{The List} City Improvements

[Laertes]

I know that the concept of a city and its radius is supposed to cover suburbs, but we have all come across that nice city site that is just one square too far from, say, a nice bit of grass.

COuld we have a "suburb" improvement, that could be built, in modern era, and pitched on a square adjoining the radius of the city. It would not have a pop of its own, it would just give access to the tile. On second thoughts, maybe a worker/settler could found a suburb as theydo an outpost.

[Daz]

Can this ever happen?

What? Someone shooting me, or the religion thing...?

[Drachasor]

Originally posted by Laertes
I know that the concept of a city and its radius is supposed to cover suburbs, but we have all come across that nice city site that is just one square too far from, say, a nice bit of grass.

COuld we have a "suburb" improvement, that could be built, in modern era, and pitched on a square adjoining the radius of the city. It would not have a pop of its own, it would just give access to the tile. On second thoughts, maybe a worker/settler could found a suburb as theydo an outpost.

Hmm, I think this could work, but you should only be able to use that square if it is just barely out of reach, not 2 or 3 squares out of reach. Also, the city that wants to use it should have to be size 21 or higher, I think, to discourage using it to help fuel ICS. I suppose it doesn't matter too much if you can't build this until the modern age though.

-Drachasor

[Japher]

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=3129292&t=135#post3129292

The ideas in this thread should be added to the list, IMO

[Trifna]

Hello, I got this on my List thread, and it had to do with improvements, so here it is:

In the earlier years of slower flight, landing on a strip of grass was commonplace, so airports shouldn't be required until Advanced Flight. Add a cheap Airstrip City Imp, maybe 50 shields, to enable boxwing plane puddle-jumping with a maximum range of 10 tiles.
.. No planes are built but are an automatic adjunct of the Airstrip, and only one unit can be flown at a time, and no other can be dispatched from an Airstrip until the previous unit has reached its destination. While en route, the icon would be a boxwing plane, with a unit panel to the side (like ships) showing the unit on board. A boxwing can't cross mountains, and there must be unoccupied (but improved is okay) Plains/Grassland for the plane to land. Whether programmers want AI or the player to handle this doesn't matter, but you can cross the continent in two or three turns by choosing the landing points and a safe route. You can also click on the plane after landing to Unload the unit at that location if you change your mind. The boxwing would then return to its home Airstrip without further command.
.. Only cities with an Airstrip can initiate unit moves this way, but units can land anywhere, including taking off from a city without an Airstrip while en route to its destination. The more Airstrips you have, however, the more probability the unit will arrive safely, based on the logic of having fuel and replacement parts for the planes.

What Airports are built, allow at least 3 units to be flown from and/or to land in a single airport per turn. The current limitation is unreasonable.
La Diva

[Addled Platypus]

along with the airport idea

Maybe a train station that could be built in a city, improve trade
(tide in with a city that has a harbor), bonus movement for that
civ only, no more free rides for the invading civ, unless they
capture a city with one intact.

[DarkCloud]

Gathered a few from the polypheus thread:

***Increased Cost of High-Level Production Equipment... Leads to cities focused around different things
In all the games of Civ, one thing I have noticed is that you tended to build nearly every improvement everywhere. Due to various bonuses, you tended to build roads and railroads everywhere. Simillarly, you tended to build almost all of the city improvements in each and every city for the same reason.

Not only does this make the game tedious and repetitive, it also makes all the cities pretty much indisguishable from one another and takes away strategic depth, not to mention makes the game IMO a little less realistic.

As for city improvements, I think that there are many ways to approach this. One approach would be the "Colonization" approach in which you had specialized factories such as aircraft factory, armoured vehicle factory, shipyward, etc which take a long time to build and/or require great upkeep so you would NOT build one in each and every city. This is how they did it in "Colonization" and I hope to see it in Civ 4.
--polypheus

***Prerequisites for Improvements
There could be prerequisites for improvements.

Such as a city needs a certain educational level before a university can be built. Maybe cultural level could be used instead.
--Urban Ranger

***Unique City Improvements
I'd also like to see unique improvements for each Civ - adds to the character of the Civ you play and pushes you towards a certain style of play. The national characteristics in Colonization seemed to influence style of play a lot more than in Civ.
--Standup