Terrain: Public Works System - Ideas

[snoopy369]

This thread is intended to address the following topic:

"Assuming a Public Works system *is implemented* in civ4, what would you like to see that system look like? What features would you want included, what abilities would you like to see available (or NOT available), what visual options, what interface."

This thread is NOT to continue the debate from the Civ4-List/Terrain Improvements Thread and any discussion along those lines should remain in that thread, please. Assume that a Public Works system is implemented, and workers are not a feature in this game. (Even for developing outside your own territory, please. Allowing them in at all opens a big can of worms, for this debate. Start your own thread if you like that idea so much ) If you would like to discuss a worker based system, check out Terrain: Workers system - Ideas and post your ideas there.

Please start out by making your first post a *constructive* post, including at least the following:
* A minimum feature list that you would like to see
* An explanation of the basic visual interface (GUI)
* How you would 'pay' for improvements (ie pool, time, etc.)
* How you would see the AI implement this system (if relevant)
* And anything else relevant to your view.

I'd like to see everyone that will post in this thread post one post like this, first, so we have a more constructive thread, with good ideas flowing, rather than tearing down other people's ideas.

Remember, this is not the place to argue "PW or Workers?". Workers supporters (like myself ) are welcome here, as long as you check your allegiance at the door, and instead help make this idea the best you can -- so that, if PW is adopted, perhaps the designers will have good suggestions to follow.

[lajzar]

[copied over and enhanced from the other thread]

My ideal PW system:

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.

My list of PW improvements:

Most of these are fairly obvious, and this broadly mirrors ctp2 except for removing the out of town shopping malls that sprung up in the modern era.

Terraforming - you can only do one level of this, it is horendously expensive. While terraformed terrain acts as the new type, it always remembers the original terrain, and can only ever be terraformed into whatever the original terrain could have been terraformed into.

Road
Highways
(I favour rail being a city improvement similar to airports)
Undersea Tunnel

Irrigation
Farm (crop rotation)
Industrial Farm (combine harvesters etc)
Genetic Farm (genetic engineering, some pollution?)

Natural Park (trade, reduce pollution)
Suburban Sprawl (max city pop, some pollution)

3 levels of mining improvement
3 levels of fishing improvement

Harbour (sea trade)
Oil Rig

3 levels of Fortifications
3 levels of observation tower

[snoopy369]

A quotable version of the inital post:

Please start out by making your first post a *constructive* post, including at least the following:

* A minimum feature list that you would like to see

* An explanation of the basic visual interface (GUI)

* How you would 'pay' for improvements (ie pool, time, etc.)

* How you would see the AI implement this system (if relevant)

* And anything else relevant to your view.

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by snoopy369
A quotable version of the inital post:

Please start out by making your first post a *constructive* post, including at least the following:

* A minimum feature list that you would like to see

I'd like to see the PW system include:
- 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

* An explanation of the 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.

* How you would 'pay' for improvements (ie pool, time, etc.)

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.)

* How you would see the AI implement this system (if relevant)

Not sure. I'd expect a lot of work to be needed, and probably cIV would suck in this regards, but ciV would be better, as is the case with sophmore programs and sophmore ideas. I'd say at first glance that the AI would have to be taught to do a good job of deciding "top priority" versus "low", and deciding when to stop building what might be very useful improvements and instead let a city's workers idle (in that city) so they can work hardcore on a vital improvement elsewhere.

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by lajzar
[copied over and enhanced from the other thread]

My ideal PW system:

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.

Sounds good so far.

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.

Assuming you're going to say later that there's a pool or something, that would make a lot of sense, although not really realistic. Also a bit of an exploit here -- akin to "teleporting units" by gifting cities back and forth, you could easily see people starting a horribly complex construction, and then have a friend come over, pillage it after one turn, leave, and repeat for the other player -- allowing both to get a huge supply of pillaged construction points. (Yes, people will do things like this in civ3. Check the MP forums, particularly PBEM.) Obviously not a problem with SP, since the AI won't do it if you tell it not to, but for MP there's a huge hole for exploiting here. (Which could be fixed I suppose by mutual agreement not to do it; but I generally prefer not to have obviously exploitable features, if they can be worked around.)

