Trade routes
Established connections between settlements or cities that generate ongoing income and resources, representing commerce as a persistent, buildable asset. Civilization VI's trade routes and Anno 1800's shipping lanes make commerce a spatial and strategic system: routes must be established, protected, and optimized. Designers use trade routes to give economy an active, spatial dimension (not just a passive income number), to make geography and connectivity valuable, to create vulnerability and defense decisions (routes can be raided), and to reward infrastructure investment. Key decisions: how routes are established and what they yield (gold, resources, growth, diplomatic bonuses), route capacity and duration, protection and interdiction (can enemies pillage them?), and the micromanagement burden of maintaining many routes. Pitfall: trade routes that are pure passive income with no meaningful decisions become fire-and-forget clutter, while routes that demand constant micromanagement across dozens of connections become tedious — the sweet spot ties routes to interesting choices (where to connect, what to prioritize, how to protect) without drowning the player in per-route upkeep.
- Dev effort: Medium
- Timing: Real-time or turn-based
- Common in: 4x, strategy, city-builder
Seen in
- Civilization VI
- Anno 1800