Apolyton CS: Civilization III: The List v1: Terrain & Terrain Improvements (page 2)

TERRAIN & TERRAIN IMPROVEMENTS
-Summarized by Thread Master EnochF-
a-kevsn@microsoft.com

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10. ROADS    TOP

10.1) Roads are ugly. Don't them to trade bonuses, or players will build them in the entire city radius (Wheathin).

10.2) Roads/railroads provide no trade bonus, but superhighways can still be built, providing +1 trade per road square. Encourages road building near developed cities (EnochF).

10.3) No unlimited movement on railroads. Too easily misused militarily (Eggman).

10.4) Superhighways encourages ugly road building (Wheathin).

10.5) Roads in the city radius simulate urban sprawl. What about unlimited movement on maglevs for the late game? (EnochF)

10.6) Roads and railroads should effectively extend the city radius. Maybe after the development of concrete, things like suburbs or hinterland could be built to extend city radii without the ugliness of roads (Diodorus Sicilus).

10.7) Railroads should only provide unlimited movement within your own borders. Not in enemy territory (NotLikeTea).

10.8) Citizens can work any square within 2 movement points of a city. Production will be penalized for any square requiring more than 1/3 movement points to reach the city. Double this after automobile (Ecce Homo).

10.9) There are loopholes in railroad movement being unlimited within your borders. Perhaps combat movement would be limited, i.e. after six steps, a howitzer can no longer attack. And air units should be able to take advantage of the infinite movement as well (Eggman).

10.10) Suburbs don't reach 200 miles away from a city. Excessive roads ruin the aesthetic experience of the game (Wheathin).

10.11) All civilizations may use enemy roads, but may not use enemy railroads or better. Non-combat units may use railroads of civilizations with peaceful relations. All units may use railroads of allies. Rails may be "claimed" by a military unit if at war. Perhaps color-coding would be a good solution (Theben).

10.12) When a city is captured, along with "partisans" there's a chance that the surrounding railroads are sabotaged. Partisans may also destroy both railroads and roads crossing a river (blow up the bridge). (Eggman)

10.13) Maybe give partisans a free pillage on the first turn of automatic creation (NotLikeTea).

10.14) Then you just kill the partisans and bring along 10 engineers. No, you can't use enemy railroads Kris (Huysmans).

10.15) How about player-specific railroads? Color code them to the building civilization, like Theben said. There can be only one player's rails in a square. Building your own rail would destroy the enemy's rail and change colors (Wheathin).

10.16) Have "support costs" for tiles, with roads being the most expensive, to prevent over-building of roads. Roads cannot be built on mountains until explosives or rivers until bridge building (Harel).

10.17) Railroads can never be built faster than 2 turns, no matter how many engineers are working. Prevents railroad/howitzer blitzing (Kris Huysmans).

10.18) Color-coded railroads, but the color changes depending on which unit occupies it. The railroad should be "converted" at the beginning of the next turn (Ecce Homo).

10.19) There should be several different kinds of roads. Roads should give a trade bonus. No unlimited movement for railroads (DaBods).

10.20) Color-coded rails. On the turn that you remove control from the enemy, the railroad (maglev) has no color: no one owns it. At the beginning of the next turn, if your unit is still there (hasn't been destroyed), you gain possession of the railroad (Theben).

11. THE SEA    TOP

11.1) "City roads" for sea transport. Shipping lanes, or ferry routes, which increase sea movement for transports. Perhaps late game TI's would provide instant ocean transport like railroads (Wheathin).

11.2) Bridges and tunnels could provide transport across shallow water (one ocean tile).

11.3) Perhaps increase movement rate of all ships, but increase movement cost when sailing into unexplored territory. Negates the need for shipping lanes (Eggman).

11.4) Sea transport was way too slow in Civilization II, should be faster. Perhaps sea lanes or trade routes could simulate this, 2 or 3x movement rate (Diodorus Sicilus).

11.5) Get rid of nets from Call to Power. They're ugly (Bubba).

12. CITIES    TOP

12.1) Instead of a single city square, have "city tiles.? The technology level determines the population a single tile can hold. Huts: 2 pop/tile, Masonry: 4 pop/tile, Concrete: 5 pop/tile, Urban: 8 pop/tile, Skyscraper: 10 pop/tile, Arcology: 15 pop/tile. Eventually, city tiles will become adjacent to one another, and the two adjoining cities will merge to become a megalopolis (Harel).

12.2) A city square is huge. Suburban sprawl in a 50-mile radius is covered in that one city square (Don Don).