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.

I've already said (above in my post) my thoughts about palettes, so i'll just say here that I think you should explain your GUI a bit more. Is this going to be done on the regular map, or will there be a separate window opened up? Where does this palette exist (in a popup, in a toolbar like in Word, etc.)? How big of a palette are you looking at here? Will you be able to do this within the city window (as well)? Etc...

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.

Shields certainly would be interesting, but how would you determine how many shields went to terrain versus buildings? Would you have a "wealth" like improvement that allowed a city to send 100% of its shields to this pool (or send all of them, modified by a percentage, like wealth does)? Would it be a tax rate, like science is, on shields, or a natural, fixed percentage?

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).

That would probably work, and would be something like what I'd suggest (either an animated worker indicating what kind of improvement, or a half-finished improvement). Would you have the opportunity for speeding up the improvement? Would improvements like you say be both more costly and more time consuming, and would the cost come out per turn or all up front?

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.

I think the negative interest is too complex for this game. Perhaps a 'cap', ie "no more than X points per city or per citizen may be left at the end of the turn or they're gone" would work. If you did do negative interest, your N should be relative to the size of the civilization, not to the projects available -- I'd hope an AD 1900 civ with 30 cities and 400 citizens could stockpile at least say 900 'points' (30 per city, 2 per citizen), while a 3500bc civ with 1 city and 2 citizens probably shouldn't be allowed to stockpile very many (more than 50 would be a lot, depending on how you valued the points).

On the second one -- I have to say that this would be way too limiting. Not only do you want to allow a player to massively improve a city if he/she chooses to spend the (whole economy) resources to do so, but it would massively decrease the ability to improve cities in general -- I often build multiple improvements in cities as it is, without any stockpile at all. I'm not saying that we *should* allow a massive stockpile and then massive improvement, but if I want to quick-grow a city, and want to irrigate 6 squares in one turn (or start to irrigate them anyhow) I don't think for an empire of 12 cities and 150 citizens this should be an unreasonable thing to ask for. (In current civ3 for example if I had this empire, I would probably have the resources to do 6 irrigations of grassland in 1 or at most 2 turns, if I chose to put *most* of my workers on it - not even all.)

My list of PW improvements:

I'm not going to discuss these at length, because this isn't really the point of this thread -- massively changing civ3 improvement options is really a much broader topic (and much more violently argued even than the PW vs Workers that i'm trying to avoid here anyways ^^). I'll just say that I think CTP is a fine game, but modifying civ to this extent (as drastically changing the improvements as you suggest in your post) is a bit too far. But, like I said, that's food for a different thread (the List thread, to be specific).

In general folks, if you're posting in this thread, please generally assume that your PW system should allow for all of the improvements of the civ3 system. If you have specific things you want to explain that your PW system could allow for (like in my post for example) please include them -- but it should still explicitly allow for the entire civ3 improvement set. That way it's a more flexible suggestion, and can be applicable regardless of the decisions made about improvements. (IE, please add features that aren't in civ3, but don't subtract.)

Specific to Laz, i'd like to say that although your PW system is obviously fine for civ3 improvements (not really having any lack of ability to do things), I am a bit concerned that you're just suggesting cIV be CTP2. It's not the same game, neither in function nor in strategy, and I think that it would be a major mistake to take civ3 and plop on top the CTP GUI and/or gameplay. Assuming a PW system, I'd still expect that PW system and its abilities to be reflective of Civ 1-3 standards of gameplay and strategy. (But then i'm just a reactionary conservative, so what do I know ... ^>^)

Honestly, if you like CTP2 that much, play it...

[lajzar]

Originally posted by snoopy369


Sounds good so far.



Assuming you're going to say later that there's a pool or something, that would make a lot of sense, although not really realistic. Also a bit of an exploit here -- akin to "teleporting units" by gifting cities back and forth, you could easily see people starting a horribly complex construction, and then have a friend come over, pillage it after one turn, leave, and repeat for the other player -- allowing both to get a huge supply of pillaged construction points.

ok, let me clarify...

