It is confirmed that those hamlets/towns are terrain improvements

[Illuminatus]

Piracy and raids
Village spam instead of road spam

[Sir Og]

I never had a problem with ugly roads. I am not into eye candy (it only bothers me when the graphics of a game are extremely ugly. like in SMAC)
I am surprised that Firaxis have stated that they want to get rid of the ugly late game map but have introduced a feature that could make the late game maps look even uglier (I understand that this is a matter of taste) and unrealistic.
IRL cities cover an insignifficant portion of the landmass. This however is not the case with civ games. And if you have a vilage in every city square you would end up with a planet like Coruscant (sp?) in the late game. That would be just fine in a sci-fi game but not in civ IMO.

[Verenti]

Well said Sir! Well said!

I disagree with you on mostly the entire subject, but, It illustraits your point well and logically, so Bravo!

[Nikolai]

Sir Og: You are right that cities isn't covering half the planet, but villages is not cities. Remember, rural population has been big, relatively speaking,(very big compared to the cities' population) in all the world until our times. I tend to see this village improvement as a sign of Firaxis aknowledging that. But I'd liked it to not be buildable, but rather a part of the game mechanic really.

[Odin]

Sea tile improvements:

[Odin]

BTW, are there going to be fisheries like in CTP?

[Sir Og]

Nikolai the cities in civ games as we know them already represent these vilages that you are talking about.
Most of the Earth's landmass has such low population density that it is not worth of strategic representation on the game map.
Of course we will have to see how the game actualy plays before making final judgemnt on that issue.

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

Sir Og, the big thing you are forgetting is that, unlike in Civ3, we probably won't see as many cities-on average-as we previously did (due to maintainance and civics costs). So fewer overall cities means that there will be far less chance of lots of 'ugly' villages and towns all over the map.
What you also need to keep in mind is that-unlike roads-towns and villages need to be defended from enemy attack-so building them here there and everywhere will make life very difficult in times of war.
Lastly, road/RR sprawl was largely caused by initially building the road for its financial purposes-then connecting them up later on. Villages and towns, however, I believe will only grant an advantage within the city radius, so we won't see them EVERYWHERE.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

[kolpo]

Originally posted by Sir Og
Does this mean that we are now going to end up in the late game with maps full of hamlets/towns/vilages.
AFAIK Firaxis has removed the property of roads to add trade because of the ugly end game maps but they have instead replaced that with something else that will contribute to lategame ugliness.
Am I missing something?

A title has either a farm OR a mine OR a town OR ... Just like with all other title improvements except roads and railroads.

So if you place villages on all your squares, shall your cities never become big because they lack food(no farms) and they shall also lack production(no mines)

So the landscape shall in most civ4 games be filled with many different title improvements. Building only one title improvement is a very unbalanced and extreem strategy.

no farms -> little food -> little citizens -> no people to work in hamlets -> no money from hamlets/villages/towns.

[Verenti]

Wait a tick:

How can you complain of lategame road sprawl in favour of Village Sprawl because its realistic: Is it really so realistic to have Modern ("Late game") Villages without major road networks? I mean how many of you travel overland to get to where you want to go: I know I stick to the roads.

My point is that roads in large interconnecting networks ARE realistic, especially if the city suburbs are no longer abstracted.

Take that road haters!

[Sir Og]

Kolpo and The_Aussie_Lurker thanks for answering my initial question instead of arguing that a map full of hamlets is more realistic than a map full of roads

[Harovan]

The late game Civ3 map looks like a garbage dump. Not a single forest or jungle tile (they're uneconomic!), old wires (railroads) winding everywhere, along with empty cans, old tyres, oil puddles, strange green guck and of course spots of puke (pollution) everywhere, since only the human would clean it. While it is true, that in a game like this mechanics matter more than eyecandy, an extremely unaestethic look like this does not attract to a game, which in addition is tedious like hell (yes, the late Civ3 game is).

If Civ4 addresses this, it's fine with me. Even more, I would be angry if it didn't. In addition, I am not sure, whether these hamlets give an additional movement bonus or not. It would be logical, and even if it is not in, it's sure like hell easily modded.

[James]

Hamlets makes sense.

[Harovan]

James the Scot? Is that Paddys DL or did I miss something?

[Nikolai]

Nah, too obvious I think. I guess he knows him in some way or another, he's from the same country at least.