Apolyton Civ4 PREVIEW (By Solver) - Part 1 online

[sophist]

Originally posted by truepurple
@sophist
What particular way is bad? I wish people weren't so very vague.

Using a whole population point to build any type of unit. You know, in the part of Imran's post that I quoted....

[Harovan]

What would be worth to consider for the reality fan club (which I am not a member of) is to do it with infantry units similarly as with settlers and workers - count both food and hammers as production and thus, stop the city growth for the time the unit is constructed. Of course, unit costs would have to be rebalanced.

[truepurple]

If you read my previous posts sophist you would see my suggested change for growth, understanding that applies to understanding using population for military. For example, you would know "whole population point" doesn't necessary apply.

Perhaps you might pay more attention to what your replying to, before you reply? I know I myself am guilty of that sometimes, but not like some people.

@sir ralph
How is that any better? The whole idea is that when your no longer at war, the soldiers rejoin the population increasing productivity etc, Limiting and accelerating growth is a bazaar and poor substitution for simply putting population in military units.

Plus, what does my suggestions have to do with any reality fan club? I'm not suggesting changes to make the game more realistic, I'm suggesting changes to make the game more deep, balanced, and fun.

[kolpo]

Originally posted by truepurple
Thats unfortunate to hear, but also confusing on exactly how health influences growth. I thought different food types were suppose to increase growth rates through health.

Your impression, where did you get it? You haven't actually played civ4 right?

Just based on what I heard and firaxis it's tendency to keep things simple. This is still speculation off course.

Food resources increases health. Health increases the maxium population of cities(because overpopulation is one of the things that creates unhealth). Many other things like starting traits and maybe buildings/civics can also increase/decrease health.

So how I understand it with a completely fictional example:

city A: has 1 population,0 health, 0 unhealth and produces 3 food.
2 food is eaten so +1 food/turn is added to grown if health >= unhealth

health is not lower then unhealth so it can grown.

city A: now had 2 population, 0 health, -1 unhealth(do to overpopulation) and it produces now 5 food(new title with 2 food got worked);
4 food is eaten so +1food/turn gets added to grown if health >= unhealth

Health is lower then unhealth so it can't grown.

City A: a worker builded an improvement on pigs, the city has now acces to pigs increasing the health to 2. the city can now grown to size 3 after the needed food to grown is collected.

[truepurple]

@kolopo
Your explanation is confusing, are you saying you theorize health determines max city size? But if that was the case then losing health due to overpopulation would be redundant since over population is a factor of max city size.

Well you are just guessing, even if it is a educated (and confusing) guess. I would like to hear (and see screenshots of) straight from those who have played.

[kolpo]

Originally posted by truepurple
@kolopo
Your explanation is confusing, are you saying you theorize health determines max city size? But if that was the case then losing health due to overpopulation would be redundant since over population is a factor of max city size.

Check this screen: http://image.com.com/gamespot/images..._screen020.jpg

Next to the bar "Growing (6 Turns)" do you see a red cross that represents health and a green face that represents unhealth. Because health is bigger here then unhealth AND their is a food surplus, grows the city slowely to the next size. Or that is at least the way I interpreted this screenshot.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by truepurple
@sir ralph
How is that any better? The whole idea is that when your no longer at war, the soldiers rejoin the population increasing productivity etc, Limiting and accelerating growth is a bazaar and poor substitution for simply putting population in military units.

Plus, what does my suggestions have to do with any reality fan club? I'm not suggesting changes to make the game more realistic, I'm suggesting changes to make the game more deep, balanced, and fun.

No. You're trying to make it more realistic. And I doubt that many people would consider it as fun, balanced or deep to rejoin their units, who may have gotten a couple of upgrades throughout the war (that's what the fun of the new combat system is about, right?), to the cities only to recoup the population losses they had to suffer beforehand.

[Martinus]

Originally posted by truepurple
If you read my previous posts sophist you would see my suggested change for growth, understanding that applies to understanding using population for military. For example, you would know "whole population point" doesn't necessary apply.

Perhaps you might pay more attention to what your replying to, before you reply? I know I myself am guilty of that sometimes, but not like some people.

@sir ralph
How is that any better? The whole idea is that when your no longer at war, the soldiers rejoin the population increasing productivity etc, Limiting and accelerating growth is a bazaar and poor substitution for simply putting population in military units.

Plus, what does my suggestions have to do with any reality fan club? I'm not suggesting changes to make the game more realistic, I'm suggesting changes to make the game more deep, balanced, and fun.

The idea that military units rejoin the population increasing productivity when there is no war going on is highly unrealistic for the most part of the world history - in fact it should only apply to units drafted and with no experience. In order to keep a standing army, you need people who are constantly drilled and trained - especially as you have these units for many centuries, so they just represent constantly changing/recruiting new people to replace the old ones.

Even in middle ages, where there were no standing armies, knights who constituted what we would today call professional soldiers did not really do anything between wars other than training in military skills - they certainly did not contribute to production (it was the job of peasants, burghers and the like).

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

OK, based on all I have seen and heard, the easiest way to think of population growth is as follows:

Each city has a Health and Sickness rating, as well as the food surplus and deficit rating of previous games.
Now, as always your food surplus/deficit determines whether or not your city grows-and how fast. However, if sickness exceeds health, then it erodes your food by whatever amount it exceeds it by. So, a city with Health 18, Sickness 20 and an unmodified food surplus of +2 will actually not grow. Why because the Health difference of -2 eats away the +2 surplus, leaving it at 0.
Hope that makes sense.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

[Aeson]

Colonization's military was a lot like what truepurple is talking about. Each Colonist could be given a Gun and/or Horse and become a military unit. The military unit could set the Gun and/or Horse aside and the Colonist could go back to doing other jobs.

