{The List} Terrain and terrain improvements

[marcthornton]

Re: Re: {The List} Terrain and terrain improvements

Originally posted by Bleyn

As such, I would suggest that if there is going to be non-irritigable desert, there should also be an arid region that is irrigatable that is more like the current desert. In fact, the arid region should probably be at least if not more prevalent than true desert.

I really like this idea. 3 different types of desert tiles. I have 2 things to Add.

1. To get to a pure desert tile it would need to be bordered by this arid region kind of like the ocean needing costal squares.

2. The desert squares should show up in larger blocks, and potentially the deesert squares could have a movement penalty(say cost 2) as well as a defensive penalty(and say -50%).

3. How about resources showing up where they are expected. Oil more prevalent in the desert, gold in the hills, etc.

3.

[wrylachlan]

Originally posted by skywalker
Possible Solution - make all units except Marines take at least a turn to disembark (except in cities) -

Fails. While Marines are useful now for taking beachheads, they cannot hold them. In addition, we cannot simply up Marine defense, because for them to have a high enough defense to resist attack while unforified would make them a premier defensive unit (which is far outside their role).

I think your analysis is wrong. As a defender I have three choices based on the mechanism above.
1)Put all my troops on the coastal square - results= the Marines use their high attack rating to take the beach.
2)Put all my troops one tile back from the beach waiting to attack the beach once my marines land - result = the attacker doesn't bother to land marines at all, and simply takes the 1 turn penalty then lands his infantry.
3)Split my troops into some on the coast tile to force the marines to land, and some on the tile behind to attack them when they've landed. - results = the attacker sends some of the marines to attack, and once the attack is successful, sends the rest of the marines to fortify.

In none of the three cases is the advantage clearly given to the defender because of the proposed solution.

Of course, I still think the best solution is to simple keep ship movement down

The reason I (and others) want ship movement up is that the ratio of movement speeds between sea vessels, vs. land vessels should be greater.

[Nikolai]

Originally posted by DarkCloud
Good work on the updating Nikolai, by the way

--
Just wondering, do we post Resource ideas here, or is there another thread for that? I can't seem to find it if there is?

Thanks!

Thanks! It haven't been much updating the last days, and it won't be so for some days yet, I'm afraid. I am on holiday and with almost no availability of Internet. I will be strongly back after New Year though!

As for your question; I'm not sure. Check the assignment thread, and if it's not there, post here untill a thread is posted. I could take that task when I come back from holiday. This thread's first post would be a bit long if resources is added I think. But discuss that here for the moment.

[DarkCloud]

Okay, here's resources

1. Synthetics

-Rubber should be able to be synthetically produced in certain factories after a certain date, say after the civilization discovers Synthetic Fossil Fuels... After that time rubber can be found on the map, grown, or produced in Rubber factories
-DarkCloud

Dye and Saltpepper could also be synthetically produced with a factory or a chemical factory
-Wernazuma III/DarkCloud

There should be a way to build manufactured luxuries (cars, hi-fi, but also some manufactured medieval ones). A specific improvement, say "car factory" should be available if you have the needed resources (coal, iron and oil), and would turn one shield into a luxury. It would also cease to function when you stop having these resources. You couldn't build more "luxury producing improvements" than the number of civs, and only one per city
-Spiffor

2. Food
-there should be some way to share food resources, there should be no reason to have two cities near each other, linked via road with one overflowing with food and the other starving.
-Bleyn

- "Rice" tiles : can't produce anything else than food, but lots of it, say five or six, and more with irrigation / railroad / farmland.
-Spiffor

3. General
-Coffee
-Tobacco
-Sugar
-Venger

Copper (needed for some ancient and modern units
Stone (Strategic - for wonders/improvements : eg. Pyramids, Hanging Gardens)
-Mongoloid Cow

Strategic Resources:
Quicksilver
Whale Blubber
-TrailerParkJawa

1) unlogic and historical failures: 3 cases of recource restrictions
a) slapeter as strategic recource you need for gun powder. Stupidity. Salpeter isn't a strategic recource in fact (wake up in shool, ask your chemistry teacher) but always available where enemies or humens are. But inthe game it may happen that you don't have Salpeter recource and then you can build the versions of that gun powder weapons.
b) oil as condition for tank and motor ships / early air units also ask yout teacher. If you have coal (and do know the chemistery or refining coal) you can make the same.That was made until end of 2nd world war from Hitler as Germany didn't have oil but lot of coal. It's a bad joke in the game that oil is rare and your research already is until rockets and atom power but you are still using horses for your troops.
-Dreifels

Luxury:
Resin
Slaves
Marble
-Wernazuma III

cotton
-DaleC76

In regard for resources, instead of having them divided into Strategic / Luxury / Food / Other, maybe each resources has its own uses and traits.

