Official Post 2

Economics and Networks of Exchange

Civilizations in Civ 5 for the most part seem to prosper by trade with other major civilizations or by trade with the small city states. I however, will admit that on my first play through I really did not focus on trade. I did to a very limited extent send trade (food) caravans between the cities already in my empire. I also engaged in trade by sea (again to a very limited extent) with a one city state that I had chosen to make my ally and not take over as I did with the others. Also, occasionally the 2 other civilizations in my game (as referenced in an earlier post) would send me a proposal wanting some of the luxury resources that I had in my territory. I would usually accept for a certain amount of gold. So, I guess I may have engaged in trade more than I thought and didn't really realize it. As I said, at the time trade was not a priority for me. The only real relation I saw between trade and food production was when I sent the caravans with food to help out other cities within my empire who needed it.

As for trade and technology being related I really didn't see a big relation. I suppose it is possible to trade and exchange technology between your civilization and the other civilizations. However, in my first play through I was so far technologically advanced that it did not benefit me nor would it have to exchange technology. This is not an exaggeration, during my conquests the civilization of Indonesia literally send knights against my riflemen and Gatling guns. The overall role of trade networks and other networks in the game are to make you more powerful and spread your civilization's influence which I suppose could lead to a diplomatic or cultural victory. Despite my success in my first play through I recognize that this is an a nominally and not historically accurate. Civilizations in history that tended only to focus on war and neglect trade tended to fall apart quickly. For example this is exactly what happen to the war-like Hittites and Assyrians, who focused so much on war and very little on trade that that they quickly fell apart once they ran out of people to conquer and thus take their resources for their own. Without really having an expansive trade network in place, which may have delayed their downfall.