City of World’s Desire: Trade Route Expansion
A trade route expansion mod focused on historical flavor and unique gameplay. Encourages players to develop cities’ trade functions, control key geopolitical nodes (to earn more trade taxes), attract trade routes from other civilizations to your empire, and make trade routes play a more strategic role.
”Countless bells faintly ring across the desert —They should be carrying white silk to Anxi….“
”One post after another, Courier riders flow like stars. At dawn I leave Xianyang, By dusk I reach the peak of Longshan….“
Trade routes have long been a vital force in the development, exchange, and prosperity of civilizations. As early as ancient times, the footprints of material exchange spanned the globe; by the classical era, vast trade networks crisscrossed Eurasia. To this day, trade remains not only a focal point of global affairs, but also a key shaper of everyday life for people around the world.
Throughout history, the strength and prosperity of empires has been measured not only by grand domestic achievements and rapid scientific and cultural advancement, but also by their role in global civilizational exchange and their standing in the wider world. Yet in Civilization VI, the trade route system often merely reacts passively to the internal state of cities, functioning as a static choice with limited strategic depth. The broader effects of trade — on cities along the routes, on military logistics, and on the commercial prosperity generated by converging trade networks — remain underdeveloped. City of the World’s Desire: Trade Route Expansion seeks to address these gaps.
It is also worth noting that many of history’s great cities rose to prominence by occupying key crossroads of land and water, controlling vital north-south and east-west passages. Their growth was fueled by the constant flow of travelers and merchants, enabling them to become regional or even world-renowned centers — from ancient Constantinople and Dunhuang to modern-day Shanghai and Singapore. This mod aims to reflect that legacy, empowering players to build their own legendary cities by emphasizing the strategic value of trade routes and control over key geopolitical nodes.
- Each time a city becomes the destination of a trade route, it gains bonus yields for all routes where it is the destination. The bonus follows an inverted-U curve, with the peak value and corresponding number of routes increasing as the city’s Commercial Hub or Harbor buildings are upgraded. By default, and with each level of Commercial Hub building, the peak occurs at 5 routes. In the early game, each route adds +2 Gold to destination routes; before reaching the peak, the increment slows to +1 Gold, and after surpassing the peak, it decreases symmetrically.
- All cities gain yields from international trade routes that pass through or terminate in them (+3 Gold each), and Merchants provide +5 Gold and +10% Gold yield to cities within their two-tile radius.
- Citizen jobs in the Commercial Hub and Harbor change from +4 Gold to +2 Gold per destination trade route and +1 Gold.
- The extended land and water trade distance from Trade Posts is reduced to 2/3 of the original, emphasizing the importance of key geopolitical nodes and will be prolonged after reaserching Cartography.
- The minimum trade route duration is reduced to 10 turns (originally 20). Connecting to a city-state immediately establishes a Trade Post.
- When a trade route is sent from the capital to another civilization’s capital, vision along the route path is shared with the receiving civilization.
- Each Wonder grants +1 Culture to international destination routes and +1 Faith to domestic destination routes in that city.
- If the destination civilization is more advanced than the sending one, the route gains Science or Culture (+1 per every 3 additional technologies or civics).
City of Rare Goods:
- Each improved bonus resource type within the city’s borders grants +2 Gold to international trade routes (+1 Culture for luxuries, +1 Science for strategics). For domestic routes, the Gold bonus from bonus resources is halved, and the Science and Culture yields from luxury and strategic resources are converted into equivalent Gold.
A Thousand Miles Towards the West:
- Merchants grant +5 Healing and +1 Movement at the start of the turn to friendly units stationed within their 2-tile radius.
- Domestic trade routes provide +5 Loyalty to the origin city.
- Also grants each major civilization a base +1 trade route capacity per era. This is optional and can be disabled in Advanced Options.
- Provide in Advanced Options a low stat level version, which is more closer to original gameplay.
City of the World’s Desire: Trade Route Expansion is designed to work with the companion UI mod 【UI】Show All Trade Route Paths, which has been released separately for easy integration into ongoing games. Highly recommended to use both together!
Due to Better Trade Screen’s sluggish response to dynamic trade data, it is strongly advised to also install Better Trade Screen Fix.…Though apparently that one still has issues? Ugh, don’t tell me I’ll have to fix it myself next.
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The current balance values are still relatively conservative. At 30 likes, I’ll release an alternative balance version tuned for various total conversion or overhaul-heavy playthroughs — one that scales better with boosted base yields (since higher base values are common in such mods). (Done)
At 50 likes, I’ll enhance the companion UI mod with additional data displays based on the current gameplay experience of this mod. This will require testing and coding side-by-side — so let’s gather some likes first…
At 70 likes, I’ll update (and officially put on the to-do list) an EVP-style Nomadic Trait. The goal is a resilient playstyle — one that’s hard to wipe out in a single campaign, excels at harassment (because otherwise, endless raiding as a nomad gets boring), and gains unique benefits based on the player’s “martial virtue” (currently thinking: revival of a City-State). This will enrich the conquest experience for flow-focused players.
At 100 likes, I’ll introduce a new victory type: Trade Victory. While gathering likes, I’ll use the time to test mechanics, collect gameplay reports, and calibrate the difficulty and conditions. How hard should it be? What should the requirements be? Let me know — and feel free to join the Discord/WeChat group and send me your gameplay stories!
…Oh, and I still need to write the in-game Civilopedia entries… But it’s already late — I’ll just release it for now. Done for now.
Revisions:
Old revisions of this mod are available below. Click the link to download.