For example:
Take the idea of a new resource Silver. Out of all of the above categories, it would best fit into the luxury or other category, even though it was used differently. So instead, give it its own traits :
- Gives x amount of money into the treasury each turn
- Tradeable (can be traded)
- City Trade Bonus of y trade production
- Happiness benifit of 1

The idea could be applied to all resources, and although it might get a bit complicated, the importance of each, individual resource is enhanced.
-Mongoloid Cow

MANUFACTURING
Maybe you can turn raw materials into new resources, that can be traded.

eg: You start near Barley. If you build a brewer, it can be turned into Beer, a luxury resource with +1 food. You could use it to supply your empire, or you could trade it off to another civ.
-Mongoloid Cow

- ability to stockpile some resources (non plant nor animal) to prepare for war for example.
We would like to be able to produce synthetic luxuries, etc.

- a Resource screen rather than a trade one. You can see all the ressources u have access to or stockpiled and can decide (click) to trade it or transform it for example (if u have a factory and it can be transformed). For both luxuries and strategic.
-LouLong

[hexagonian]

I'm suprised that no-one has mentioned this

Water-based tile improvements (nets, fishing fleets, oil platforms)

[DarkCloud]

I really disagree with nets and fishing fleets... Mostly because they seem like too large an abstraction for civ- can't we just assume that each individual city builds a harbor and as such, there are shipmen?

Does the government need to interfere with fishing?

I would think that the government would not have to build nets for private industry to untilize.

However, the govt. might subsidise oil platforms, so that makes sense and as for increased shield production and exploitation of resources, I support that idea... but not netting.

[Sandman]

Re: Re: {The List} Terrain and terrain improvements

Originally posted by Bleyn
While I agree that tundra probably should not be irrigatable, I disagree on deserts. The technical definition of desert is a warm arid region with sparse vegetation receiving less than 25 cms of rainfall annually. The thing is this is a very broad definition. While it does include what most people think of as deserts, the Sahara, the Gobi, the Mojave, etc. that are mostly sand and seemingly nothing else, it also includes some other less inhospitable regions. One good example of this is the high desert of eastern Oregon, eastern Washington, and at least most of Idaho, USA. This region, while counting as a desert by the technical definition in most respects(I don't know that it gets less than 25 cms of rain every year), is far from a sandy wasteland. And while not exactly the greatest for farming, is a productive region. There is a fair amount of ranching, not to mention a significant part of the potato crops for North America(if not the world).

As such, I would suggest that if there is going to be non-irritigable desert, there should also be an arid region that is irrigatable that is more like the current desert. In fact, the arid region should probably be at least if not more prevalent than true desert.

Isn't that handled by the existance of the plains terrain type?

[Kuciwalker]

No. Plains are like the Midwest.

[art_vandelai]

Railroad movement

I don't mind the idea of infinite movement over rails in territory you control. However, you should not be able to move an infinite number units across the rails.

Each railroad should be able to allow only one unit to enter the square per turn. All other units that travel through the square must travel at their regular movement rate.

There should also be a penalty for moving from rails to roads or from roads to rails. (i.e. a tank with a move of 2 would take 1 move to switch over to from a rail to a road, or vice-versa.

The main drawback to this plan would be a lot more complexity in the pathfinding algorhythms. The benefit would be that the abliity to move all your units immediately to the point of attack would be reduced, as chokepoints would develop after a few units had moved.

[Fosse]

Okay... a few people now have suggested the Limited Use, Infinite movement rails.

I think that this is a terrible idea, fails to solve any real problems regarding railroads, and would be much inferior to a system that simply makes railroads further enhance the movement bonus.

I think that it is pretty well agreed that the two major flaws with railroads are that they completely eliminate any defensive strategic considerations, since you can defend any point of your continent with every single unit you have in the blink of an eye.

Did the enemy take the time to convince you he was invading the east coast? Did you fall for it and move all of your defensive army to the east? Then did he suddenly appear with overwhelming force in a brilliantly executed surprise on your west coast?

No biggie, just teleport those units back. Ho hum.

The number two problem: They are ugly when they cover every single tile of your empire. Aesthetics count. Glitz and 3d animations and so on may not count to everyone, but aesthetics do.


Now, the Limited use, Infinite movement doesn't solve either of these problems, and actually increases micromangement. Plus, it is fairly counterintuitive.

Can't move your entire army along rail route A? That's okay, built rail routes B and C and move the rest of your units across them. So it doesn't solve the strategic problems.

Don't want to hassle with worrying about how many rail routes you have? Don't worry, put rails in every single tile you have. Doesn't solve the ugly problem.

On top of that, you will sometimes have to worry about where you can and cannot move units along rails (at least until the whole country is covered in rail), so the micromangement goes up. Also, imagine how frustrating it is when you move five units from Chicago to Cleveland, and you have to detour the sixth throgh Nashville if you want to move it? Counterintuitive.


A simpler, and in my opinion more elegant, idea has been propsed many times: Remove the tile production boost from railroads, remove infinite movement (say, 1/5th movement cost... a tank can move ten tiles), and add an upkeep to rail tiles.

You have to link up your empire to facilitat defense, but you'll do so carefully and without waste, to avoid the added upkeep.

All problems solved. None created.

Easy.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by wrylachlan
I think your analysis is wrong. As a defender I have three choices based on the mechanism above.

1)Put all my troops on the coastal square - results= the Marines use their high attack rating to take the beach.

2)Put all my troops one tile back from the beach waiting to attack the beach once my marines land - result = the attacker doesn't bother to land marines at all, and simply takes the 1 turn penalty then lands his infantry.