When you start the construction, the entire cost is paid upfront. If the construction is pillaged, the original civ has lost those resources (no refunds), and the pillaging civ gets half the resources spent. So it is a way to transfer PW resources between civs (at a 50% efficiency factor) once you have a unit in enemy territory, but it isn't a perpetual money machine at all.

Given that all the receiving civ can do with pillaged pw resource is build public works anyway, there usually isn't much reason to pillage a project someone is building in your own territory.

Counterpoint: terraforming public works projects which are hugely expensive resource-wise could be pillaged effectively and the resources spent on other less expensive projects.

On balance, perhaps gaining resources through pillaging should be dropped.

I've already said (above in my post) my thoughts about palettes, so i'll just say here that I think you should explain your GUI a bit more. Is this going to be done on the regular map, or will there be a separate window opened up? Where does this palette exist (in a popup, in a toolbar like in Word, etc.)? How big of a palette are you looking at here? Will you be able to do this within the city window (as well)? Etc...

I think the simplest would be a right-click interface. You rightclick, and one of the menu items is "Public Works", under which the full range of available options would be listed. This would supplement the palette.

For the palette, imagine an extra button along the top row (where you have the paedia, advisors, and game options buttons). This opens the palette. Depending on interface, the palette either goes on top of a status panel (the right hand portion in the civ2 interface), or can be dragged anywhere on the screen. This palette can be closed when not in use by clicking on the close button on the palette.

Shields certainly would be interesting, but how would you determine how many shields went to terrain versus buildings? Would you have a "wealth" like improvement that allowed a city to send 100% of its shields to this pool (or send all of them, modified by a percentage, like wealth does)? Would it be a tax rate, like science is, on shields, or a natural, fixed percentage?

I'd have a percentage slider to decide how much each city gives to public works. This would be a global setting, much like tax and science. If pw resources are sourced from gold, this could be a new item on the existing slider.

Aside: in cIV, let's have sliders with 1% increments instead of 10%? Please?

I'd also have "Civil Engineers" as city specialists, who give a small amount of pw resource points each turn.

Having a public works option as a build queue item is also a good idea. Thanks for suiggesting it

That would probably work, and would be something like what I'd suggest (either an animated worker indicating what kind of improvement, or a half-finished improvement). Would you have the opportunity for speeding up the improvement? Would improvements like you say be both more costly and more time consuming, and would the cost come out per turn or all up front?

First, I don't favour any rush-building in a pw model, as it would be too complicated to implement any reasonable number of choices. I also feel it is a bit of an exploit to dogpile workers on a project - big projects *should* be time consuming.

For the second part, let's say we are building a road. Sample costs might be:

grass/plains - 10 pw, 4 turns
hills - 20 pw, 6 turns
mountains - 40 pw, 8 turns

The pw cost is paid in full up front.

I think the negative interest is too complex for this game. Perhaps a 'cap', ie "no more than X points per city or per citizen may be left at the end of the turn or they're gone" would work. If you did do negative interest, your N should be relative to the size of the civilization, not to the projects available -- I'd hope an AD 1900 civ with 30 cities and 400 citizens could stockpile at least say 900 'points' (30 per city, 2 per citizen), while a 3500bc civ with 1 city and 2 citizens probably shouldn't be allowed to stockpile very many (more than 50 would be a lot, depending on how you valued the points).

That would work too. The most important point is that it should always be possible for the player to save up for his most expensive project without falling foul of caps or interest.

On the second one -- I have to say that this would be way too limiting. Not only do you want to allow a player to massively improve a city if he/she chooses to spend the (whole economy) resources to do so, but it would massively decrease the ability to improve cities in general -- I often build multiple improvements in cities as it is, without any stockpile at all. I'm not saying that we *should* allow a massive stockpile and then massive improvement, but if I want to quick-grow a city, and want to irrigate 6 squares in one turn (or start to irrigate them anyhow) I don't think for an empire of 12 cities and 150 citizens this should be an unreasonable thing to ask for. (In current civ3 for example if I had this empire, I would probably have the resources to do 6 irrigations of grassland in 1 or at most 2 turns, if I chose to put *most* of my workers on it - not even all.)

