{The List} Terrain and terrain improvements

[Odin]

Originally posted by MrFun

why?

It's ugly when every tile has a road on it.


I would also implement rails differently. You can either use highways or RRs. Highways have 8 tile movement, RR's unlimited. But, RR's would cost 1 gold per tile per turn to upkeep.

[lajzar]

In an old proposal, I suggested having teh following:

- No production bonus from transport tile improvements. they only make you more mobile.
- Roads give 1/3 move cost.
- modern highways give 1/5 move cost
- Airports, harbours, and Rail Depots act as rapid transport systems. They require upkeep, and for an additional fee, units can be transported between them. This transport works similar to civ 2 airports.
- Rail depots require that both cities be connected by road or highway.
- Harbours require that both cities be within X tiles of each other based on sea movement, with X increasing with certain techs.
- Airports require that both cities be within X tiles of each other based on direct travel, with X increasing with certain techs.
- All 3 require that both cities have the appropriate improvement.
- The gold cost varies by transport type (air is expensive, sea is cheap), and by unit weight (tanks are expensive, diplomats are cheap).

[DarkCloud]

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...hreadid=116471 Customizable Auto Work by Jerh9e1k5

... I think it applies to this, if only because the thread also mentions Public Works and because automatic workers improving terrain could feasably belong here.

[Nikolai]

Thanks for the link DC.

Updated.

[Nikolai]

Oh, and I have also updated the first post for links to the other posts with list-content, and included DC in the special thanks section in the end of the List. You deserve it DC, with all the work you've done after Asmodean went away. Any idea of what happened btw?

[DarkCloud]

Thanks Nikolai!

-
No, I have no idea what happened to Asmodean... I hope he's all right- though I fear for the worst. I can't see anything short of death driving him away from this project for nearly 6 months now, considering how enthusiastic he was about it.

all I can hope now is that the other threadmasters are as enthusiatic as you and NuclearMaster in helping with the list and summarizing things, because I'd like to have a draft of the list done by August, if at all possible.

I've honestly PMed some people, but they all told me they were too busy to update- I'll PM some more people however... and anyone reading this who's interested in threadmastering a thread- please contact me!

[DarkCloud]

I got this from another thread:

rendelnep suggests:

Tropical Game/Fish/Whales migrate across terrain spaces.

[DarkCloud]

on page 2 of this thread: http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...hreadid=117133 we discussed 3D maps, and then in this thread: http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...hreadid=117503 we continued our discussion

[Master Zen]

My suggestions, many of which are probably already given here:

- Do not let roads and railroads give commercial benefits to the tiles but rather to the cities. Thus, the objective of these improvements will be to connect cities, not to cris-cross every tile as in the previous civs which is utterly unrealistic.

- Please bring back two levels of farm, like in Civ2: irrigation, and farmland.

- Give attack/defense benefits to terrain height. Thus, attacking from a downward slope should give the attacker benefit, whereas defending from it should give the defender benefit. (I think this was in SMAC).

- Add a Port improvement so you can keep ships, trade luxes etc. without having to build a city.

- Have a road improvement (1/3 movement) and for example a superhighway improvement which repalces it (1/6 or 1/9 movement for example). The railroad improvemetn should be different however, with transport only allowed between cities in a load/unload fashion (like airbases in Civ3). Distance should be unlimited but it would take one turn to make the distance.

- Add climate factor. Not all tiles even if they are the same type should be the same, some regions should have extra bonues due to geographical location for example.

- Resources should be abundant. Instead of one oil, for example, satisfying all your oil needs, depending of the number of improvements you have or units you build you should require a certain number of resources. If you lack them, you should be able to trade for them. Thus you would have regions with a lot of resources (say the middle east would have a whole bunch of oil tiles).

That's all I can think of right now...

[DarkCloud]

Railroads? ...Daz http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...hreadid=117841

[Drachasor]

Originally posted by Master Zen
- Do not let roads and railroads give commercial benefits to the tiles but rather to the cities. Thus, the objective of these improvements will be to connect cities, not to cris-cross every tile as in the previous civs which is utterly unrealistic.

I agree 100%, but this won't entirely solve the problem. There is a big transportation of worker issue, and hence you'd probably still get a level of splurge. Perhaps have improvements act as a partial road? That or use some sort of public work system for non-roads, non-forts.

