No more temples to build in modern ages !

[MidKnight Lament]

An important feature which needs to be in Civ3 is the ability to move food stocks from one city to another within your empire. Without it, the game remains unrealistic.

If a system was in place where you could move food from a high-producing city (perhaps at some small cost) then you could focus it towards a new city which you want to build up quickly. With an influx of food, you'd find that new cities could grow quite quickly if you wanted them to. Combine that with better tile improvements as the game goes on, and it shouldn't be too difficult to build up cities that you want to focus on.

This is pretty important. Imagine that you find a uranium deposit in an area that you don't have a city. You don't want have to wait ages before being able to utilise it properly, so you'd make sure that that city gets a more than adequate supply of food from your primary farming cities so that it grows quickly and efficiently. With all those extra citizens, you'd find that you could build plenty of city improvements quick-smart, and enable yourself to start mining that uranium in no time.

- MKL

[dStryker]

quote: Originally posted by BeeBee on 04-14-2000 10:39 PM In civ2, when founding/capturing a city in the last centuries, you still had to construct all the old buildings like temples and colosseums. How unrealistic! Something should be changed. (perhaps colosseums replaced by stadiums).

As Gord McLeod said, temples are by no means outdated. You're probably thinking in the "Western" way. Temples are still constructed throughout the world. Just think of a modern-day temple as a Western church. Churches are by no means outdated. Neither are temples.

quote: I'd say that we have to think about the eras and ages the game has to cover before we are talking about the cultural and civilian improvements. The eras/ages should be: 1. Ancient (Bronze Age, Iron Age, "Roman Empire-Age" etc.) 2500BC-400AD (Rome's Fall) 2. Mid Ages (Dark Ages, Feudal Ages, etc.) 400-1450 (Constantinople's Fall) 3. Pre-Industrial (Renaissance, 16th - 18th century) 1450 - 1815 (Napoleon Defeated) 4. Industrial/Imperialism Age (1815-1914) 5. Great Wars (1914-1945) 6. Modern Times (1945 until now) 7. Perhaps Future?

My version:

1. Early Ancient (Bronze Age, Iron Age (to some extent), 3500 BC-1000 BC)
2. Late Ancient (Iron Age, Greco-Roman period, 1000 BC-AD 400)
3. Middle Ages (400-1500)
4. Renaissance (1500-1800)
5. Industrial Age (1800-1900)
6. Modern (1900-Present)
7. Future

As you can see they are a bit generic and they're close to what Andz83 had, but the ancient age has been separated and a few other things changed. Also, we have to remember that Civ is not a "replay Earth" game; rather, it is "make your own Earth". That's why the times should not be that exact.

MKL, they already have that in Civ2 by using caravans, though it is not exactly a good model in my opinion. Way too simplistic.
[This message has been edited by dStryker (edited April 28, 2000).]

[MidKnight Lament]

You're right. Caravans didn't do it well. That's why we need a better model. The underlying factor is that it's entirely unreasonable and unrealistic to force cities to be self-sufficient with their food.

I didn't try to claim the best way to model this because I haven't thought about it enough; I was just pointing out that a better internal trade system (particularly with food) would assist in devloping late-founded cities faster, thereby helping to diminsh the problem of them always being vastly inferior to early-founded cities.

My apologies if I sounded a little strong there.

- MKL

[Urban Ranger]

Why are temples obsolete?

Just because there aren't temples in Christianity doesn't mean that other religions (e.g. Buddhism, Hinduism) wouldn't continue to build them.

As a matter of fact, just a couple of years back a new Buddhist temple was build in California.

[OrangeSfwr]

Hell there's a buddhist temple located 20 minutes from my house. And I live in suburban PA, USA. Temple's aren't obsolete. There's just got to be another way of showing their value. In America a temple won't make 1/4 of the people happy. It won't even make 1/400 of the population happy. But in China a cathedral doesn't mean much either. A new religion model must be implemented, but it may screw up the wonders system. That is my only concern (E.G. Mich.'s Chapel)

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~~~I am who I am, who I am - but who am I?~~~

[Jon Miller]

the religious buildings refere to those used by whatever religion is dominant there

cathedrals just represent a large religious presense/building that takes care of many followers and so keeps many people content, it is just a representation of it

I don't think civ needs (like warcraft 2 had) a different picture and name for every civilization that does the same thing, I would rather firaxis spent their time on other things

Jon Miller

[MidKnight Lament]

You're right on the money, Jon. All improvements are only representations. People take their meanings far too literally. It's the same reason you shouldn't have to build 30 supermarkets in a large city.

- MKL

[BeeBee]

I can understand that temples aren't necessarily obsolete in modern days, but one thing that bothers me in civ2 is the fact that when founding a new city at the end, you still have to build the whole list of constructions. Frankly, this is boring !!
Or don't you feel this like me?