3)Split my troops into some on the coast tile to force the marines to land, and some on the tile behind to attack them when they've landed. - results = the attacker sends some of the marines to attack, and once the attack is successful, sends the rest of the marines to fortify.

Given that you probably AREN'T defending your coastline, I would assume that most amphibious assualts are going into cities. So one-move units landing doesn't unbalance ship moves because I still can't actually attack that turn. It is only the ability to attack the same turn you lanch from port that is unbalancing. That is why only Marines can do it under this - Tanks and MA take a turn to land, making it impossible to attack that same turn.

[Kuciwalker]

@ Fosse

An advantage of a number around 1/5 is that Infantry will be able to move about a city at a time.

[Nikolai]

1.12 - Generating a Map

On a random map, give significant chances both for landmasses to be close enough for a primitive ship to safely reach the other, and for landmasses that you won't see until you start exploring the deep oceans.

In choosing options for your map, be able to set percentages and numbers of tiles of a particular terrain. You could have 50 to 90 % water, 0 to 100 volcanoes, and 40 to 100 % of your land as grassland.

Pregame, be able to chronologically guide the formation of your planet.

Based on the current world customization system, give five degrees of options for setting each landform characteristic.
(Posted by Brent)

1.13 - ZOC

For ZOC, I'd like to see the ZOC only extend to the surrounding 1 tile radius or where you can move in 1 turn, whichever is smaller. Thus if I can't cross a river in a turn, I have no ZOC on the tiles across the river. Similarly if we accept the creation of cliffs, etc. which are total barriers to movement, I can't ZOC the tile on the other side of the cliff.
(Posted by wrylachlan)

1.14 - Terrain Graphics

Include more than one set of terrain graphics.
(Posted by Brent)

1.15 - Production Variance

I've seen people advocate the use of a 'x10 system' for food/shield/commerce production. I think that increasing tile production would help give game designers and modders more flexibility in fine tuning production from terrains and terrain improvements.

In addition to that, an idea I have is to introduce a variance in tile production. That way, tiles of the same terrain-type don't always produce exactly the same amounts of food or shields. For instance, desert tiles could produce 8-12 shields (10 +/- 2 shields) instead of always producing 10 shields. In that case, one desert tile could produce 9 shields while an adjacent desert-tile could produce 12.

A way to implement this would be to have 'base-production' and 'variance' values for each terrain-type for food and shields. So, in the above desert example, the base-production and variance would be 10 and 2 for shield production. If the variance would cause a tile to produce a negative amount of a resource, the tile produces zero of that resource instead. So, a desert could be given base food production and variance values of 0 and 3. Deserts would then produce between 0 and 3 units of food (instead of -3 to 3). The negative values would come into play later if the tile is irrigated. For instance, if irrigating the tile gives +10 food, a tile that has a -2 adjustment because of variance would produce 8 food after irrigating, not 10.
(Posted by Xorbon)

It would be nice if the map generator could perform a smoothing function on the amount of variance, so that you would get regions of high fertility grasslands, or extremely resource poor mountain ranges.

I would even go so far as to say letting 60 or 70% of the potential production of a tile be the varaiable kind. So grass lands would produce 10 food no matter what, but CAN produce up to 60. Most would fall someplace in between, but every now and then you'd get a great fertile area, and somewhere else on the globe somebody is stuck with what looks like grassland, but has terrible harvests.

For those who care a lot about eyecandy: This system is a good place for the usefull kind... A graphic tile would show the type of terrain, and a graphic overlay would show how fertile or mineral rich an area is. The map would look better, provide more information, and have more interesting terrain with possible strategic influences.
(Posted by Fosse)

Given what Xorbon is saying about increasing the potential for 'Variance', I think that the idea of 'Overexploitation' should be raised too!
What I'm thinking is that, once you build a terrain improvement on a HEX (notice HEX, not square, or tile BUT HEX !!!), be it a farm or a mine, then you should be able to set the output of that improvement-up to its maximum allowed level. This could have important ramifications, should you decide to max out a specific tile-as it would increase the chance of that tile becoming less productive. In addition, overexploitation of tiles should also contribute to a city's pollution level.

For example: Lets say that a farm can produce a maximum of +3 food-in my system, this maximum would only be if you were using so-called 'Intensive Agriculture'. This would be highly productive, but also highly degrading for the terrain.
Anyway, just a thought!
(Posted by The_Aussie_Lurker)

1.16 - Terrain change and resources

A flag for (strategic, bonus, luxury) resources that causes them to disappear if the terrain is altered to a terrain-type that doesn't support that resource. For instance, spices and rubber should disappear if you chop down the forest/jungle they're found in. Horses should disappear from plains if you plant forests. Uranium would be an example of a resource that would not disappear if the terrain is altered (i.e. the flag wouldn't be enabled for uranium).
(Posted by Xorbon)

1.17 - Unimproved terrain earns culture/income after some time

After you discover say, ecology, every X hexes of 'unimproved' forest, jungle or marsh squares will earn culture and tourist income for the city that has them within its radius-or the nation will recieve the benefit if it lies outside of any individual city's radius!
This would encourage players and the AI to leave areas of forest intact and untouched for the later part of the game. Also, if forests and jungles reduced per-turn pollution output, then these terrain types would be even MORE important!
(Posted by The_Aussie_Lurker)

2 - Terrain improvements
2.1 - Natural terrain improvements
2.1.1 - Natural wonders

Natural Wonders. Small percentage chance, when you build a town, that there is a natural wonder near-by. It would be cool to have them on the map, and you can build near it, but I think the map would have enough to deal with. Thus, just add it as a town/terrain function. Not sure what it would give, maybe culture points.