Originally posted by Master Zen - Please bring back two levels of farm, like in Civ2: irrigation, and farmland.

I don't feel too strongly about this one way or the other, so long as there is some way to massively increase your farming efficiency as time goes on (just like it really did increase).

Originally posted by Master Zen - Give attack/defense benefits to terrain height. Thus, attacking from a downward slope should give the attacker benefit, whereas defending from it should give the defender benefit. (I think this was in SMAC).

So long as the elevations are very easy to see (graphic issue). This was a nice thing about SMAC.

Originally posted by Master Zen - Add a Port improvement so you can keep ships, trade luxes etc. without having to build a city.

Indeed, and there should be a "Military Base" improvement This will function as a Airbase, Port, and Fort all rolled into one, and be easier to produce. Hmm, they should at least hold back culture borders (like a pseudo-city) in the square they are in too. Basically this would be like a non-producing City with all defense and military improvements.

Originally posted by Master Zen - Have a road improvement (1/3 movement) and for example a superhighway improvement which repalces it (1/6 or 1/9 movement for example). The railroad improvemetn should be different however, with transport only allowed between cities in a load/unload fashion (like airbases in Civ3). Distance should be unlimited but it would take one turn to make the distance.

I disagree on rails, as you are moving around important things to your government. The big G can get the train to stop wherever they want. Rails should have improvements, though it should never be infinite. Unlimited movement takes away from strategy in troop placement.

Perhaps with cars Roads should go to 1/6, and Rails should be at 1/9 or 1/12. At this point, non-road improvements should give 1/3 movement or so. This will lessen the need to build roads everywhere for mobility (and as a plus it is pretty realistic too).

Originally posted by Master Zen - Add climate factor. Not all tiles even if they are the same type should be the same, some regions should have extra bonues due to geographical location for example.

The problem here is that it adds a ton of variables and issues regarding starting location, where to build cities, etc. This will be hard to show on the map, and hard to ponder in the head. I don't think it adds much to the game, and so I must disagree.

Originally posted by Master Zen - Resources should be abundant. Instead of one oil, for example, satisfying all your oil needs, depending of the number of improvements you have or units you build you should require a certain number of resources. If you lack them, you should be able to trade for them. Thus you would have regions with a lot of resources (say the middle east would have a whole bunch of oil tiles).

Yes, this is a great idea. I believe some people have proposed Oil Wells and the like giving a number of Oil "tokens" each turn, and those are good for one unit each. This might be a bit complex, but I doubt it. Afterall, the RTS crowd is used to different resources, so I am sure the TBS crowd can handle it. I don't think it would hurt too much if different units require different amounts of different tokens, but keep it in the low single digits.


Anyhow, those are my thoughts on your thoughts.

-Drachasor

[Master Zen]

Good critique

Perhaps the solution to the worker issue would be for workers to move as if on roads whenever inside a city's workable-tile radius.

[Nikolai]

Thanks for all help DC, it's really appreciated. I can't update now, since I am on holiday, and this internet cafe isn't a good place to do such job, but when I come home the ISP problem will hopefully be solved. As you understand, then I can do more.

[Nikolai]

WOAH! It took some time, but now I have updated all I could find! But when it came to Skanky's thread, I had to give up after a while, since it's few organized ideas and lots of discussion mostly. Please, if you see something there I have missed(I have, I can assure you), give me a hint of where exactly I can find it, and I'll try to do something with it!

I am going nuts now btw, my dad(who is the one paying for internet at home) have forgot to send a confirmation or something, since it's summer and all, and therefore I will be lucky if I get a new ISP before at least a week... But thankfully, I have his job(where I am now)...

[Pizza]

You should be able to build bridges across water. As long as the ocean isn't too deep. (I used to build bridges across water in civ1).

As for railroads:

In real life you can move a lot of units (eg thousands) on a single train if you have to, so there shouldn't be any limit on the number of units that can move across the rr.

Hey, I just thought of something; how about having a "train" unit ? that works like a transport. That allows loading/unloading up to 100 units in a single turn, and has a limited movement of say 10 railroaded tiles per turn ?

Railroads should cost money to maintain as well as generate revenue. But the revenue should decrease the more tiles you have rr'd, so that it's simply too expensive to rr every city tile.


Roads:
How about having a road quality ? The better the road is, the more it cost to maintain. But you can build roads everywhere....