A Judicial System

[Willem]

After dealing with corruption, I've been coming up with ideas for further improvements that reduce it. Well thanks to a couple flags in the editor, I now have a viable justice system, complete with prisons and penitentiaries, and I thought I'd pass it on.

I started out just being able to add an additional courthouse, which I've called District Court. But I didn't like the fact that I could build one in any city that had a regular courthouse. I figured there should be less of them available, but didn't know how to limit the numbers. Last night I solved that problem by using the "Must be near river"tag, so landlocked cities won't be able to build one. Once I have 5 of those built, I can create a Supreme Court small wonder, that acts just like the Forbidden Palace.

For prisons, I used another flag, "Must be near water" to limit the numbers of those, and to spread my judicial improvements around a bit more. For Penititiaries, I used both flags as a requirement, plus a courthouse, so there's going to be even less locations available for those. I'm thinking of adding a San Quentin small wonder (I'm playing American) once I have 5 of those built, that also acts like a Forbidden Palace.

On the Police side, I again used the "Must be near a river." flag as a requirement, along with Police Staion, for my State Police improvement. Once I have 5 of those built, I can create the FBI small wonder.

I've used the same approach with education and religion as well. Not every city has a University, and not every University becomes a Research Lab. So proximity to water, especially a river, is going to play a vital role in my game. Which makes sense really, especially in the early game.

[cassembler]

My only complaint is that the only cities you would want to conquest for are those near water... Perhaps creating some kind of resource requirement instead so that large pangea type maps don't have to adhere to the same problems...

Or maybe just make prisons only available after a courthouse AND a police station are built... Supreme court after 5 prisons...?
I think also that prisons should have a realtively hefty upkeep as another "perhaps this city just doesn't need one yet" encouragement.

I LOVE the idea of prisons and such... Will help mid/ late game significantly.

[Willem]

Well it's not working out as well I had hoped. It seems the "Must be near water" flag counts rivers as well, so I couldn't be as specific as I thought I could be. But it's turning out to be rather interesting. I now have the usual courthouse, plus the District Court in cities that are near water, and finally, in towns that are right beside a river I can build a Prison. With 5 Prisons, and Communism, I can build a Penitentiary small wonder, and 5 District Courts lets me build the Supreme Court SW, both of which act like a Forbidden Palace.

I'm applying the same idea to other areas of my empire as well. For instance, my landlocked towns can't build an Aqueduct, (Ah shut up you advisor wench, the town can't even build one) so they aren't going to be able to grow much until Industrialization, and a Factory, at which time they will be able to build a Pipeline, to haul their water in. It turns out that the water needed for the flag has to be fresh, or so it appears so far, so this makes perfect sense to me.

I really don't know why they didn't use these flags for more things, it really adds a dynamic to the way my empire grows. My cities that are beside rivers are going to be my cultural/financial/etc. powerhouses, while my landlocked cities won't be able to do much until Industrialization. And that's pretty much the way it happened in reality.

[Admiral PJ]

maybe you could make it so the inner cities need an aqueduct in another city built before they can build a reservoir which allows them to grow beyond size 6.
Aqueducts would only be built near sea/rivers(water setting) so you'd need one built in a port.

Or maybe inner cities could need a Sewer system with a more advanced tech to grow beyond size 6.

Ive done something interesting with electricity grids too.. maybe i'll show you when its working.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Admiral PJ
maybe you could make it so the inner cities need an aqueduct in another city built before they can build a reservoir which allows them to grow beyond size 6.
Aqueducts would only be built near sea/rivers(water setting) so you'd need one built in a port.

Or maybe inner cities could need a Sewer system with a more advanced tech to grow beyond size 6.

Ive done something interesting with electricity grids too.. maybe i'll show you when its working.

Well I'm happy with the way it's working out really. I discovered that these tags only accept fresh water sources, so it's making perfect sense. I have a coastal city with no fresh water available so it can't build an Aqueduct.

I have however added an improvement I call Pipeline, so that once I reach Industrialization, and build a Factory, those landlocked cities can grow again, but not until then. I'm using it as a requirement for other improvements as well, like Offshore Platform, Manufacturing Plant. Plus I've split the production bonus of the Factory between that and the Pipeline, so I have to have both in order to gain all the increases. Which should ensure that the AI will actually builds one or two.