2.1.2 - Changing terrain types over time

as some have probably already suggested, changing terrain types over time might be nice. In the case of forests, newly planted ones might mature through various intermediary stages over many turns. Perhaps only if not actively worked during a given turn would a tile 'age' as such. Similarly, unworked grassland (or farm?) might slowly develop towards a natural climax ecosystem... particularly if such an ecosystem is represented in an adjacent tile (like a less all-or-nothing version of SMAC's forest expansion). This whole tile changing system could be nicely incorporated with the concept of old growth forests (climax temperate ecosystem)
(Posted by Geoff the Medio)

2.2 - Natural Parks
Natural Parks and Protective land. If you are going to be able to designate borders it would also be cool to designate natural parks that could help combat pollution. This land could sacrifice shield bonus' for commerace.
(Posted by Japher)

National parks can be implemented as another terrain improvement. The same could be done for suburban sprawl.
(Posted by lajzar)

2.3 - Ability to build things directly on the map

Be able to build Walls, such as The Great Wall of China and Hadrian's Wall, which have an effect without the involvement of units. Be able to build Canals.
(Posted By Brent)

-walls. would there be a certain length that would constitute the Great Wall wonder? would the length depend on the size of your map?
-canals. probably couldn't be built through mountains or hills. Maybe could only be one square.
-bridges. could only be built over one square, and only very late in the game
-tunnel (chunnel). see bridges. One would be cheaper than the other, and maybe something could happen to one more easily than the other. Chunnel could be a Feat of Wonder.
(Posted by) Brent

2.4 - More levels for terrain improvements

Terrain improvements should have more levels, so that an industrial farm or mine is many times as productive as their ancient counterparts.
This will allow well-developed civs with small territory to be more productive than larger civs with less infrastructure.
(Posted by Optimizer)

2.4.1 - Bring farmland back

I must admit to missing one thing about Civ2...irrigation to farmlands. Twice the effort for workers (I'm bracing myself for the comments from people who hate anything that increases the amount of micromanagement), but I liked the nod to improved strategies and technologies in domestic production.
(Posted by Shogun Gunner)

I'd be okay with farms, if we stick to the proposal someone else (forgive me for neglecting credit where credit is due, I just don't want to browse the many threads right now!) made about limiting irrigation to right along the water's edge.
You would farm over your old irrigation, netting improvement, but you would also farm over everything else as well, which you couldn't irrigate.
(Posted by Fosse)

2.4.2 - Multiple levels

For food (and others, this is n example), you should have multiple levels of improvement a la CTP. However, certain terrain types will not allow irrigation, and advanced improvements won't give teh same bonus across different terrains. An example data file might be:

grasslands - 1 2 4
plains - 1 2 3
desert - 0 1 2

basically, irrigation can't be built in desert, farms can, but produce less food, and superfarms get an extra bonus in grasslands. Similar paths could be done for mining.
(Posted by lajzar)

2.5 - No tile improvements at all

No tile improvments at all. Public works (or even just cash) could be used for things like military roads and canals and bridges... but not for building one mine, or one farm, etc.
People in cities are responsible for improving their own cities, and will do so according to the tech they have. When crop rotation is discovered, crop output goes up without the player having to move a unit to the city and pushing the "Fallow" command a bunch of times.
Cities can only build improvments if they have the available money, but the player could earmark parts of the economy to be used by those cities. he could set, say, 10% of the treasury to be used by cities to subsize perhaps 70% of the cost of building mines.
(Posted by Fosse)

[b]2.6- Canals[b]

It should be possible to build a canal when the knowledge and resources are in place. But to avoid it to be too crazy, limit the lenght to a few tiles starting or ending (or both) at the sea.
(Posted by TheBirdMan)

2.7 - New improvements
-upgradable fortresses (maybe they can add defense AND act as a colony?)
-national flags (basically claim a square and eight surrounding squares, similar to colonies, but still count as within borders)
-bridges across one tile of ocean between landmasses
(cassembler)

Missile Silos
(Drathx)

2.8 - Water-based tile improvements

Water-based tile improvements (nets, fishing fleets, oil platforms)
(Posted by hexagonian)

I really disagree with nets and fishing fleets... Mostly because they seem like too large an abstraction for civ- can't we just assume that each individual city builds a harbor and as such, there are shipmen?
(Posted by DarkCloud)

2.9 - Industry/settlement improvement

I'd like to see an "industry" or "settlement" improvement that comes with industrialization and can be created like an outpost or airfield - it eats a worker. It gives a big shield and trade bonus but cuts all food production. This would also require the ability to ship food between cities.
(Posted by skywalker)

