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As Fosse suggested everyone do, I shall herein detail a vision of cIV that I have. In later posts in this thread, I might detail alternative implementations of this vision. I shall, of course, respond constructively to criticism that others give.
Here we begin:
Shields, Trade, and Food
As basic concepts, these items largely remain the same. Each City will gather these goods from the surrounding squares, and by default use them. However, Food and Shields shall be transferrable goods (since trade more or less implies movement to begin with, it wouldn't make sense to have this be a transferrable good).
By "transferrable" I mean that within each city there would be a bar wherein you decide how much food or shields said city contributes to the national pool. There would be a national shield pool, and a national food pool. The bars would look roughly like this (assume shield production is 24):
[-------[]---------------] Percent-Rate Export-Keep-Import
33% of Shields (8) Exported to National Pool each turn
The Percent-Rate and Export-Keep-Import items above would be toggles. Toggling the Percent-Rate above would change the system from percentage based to unit based. In the above example it would default to 8 shields, and remain at 8 unless it was changed.
The Export-Keep-Import toggle would change the slider from exported the percentage/number of shields a turn to keeping that number to importing that number from the outside. As far as import goes, there will be a limit on how much you can import based on your technologies and citizens. Large cities can import more, and more technology allows you to manage the importing business better as well.
The system would default in all cities to one setting, probably Percent and Export at 0%, but the defaults could be change in the settings menu. The idea here is that for new players or people that don't want to micro much, it would be easy to setup a city as they wanted, once, and rarely have to mess with it again. On the other hand, you can fiddle around with the settings for all your cities every turn if you want.
You could save up stores of food and shields as well, but there will be little point for the former, and the latter would be a strategic choice as you will see later.
The effect of the above is that now you can decide where you want your citizens. If you want to populate a mining/industrial town, then you'll simply send food there from your more agricultural towns. Need more science or wealth? Well, make sure you send plenty of food to your trade centers. Unrealistic? Well, slightly in that market forces and other things influenced such import/export historically. On the other hand, those same forces will encourage you to follow historical patterns. This system just leaves the choice up to you.
The Public Work System
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.
Lastly, one major difference between previous civs and this one is that roads and railroads give no inherent bonus production, food, or trade. They merely let you move units about easier.
I find I am running out of some free time at the moment, so I will continue with my thoughts on military units, city improvements, and other matters later.
-Drachasor
Here we begin:
Shields, Trade, and Food
As basic concepts, these items largely remain the same. Each City will gather these goods from the surrounding squares, and by default use them. However, Food and Shields shall be transferrable goods (since trade more or less implies movement to begin with, it wouldn't make sense to have this be a transferrable good).
By "transferrable" I mean that within each city there would be a bar wherein you decide how much food or shields said city contributes to the national pool. There would be a national shield pool, and a national food pool. The bars would look roughly like this (assume shield production is 24):
[-------[]---------------] Percent-Rate Export-Keep-Import
33% of Shields (8) Exported to National Pool each turn
The Percent-Rate and Export-Keep-Import items above would be toggles. Toggling the Percent-Rate above would change the system from percentage based to unit based. In the above example it would default to 8 shields, and remain at 8 unless it was changed.
The Export-Keep-Import toggle would change the slider from exported the percentage/number of shields a turn to keeping that number to importing that number from the outside. As far as import goes, there will be a limit on how much you can import based on your technologies and citizens. Large cities can import more, and more technology allows you to manage the importing business better as well.
The system would default in all cities to one setting, probably Percent and Export at 0%, but the defaults could be change in the settings menu. The idea here is that for new players or people that don't want to micro much, it would be easy to setup a city as they wanted, once, and rarely have to mess with it again. On the other hand, you can fiddle around with the settings for all your cities every turn if you want.
You could save up stores of food and shields as well, but there will be little point for the former, and the latter would be a strategic choice as you will see later.
The effect of the above is that now you can decide where you want your citizens. If you want to populate a mining/industrial town, then you'll simply send food there from your more agricultural towns. Need more science or wealth? Well, make sure you send plenty of food to your trade centers. Unrealistic? Well, slightly in that market forces and other things influenced such import/export historically. On the other hand, those same forces will encourage you to follow historical patterns. This system just leaves the choice up to you.
The Public Work System
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.
Lastly, one major difference between previous civs and this one is that roads and railroads give no inherent bonus production, food, or trade. They merely let you move units about easier.
I find I am running out of some free time at the moment, so I will continue with my thoughts on military units, city improvements, and other matters later.
-Drachasor
I just have to decide whether I should include everything or not; if everything is relevant or not.
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