{The List} Terrain and terrain improvements

[Fosse]

Let's finally have navigable rivers.

[Sore Loser]

Pollution should have small effects, but shouldn't easily be removed. This way, pollution pays off on a short-term basis, but keep doing it and you end with massive smog that's nigh impossible to get rid of.

[Stefu]

Agreementos with the 'harsher environment' idea, but if it's implemented, better make sure that the player is guaranteed at least a stretch of 'nice' environment, with room for 4-5 cities - otherwise it'll easily get really friggin' annoying.

[Nikolai]

Majorly updated with ideas from this thread and Fosse's links.

[Jamski]

I'd like to see a possiblity to put more than one citizen on a tile in the city window. The second worker would produce one less of each resource than the first worker, the third one less again...

This would make cities bigger than size 20 worth having, or if a city has one GREAT tile, and a load of poor tiles, then the city can concentrate its workforce in one place.

-Jam

[Nikolai]

Great idea! how much less do you think the second, third etc. shuld produce? And there should be a limit, don't you think? What about 3 workers per tile, 1st 100%, 2nd 66% and 3rd 33%? Or possible 4(75%. 50%. 25%)?

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Sore Loser
Pollution should have small effects, but shouldn't easily be removed. This way, pollution pays off on a short-term basis, but keep doing it and you end with massive smog that's nigh impossible to get rid of.

Let me restate the premise: pollution forces the player (or is intended to force the player) to choose between industrialization and nonindustrialization.

WHOA! WTF?!

Why should this be a viable strategic option at all? It makes no sense historically, and it makes no sense from a gameplay POV. Industrialization is not meant to be a choice, it's meant to be something you have to do to survive!.

Thus, the true effect of pollution of this is purely to hinder your efforts and annoy the player. This doesn't even make the game harder, because the AI is pathetic with pollution. Pollution cannot and should not be implemented, because the whole point of pollution is way off the mark.

[alva]

Pollution cannot and should not be implemented, because the whole point of pollution is way off the mark.

Huh, no it isn't. Although I agree that pollution in civ3 is annoying, I still think it should be in Civ4.
I hope they implement it differently but I do hope it will still be in CIv4.

[hexagonian]

A nice CTP1 feature...

Have buttons that instantly maximizes city workers for food/commerce/production/science/happiness. Basically, it would make sure the minimum food/happiness requirement is met, and then automatically places worker on the correct tiles/specialist slots.

[Trifna]

ONE thing about terrain: puting tiles in an aleatory manner just doesn't give the best results. An amphasis should be put on "next to huge mountains, there's more chances to get little mountains", "next to a delta there's more chances to get better plains", "next to desert, there is less chances to see jungle", etc.

It changes a landscape AND strategy alot (strategy would include to get "this region" or "this other region"! ).

[Lorizael]

Originally posted by skywalker


Let me restate the premise: pollution forces the player (or is intended to force the player) to choose between industrialization and nonindustrialization.

WHOA! WTF?!

Why should this be a viable strategic option at all? It makes no sense historically, and it makes no sense from a gameplay POV. Industrialization is not meant to be a choice, it's meant to be something you have to do to survive!.

Thus, the true effect of pollution of this is purely to hinder your efforts and annoy the player. This doesn't even make the game harder, because the AI is pathetic with pollution. Pollution cannot and should not be implemented, because the whole point of pollution is way off the mark.

You make a good point, but there is a second possibility. It could be that pollution exists in the game for the sake of realism. In this case, to maintain the spirit of what this game is supposed to be, pollution should be expressed in some manner. But I definitely think that the current system is just tedious and cumbersome.

I'd like to see it so that pollution causes unhappiness. I think superlarge cities should be more difficult to manage. It really shouldn't be so easy to keep everyone happy. Having pollution affect this would help to create that effect.

[Lorizael]

Oh, and my previous proposal now in the correct thread.

Fort tile improvements, I'd like to see a hybrid system. In this system, tile improvements such as irrigation and mining done within your borders would be handled by a public works type system. I don't want exactly what was had in CtP, though. I'd rather a system where you would start an irrigation project for an entire city, and it would take a lot of money/shields to produce, and once completed, would require a good deal of maintainence.

However, once you get outside the land that is technically yours, and you want to build roads, rails, colonies, and forts and such, it would require the use of workers.

This way in the early game you can still have fun building up your civilization, and in the late game you don't have to worry about the swarms of workers going around to cleanup this polution or irrigate that tile.

[hexagonian]

I like that... I'd actually like to see a combination use of workers/PW if you build Tile improvements outside of your city radius (not national borders), and PW used inside those radius.

[wrylachlan]

How about a Public Works Director that works by automating workers? You could paint down roads like in Sim City, and workers would automatically start building them... or you could give a worker a direct order, and she would finish that project before going back to the Public Works Director for new instructions.

Each city could have a Public Works Submenu which would show three graphs of the maximum possible Food/Shields/Commerce if you optimized for each of those. So at a glance you can see - "The most Food I could possibly get out of this city is X, and the most shields is Y", etc. Then there would be a slider where you set the percentage priority of each of those.

When workers have no specific tasks given them directly nor any specific improvements from the Public Works Director (like roads or colonies, etc.) a worker will start upgrading the city radius based on the percentages you've chosen. If you go 50% Food 25% Shields 25% Commerce, the worker will build 2 food improvements, then one shield improvement, then 1 commerce.

This system would be flexible enough to allow you to micromanage in the early stages of the game when its most important, then forget about them later on, yet still have the ability to direct them if you want to. It would also be a lot more precise than the current automation of workers. And it preserves the ability to take slave workers to improve your civ's production.

[Kuciwalker]

You make a good point, but there is a second possibility. It could be that pollution exists in the game for the sake of realism. In this case, to maintain the spirit of what this game is supposed to be, pollution should be expressed in some manner. But I definitely think that the current system is just tedious and cumbersome.

I'd like to see it so that pollution causes unhappiness. I think superlarge cities should be more difficult to manage. It really shouldn't be so easy to keep everyone happy. Having pollution affect this would help to create that effect.

This, I like. Though it should only happen after something like Ecology or a similar tech (which should also be a critical tech, so people don't just avoid it) is discovered. Maybe it should only occur after you enter the Modern Era. It's annoying during the Industrial Era to be able to do essentially nothing about pollution. Also, pollution should not hurt production. For pollution to hurt production is incredibly stupid.

Huh, no it isn't. Although I agree that pollution in civ3 is annoying, I still think it should be in Civ4.
I hope they implement it differently but I do hope it will still be in CIv4.

Explain how it isn't. Look at my arguments first