2.10 - Movement bonuses to some improvements

Give a little movement bonuses to other infrastructures. For example, moving in irrigated fields could cost 1/2 moves. This way, roads would still be good as major axes of communication, but there would be no incentive to build them on each and every square (or hexa )
(Posted by Spiffor)

2.11 - Industrial improvements

Mines
Deep Mines
Mega Mines
Oil Rigs

Lots of industry, and pollution as a consequential side effect of that. Oil rigs do the same for the sea.
(Posted by)

2.12 - Food improvements

Irrigation
Farm
Genetic Farm
Fishing Nets
Fishery
Sea Farm

Irrigation is ancient farming. Probably needs a better name. Farms refers to late medieval crop rotation techniques through to modern farms. Genetic farm refers to genetic engineering. It provides increased food and some pollution. Fisheries etc do the same for sea tiles.

Hills can only be irrigated once you have the terrace farming technology, and until you have desalination technology, you should only be able to irrigate from a fresh water source. It should never be possible to irrigate a mountain.

Hydroponics should be a city improvement, as they dont take up vast areas of land to run. Think Algae vats and mushroom farms.
(Posted by lajzar)

2.13 - Transportation improvements

Undersea tunnel
Tracks
(Roman) Road
Highway

Provides 2/3, 1/3, and 1/5 normal move costs, respectively. Undersea tunnels provide 1/5 move cost, but if pillaged, all land units in connected tiles drown.

Rail depots are a city improvement that provides transport facilities similar to Civ2 airports.
(Posted by lajzar)

2.14 - Civ specific terrain improvements

why not have civilisation specific tile improvements?

I have been able to think of the following:

Dutch: tulipfields +2 trade
Ottoman, Arab: caravanserai +1 trade/+25%defense
Zulu: kraal +25% defense/slows down enemy movement
Romans: imperial road +1 movement/ignore river
French: Vauban fortress +50% defense/intrinsic bombard
English: steampowered mine +2 shields
Scandinavians: sawmill +1 trade/+1shield
Chinese: fishpond +1 food
Persians: quanat +1 food
Greeks: olive grove +1 trade/immune to pillage
Inca: trail +1 movement/ignore river
Aztec: chinampas +1 food
Hittites: iron foundry +2 shield
Russians: gas pipeline +1 shield
Koreans: supercomputer access +2 trade
Americans: GPS decoder +1 food
Germans: Autobahn: +1 trade/immune to bombard

More can be added.

These become available when certain techs are discovered. The advantage is commensurate with the time it takes to build them, so that some effort will be put into building them.

Also certain improvements can only be built on certain terrain. For instance sawmill can only be built on forrest tiles next to rivers. Likewise certain improvements can only be built if there is acces to certain resources, fo instance Hittite iron foundry.

Maybe to make it interesting captured or bought workers can build the improvements of the original civ, so that for instance the Persians capture some Greek workers and can make them build olive groves.

The advantages to this scheme would be multifold. 1) it would further differentiate between the different civs, making the game more enjoyable. 2)it would ensure a map that is more varied and thus easier on the eye.
(Posted by tripledoc)

2.15 - Use techs to improve the terrain

My suggestion: use techs instead. Have food improving techs like:
irrigation
crop rotation
accurate calendar
fish net
terrace farming
pesticides
hybrid strains

Shield improving techs like:
pit mining
strip mining
quarrying
oil drilling
off shore drilling

And trade improving techs like:
roads
currency
trade ships
banking
limited liability

Maybe each tech increases the production of all cities by a certain percentage.

I would keep roads / railroads (built with a public works system), but only for movement, not trade increases. This is because placing roads to important places is actually an interesting strategic decision, not the drudgery of must-rr-every-tile.

This will also have the bonus of not turning the map into an ugly railroaded robotic looking mess.

Whether you like the tech idea or not, please give serious thought to eliminating terrain improvements.

In a game, how many times do you decide to, for instance, declare war? Maybe a dozen or so. And how many times do you decide what tile to move worker #45 to? How many times do you decide "irrigate here, mine there?" Literally hundreds, probably THOUSANDS.

Change that ratio! Spend time making fun decisions, not mindless ones!

Eliminating terrain improvements is the single thing that will do the most to increase the fun of Civ and make it appeal to a wider audiance.
(Posted by nato)

You ideas would not work nato:

1. Getting rid of roads is impossible-a tech that would allow your units the same benefits on every square would be ridiculously powerful, as well as completely ahistorical-how could we cut the roads? IN fact, the same goes for mines.

Tedium of micromanagement can be solved with better automation-need to make a road? Tell worker x, we need a road from here to there.

The fact is that what you term tedious is in fact the core of empire building:administration. If you don;t like it, automate the workers. That simple.