I don't see the problem. Remember, that is [city count] new projects started each turn. Let's say you have a 12 city/total 150 pop civilisation. You want to massively improve a new city.

turn 1 - you start 12 (1 per city) improvements. Over the next 4-8 turns these will be finished.
turn 2 - you start another 12 (1 per city) improvements. Over the next 4-8 turns these will be finished.
turn 3 - you start another 12 (1 per city) improvements. Over the next 4-8 turns these will be finished.
turn 4 - you start another 12 (1 per city) improvements. Over the next 4-8 turns these will be finished.

At this point, you will have started road and farm improvements on every tile that new city can reach. these will all be finished by turns 5-12 (8 turns if everywhere is grasslands). Your workers in that example would take 8 turns to do the same job. I think the two models will take the same amount of time.

The main difference is that workers allows you to dogpile one tile at a time. And while certainly a modern civ has the manpower to do that, in practice this is never done, and so is somewhat unrealistic to have that feature in a game.

Specific to Laz, i'd like to say that although your PW system is obviously fine for civ3 improvements (not really having any lack of ability to do things), I am a bit concerned that you're just suggesting cIV be CTP2.

Well, be fair, there are some differences - ctp never allowed improvements outside your territory - and it can equally be argued that the "workers" group wants cIV to be civ3.

[snoopy369]

Not quoted, because this is getting too long ... just a few points.

* Rightclick interface: Why not just use this and dispense with the palette? It's certainly easier, and not any less functional -- you'd not have that many options available anyways, never more than a reasonable rightclick menu can hold.

* Dogpile / rush: I have to disagree. Modern civs absolutely do rush build things. For example, I live in Chicago, and on the one hand we're working on the "Dan Ryan Expressway Improvement" project, which is going to take probably years to improve a huge highway that can afford a few lanes closed at any one time. On the other hand, we're working on the Red Line improvement, which can't afford to be closed except at nights, and not even that for very long since it's a 24/7 train -- so they're finishing it with amazing speed (in a few weeks compared to much longer improvement projects on other parts of the tracks.)
As a gameplay option, I have to say that being able to at least somewhat rush build is important, at least to me. The current "dogpile" simply reflects distributing resources as needed -- sometimes 1-2 workers per improvement, to get nonvital things accomplished; sometimes 3-4 to get a long improvement like a mine jumpstarted; sometimes 8 to get something immediately built.
I certainly don't think you should penalize the players (and the harder improvements) with both cost and time, and I think having the ability to have different speeds of accomplishing a work is important to the strategy with which we play this game. After all, Civ in all of its incarnations is a Strategy game, first and foremost ... not a Sim (realism). You shouldn't make a decision solely based on what is realistic in the real world, but what makes for better gameplay; and while a total bum rush of improvements might be bad for gameplay, I think taking out the 'rush' option entirely is bad for it, too.

* I'm going to move the rest of my response to that to the general PW vs Workers forum since it's inappropriate here. Read it there.

* 1 per city: That's fine, the way you put it now. I understood it initially to mean "one improvement made in each city per turn", not "one improvement made anywhere, for each city". I still would suggest that the size of the city might be relevant -- 5 size 3 cities need a lot less improving than 5 size 20 cities, although assumably you'd have been improving the whole time, who knows? But, 1 per city isn't bad, either.

In closing:

Well, be fair, there are some differences - ctp never allowed improvements outside your territory - and it can equally be argued that the "workers" group wants cIV to be civ3.

The difference being that I (not as a worker supporter per se, but just in general) want cIV to be similar to the game it is succeeding; even with a PW system, it can and should still share much in common with its predecessor. That's how it *should* be. ^^

[snoopy369]

One other thing i wanted to ask: What sort of automation/AI would you build in to it? IE, if I don't want to have to individually (or even with paint) select each square I want roaded/railroaded, but would rather just have a road built from city X to city Y, how would you build that in? Or if I wanted pollution to be automatically cleaned up the moment it pops, with whatever resources were necessary?

