How do Sell/demolish improvements?

[Dominae]

Better versions of power plants supercede the older versions. Think of them as a class of buildings that all do the same thing, with different pros and cons attacked to each.

The option to destroy improvements willy-nilly enables the "scorched earth" strategy, which CIV design was (I believe) explicitly trying to do away with. Is your city about to be conquered? Just sell all the buildings in it, then raze away! I hope there's general agreement that the game is better off without this.

[polarnomad]

I'm not familiar with this strategy. Would you have the patience to summarize it?

[Grumbold]

If you think you're going to lose a city, you can sell off its buildings (1 per turn I think) and leave the invader with a useless bunch of revolting citizens.

It sounds like the power issue is just one of clarifying the interface. Great.

I'm still pro forests. You get a nice strategic choice to chop or not, but it shouldn't be irreversible if you decide you were an idiot 2,000 years ago. Either way, it sounds like there needs to be a 'reserved for forest' marker that automatic workers will obey when thinking where to lay roads and build improvements otherwise natural regrowth is never going to be viable.

[polarnomad]

Thx, Grumbold.

[sophist]

Originally posted by Dominae
The option to destroy improvements willy-nilly enables the "scorched earth" strategy, which CIV design was (I believe) explicitly trying to do away with. Is your city about to be conquered? Just sell all the buildings in it, then raze away! I hope there's general agreement that the game is better off without this.

You're equating things that are not equal. Selling buildings in Civ4 is silly, but what's so bad about just destroying them? Regardless of whether it's for health reasons or imminent conquest or because you just don't like marketplaces, it doesn't improve the game to prevent the player from just making them go away.

Scorched earth is a perfectly viable strategy. There are innumerable historical examples. It has the obvious effects, but it also opens up an intriguing possibility: suppose you managed to convince someone that you were going to try to take one of their cities, only they destroyed their buildings and you called off your attack. Maybe the destruction of their own buildings made the city less valuable to you, or you were just trying to trick them... either way, it's an interesting thing that I'd like to see in the game. Limiting it to one per turn would keep it from favoring defenders too much.

Selling your buildings for money in the previous Civ games was always lame, but it made sense since they cost maintenance. Now that building maintenance is out, selling buildings is out as well, and that's a good thing, but making it impossible to destroy your own buildings is throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

[Venger]

Have to agree, the inability to sell, or at a minimum destroy, any building of your choice short of a Wonder is a very poor design choice. You have been able to sell improvements in every Civ game ever released - though the selling was normally restricted to one item per city per turn.

Scorched earth is REAL - the Soviets basically disassembled entire factories in the path of the Wehrmacht and shipped them East. A fully upgraded city could never raze itself to the ground, and the one-item/turn sell limit made sure someone didn't evacuate every last thing from a city when someone attached. But armies traditionally torch foodstuffs and supplies when they retreat to deny them to the enemy.

No, Civ is not better without this...

Venger

[Jerh9e1k5]

By making it impossible to destroy the coal plant you have a strategic decisions on whether or not to build it in the first place. Do you want to build it right away and get the production bonus as quickly as possible, but live with the extra pollution until you get the tech that someone mentioned makes buildings produce no pollution. Or would you like to wait for the clean plants but live with worse production until you get the needed technologies.

This is a strategy decision, I think it is a good one.

Now for the case of the forests...
You can check the Forests thread which has a good discussion of the strategic aspects.

Jerh9e1k5

[Dominae]

Originally posted by sophist
Selling your buildings for money in the previous Civ games was always lame, but it made sense since they cost maintenance. Now that building maintenance is out, selling buildings is out as well, and that's a good thing, but making it impossible to destroy your own buildings is throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Why was it lame to sell them when they cost upkeep in Civ3, but it's ok to destroy them when they do not in CIV? I guess because you're free of the "equating things that are not equal" demon?

I disagree that "scorched earth" (SE) makes for good gameplay. It allows the defender to just deny the offender his or her prize; defend your holdings tooth and nail, but burn them if you lose. Let me just say that warmongering needs every incentive in CIV...

Not sure if you're participating in the C3CDG here at 'Poly, but it's an example of SE at it's worst. Pretty much everyone in that game agrees that it's dumb and deserves to be buried (scorched!).

The idea in CIV is that your cities are worth building, worth keeping, and, yes, worth capturing. Moreso than in Civ3 because on average there are fewer cities in CIV. Personally I do not feel SE fits into this scheme.

[Gramphos]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
Creating one-way situations (build coal plants, chop forests, ...) is always bad in a game.

You forgot wiping out civs, razing cities with wonders, founding religion, spreading religion, upgrading units and many more things that MAKE the game.

[Harovan]

Yes, yes.

And researching technologies. Because they can't be unresearched.

And exploring and discovering new tiles and even whole continents. Because they can't be undiscovered.

All good points why planting forest should not be in the game.

Or what?

[sabrewolf]

Originally posted by Gramphos

You forgot wiping out civs, razing cities with wonders, founding religion, spreading religion, upgrading units and many more things that MAKE the game.

flawed comparison.

civ is ABOUT wiping out civs, THROUGH religions and upgrades.
historically this is accurately just one-time each.

sir ralph's examples are completely different. these are "variables"

and also nearly all your examples did have starts:
founding religion <--> dying religion
spreading religion <--> losing influence
wiping out civs <--> civs spawning (in the game in 4000BC, but still)
razing cities with wonders <--> building cities, building wonders

q.e.d

[Harovan]

There is an even simpler approach, sabre.

Founding and spreading religion, upgrading units and the examples in my post are pure beneficial, there is no malus in them. Therefor it would not make sense to undo it. But chopping forest has a malus, you lose a health resource.

The consequences of wiping out civs and razing cities with wonders are immediately visible, they can be considered while making the decision to wipe out or raze.

However I hardly know 1000 BC, when I chop a forest tile, that 3000 years later I might need the extra health or not.

[Dominae]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
However I hardly know 1000 BC, when I chop a forest tile, that 3000 years later I might need the extra health or not.

That's the very essence of the strategic decision! Just because it's not obvious does not mean you should always be able to right your "wrongs". The decision to "go green" leads you down a certain path - time and experience will tell whether it was the "right" decision or not.

The "Chop Forest now or wait for Lumber Mills" tradeoff was explicitly designed into the game. Forget about the thing that's been taken away from you compared to Civ3 and look at what you have now!

Think of Lumber Mills as logging camps where you're planting and replanting, without the micromanagement. Presto! no need for a seperate plant Forest ability.

[Scrapper82]

Coal Plants, they blow hards.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Dominae
That's the very essence of the strategic decision! Just because it's not obvious does not mean you should always be able to right your "wrongs". The decision to "go green" leads you down a certain path - time and experience will tell whether it was the "right" decision or not.

The "Chop Forest now or wait for Lumber Mills" tradeoff was explicitly designed into the game. Forget about the thing that's been taken away from you compared to Civ3 and look at what you have now!

Think of Lumber Mills as logging camps where you're planting and replanting, without the micromanagement. Presto! no need for a seperate plant Forest ability.

Oh well, it was somehow clear that I wouldn't like all new features.

Still a very good game.