I play civ to build an empire, to simulate building a civilization. That means making roads-that means grand improvement project-the romans are known for theirs roads, the chinese emperor for their canals and walls. If you want a game devoid of that, simple, don't play civ.
(Posted by GePap)

3 - Worker and PW ideas
3.1 - More worker jobs

I like both the CtP and CivIII version of terrain improvements, but just for the sake of arguement, I will be going from the perspective of CivIII. I want to either be able to add worker jobs or already have them in. Examples: Loved the ability to Irragate a second time in CivII. Give this back.
(Posted by donegeal)

3.2 - A hybrid system

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.
(Posted by Lorizael)

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.
(Posted by hexagonian)

3.3 - PW ideas
3.3.1 - Public Works, not workers

PUBLIC WORKS : exactly like in CTP.
(Posted by J-S)

[Nikolai]

3.3.2 - Public works director

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.
(Posted by wrylachlan)

3.3.3 - PW costs something

Have public works cost something. Gold, food, shields, whatever floats your boat (I prefer gold though, because there is no clutter like a "public works reserve" à la CtP). Such a system can be implemented either in a CTP-ish system or in a Civish system (featuring workers): the key is that each individual public work costs something when performed.
(Posted by Spiffor)

3.3.4 - A possible PW system idea

You can build anywhere in your territory, and anywhere that you have a military presence. Improvements outside your territory cost more, and there is a third price tier for improvements inside hostile nations. The price difference is reflected both in construction time and in resource points needed.

If an improvement is pillaged while under construction, the pillaging player gains half the base construction cost of that improvement. This reflects the "capturing workers" aspect of civ3.

The interface is a basic click on the palette item, then click on the tile where you want it to go. An option to paint an area (think simcity zoning) with an improvement could be done, but I don't expect it to be necessary.

PW are paid for out of a pool, similar to CTP. I'm not overly fussy about whether this pool comes from gold or shields, but I suspect shields gives the more interesting opportunity cost.

Once you place the order for an improvement to be build, an "under construction" icon appears on the screen. This icon could either be a half-finished image of the improvement, or an animated worker. The improvement appears a few turns later, depending on the improvemnt/terrain (rails take longer than roads, mountain mines take longer than hill mines, undersea tunnels take ages and ages).

To prevent the idea of building a ridiculous stockpile of PW resources then splurging, I'd suggest one or both of the following:

- A negative interest on stockpiled PW resources. Say, it depreciates at 1% each turn. The first N points of stockpile shouldn't have this interest charge (N is the cost of your single most expensive PW project).
- You can only start a maximum of 1 PW action per city you control each turn.
(Posted by) lajzar

3.3.5 - Another Public Work System Idea

As one might imagine, the above system lends it very well to public works. Excess Shields in your national inventory will be used for this. Naturally either everything else in the game will be a bit cheaper or shields will be easier to come by (relative to cIIIv or cIIV).

Each public works project requires a certain number of shields to start. This number depends on the terrain and the tile improvement. Every item would have a base cost that is some multiple of 2. Roads, for instance, would cost 2 shields. This number divided by 2 is how many turns it would take to finish it if left to its own devices; each turn 2 shields are used to further the project along. If you want to rush a PW, then you can right-click or double-click on it to bring up an option window. This would allow you to cancel it (getting back all the shields that haven't been spent), or rush it. Rushing would cost gold, not shields however, as you already have the necessary materials to finish the project. 3 Gold or so per shield left should work well for this. Rushed PWs are done immediately, and you don't have to wait a turn to make use of them.

Forests, hills, and tundra would impose a 50% expense increase on PW, and mountains and glaciers would impose a 100% increase. This means they require more shields *and* take longer to finish (for only 2 shields of work are done each turn).

IMHO, there should be small and large rivers. Small Rivers should exist between squares and work as they did in cIIIv. Large rivers should be lik cIIv rivers and be on squares. Roads on Large Rivers are 200% more expensive to build and require construction.

Civilizations at war with you automatically raid PW squares of yours they enter. This destroys the project and gives the remaining shields to the enemy. (I am willing to discuss how this is exploitable, but I don't think it is).

All the standard improvements from cIIIv can be built, but a two new additions. One is the canal, which can be built on any square near a river or ocean/lake. This requires 50 shields base, and you can build another Canal near this one. This canal can only transport the smallest of ships, such as Caravels and Tiremes, which leads me into the other new feature. This is the doubling and tripling of roads, RRs, and Canals. This allows you to build larger, harder to destroy versions of these improvements and, in the case of canals, ones that can transport larger units. Graphically such larger items look like a wider road/canal, or a double/trippled RR track. A level 3 Canal can move any but the largest of ships (no Carriers, Modern Subs, or Modern Battleships). An upgrade to a "level two" item costs 50% more than the "level one" and is twice as hard to destroy by bombardment. An upgrade to a "level three" item costs 100% more than the base item (so 4 shields for a double road -> triple road on grasslands), and requires 3 times the effort to destroy by bombardment.
(Posted by) Drachasor

3.3.6 - PW features

- ability to do all of the current terrain improvements, inside city radii (possibly inside your own territory - more later)
- ability to (slowly) modify terrain height (ie mountains->hills or vice versa)
- advanced automation/Goal Seeking: ability to set a production goal and a food goal, and then the AI does the work of figuring out what improvements should be necessary where
- ability to tell the computer what you want the city to ultimately look like, ie what a fully developped city radius will look like
- ability to do things like "road to X" and "irrigate to here" -- asking the computer to automatically build a road from this city to another city, or to automatically build irrigation as needed to irrigate a certain square
(Posted by) snoopy369

3.3.7 - Basic Visual Interface(GUI)

This is where I think I have the biggest difficulty, both with my own suggestion and with others' that i've seen so far (and why I included this option). I see the optimal GUI being city-based -- ie, at the same screen that you now have for your city, but instead of just placing citizens on the tiles, you would also be able to right-click on the tile and select "Irrigate", or whatever.