[lajzar]

Interface palette vs right click: I'm not emotionally attached to either idea, but I know that visual interfaces (such as a palette) is what helps immerse people into the game. The palette is functional eye candy, while the right click is for people who just want to get things done fast.

dogpile/rush - I think we are talking across each other. While individual cities may well rush things, I don't think there have been that many cases where the entire construction industry of a single nation has been devoted to rushing a single project. Remember, you're talking about one road there, while a civ road (in those versions where it provides a trade bonus) is an abstraction that represents is an entire web of roads crisscrossing across the tile. And even though that road of yours is being "rushed", there are thousands of other construction projects going on simultaneously anyway.

Regarding automation...

We could have a queuing option, where you paint/click on a lot of tiles, and the computer starts construction as and when resources become available. The queue would of course be used for more construction. If you have 3 cities and try to start a 4th improvement in one turn, that item will go into the queue and be started next turn (reources permitting). Queued items can be cancelled with no penalty.

I'd also imagine a few different paint options:

- Paint one square at a time (default interface)
- Paint a square/rectangle
- Paint a "straight" line between two points
- Paint a cost/time/money optimised line between two points
- Drag and Paint

I imagine these would most easily be selected from the palette, or a special enabling key choice. Within the palette, your paint mode and your current paint brush would both be highlighted.

Regarding pollution, I believe the current plan is to drop pollution as a terrain "enhancement" anyway. I'd personally implement it as a happiness and production penalty. No support for whackamole here.

[Bragelonne]

Sorry but, I dont think Public WOrks system should be implemented in Civ4. Thats actually the MAIN difference between Civilization and Call to Power series.

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by lajzar
dogpile/rush - I think we are talking across each other. While individual cities may well rush things, I don't think there have been that many cases where the entire construction industry of a single nation has been devoted to rushing a single project. Remember, you're talking about one road there, while a civ road (in those versions where it provides a trade bonus) is an abstraction that represents is an entire web of roads crisscrossing across the tile. And even though that road of yours is being "rushed", there are thousands of other construction projects going on simultaneously anyway.

Um, what about the 1950s Interstate Highway push? That was quite a lot of industry into one project (admittedly across the country, but it's similar).

Regardless, i don't think it matters very much how realistic it is. It's good for gameplay, and that's good enough for me. Most of Civ isn't very realistic ... but it's pretty darn fun.

Regarding automation...

We could have a queuing option, where you paint/click on a lot of tiles, and the computer starts construction as and when resources become available. The queue would of course be used for more construction. If you have 3 cities and try to start a 4th improvement in one turn, that item will go into the queue and be started next turn (reources permitting). Queued items can be cancelled with no penalty.

You'd have to have some way of presenting the queue to the player in an order that the player could manipulate (like the build queue) so to put certain things before other things.

I also think you should expound more on the GUI still ... i don't think what you are looking at is what i'm looking at in terms of what screens you're looking at. Are you on a separate screen (say an imaginary F3 screen or something) that shows you a new map? Are you looking at the base map (with units and everything)? I don't think adding all of this palette stuff to the map is a great idea from a visual presentation point of view, but having to go to another screen is too much separation, at least for me -- but perhaps a better option than the former. (Although i'd say if you dump the palette you should be fine without the new screen.)

Regarding pollution, I believe the current plan is to drop pollution as a terrain "enhancement" anyway. I'd personally implement it as a happiness and production penalty. No support for whackamole here.

Hmm, didn't know that.

Automation wise i'd still like more powerful automation options -- "clear all jungle" is pretty simple with a drag/paint option, and roading admittedly isn't that hard either, but i'd almost like to see a button in the city window letting me build a road to another city from there ... and perhaps more mass action options (ie clear ALL jungles, road ALL squares, etc.) ... might as well take advantage of the strengths of the PW system.

[lajzar]

ok, a revised interface model.

