Capitols, Borders and Coasts

[XarXo]

This thread explains a new an interesting strategy that appears with the cultural borders system, but first, a brief explain of the three main point that forged it:

NOTE: I changed it coz I discovered that I misunderstand the idea of cultural border. Cultural border differs from production border... :P But a new version has been created!!

- Cultural borders, this system links the cultural points produced in a city to its influence area, this is, its radius in squares:

0~9 Cultural Point/s - 0 squares radius*
10~99 Cultural Points - 1 square radius
100~999 Cultural Points - 2 squares radius**
1000~9999 Cultural Points - 3 squares radius
~10000 Cultural Points - 4 squares radius

* Only the square where the city is.
** This is the same radius that had the cities in older Civilizations,
and is the extraction radius of the city, this is, where the food,
and commerce is produced.

This values surely are changeable in game's text files, so it possibly allows bigger radius or... Who knows?

- Capitols are Trading Nexus, this means that the capitol now it isn't only "Where the Palace is builded", if you have special resources, they MUST arrive to it to be used for diplomatic trade.
The capitol must be connected to the other cities to obtain their resources, this is, roads/railroads, airports and seaports.

- Coasts are the most earlier and easier system to connect all your cities in the trading network without roads.

So:

-The connection of each one, the first road grid that we build is extremely important. In large roads we must create fortress to protect them. Now a city is important to have more than one road to don't loose the commerce with it.

- The capitol must be in a coast, or water rutes are truly condemned. Also a water trade grid is safer and easier with far cities.

- Is better a island-civilization that a continent one, or both are now more balanced. This allow to a Japan-like civ to be a powerful one. The reason is that a water connection only needs a seaport, and it is by far more safe than a tiny road in a large and far desert...

Resume: The road network now is one of the most important strategic points. No more "sea is a barrier".

Opinions?

[Tventano]

I think your question is based on a misunderstanding of the concept cultural border. It has nothing to do with the borders of the city. Whatever cultural borders, your city can use maximum 21 squares, just exactly the same principle as in CivI, CivII and SMAC.

The cultural borders only have to do with special resources and possible conflicts with other civilizations. I hope that having cities to close together (ala ICS) will be punished more, but putting them too far apart will leave holes in your borders for quite some time, thereby inviting others to fill in this space. Although perhaps this is not really a problem, because of your culture they will be assimilated after some time.

[Triped]

Exactly...what should happen is that two culturally influencing cities in proximity should figt an "assimilation" war...where the better city ultimately scores.

[Crouchback]

The expanding city thing was CTP, which was one of the few things I quite liked about it. Cities are anything over five tiles away means the space between is lost, and won’t isolated or distant cities suffer from increased unhappiness?

I thought a city had to be connected to the one that has the resource to use it, not necessarily all back to the capitol, whether by roads, railways, airports or seaports. But the screen shots seem to suggest that it’s back to building roads on every available tile again, which looks really ugly.

As for the Battle of Cultures, it’s totally unrealistic of course (imagine a chunk of America joining Canada because they've got better libraries!) but it could be fun.

David

[Christantine The Great]

I think that the battle of the cultures is realistic. Should that lone city you built deep in German territory want to stay loyal to you or the people surrounding it?

So coasts are now "sea roads"? That sounds nifty! I'll actually have a reason to build so many cities on Mediterranean coasts.

I'd like to see where they said that capitals are hubs of trade. Can you please point it out?

[Madine]

What I've been reading is that:

In order to use a resource, a city must be able to trace a path to that resource via a combination of roads, the sea, and airports.

In order for you to trade a resource, you have you be able to trace a route between the resource and your capitol.

You can use a combination of roads/sea/airports to transport the resource. So if there is a road from your capitol to a coastal city your capitol will have access to the sea.

[Madine]

However, a quick look at the faq on the website says:

How do I utilize resources?
To access any good, you need to build a road to that good. That good must also be connected to your capitol in some way, be it by road, harbor, or airport. If the good in question lies outside of your borders, you will also need to build a colony on that square. For luxury resources, all cities connected to the trade network will automatically receive the benefit of the luxury. For resources, all networked cities should now be able to build units that require that resource.

How do I trade resources?
You can trade goods with another civ as long as you have a road, harbor, or airport that connects your civilization with theirs. Once you have a trade route, you simply negotiate with the other civilization in the diplomacy screen.


So I'm confused now