* Definitely, *simplicity* is the watchword here. I don't want to see anything like simcity (sorry, laz ) ... As much as I enjoy the terrain development of Civ, and consider it vital, I do not consider simcity to be in the same category of games, and the added 'busy-ness' of a simcity-like pallette would not work for me. Click-and-select on the tiles themselves is good enough for me, and a few buttons that would open up dialogues for automation (or even checkboxes) -- checkbox for "Allow governor to manage terrain improvement", radio buttons for "focus on production" and "focus on growth" and "middle ground", button for a "Goal Seek" dialogue that allows you to set production and growth goals - and turns to those goals, thus allowing the AI to manage even your PW budget, *if you desire*.

My problem is this: How to allow development outside of cities, not to mention outside your own territory? I suppose you could allow terrain within 2 squares say to be visible and improveable but not workable in the city radius; or you could allow a simpler point-and-click (say ctrl-click) option for improving outside of city radius lands, on the main map (or even within city radius as well, as an alternate, additional option to the city window). What I don't want to see though is an "alternate map" that allows PW-ing (this is too much added complexity to me) or a pallette that pops up (or is always there) when you want to modify terrain.

I suppose that I'd suggest, as above, allowing ctrl-rightclick or something on any square that you have a presence (a unit, or territorial ownership -- let's just say any square than your FoW allows you to see) to bring up a little mouse menu with "Irrigate", "Road", "Mine", etc. as options, just like in the city window.
(Posted by) snoopy369

3.3.8 - "Payment" for improvements

I think that a pool is a dangerous idea, and *just* time gives too many questions about how to limit improvements. I'm going to suggest that each citizen of a city gives 1 "worker" per turn (not unit, but a currency) to that city's improvement, just by existing. Let's call it a 'property tax' for fun. This property tax is fixed, and not negotiable -- except that, just like with scientists and tax collectors, you can take that citizen off the normal square-usage duties, and assign them as a "Worker" (again not a unit, but this time as a Property Tax enhancer). This allows them to produce 1 or 2 additional "worker(s)" per turn.

Each turn, then, you may use up to the total "workers" in each city, to improve the terrain around that city. You would have an "improvement queue" of sorts, in that you would each turn order improvements done, and if you exceeded your "worker budget" (which would be shown on the screen somewhere) some improvements would be put off to next turn. If you don't use it all up, it's lost -- except that you can use each worker, at (half?) strength, on non-city improvements, or in another city. This would be automatic, except that perhaps a radio box in each city could be checked indicating "Top Priority" or "Low Priority" for that city - so all top priority cities would be filled first, then "normal" (including non-city terrain), then "low priority". I'd also say that the worker should be at lower strength still when outside your own territory -- maybe 2/3 inside territory, 1/3 outside, or something. Also perhaps an additional penalty when crossing oceans or some such (takes longer to relocate!)

This might be a bit overly complex, and not sure how exactly the GUI would work with this and not be overly complex, but it's what I think would be the best way to ensure an even balance of Terrain Improvement, without using unit workers. (And gives you some of the advantages of unit workers -- ie it allows you to take off population, essentially, to increase working on the TI's, and then put them back to work when not TI'ing.)
(Posted by) snoopy369

3.4 - Worker ideas
3.4.1 - Customizable Auto Workers

I love Civ3 its great. The only part that I find very tedious is the micro managing. Therefore to solve this problem I suggest there be customizable auto workers in civ4. By this I mean when you click on auto for a worker a menu pops up and you can tell it to do certain things on certain types of land. For example: Mine grasslands, mountains, and hills, irrigate plains and desserts, chop down forests and plant forests in tundra. This way I could feel comfortable using the auto workers, I don't want irrigation on grasslands in despo!
(Posted by Jerh9e1k5)

3.4.2 - Combination of Civ3 and SMAC type workers

I would like to see Workers have the full civ3 options, plus some advanced terraforming options later in the game -- ie, either SMAC style, or maybe not that far, but at minimum the ability to (eventually) recover from a really cruddy starting location filled with mountains... maybe the ability to raise/lower terrain to the next lower type (ie mountains->hills->grassland and back up) but with massive time involvement - and maybe adverse effects on pollution as well. (Perhaps a 48 worker-turn job from hill<->grassland and a 72 or even 96 worker-turn job from hill<->mountain)
(Posted by) snoopy369

3.4.3 - Workers and borders

I'd like to see workers be able to faster improve terrain inside a city radius (or inside your borders) versus outside borders. IE, if i'm building a slow road to china, so to speak, it should take longer than it does to build a road from Paris to Marseilles (if i'm the French), even for the same distance of road. Building on my own soil means easier to get supplies, cheaper equipment (pre-industrialization anyways ^^), etc. Building abroad means simply more time and expense (even in 'no man's land').
(Posted by) snoopy369