12.3) But if the map were 1000 x 1000, then a city square would be on 20 miles or so. Thus, large cities would be better represented by multiple city tiles (Harel).

12.4) All use of resources comes down to roads. Railroads increase food production because they allow farms to move more of their production to the cities. Therefore, I think the city radius should vary according to terrain and transportation. Cities on rivers should have larger radii in the early game because rivers were the only form of long-distance transportation of food. With railroads, the city radius ultimately amounts to wherever railroads connect to. Urban sprawl can only come with superhighways, ocean ports, railroads, etc. Only with modern transportation do we get modern metropoles such as New York, Tokyo, Paris, Berlin, Mexico City and Moscow (Diodorus Sicilus).

12.5) We may have to move away from the idea that a "city" in civilization is in fact a city, but rather consider it a province with a capital city in the middle. The surrounding tiles represent small cities whose names are relatively unimportant (Don Don).

13. FOOD    TOP

13.1) Something should be done to free cities from the limitations of their own farmland. Huge cities should no longer operate on the food-from-city-radius principle (Wheathin).

13.2) When railroads became a viable economic factor, food allocation ceased to be local (Don Don).

13.3) Irrigation should be severely limited, to rivers. Only a tiny percentage of land is irrigated in the world today. Then provide several "upgrades" for farmland tiles (Alexander's Horse).

14. TILE-BASED CITY IMPROVEMENTS    TOP

14.1) Like harbors and supermarkets. Civilization III should have many of these. Or perhaps certain city improvements allow certain tile improvements, i.e. no fisheries without a harbor (Wheathin).

14.2) Hates supermarkets and superhighways in Civilization II. TI's should provide bonuses without needing a city improvement (Kris Huysmans).

14.3) Environmentalism technology adds +1 trade to wilderness squares (mountain, jungle, swamps, tundra, forests) with roads in them (Theben).

15. POLLUTION    TOP

15.1) Pollution within the city radius should cause unhappiness. Nuclear pollution = twice the unhappiness. Nuclear pollution takes longer to clean. Only engineers may clean (not settlers). Fallout may cause pollution downwind of the target. Nuclear pollution may lower population for X number of turns. Nukes should also damage terrain (Theben).

16. WEATHER    TOP

16.1) Add in random effects, like earthquakes, tidal waves, floods, volcanoes, continental drift (NotLikeTea). Natural conditions like those could be random events. Tornadoes, hurricanes, monsoons, etc., could cause food losses, population decreases, destruction of TI's, etc. Volcanoes could crop up on plate edges, but oil/gas resources would also increase there (Bird).

16.2) Random climactic/geographical events with minor effects. Famine (loss of food, though irrigation/farmland lessens the effect), Flood (for cities next to rivers, lessened by sewer system, city walls), Epidemic (lessened by hospitals, Cure for Cancer), Mine Failure (decreases production in tile), Bumper Crop (increased food), Gold Strike (iron, silver, uranium, etc.), Oil Strike (DickK).

17. COMPREHENSIVE LISTS    TOP

17.1) Land: Roads, permanent roads, railroads, maglev line; roads extend city radius 1 tile, railroads and maglevs extend radius to regional distances. Farms, factory farms (along with several incremental improvements to farms, advance-based, like moldboard plow, improved grain, crop rotation, artificial fertilizer). Irrigation, canals (canals allow irrigation beyond rivers; irrigation turns desert/plains into grassland for farming purposes). Mines, deep mines, open-pit mines (deep mines require steam, open-pit mines are 20th Century). Fortifications, fortresses (fortresses are 19th Century concrete and steel). Airfield (Diodorus Sicilus).

17.2) Sea: Fishing boats, fishing trawlers, factory ships ("mobile improvements") can be moved to where the fish are, but are useless without fish). Fish farm, aquaculture station (stationary). Offshore platform (useable on resources at sea). Mine belt, mine array, SONAR array, MAD array (mines to damage/destroy ships, SONARs to detect them).

17.3) Also wants lots of eye candy in the form of visible improvements. Canals with boats, detailed roads, visible harbors, things like that. Pillaged improvements could be just as visually striking.

17.4) Seems like a lot of those TI's could be advanced technologies, granting small percentage gains to overall food/shield/trade production. Fishing boats sound like they should be units (like SMAC's supply crawlers), not TI's. Irrigation: grassland and plains should always be irrigable, but never desert. If a river is over-irrigated, it might dry up. Transforming desert to plains or grassland should require maintenance over time (Theben).

18. OTHER STUFF    TOP

18.1) An improved, simplified zoom-out feature that cuts down on needless detail like altitude (Theben).

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