There are two basic interfaces; the right click interface works on the main map screen. The palette interface woks on a modified map screen, and is activated / deactivated by opening / closing the palette.

Completed improvments are always visible. Any tile that has an improvement in progress will have an animated worker item on both screens.

Any tile that has a queued item for construction will have that improvement visible as a greyed-out improvement. This will have a number floating above it indicating its position in the build queue. It is only visible under the palette interface. In addition, units are hidden while in the palette screen to avoid clutter.

Issue: queueing multiple improvements on the same tile.

---

Within the main map screen, right clicking will open a (sub)menu giving all the valid improvement options for that tile. These are added to teh end of the queue. Keyboard shortcuts will also be available for these, and will be directed to the tile the focus is on.

The palette has three sets of buttons. An improvement set will include all the terrain improvements current technology allows, and there will be a few buttons allowing you to choose different paint modes. As you paint your improvements on the land, they are added to teh end of the queue. The third set is a toggle between painting in normal mode and painting the improvements in rushed mode.

The paint modes I envision are:
single tile
paint rectangle (only paints on tiles which could legally have the selected improvement)
paint line between 2 points
paint optimised line between 2 points (for building ost efficient road between 2 cities)
paint city radius area (think back to the civ2 map editor interface)

I don't see much use for a truly global paint command option you suggest. However, I think it would be trivially simple to add a terraforming interface within the city view, a "build road to [city]" woiuld be a minimum.

While in palette mode, double clicking on a city should enter the city screen, and leaving the city screen will return you back to palette mode. This should streamline the improvment process when working on cities, and avoid the overhead of duplicating most of the improvements interface in city mode.

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Within palette mode, right clicking (or keyboard shortcuts focused on the tile the focus is on), brings up another menu of options. These are:

Cancel improvement under construction (also available in normal view)
Rush improvement under construction (also available in normal view)
Cancel queued improvement
Move to top of queue
Move to bottom of queue

At the end of the turn, queued improvements up to the limit of construction resources are started. This is left to the end of the turn to allow for changing decisions during the turn.

Rushing the improvement finishes it at the end of the current turn. It costs PW resources on a sliding scale depending on the original cost and the number of turns that are saved by rushing, up to a mximum of 3x base cost for units that are insta-rushed.

Sorry but, I dont think Public WOrks system should be implemented in Civ4. Thats actually the MAIN difference between Civilization and Call to Power series.

This isn't an advocacy thread. This thread is for making the best system possible, *assuming* that public works is what will be implemented. *Constructive* criticism is encouraged.

[Fosse]

* A minimum feature list that you would like to see

Farms, mines, roads, canals, forts, radar and lookout towers.

* An explanation of the basic visual interface (GUI)

A button on screen can be pressed that brings up a series of improvment options (like the current worker's buttons in Civ III). you click one of these buttons, then click a tile you want improved with it. In the case of roads, you can click and drag from point A to point B.

After ordering an improvment a few turns pass during which it is constructed.

* How you would 'pay' for improvements (ie pool, time, etc.)

Cash.
Let's give gold some more worth than simply rush building. Really, when you get cash in your coffers you can trade it to somebody else or rush build. If you send it to them then they can either trade it or rush build... That's it.
No setting aside production, no removing workers from the land, no complication. Just a nice, simple, easy to understand price tag.

* And anything else relevant to your view.

Paying cash represents paying the workforce, so it makes good sense. Not having to deal with countless worker units frees up play time to focus on other more interesting areas (military operations, diplomacy, trade... anything else). The AI doesn't have to worry about making intelligent improvment choices AND intelligent worker management choices, so we'll see improvment there.

[star mouse]

* RE-POSTED from the other thread:

Here's an outline of the system I would like to see:

1. Public works are paid for in gold as part of the global budget. (CTP2 paid for it in its equivalent of shields.) It would also be reasonable for some public works project to require strategic resources as well, eg: iron/coal -> railroad.