3.4.4 - Worker upgrades

I would like to see several upgrades, at minimum a 2 move points per turn upgrade later on (civ2 engineers), and probably at least 1 or 2 upgrades to worker speed (like the 1 we have now). 2 moves = ability to road quickly, which is a pretty useful wartime strategy, and relatively realistic (armies built roads on the fly, often in front of their advancing men and tanks, with steamrollers and such). 1 move limit prevents you from building *any* roads in less than 1 turn per square even if you're willing to commit dozens of workers to it.
(Posted by) snoopy369

3.4.5 - Different kids of workers

I'd like to see multiple types of workers -- ie specialists -- if it's possible without too much complexity being added. That part i'm not so sure about, however. "Farmers" that are normal workers but can build a 'farm' which is a 2x irrigation improvement for example (and cost 50% more to build); "Miners" that can build a better mine, or build a mine faster; perhaps "Road Workers", which move like they're always on a road (solving my "army roads" problem from above) or have 2mpt or something.
(Posted by) snoopy369

specialists would be confined to the radius of the city that built them, and when they have done all they can, they could become standard workers and be able to go wherever they want. Maybe they would be confined to a region/ province/ frontier instead of a city radius.
(Posted by) Brent

3.4.6 - Automation options for workers

Same as C3C definitely, the "Auto build trade", "Auto clean pollution", etc. are VERY useful (especially the latter) to lowering the 'tedium', if you don't feel like being tedious (so to speak ^^). Even further in the "ctrl-key-and-click" concept of worker manipulation would be good -- ie, pressing ctrl-I and then click on a square to Irrigate to that square (I think this may be possible now, don't remember) including building irrigation up from a far away river if need be, but for all of the improvement types. (Ctrl-M would mean "go to this square and mine it", or some other key combo since ctrl-M right now means clear the screen for the map).
(Posted by) snoopy369

C3C plus: distinction between homeland roads and roads to rivals; orders which apply to your entire group of workers, like Governor options, with often, sometimes or never, including Colony To; Prepare future city radii either in general, along roads in general, or along specific road.
(Posted by) Brent

4 - Transportation over the map
4.1 - Railroads
4.1.1 - Movement dependable on tech

Not sure if this has been stated before but railroads need to have limited movement. I'd propose the following:
On the discovery of railroad giving tech railroads give your units 2x movement of roads. When some additional tech is researched movement on railroads would be 3x road. Maybe for another tech (very late in the game) it would go to 4x.
This would reflect the evolution of railroads through out the ages.
(Posted By Torkkeli)

4.1.2 - Infinite movement
4.1.2.1 - Some units having infinite movement

How about keeping infinite rail movement, but restricting the number of units that can take advantage of it? City improvements and technologies could increase this limit.
(Posted by ixnay)

4.1.2.2 - Infinite movents as option in the editor

I'd still like infinite movement as an option in the editor. IIRC many C2 games used it very innovatively (like the wormhole in the DS9 scenario).
(Posted by skywalker)

4.1.2.3 - More diversity in movement rates

If infinite rail movement is removed, I'd like to suggest a finer approach overall:

Right now we have movement over terrain (1 for 1 or less on rough terrain), movement over roads (3 for 1) and movement over railroads (infinity for 0). This seems a little coarse.

In particular, "roads != roads". The Roman roads were unsurpassed until modern times, I believe. And the US interstate system virtually obsolesces (is that a word?) the rail.

We could have no roads, basic roads, Roman-type roads, rails and highways. A compelling set of multipliers might be 1, 2, 4, 6 and 8. (Maybe tweak those last two?)
(Posted by okblacke)

4.1.3 - Penalty for railroad use

Keep unlimited movement, but add a 1 turn embarking/disembarking penalty for railroad use. If you want to get on a railroad, you can embark and go to your destination all in one turn. But in order to get off you need to wait till your next turn.

A corrolary to this is that you can only embark/dismbark at a city or worker built "train depot". Also if your unit is in a city at the end of its turn, it can be used for defense. But if you're waiting at a train depot, you can't defend with units waiting to disembark. If that train depot tile falls, the depot is destroyed and your units are automatically disembarked with severe damage.
(Posted by wrylachlan)

4.1.4 - Easy solution for railroad problems?

Remove the tile production boost from railroads, remove infinite movement (say, 1/5th movement cost... a tank can move ten tiles), and add an upkeep to rail tiles.

You have to link up your empire to facilitat defense, but you'll do so carefully and without waste, to avoid the added upkeep.
(Posted by Fosse

4.1.5 - The Uglies

That's very similar to the idea I proposed on page 2 about rail construction. Give an overall percentage production bonus for being connected instead of a per tile bonus. In order to make it work you need a per tile upkeep, and a rule of diminished return for each rail-road - the first connection gives a 5% bonus, the second only 3%, the third 1% (which might be less than the cost of upkeep).

To expand on this, to totally prevent the uglies, disallow the building of single tile rail-roads. Instead workers can only build RR between two cities(or a city and a colony).
(Posted by wrylachlan)

[Fosse]

Nikolai: Great work with the recaps! You seem to have found everything in this thread and others.

You might want to put a link in the first post that goes to your "overflow" post, though. For people new to the thread.