Maybe it's time to do with the whole idea of founding a central city square and having a workable radius of squares around that city. Here's an idea:
Each square can have a unit of population settle onto it; certain limitations could apply depending on the square's terrain type and level of urban development. Now, instead of a settler unit founding a central city and having a radius extend from there, each unit of population would have to be individually moved out to the square to be worked (immigration?).
Now you may say, "Well that isn't very realisitic. Millions of people live together in large cities all over the world, all cramped together doing very specialized jobs. Not everyone can have their very own square to call their own." And I agree with you! That's why you can 'stack' units of population of top of each other to form large, crowded metropolis. Within these stacked 'city' squares is where your specialists reside. Let me explain (this could take a while).
Let us take our 21 squares, and let us start clean and fresh with no city, no people, and no improvements or development. What we have are raw resources and open land. Here comes our first settler who takes up residence on a nice, rich piece of land; the first settled square. Life is good, if not primeval, at this point, but soon enough our settled settler has procreated enough to spawn a whole new unit of population. Now this unit can either extract more resources from this same square (if available) or can do something specialized in this rural community (tax collector, entertainer, chimney sweep?). OR he can move onto another square. Now here is the trick; after a few millenia of this going on, soon enough you have filled up all 21 of the empty squares, and with nowhere to go and with a lot of these people not wanting to be a farmer or miner, they decide to start building 'cities'. They all move in together into one square and each one does something unique but neccesary to the GREAT CIRCLE of CIVILIZATION. One of them opens a factory and decides he will build things like tanks, transport ships, and dragoons. Another one or two of them become tax collectors (well, you really only need one tax collector to collct taxes in each region; how many do we really need to get the job done?), another decides they will open a supermarket.
Now the supermarket guy is important because without him, all of the other people in this city would have to rely on the food resources that are produced from the farmer that works the square that the city resides on. Our supermarket owner simply has the ability to get the food that is produced by the farmers working in the outlying rural squares and bring it to the city square where all of our very important specialists are busy doing their specialties (collecting taxes, building units, etc.). The more of these supermarket owners there are in the central city square, the farther their radius of procurement extends and the more specialist they can provide for. Thus, you no longer have everyone living in a central city hub- the 21 squares system implies that even your farmers and miners live in the city hub, and only go out during the day to work- but everyone lives where they work; farmers live in rural areas where there are farms, miners live in mining towns, and bankers and auto industry executives live downtown. ]
Of course, there would have to be a procurement specialist for each kind of resource (food, iron, minerals, what have you) and each unit of population could only meet the needs of only so many. All of this would have to be worked out and play tested, but this is my rough idea. Oh, and of course, there would have to be some cool looking 'city skyline' graphics to represent the different levels of population stacking.
Each square can have a unit of population settle onto it; certain limitations could apply depending on the square's terrain type and level of urban development. Now, instead of a settler unit founding a central city and having a radius extend from there, each unit of population would have to be individually moved out to the square to be worked (immigration?).
Now you may say, "Well that isn't very realisitic. Millions of people live together in large cities all over the world, all cramped together doing very specialized jobs. Not everyone can have their very own square to call their own." And I agree with you! That's why you can 'stack' units of population of top of each other to form large, crowded metropolis. Within these stacked 'city' squares is where your specialists reside. Let me explain (this could take a while).
Let us take our 21 squares, and let us start clean and fresh with no city, no people, and no improvements or development. What we have are raw resources and open land. Here comes our first settler who takes up residence on a nice, rich piece of land; the first settled square. Life is good, if not primeval, at this point, but soon enough our settled settler has procreated enough to spawn a whole new unit of population. Now this unit can either extract more resources from this same square (if available) or can do something specialized in this rural community (tax collector, entertainer, chimney sweep?). OR he can move onto another square. Now here is the trick; after a few millenia of this going on, soon enough you have filled up all 21 of the empty squares, and with nowhere to go and with a lot of these people not wanting to be a farmer or miner, they decide to start building 'cities'. They all move in together into one square and each one does something unique but neccesary to the GREAT CIRCLE of CIVILIZATION. One of them opens a factory and decides he will build things like tanks, transport ships, and dragoons. Another one or two of them become tax collectors (well, you really only need one tax collector to collct taxes in each region; how many do we really need to get the job done?), another decides they will open a supermarket.
Now the supermarket guy is important because without him, all of the other people in this city would have to rely on the food resources that are produced from the farmer that works the square that the city resides on. Our supermarket owner simply has the ability to get the food that is produced by the farmers working in the outlying rural squares and bring it to the city square where all of our very important specialists are busy doing their specialties (collecting taxes, building units, etc.). The more of these supermarket owners there are in the central city square, the farther their radius of procurement extends and the more specialist they can provide for. Thus, you no longer have everyone living in a central city hub- the 21 squares system implies that even your farmers and miners live in the city hub, and only go out during the day to work- but everyone lives where they work; farmers live in rural areas where there are farms, miners live in mining towns, and bankers and auto industry executives live downtown. ]
Of course, there would have to be a procurement specialist for each kind of resource (food, iron, minerals, what have you) and each unit of population could only meet the needs of only so many. All of this would have to be worked out and play tested, but this is my rough idea. Oh, and of course, there would have to be some cool looking 'city skyline' graphics to represent the different levels of population stacking.
Comment