2. In CTP/CTP2, it was possible for public works to be done automatically by a city in a manner similar to a city governor. While this didn't work very well under the CTP system where working the city tiles was abstracted, it would be a solid feature in CIV4 where only the tiles that are being worked would get public works. This would be because it is obvious which tiles are getting the public works. Therefore, we have a public works manager in each city (like a governor) that develops the worked tiles in the city radius, and that can be enabled or disabled as desired. If the public works manager is disabled for that city, no public works are done automatically in that city.

3. If there is a public works manager in each city, it is likely that a bunch of such managers will deplete the public works budget, leaving none for any necessary micromanaging. Therefore, we should have a slider that we can set to reserve the public works budget for our own use. We can set the slider from 0% (let the city governors have it all) to 100% (I want to micromanage everything). This slider dictates how much of the global budget you want to take each turn. Setting it to 0% won't deplete any reserve you have already built up.

4. You should be able to disallow public works projects in a global screen (for example, don't build any irrigation). You could set it up so that only roads are built automatically, for example, and you micromanage the location of the mines and irrigation. New projects made possible by tech advances are inititally enabled or disabled as controlled by a global game setting.

5. Your personal public works budget that you accumulate can be used to fund public works in any manner you see fit.
* Public works outside a city radius
* Give to any single city so that their outstanding projects are completed faster
* Micromanage any city to your heart's content.
* Provide extra funding to all city governors.

6. It follows then that there are two public works pools, (a) one for the city governors to spend, and (b) your personal public works stash. City governors won't build any surplus in their pool unless there are no outstanding city public works projects (no worked tiles in a city without maxed public works). Generally, the city pool will be depleted each turn. The value of needed public works for all cities would be shown with the pools. You should be able to transfer public works funding between these pools as you see fit. This would be managed on your Budget screen using a simple user interface.

7. When micromanaging public works, it is done in the style of CTP2. You place your orders for a tile, it is taken out of your Public Works reserve, and the improvement is done in a few turns. In CTP2, it was not possible to speed-build public works like you can do in CIV3 with workers. We should be able to speed-build public works, but make it cost more. If you want that 4-turn improvement done in 1 turn, make it cost 4 times as much.

8. Cities can make public-works specialists (civil engineers) in the same way they can make entertainers, scientists, tax collectors and the like. These specialists contribute directly to the public-works budget, and also reduce the cost of public works in that city. The cost reduction works by reducing the cost of each project (where a project is one improvement to one tile). Two specialists could reduce the cost of two projects in that city radius per turn, for example. Reseraching a specific tech advance is required before being able to make such specialits.

9. The city governor AI should build public works on all worked tiles, and also connect any of these tiles containing roads to the city itself, so that road networks can form naturally.

10. Some city improvements may require public works funding to build in addition to shields (city walls, aqueduct, anything else that would be a large structure) but not improvements that are simply buildings (courthouse, temple, bank, etc).

11. If you pillage a tile where public works are currently being constructed, the public works stop being constructed in that tile, and you get half of the value of those public works added to your public works pool. This works anywhere (your territory or your enemy's).

NOTE: I have not covered the user interface in this proposal. I assume that some of the features of the worker system will be translated to this system. For example, the "Road To" command would be changed from "build a road from the current position of the worker to point B" to "choose point A and build a road from point A to point B".

Overall, the proposed public works system I have outlined here should allow a similar level of control over automation and micromanagement that the current worker-based system provides, without the workers. With the workers being abstracted away in this way, you can dispense with the micromanaging of this task more easily, but if you want to take control of the construction then you can.

My system is not perfect - there are a few other ideas in this thread that may work better - but overall it has many ideas that are worth considering.

One late idea with terrain improvement outside the city radius I have just had, in conjunction with someone else's good idea.
* Inside your empire: only allow such terrain improvement if it in a tile that is connected to one of your cities by road, or is next to a tile that is so connected, or is inside your city radius.
* Outside your empire: The same rule applies, and in addition the tile must have one of your military units in it.

[dexters]

Hm... an abstraction of the tile improvement system and removing workers completely might work.

This could also benefit the AI and take away human advantages in this area.