Provinces

[Shadowstrike]

There could be a shift from a city-based system (Civ2) to a province based system (Civ3?) This would also simplify micromanagement. The entire province could build a collective item, share trade routes and unit support and in time, generate local malitia to defend itself (like Imperialism)

Now, this wouldn't destroy the system of cities entirely. You would still build cities, and the city radius would still count, but everything else is shared. There should also be the option of staking out your own provincial boundaries.

A final point. Provinces should have limits to how many cities they can have. Or else, some insane micromanagement maniac could ICS and lump his/her entire empire into a single province and generate massive amounts of resources.

[phunny pharmer]

Umm...too bad you couldn't have posted this topic a few hours earlier. I just finished writing a long post about it in one of the other sections! =

[UltraSonix]

I don't see how micromanagement could be reduced if cities still need to be built. Maybe what is being suggested is that when an improvement is built, it is built in all towns in the province? But wouldn't this make something take ages to build?

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No, in Australia we don't live with kangaroos and koalas in our backyards...

[gemini]

Provinces could be an interesting idea. You could maybe divide your empire into different provinces so your government could have certain bonuses. The risk could be that over time some provinces may think they are unique and want to break away into different countries. It could lead to civil war amongst your former country members. Kinda interesting. Be like the war of independence. This has happened throughout history. There is even several examples in the real world today in our modern age of provinces that want to seperate(Quebec from Canada and the former Yugoslavia). Or maybe a better idea is if you take over another countries cities they are added to your empire as another province. After maybe you would have to lower thier taxes or something else to keep this province happy to stay with your empire or something. Or you may have to keep extra units in cities to keep control over the newly added populace until they are more "Romanized".

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Gemini
[This message has been edited by gemini (edited July 21, 2000).]

[Az]

I've posted some ideas about provinces but I don't seem to remember where ... anyway

I think provinces and the city/town/village should be integrated ideas . the city is the capital of the county with villages and towns . a few counties create a state/province . a state/province is the unit that should have the ability to rebel.


Dalgetti

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Prepare to Land !

[The diplomat]

Why not take the "province" idea even further?

Instead of pooling ressources in each province, I think all ressources produced by all your cities should be pooled together on an empire level. I think this would be simpler than provinces.
The player would have a "budget" screen showing the amount of each type of ressource being produced from cities, received from trade, received from tribute, etc and the grand total.
Then there would be the amount of each type of ressource being spent due to support, buildinc cost, maintenance cost etc and the grand total.
Last, the screen should show the net amount (ie surplus or deficit) and the reserves. A surplus would add resources to the reserves, a deficit would deduct from the reserves. Only when the reserves reached zero would units get disbanded.

The idea would eliminate the need to micromanage ressource for each city, since it would be done on an empire level.

Cities would still be very important as they are the center of population and they produce everything.
Each city would still have its own build queue but the ressources to produce the city improvements would come from the national pool instead of each city.

The new Space empires 4 uses this system. Download the demo to see exactly what I am talking about.

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No permanent enemies, no permanent friends.
[This message has been edited by The diplomat (edited July 23, 2000).]

[Par4]

I'm a big fan of SEIV but what would we use for the space ports??

If we just do it with an improvement or something blockades wouldn't work or intercepting trade routes.

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King Par4!!

There is no spoon
-The Matrix
Let's kick it up a notch!!
-Emeril Lagasse
Fresh Soy makes Tofu so silky
-Ming Tsai

[UltraSonix]

The idea sounds viable (though it will be leaving the traditions of civ1/civ2/SMAC behind). But I think the national pool thing should instead be done continent by continent until you discover a certain tech level (flight or something). This is because it's not easy for cities on different continents to share resources. So it's sort of like provinces, just it'll be continents, and only for a while.

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No, in Australia we don't live with kangaroos and koalas in our backyards...

[Tiberius]

Diplomat, I agree that Civ3 need to be less city-centric and more civ-centric than Civ2, but I'm not sure that we have to make everything globally.

quote: Each city would still have its own build queue but the ressources to produce the city improvements would come from the national pool instead of each city.

Centralizing this way all shields production on empire level would be awesome for micromanage, but what would be the (production) difference between two cities, one with coal and iron mines, factory, hydro-plant and whatsoever and the other based almost exclusively on agriculture, with very little industrial production. How fast would produce the two city a tank division, for example?

Once again, I'm not against any proposal which could reduce micromanagement and increase the fun of the game, but be careful, keep it realistic.

[The diplomat]

quote: Originally posted by Par4 on 07-24-2000 01:49 AM what would we use for the space ports??

What about the marketplace?

quote: Originally posted by Tiberius on 07-24-2000 02:08 AM Centralizing this way all shields production on empire level would be awesome for micromanage, but what would be the (production) difference between two cities, one with coal and iron mines, factory, hydro-plant and whatsoever and the other based almost exclusively on agriculture, with very little industrial production. How fast would produce the two city a tank division, for example?

Are you asking whether a city producing a lot of shields would produce more tanks than an agricultural city?
Ressources only determine whether a city can build something in the first place, not how fast the item is built. The agricultural city would be able to build tanks if the empire has enough ressources for tanks. However the agricultural city would not produce tanks as fast as the industrial city because it lacks the industrial facilities!
In other words, shields are not pooled nationally because shields are not ressources, they represent the industrial capacity of a city. By ressources I mean wood, stone, iron, etc, that are the materials needed to make city improvements and such. Those ressources are pooled nationally!

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No permanent enemies, no permanent friends.

[This message has been edited by The diplomat (edited July 24, 2000).]

[Napoleon I]

One major objection that I would have to an empire level pooling of resources is that such a system would completely upset the current system of resource management. If the production of items depends on a score of natural resources such as wood, coal, iron, etc. then the number of variables that the AI will need to handle to manage its empire would be increased tremendously. As of Civ2 and SMAC the game only has 3 basic resources, food, shields and trade. If you want to keep these three and add a score of other variables that will determine the production of units, it could really create micromanagement havoc. The complexity of the resulting game will be so high that most of the casual players will probably be discouraged from playing it. Therefore I don't think that concepts that have worked in the past such as the three resource system should be upset to a point where they would establish a completely new system of gameplay.

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Napoleon I

[Shadowstrike]

arrrrrggggggghhhhh! another [double post]
[This message has been edited by Shadowstrike (edited July 24, 2000).]

[Shadowstrike]

I agree with Napoleon. The idea of the province system was to reduce micromanagement, by moving resource management to a provincial level (serving roughly the same purpose as reducing the number of cities)
Anyhow, empire wide resource sharing can cause problems. A city sharing resources with another halfway around the globe with out railroads is difficult at best. There should be a limit of cities inside the provice and a size limit. Eith that or cities further away from the "capitial" of the province should produce less resources to be pooled.

[The diplomat]

We can keep civ2's ressource system of just 3 items: food, shields, trade. But if you pool these 3 ressources nationally, you will dramatically reduce micromanagement. I know this for a fact from playing SE4. It too only has 3 ressources and pools them on an empire level. It really improves micromanagement wonderfully!

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No permanent enemies, no permanent friends.

[phunny pharmer]

Three resources is a good number. I recomend that Firaxis either keep the three resouce system, or make a new system of at least twenty.

A system that has twenty different resources is much more realistic. However, unit costs would be much more complex, and development would be much harder for both human and (of course) computer players. However, more resources could add much more realism to the game.

I'll play it any way it comes. =