Resources: How to handle

[Dis]

how about seperating shields into wood and metal? That's something we never considered. Of course eventually you will reach a point where wood is useless.

In fact, the more I think about it. Forests should be more important early in the game and mines important later in the game. Forests would provide wood, and mines would provide metals.

Building mines in 4000 BC doesn't appeal to me that much.

[Kramerman]

i odnt know where lest to post this, so ill put it here

on terrain in general, i like the SMAC concepts of elevation and all that good stuff. That should be incorporated and then unusally large mountians or deep canyons and stuff could be made landmarks that could contribute a small amount to your nations (or nearby city's) happiness or culture or perhaps generate a small amount of revenue or something.

there should be a much larger terrain differentiation, for example between woodland hills, grassy hills, desert hills, etc instead of just hills. There should be a difference between disiduous and evergreen forests as well as taiga. also maybe craggy mountains, forested mountains, volcanoes, snowpeaked mountains (the higher ones, if elevation is incorporated, in general would be these. perhaps they could use actual meteorlogical functions of lattitude, elevation, and moisture as from proximity to lakes and oceans to determine climates and conditions in different terrain), etc. other ideas are for flatlands could be broken into grasslands, plains, arid waste, desert waste, tundra, glaciers, etc.

these are just general ideas, but i think they are things to consider.

I like in civ3 how they split water tiles into coastal, sea, and ocean

[Kuciwalker]

SMAC terrain sucks for Civ, and especially modding. It only really makes sense in the sci-fi environment of SMAC; it looks really strange in a historical context.

[Kramerman]

if they incorporate the meteorolgical ideas
(reposted: perhaps they could use actual meteorlogical functions of lattitude, elevation, and moisture as from proximity to lakes and oceans to determine climates and conditions in different terrain), these could maybe cause random droughts and floods and heatwaves and 'mini-ice ages' and even just prosperous climate conditions and other such phenomena (heh, perhaps even el nino and la nina type stuff if they make it impressively elaborate) that have had HUGE signifcance in shaping human civilization throughout time into what we know today. This would add a totally new and interesting element in civ which would certainly have effect your world's history

[Kuciwalker]

Using meteorology for terrain generation is fine, but they don't need to implement elevation to do that.

[Kramerman]

Originally posted by skywalker
SMAC terrain sucks for Civ, and especially modding. It only really makes sense in the sci-fi environment of SMAC; it looks really strange in a historical context.

what do you mean?

[Kuciwalker]

Just look at the "Earth map" for SMAC and you'll see what I mean.

The Civ maps look more realistic.

[Kramerman]

well yeah. they dont have to incorporate SMAC graphics in order to incorporate some of its ideas

IOW, make more "earthy" graphics

[Kramerman]

in fact, Im assuming, hoping, and anticipating civ4 to have a totally new and revolutionary graphics engine. perhaps incorporating real 3-D, zoom slider so you can get right up into your units or way back in space, rotate the map 360 x-y axis and significantly on z axis, spherical globe as others mentioned, growing cities (even more so than civ3), etc

[Dis]

well SMAC terrrain doesn't make sense for earth. They really didn't have mountains iirc. Sure you had higher elevations and such.

I did like the different elevations though. It could be used to represent steppes and plateaus.

the weather model was nice for the aridity of the land. Though it could use more work to make it more realistic in an earth environment. In the arid southwest you will find only the higher elevations recieve rainfall, low elevations recieve very little- even if they are on the west side of the mountains

[Sore Loser]

The second option is definitely cumbersome, and not very Civ-like. I still voted for it, because I'd like to see more diversity in city functions. While you could, in theory, have high-production cities and high-trade cities in Civ II, the difference was the same. The cities were run pretty much the same. Little, if any, need for interaction between them.

With a *limited* quantified ressource system (food, ore, manpower, production capacity, luxury goods off the top of my head), you'd be forced to build a civilization of cities that work together, and not autonomous city states.

EDIT: Adding to that, food/ore/luxuries could be subdivided into a number of groups, such as fish, wheat, corn, rice in the food section and iron, wood (ore could be renamed to buildings materials, or some such thing), copper, clay, steel, etc. The exact effects of the different types can be determined in several ways. Either a bonus can be awarded for using multiple types instead of letting your people eat fish all the time. Or certain items (like spears) could specifically require iron ore.

[Nikolai]

I like the second idea best. While it is important that the game doesn't become too complicated, I think this will just make the game better, if it is implemented the right way of course.

[Shogun Gunner]

Sore Loser, similiar to how you said "cumberson, not very civ-like, but you like it" is the same way I would describe your suggestion of the "limited quantified resource system"

Other posters have referenced this concept before as well. You mine a particular resource from the earth which allows you to build specific buildings/units/wonders -- not a universal mining gives you everything you need and science is the only constraint to what you build.

Probably too complex, but I swear I would totally get into a much more complex economic system. (enjoying being in the minority )

[Sore Loser]

Um, I take it you agree then? The main concern is not complexity, but micromanagement. The more difficult decisions, the merrier. But if these decisions amount to ten times the amount of time needed to feel certain that you gave fairly solid orders, then it's going to kill the game.

Colonization used this approach, and, while I found it extremely neat at first, it didn't do the job very well. There were several reasons for this; most commodities were pure cash crops, for example. I always wanted to use my cloth, rum, cigars, coats and silver for something. Granted, in the historical context it made sense that the colonies would primarily be supplying the motherland with goodies, but even so it bored me.

Another problem was the fact that wagon trains with trade routes were shown moving visibly every turn. I liked setting up trade routes, so I'd typically have 8 or 10 running around the screen every turn. As has been suggested elsewhere, trade units could be "invisible" and merely be shown as a trade route. The longer the trade route, the more trade units you need per unit of goods freighted. Transfers should be made at the beginning of a round. Excess capacity (=that is not used for automatic freighting every round) may be used manually. The main point is that it should become as streamlined as possible.

[Fosse]

Originally posted by Sore Loser
The main concern is not complexity, but micromanagement.

Great statement.
You really hit it on the head there, Sore Loser. Complexity (i.e. Game Depth) is a good thing. Compilcation (i.e. micromanagement) is a killer.

In some cases there is a fine line, and in some a very hazy one. I think that in this case it is very clear that a system that tracks the amount of certain resources (like the luxury and strategic in Civ 3) gives lots of depth, and can be done without making things tedious.