled/guarded. Also it is annoying to spam caravans in every city it should be automated somehow.