I personally find that method much more interesting than building military units with production. Certainly it was part of a game that many people found fun. (How can anyone claim that it can't be fun anyways, when the implementation hasn't even been specified? There are literally an infinite number of possible implementations of military requiring population/food. Have they all been analyzed for "funness" already? )

I also think a population requirement for military units lends itself better to game balance between warmonger and builder. (Not that Colonization's specific implementation was that well balanced.) Because when population can either be acting as a military unit, or producing, but in no case can do both at once, there is a choice that has to be made. Either your economy can be maxed, or your military, but never both. Also, it's inherently an easier balance to achieve, as you are comparing investment of population:population, instead of trying to make production:population or commerce:population estimates that even if balanced well for a "normal" set of circumstances, will necessarily be imbalanced in divergent situations.

In Civilization you can have a maxed economy and a maxed military eventually. You end up doing both, because both can be done without negatively impacting the other. In fact, both contribute to the other. It's a self-reinforcing cycle instead of a tradeoff.

Certainly game mechanics can be added (or extended) to correct the situation given Civilization's military production model. To some extent unit upkeep, corruption, war weariness, and production costs were relied on in Civ III to do this. And by and large, they failed because they didn't have a strong enough impact, and so could be circumvented or even ignored. But why counteract symptoms when instead the underlying problem can be addressed directly in a more straightforward manner?

[sabrewolf]

Originally posted by The_Aussie_Lurker
OK, based on all I have seen and heard, the easiest way to think of population growth is as follows:

Each city has a Health and Sickness rating, as well as the food surplus and deficit rating of previous games.
Now, as always your food surplus/deficit determines whether or not your city grows-and how fast. However, if sickness exceeds health, then it erodes your food by whatever amount it exceeds it by. So, a city with Health 18, Sickness 20 and an unmodified food surplus of +2 will actually not grow. Why because the Health difference of -2 eats away the +2 surplus, leaving it at 0.
Hope that makes sense.

this is the clearest explanation so far

[sabrewolf]

Originally posted by truepurple
How is that any better? The whole idea is that when your no longer at war, the soldiers rejoin the population increasing productivity etc, Limiting and accelerating growth is a bazaar and poor substitution for simply putting population in military units.

Plus, what does my suggestions have to do with any reality fan club? I'm not suggesting changes to make the game more realistic, I'm suggesting changes to make the game more deep, balanced, and fun.

throughout history, the military is usually only a fraction of the whole population. if each unit would eat some of the pop it would actually be unrealistic. i mean... look at the largest (i numbers) military of the world, china. they have something around 1.2 million soldiers. that's one in a thousand of the whole country. similar figures in most countries...

in the roman days it was similar. the army usually consisted of land owners. the poor people (majority) did not have to go. and the land owners aswell only had to do their service for a limited time. and that's rome... one of the historically largest armies.

so from realism point of view, military population is a virtually ignorable percentile. same meaningless as for example also terrorism. please keep in mind that in BOTH cases i mean this in absolute figures, not in the psychological effect its impacts on the nation...

[kolpo]

Originally posted by The_Aussie_Lurker
OK, based on all I have seen and heard, the easiest way to think of population growth is as follows:

Each city has a Health and Sickness rating, as well as the food surplus and deficit rating of previous games.
Now, as always your food surplus/deficit determines whether or not your city grows-and how fast. However, if sickness exceeds health, then it erodes your food by whatever amount it exceeds it by. So, a city with Health 18, Sickness 20 and an unmodified food surplus of +2 will actually not grow. Why because the Health difference of -2 eats away the +2 surplus, leaving it at 0.
Hope that makes sense.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

After watching city screenshots again do I think you are right, the following screenshot shows that cities with negative health can still grown if they have enough food surplus:http://www.civfanatics.com/gallery/s....php?i=542&c=2

[sophist]

Originally posted by truepurple
If you read my previous posts sophist you would see my suggested change for growth, understanding that applies to understanding using population for military. For example, you would know "whole population point" doesn't necessary apply.

Perhaps you might pay more attention to what your replying to, before you reply? I know I myself am guilty of that sometimes, but not like some people.

That's good advice. How about you take it? Where did you get the idea I was replying to you in that post?

Originally posted by sabrewolf

throughout history, the military is usually only a fraction of the whole population. if each unit would eat some of the pop it would actually be unrealistic. i mean... look at the largest (i numbers) military of the world, china. they have something around 1.2 million soldiers. that's one in a thousand of the whole country. similar figures in most countries...

This is true. However, militaries generally require able-bodied young men, who are usually pretty important for making more people. So perhaps from an intuitive and realistic perspective, if population was factored into military units, using a mechanism of stalled growth like with settlers and workers could be a good way to go.

[GeoModder]

Originally posted by sophist
This is true. However, militaries generally require able-bodied young men, who are usually pretty important for making more people. So perhaps from an intuitive and realistic perspective, if population was factored into military units, using a mechanism of stalled growth like with settlers and workers could be a good way to go.

FYI, there are never more babies born then around times of conflict.