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C'est dur etre bébé

[OrangeSfwr]

I hear ya beebee, that's why I like the trade and tech level idea (forget who had it) I feel if you start a city after you have knowledge of a certain tech it should automatically be in your city...or something along those lines.

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~~~I am who I am, who I am - but who am I?~~~

[MidKnight Lament]

Important distinction - Are you opposed to having your city use production to build them, or are you opposed to having to issue lots of commands/set up a queue to get them all built?

- MKL

[OrangeSfwr]

Actually, just the latter. It takes so much time!!

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~~~I am who I am, who I am - but who am I?~~~

[MidKnight Lament]

Thought so. After all, it's probably unreasonable to suggest that all those improvements (old as they may be) don't require production.

With this in mind, can you think of a better way to get those old improvements built using city production, but without requiring heaps of your time? That would probably be a better solution than automatically getting those 'old' improvements.

I keep coming up with ideas for this, but really they're just like advisors and build queues. I'm unconvinced that there's much of a problem here if we've got good advisors and/or build queues.

- MKL
[This message has been edited by MidKnight Lament (edited May 01, 2000).]

[OrangeSfwr]

Glad you asked...

Solutions for “outdated improvements” and other ideas for wonders

Discover Banking (prereq – Currency) - all new cities come equipped with marketplace

Discover Monotheism (prereq – Polytheism) - all new cities come equipped with temple

Discover University (prereq. Writing) - all new cities come equipped with library

Build "Adam Smith..." wonder (prereq – banking) - all new cities come equipped with Bank.

Build "SETI..." wonder – counts as research lab in all cities (current)

Build “Mich’s Chapel” wonder – counts as cathedral in all cities (current)

Build “Da Vinci” wonder – counts as barracks* in all cities.
*Any city with barracks automatically upgrades units.

Build “Magellan’s Expedition” wonder – knowledge of all ocean tiles? (Not sure about this one, a little much?)

Build “Issac Newton…” (prereq. University) wonder – counts as university in all new cities.

Build “Statue of Liberty” wonder (prereq Democracy) – counts as police station* in all cities.
*Police station reduces corruption and waste by 100% (cummulative with Courthouse)
Why does a police station deal with military units? I think it should work like an improved courthouse. And why does Communism allow police stations? Police were around before Karl Marx (or at least some form). Democracy (IMHO) is a better prereq for building police stations.

Build “Women’s Sufferage” wonder – decreases unhappy citizen on continent by two per city (makes more sense than the giving each city a police station, IMHO)

I feel the United Nations will serve a much greater purpose if the number of civs is expanded, but that is another thread…

All ideas are IMHO so please I’m open to (and expecting) suggestions and comments…


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~~~I am who I am, who I am - but who am I?~~~

[Adm.Naismith]

I call myself a "wonder maniac" because I love to own everyone on the planet (Earth, Alpha centauri Planet or random map), building or stealing it!

BUT, and is a very big problem, they are so unrealistic, also as symbol of greather efforts and infrastructure!

They are also unbalancing, because usually a good human player grab much of it before of any AI faction. First step to the early end of game.

I really like more to link some enhancement to condition generally available to any faction: call it "age" reached, or level of development.

My draft proposal: why don't try to define some benchmark, some indicator of how well our Civ is. When it reaches some predefined level we enter that civ into this age.

An example: we build enough cathedral into our city to reach some level as 1 cathedral out of 2 city or 1 cathedral every 10 "head of people": our civilization enter the "faith era" where every new city founded develop automatically a temple effect (by natural effort of populace, by private initiative, chose one ).

Of course you can also fall back, if you abuse of your bonus and you fall under a level about 1 out of 3 city or 1 every 20.

If that happen you will lose your "virtual temple" and must cope with the unhappyness, the revolt etc. until you step up again.

Effects:

1) when enough of a more advanced improvement is built you don't need to build more old one

2) a builder can use better developed city to help new, recent city, and counter ICS players

3) you must decide if keep old (real) temple paying maintenance just to stop a major fall back if any occours (now we decide the same when we build some Wonders, but it's more easy to defend that only city to avoid trouble)

4) any civ can reach an age, because is not "only for one owner" as wonder, and we can also model some partial effect to any country in strict alliance (influence and share of social vision)

5) if we have a simple panel to check the level and a warning system we can take care of this "age" concept with less micromanagement of any "build queue + caravan help + settler help + wonders" I can imagine.

Of course we can extend the same concept to banks and other city enhancement.

Ok, anyone like it?

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Admiral Naismith AKA mcostant

[OrangeSfwr]

(A little off topic)

Heh, "wonder maniac"! I'm the king of that. I know I'm going against my nature when playing the game, but I think it's stupid to have the message telling when your opponent is building, or almost finished a wonder. I just buy the wonder to be assured I get it. I feel like I'm cheating :-( I think if someone starts building a wonder no one else should be able to build it. There should be a different system for wonder construction too. It's just not very accurate (Civ2).

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~~~I am who I am, who I am - but who am I?~~~