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Fist off, no, I didn't program anything. I can't get the SDK to work with the instructions available in this forum, let alone complete the programming needed to make everything listed below a reality. If I could, this thread would be created much later and include an attachment. However, I am not a programmer. I'm just someone with some ideas that may or may not (but should) be possible.
Anyway, I find if bothersome where unless I can build a closer city, I can never get anyone working a tile outside any city's 'fat cross', no matter how many people and roads and other movement technology I'm willing to use to get there, and no matter how far within my cultural borders the resource exists. It really bothers me. D: Therefore, I think something has to be done about city radii. Are they supposed to essentially represent what resources someone can pull out and get to the city within a certain time limit? ...because that's the impression I got for the last several years. If my assumption made long ago is right, then why can we get the food and commerce from an ocean square two spaces away that can't be reached by the best units before optics, but we can't get the food from, say, a farm three roaded squares away?
In fact, why can't we get resources from tiles that are farther away? Suppose there were a few city radii? Like three? The small one could involve easily accessible tiles where it'll take one unit of population to pull in all the benefits of that tile. The medium one would be where it'd take a longer to get there so two population units will be needed to carry in all the benefits of the tile (mainly because one of those units would be used to carry the resources the extra distance). If one person got resources from one of those tiles, its benefits would be cut in half. The third radius would involve tiles that take longer still to reach and require four population units for the full effect of the tile. ...meaning each population unit would offer 1/4 of the benefits of that resource. If we want, we could have the total amount of resources in each tile multiplied by four, then make everything cost more.
Movement-affecting features of terrain (rockiness, water, forests/jungle, roads) should have effect on what is too far away from a city for whatever radius. I want mountains and hills and forest to shrink those radii. I want the radii over oceans to rise if the civilians have fast boats, shrink if they have slow ones, and spread only over coastlines if those boats can't go over open water. I also want roads (and especially railroads) to drastically increase the radii over land, usually to the point where the limit of those city radii generally show up in the form of cultural borders and the resource hoardings of other cities in one's nation.
In order to keep the city radii from becoming very square, as well as for other reasons, I'd like a few changes to how units move about the map. Diagonal 1-space moves are 2^(1/2) times as long as horizontal and vertical ones. Therefore, those moves should take 2^(1/2) times as long as their one-space equivalents. Also, if it takes more movement to get to a tile than one has that turn, then let them go ahead and enter that tile anyway (unless it's impassable for that unit, like water), but also require that before they do anything else, that they pay their movement debt until it's finished. However, if they decide they want to turn back, that debt can suddenly become a bonus. Finally, when traveling from one adjacent tile to another, the journey goes across half of one tile and half of the other, not across all of the destination tile alone. Therefore, if the movement cost across one tile is 1 and the tile after that is 3, then the distance from one tile to the other should be two moves.
Anyway, for these modifications be made to any game (probably Civilization IV for a few big reasons), someone (or a team of people) will have to program. For me to even contribute to that part of this, I'll need the SDK to work on my computer, which will obviously mean I'll need some help. Barring me programming this myself, I may need to find some people interested enough in this idea to do the programming for me. I figured if anyone anywhere was willing and able to help out on this project, then I'd find them here and/or in the Civilization Fanatics forum board.
So. Any comments? ...other than how I'm probably asking for too much already?
Anyway, I find if bothersome where unless I can build a closer city, I can never get anyone working a tile outside any city's 'fat cross', no matter how many people and roads and other movement technology I'm willing to use to get there, and no matter how far within my cultural borders the resource exists. It really bothers me. D: Therefore, I think something has to be done about city radii. Are they supposed to essentially represent what resources someone can pull out and get to the city within a certain time limit? ...because that's the impression I got for the last several years. If my assumption made long ago is right, then why can we get the food and commerce from an ocean square two spaces away that can't be reached by the best units before optics, but we can't get the food from, say, a farm three roaded squares away?
In fact, why can't we get resources from tiles that are farther away? Suppose there were a few city radii? Like three? The small one could involve easily accessible tiles where it'll take one unit of population to pull in all the benefits of that tile. The medium one would be where it'd take a longer to get there so two population units will be needed to carry in all the benefits of the tile (mainly because one of those units would be used to carry the resources the extra distance). If one person got resources from one of those tiles, its benefits would be cut in half. The third radius would involve tiles that take longer still to reach and require four population units for the full effect of the tile. ...meaning each population unit would offer 1/4 of the benefits of that resource. If we want, we could have the total amount of resources in each tile multiplied by four, then make everything cost more.
Movement-affecting features of terrain (rockiness, water, forests/jungle, roads) should have effect on what is too far away from a city for whatever radius. I want mountains and hills and forest to shrink those radii. I want the radii over oceans to rise if the civilians have fast boats, shrink if they have slow ones, and spread only over coastlines if those boats can't go over open water. I also want roads (and especially railroads) to drastically increase the radii over land, usually to the point where the limit of those city radii generally show up in the form of cultural borders and the resource hoardings of other cities in one's nation.
In order to keep the city radii from becoming very square, as well as for other reasons, I'd like a few changes to how units move about the map. Diagonal 1-space moves are 2^(1/2) times as long as horizontal and vertical ones. Therefore, those moves should take 2^(1/2) times as long as their one-space equivalents. Also, if it takes more movement to get to a tile than one has that turn, then let them go ahead and enter that tile anyway (unless it's impassable for that unit, like water), but also require that before they do anything else, that they pay their movement debt until it's finished. However, if they decide they want to turn back, that debt can suddenly become a bonus. Finally, when traveling from one adjacent tile to another, the journey goes across half of one tile and half of the other, not across all of the destination tile alone. Therefore, if the movement cost across one tile is 1 and the tile after that is 3, then the distance from one tile to the other should be two moves.
Anyway, for these modifications be made to any game (probably Civilization IV for a few big reasons), someone (or a team of people) will have to program. For me to even contribute to that part of this, I'll need the SDK to work on my computer, which will obviously mean I'll need some help. Barring me programming this myself, I may need to find some people interested enough in this idea to do the programming for me. I figured if anyone anywhere was willing and able to help out on this project, then I'd find them here and/or in the Civilization Fanatics forum board.
So. Any comments? ...other than how I'm probably asking for too much already?
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